Arrogance, narcissism, ego, foolhardiness, selfishness, and overconfidence. These were all words Jonas had heard used to describe the sin of Pride. He had begun to understand the nature of his power, but that didn't mean he had mastered it. A strong Sin of Pride was the power of confidence, a lovechild of success and practice.

First, Jonas would try doing something that he desired to learn. After some success, his ability to perform that action would improve. Once he had grown in confidence and could perform the task without much thought, he found it much easier to activate his Pride.

Jonas was confident that he had understood the basics of the Cardinal Sin. It was a power of personality and unlocking his Sin Scars was about accepting the powers of Sin, and understanding oneself.

The Original Sin seemed to be the next step in his journey. Jonas had initially imagined Sin to be used in a fantastical way, like a magic power where he could perform miracles and conjure the things of his imagination. He now knew Sin was a much bloodier, darker, and uglier power that focused on selfishness. Maybe he could conjure cheeseburgers, or pull rabbits from hats, but those would be lessons for the future if anything. For now, his focus was on using Sin to recover from near-death experiences.

On numerous occasions, Jonas had come back from the dead, and his body had performed miracles. He had recovered from so many broken bones, missing teeth, and damage to his internal organs, that he really should have been dead ten times over. However, his body continued to heal faster than the time before, and Jonas grew so confident in his healing factor that he no longer had to worry about waking up after a near-death experience.

The main question Jonas had was how would he apply his power to hurt Ralph? The only solution he could come up with was to try again. It was what Pride had told him to do, and it's what Jonas wanted to do, he would continue fighting Ralph until he was able to win. It would hurt, he would be risking life and limb, and he might not even find the answers he wanted. All of this and Jonas still wanted to try and win. The sparring session was almost over, and Jonas had yet to find the solution.

"Be confident that your attack will destroy me!" Ahmed boomed, "It will break my guard, it will break my bones, it will break my will to fight, it will send my flying out of this sandpit, just as you had already done. Believe it is possible."

"I know this," Jonas' voice was nasally and frustrated, "It's too unbelievable, I can't convince myself to do all of that when I've never actually hit you so hard it broke your will to fight. Me throwing you was closer to a fluke than anything else."

"Start small. Your attack doesn't need to break me, it just needs to knock me off balance," Ahmed knocked Jonas to the ground and stuck out his hand. Jonas spat blood and gripped his hand, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.

"I can already do that, I've knocked you off balance so many times that I'm sure I can do it again."

“You were so worried about not being able to cause Ralph damage, that you probably made your attacks less effective,” said Ahmed, "Start small, and stop worrying about beating him."

"It's easier said than done believing that my attacks will be able to hurt that guy because in the back of my mind I know that they won’t have any impact.”

“That’s the wrong mindset to have when your Sin is Pride,” said Ahmed, “You need to have the utmost confidence in everything you do, and then, you must do it. You cannot second guess yourself, you must have courage, and you must put blind faith in yourself. Faith that you can succeed at doing whatever it is you're trying to do."

Simon and Johnson went back to their cages, and both Jonas and Ahmed strolled toward the gym. Entering inside, Jonas didn’t bother with setting up a bench press, nor did he pay any attention to the expressions of the nearby fighters who kept peeking at him.

There seemed to be a new wave of interest in Jonas, and it was seldom the fighters ever came across a slave who could fearlessly take on fighters, survive Garth, or stand face to face with top-fives like Ahmed and Wolf.

“Eh, look who it is,” a polite voice rang out, “You were right, Pete, he did show up for round two,” and Jonas came face to face with Wolf and his pack of cronies.

“You missed out yesterday,” Jonas was quick to the punch, “Your cheap ass doggy hit me from behind after Ralph agreed to fight solo, it was pretty sad."

“You misunderstand wolves,” said Wolf, “They're animals that put family above all else, even above pride, or rules. It's your fault for turning your back on an opponent, Ahmed should have taught you better.”

“Cut the shit," Jonas could see there was no point in arguing, "I want a rematch,” and he stared arrogantly into Ralph's tiny eyes.

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“I’m surprised you’re up and about,” said Ralph as he strode forward cracking his knuckles, “I was sure you’d still be in a coma."

“You hit like a pussy,” said Jonas, “There isn’t much to say, are you fighting or not?”

“Of course he is,” said Wolf, “I wasn’t here yesterday but thankfully I’ll be able to witness another spectacular beatdown,” and he gestured to Ralph with his head, “Don’t lose.”

‘I need to believe,’ thought Jonas, ‘My punch will knock him out, I’m going to knock him out with this punch,’ and he moved so suddenly that Ralph had no time to react. Jonas’ arm muscles swelled as he threw a crushing haymaker that hit the giant right in the chin. Ralph wobbled slightly but he regained his balance, turned his head, and smiled evilly at Jonas who felt slightly depressed.

