Orou slithered into the colosseum all of the sudden, the surrounding area became a lot dimmer. He could see fresh blood on the ground and on the colosseum walls, spirits haphazardly floating around to illuminate the area. He could faintly make out the crowd that was here to see him and he could see his opponent. Before he got a chance to observe the lion that was supposed to fight him, he saw a beastman sitting higher than anyone else on a throne made from black stone. He and the rest of the beastmen surrounding him were of bat descent, their wings were as big as their body and their fangs were razor sharp.
The beastman sitting on the throne was different from the rest, his eyes were pure red, his wings were twice the size of the people surrounding him and his clothes were eccentric but finely made, a silk robe with a golden thread making a symbol of two wings on his chest. He was drinking red wine and with an amused grin watching both Orou and the lion. Orou assumed that he was the target to distract, he looked like the leader of the pack.
He had no choice but to pay attention to his opponent when he heard a roar that almost staggered him back. Orou's eyes turned to him and tens of meters away stood a blue lion, on its body several golden lines that seemed to be haphazardly scattered on its body. It looked at Orou with contempt in its eyes, most likely not thinking of Orou as an opponent but as food to be eaten. While it seemed to be waiting for something, Orou didn't hesitate to grab the first move. In the air, he formed a ribbon made entirely out of spirits. He tried to make the spirits stick as close as they could to each other in an effort to make the ribbon more resilient and faster.
"May the fight begin," the boisterous voice announced the start of the battle and the Barghat lion started to run towards Orou, gathering more and more momentum each second. A moment later Orou's formation was complete and a red ribbon appeared above his head, this time a much deeper shade of red than before. He had made significant progress in controlling it, he made the ribbon fly in an unreadable pattern towards the lion, hoping to catch it by surprise. It seemed surprised by the ribbon but it showed no fear towards it and as the ribbon flew towards the lion, it decided to meet it head-on.
The lion's claws caught the ribbon, but the ribbon wasn't so frail. Tears appeared both in the present world and the world of spirits, the formation of the spell was unstable, but it still held on. The lion roared in pain as Orou commanded the ribbon to wrap around the lion's paws that were becoming darker each second. The lion looked enraged, but the contempt towards the ribbon and Orou was still there. Using its teeth, it aggressively lunged towards the ribbon and with one bite, the ribbon was torn into two pieces. Once more the lion roared in pain as it seemed its strike wasn't without consequences, its teeth were stained in its own blood and the flesh around its mouth was rotting away.
Although Orou remembered what Grizz had said to him, his instincts took over him as he couldn't afford to miss this opportunity. For a moment he took control of the waves and urged them to push him forward, and so they did. He burst forward with speed that surprised Orou himself and deciding to use the most out of his momentum he spun himself around and used his tail to try and smash this lion against the wall. A burst of red came from within the lion and with a speed that matched Orou's, the lion crouched and jumped up in the air, soaring high above Orou's strike.
The lion fell down like a meteor soaring through the sky, diving straight down and aiming for Orou's head. There was no way Orou could afford to get hit by that, so he did something impossible. With the help of the waves inside of his body, he was able to turn his tail from smashing into the wall to flying straight at the lion, smacking it flying if it didn't do anything. Whether it was the lion's confidence or pride didn't matter, but as the tail went flying towards it, the lion did nothing to try and dodge it.
Orou's tail and the lion's paw collided with each other and a moment later, the lion went flying. With a loud crack, the lion crashed into the wall of the colosseum, the wall was on the verge of breaking as cobwebs spread out from the point of impact. The lion's left side was bloodied, but besides that, it seemed relatively fine. Orou was shocked when he lifted his tail and saw a chunk of flesh missing, spewing blood everywhere. Seeing that the battle still wasn't finished, Orou decided to not hesitate. He bore through the slight pain on his tail and seeing that the lion was simply standing there, went for a lunge attack.
