The world flickered, and Tom found himself in a very familiar arena. He was standing dead-centre in a circular, paved area that stretched eighty metres in every direction, right up to the massive walls that rose from the arena floor. They were composed of granite slabs, each of them two-by-two metres square and stacked four high. Above that was the audience.
He shuddered when he remembered the clicking and their bloodlust. Tom did not like that he had to fight in front of them again. He had never wanted to see this place again.
A figure appeared in front of him. It was the same arena manager as last time, a creature that could have been a devil conjured right out of the depths of hell as pictured in the Earth mythology. Unlike with his first encounter, Tom resisted the urge to strike out at it.
Not that he could hurt it. Previously, his hammer had failed him, and back then he was many times stronger than he was currently, so his fists probably wouldn’t even be noticed.
Tom waited patiently, as this was empty time, and he was happy to waste it. No time was passing in the outside world. While his precognition mana stores were full, as was his mana, his fate was empty. A point of fate took a little over half an hour to regenerate. He didn’t think he could stretch the fight out for that long, but every potential advantage was worth pursuing.
The devil’s eyes narrowed as it examined him. Theatrically, it paced around him like it was measuring a prize bull, which in the context of this place, that was probably what he was doing.
Having completed the circuit with a flourish of his hands and a twirl of his trident, he looked up at the stands. “We have a special one-off fight for you. This strange creature here is a contender who must prove his might. A rank zero nothing that is being pitted against a rank four. And it gets better…” the devil shouted with overflowing excitement. “This is a child, one barely out of the womb and he is going against a criminal adult – and, most importantly, it’s to the death. For both of them. Yes, the lives of both are on their line. There are no safety nets here. There’s no GOD’s shields to protect them. We know it. They know it. The only outcome is glorious. It is the death of one or both.”
“I thought you could… that you could fight to submission.” Tom objected.
“The contender wants to show mercy. He wants to spare the criminal. Isn’t that sweet and naïve and selfishly weak? He might want to, but I say no, there is no room for mercy. Today, one of them will die. Will it be the child? Will he fail, and his loss set the criminal free to murder again? Or will the contender bring justice to the arena floor?”
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The excited clicking was growing louder.
“This is to the death,” the devil screamed. “To the death. To the death!”
The entire crowd started chanting the words.
Hidden by the noise, the devil turned to him. “Child, I hope you haven’t made a mistake by coming here, but I can’t protect you. The fight will take place, and all I can say is good luck. I’ve seen two adults of your species fight on these stones. They vastly outperformed expectations and I hope you’ll do the same. The first,” the devil chuckled. “He cost them a lot. You won’t have any friends in the stands. They don’t like humans, especially not after the trick that the second one pulled.”
The clicking and chanting reached a crescendo, and then stopped abruptly.
The entire atmosphere of the place changed. It went from excited to hostile. Between one blink and the next, the devil vanished and, thirty metres away from him, a new person appeared. They were separated by a clear pane of magic shielding.
Tom studied his opponent. It was an energy being of some kind. Fifty spheres, all of different colours and sizes. None were larger than a softball, and those were spinning on an inner orbit with the fist- and golf ball-sized ones spinning out wider.
The person’s appearance wasn’t the only change to have occurred in that moment. Tom felt the armour appear on him, and a spear shaft filled his hand. April had done something similar to him enough times he didn’t even react to its manifestation. Instead of jumping in surprise, he did a brief spear kata in order to familiarize himself with the armour. Only then did he examine what he had been given to protect himself. The armour wasn’t very good, its coverage only slightly better than the breastplate he had worn against the orcs. There were some slight improvements, however. The upper-body piece was extending far enough to cover his upper arms, and there was a skirt-like addition that allowed flaps of leather to fall down to protect his thigh area. The rest of him, including his head, was not protected.
He checked his weapon. It was only tier-zero, but that was better than nothing, and he used his excess mana generation to allow Living Wood to fuse some minor stress fractures in the shaft together. Two points of mana that were only going to take a minute to regenerate materially increased the durability of the item.
To his immense frustration, Danger Sense had grown in volume in reaction to his opponent appearing. This fight was going to be as challenging as the gap between their ranks suggested. There would be no outrageous skill mismatch like lightning vulnerability to allow him to win by default. According to Danger Sense, there was a very real chance of dying. Naturally, none of that concern reached his face.
“A weakling to play with,” the balls of energy taunted. “I’m going to enjoy finding how much your flesh and skin can be separated while keeping your key biological systems functioning.”