"You're gonna need more firepower than that if you want to knock me out, boy," Ralph swung a massive fist that Jonas dodged under, and then he followed up with a series of swings that seemed uncontrolled, and the fighters in the room could tell that Ralph was using an unrefined method to attack someone too good at dodging. Essentially, he was trying to get a lucky swing.

Unfortunately for Ralph, Jonas’ reflexes had grown to be incredible. No matter how angry he got, or how badly he wished to break Jonas into pieces, Ralph's attacks hit nothing but empty air, and it caused an extremely frustrating feeling that all Berserkers hated.

“It’s useless,” Jonas wore a provoking grin, “You can’t hit me, jackass,” he stopped moving and stood on the spot. He watched as a powerful jab came swinging towards his face, but he turned his neck and dodged it, then a second shot came for the side of his head, but he leaned forward and the crowd watched it sail over his head.

The wolves watched in disbelief as Jonas ducked and weaved without moving his feet at all, arrogantly standing in the same spot allowing Ralph to swing as many punches as he desired.

“What’s the matter?” He watched Ralph heave huge breaths of air, and was starting to realize the perfect way to counter Berserkers was to make them miss as it was a method that left them with metaphorical blue balls.

“Fuck you,” Ralph said breathlessly, “I’ll fucking get you.”

“Pathetic,” said Jonas as he looked over towards Wolf with a mocking expression, “This is as good as your lieutenant is when he’s all alone with no help?” Although Wolf was smiling politely, there was a large throbbing vein on his forehead.

“Ralph,” said Wolf, “Focus on moving him from his spot, stop playing his game, moron,” and although he hated when people insulted his intelligence, Ralph nodded his head.

Although Jonas was arrogant, he wasn’t completely stupid, and he knew that he couldn’t just stand in one spot dodging anymore because Ralph would try to grapple or push him. Ralph charged forward but Jonas managed to sidestep him. He quickly turned on the spot and charged forward again.

“You need to attack,” Ahmed said, “The more you avoid attacking, the less confident you’ll be, which means that your attacks will be weaker, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Fuck,” Jonas said as he contemplated a plan of action, ‘No,’ he thought quickly, ‘No more overthinking things, I need to just attack,’ and he saw an opening and went for it.

His fists flew wild as they penetrated the largest part of Ralph’s rib cage, and although body shots were almost useless, Jonas figured that he could at least try to break a rib or two if he hit the same spot repeatedly. Unfortunately, it still felt like he was trying to punch through a steel beam.

Jonas began swinging without intent, trying his best not to overthink his attacks, but he was finding it hard to concentrate as Ralph's attacks seemed to be getting closer to hitting him.

Ralph had yet to land a single hit since the fight began, and Jonas must have successfully hit him at least half a dozen or so times, but even so, both fighters were breathing quite hard as they continued their charade of attacking, missing, or dodging. Sweat poured down Jonas’ head as the five-minute mark approached, and soon the spectating fighters were getting antsy for a climax, none of them wanted this type of match to continue.

“Jonas!” Ahmed yelled rather impatiently, “You gotta risk it to get the biscuit,” and although these words seemed hilarious to some of the fighters who chuckled, Jonas felt like he had a sudden epiphany as he realized his mistake.

‘How the hell am I supposed to be confident in my punches when I won’t even believe in myself?’ He mustered up his confidence, ‘Who cares if I lose, I’ll just come back for another round, and another, and I’ll keep coming back until I win,’ the cross-shaped Sin Scars on his hands began to glow as he threw caution to the wind and charged towards Ralph.

“Come!” Ralph yelled as he readied himself for the attack, and Jonas had no time to consider what he was going to do, he just acted off of instinct. He leaped off the ground with all the force he could muster and shot his feet towards Ralph.

Ralph reacted quickly and crossed his arms in front of his face to guard, and as Jonas’ feet hit the arms it appeared as if they would just bounce off, but a surge of emotion flooded Jonas in midair and he couldn’t help but scream in his heart how badly he wanted to knock Ralph off his feet, and he put all his power behind his dropkick as the force from momentum blew back the big man’s arms, sending him off balance.

‘Almost!’ thought Jonas, as he fell to the ground and landed on his back. Ralph threw his body momentum forward and Jonas watched in horror as the big man collapsed on top of him. Jonas tried to escape but Ralph wrapped his gigantic arms around his wriggling legs, to stop him from worming his way out.

‘Fuck, fuck,’ panic began to set in as Jonas lost control of the battle, and Ralph used his massive body to climb on top of the young slave, pinning him down. Jonas felt as the big berserker grabbed at his hands trying to pin them to the ground, and it became a battle of muscle strength as Jonas did everything in his power to not allow Ralph to gain leverage.

He watched as he lost the battle, and eventually his arms were pinned, and he felt like he was suffocating underneath the weight of that nearly four-hundred-pound man, ‘Whatever you do to me!’ thought Jonas manically, ‘I’ll fucking heal from it, and I’ll fucking pay you back!’ and then his vision went foggy as he saw stars, and then his vision went completely dark as he fell unconscious.