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In the heat of the battle you can miss many things, but Orou wasn't sure how he had missed this. One couldn't really call this a formation as there weren't any visible boundaries, but simply floating above the lions head was a cluster of spirits. They were scattered haphazardly like the stars in the sky, but as Orou lifted his head, he felt like there was a pattern to it. The number of spirits that were above the lion's head was most likely beyond anything Orou could control and as Orou watched the spirits, something popped up in the current world. A cloud of darkness completely covered the lion making Orou lose line of sight towards it. While Orou continued to charge, a part of the shadow detached itself from the cloud and slowly, it started to turn into a lion, the same one he was currently fighting.
The lion started to recklessly charge towards Orou which in turn gave him an opportunity to attack it. He brought his tail down to smack the shadow into the ground, and he succeeded, somewhat. The shadow distorted and for a few seconds it turned back into a small cloud of darkness, but the next moment it started reforming itself. Catching Orou off guard, the shadow used its shadowy teeth to bite at Orou. Even though it was only a shadow, Orou still felt the shadow's teeth sink into his flesh and tear out a huge chunk of his flesh. The flesh fell through the shadow's body but it continued to strike at Orou, not caring about defense in the slightest.
Orou rapidly lunged at the lion but his body simply passed through the shadow, the spirits that made the shadow dispersing for a few seconds before reassembling itself. As the fight between Orou and the shadow continued, he saw three more lions made entirely out of shadow charging at him. He retreated backwards, hoping to gain a little more breathing room but the shadows relentlessly pursued him, their shadowy claws and teeth dealing real damage to Orou.
He was doing his best to disperse the shadows with his blows, but his energy sapped and the waves inside of him battered his insides, making him weaker and weaker as time went on while the shadows weren't. He was doing his best to hold on until he could retaliate, in his spirit sight he saw the formation that surrounded the lion become more unstable as time passed and while the shadows didn't seem to be affected, Orou was sure the formation was bound to break at any given time.
Injury after injury was delivered onto his body, but the moment he was waiting for arrived. While the formation didn't break like Orou anticipated it to, it flickered and the shadows, turning back into clouds, made their way back to the lion's position. If he wanted to win this fight, he had to do something risky. Calming his mind and bearing through his injuries, he started to gather spirits in a shape of a pillar directly above the cloud of shadows, in the place where the lion stood. Controlling multiple spirits at once, he started to rapidly fill the pillar up, hoping that he could finally complete the formation. The last time he tried to cast this spell, he was could only fill it up to 90%, but he had practiced his control over the spirits by repeatedly conjuring the red ribbon, he should be able to finally cast this spell.
His progress wasn't as fast as he hoped, his injuries distracted him and he had to stop at times, but as long as the lion did nothing, he had a chance. The spirits were coming in from the above and settling themselves directly above other spirits and he was 80% of the way there when once more, the shadows started to reform themselves. Orou had gained some distance from the previous fight, but they were forming at a rapid pace. Pushing his mind to the limit he only had the remaining 5%, a handful of spirits to place before he could complete the formation, but the shadows were gaining on him.
They were several meters from Orou, rapidly closing the distance. He saw one of the shadow lions lunging at him and soaring through the air, but it was too late, he had already finished the formation. The pillar made from spirits started to shine and almost as if in slow motion, Orou watched the pillar appear above the cloud of darkness. It was extremely bright and dazzling, coming down as if the heavens themselves wanted to smite the lion. Noiselessly, it penetrated the darkness and fell down, the darkness dissipating in an instant, the stone below scorched by extreme heat. The only thing remaining of the lion was a head, the rest of his body directly turned into ash by the pillar that came down. Even in death the lion was prideful, not even having enough time to react to its own death.
Orou slithered over to the centre of the colosseum, exhaustion washing over him. He felt countless eyes fall on him as the boisterous voice was in the middle of saying something, The crowd was cheering and clapping, the man seated on the black stone throne was smiling to himself and looking straight at Orou. With his remaining strength, Orou grabbed the most prominent light spirit, one which was shining the brightest. Three rings surrounded the scintillating spirit and one by one, the rings started to rotate. Orou bolted for the direction of the exit as a blinding light, resembling a small sun spread through the entire colosseum. Shouts of chaos and panic spread through the arena as Orou dragged his body in hopes of escaping.