Chapter : 849
The preliminary bouts were a sad, brutal, and mercifully brief affair. The Royal Knight in charge of the ledger, it turned out, was not just a bureaucrat; he was also the primary judge and executioner of the day’s first, pathetic culling. The so-called ‘trials’ were a simple, humiliating test of basic competence. The challengers were required to face a trio of captured, half-starved, and thoroughly unimpressed sand-lynxes.
The results were a predictable and pathetic massacre. The young, arrogant knights, for all their shining armor and noble posturing, fought with a clumsy, textbook stiffness that was easily outmaneuvered by the feral, desperate beasts. They were disarmed, their armor was scratched, and their pride was thoroughly, and publicly, shredded. The nervous young mage’s staff was snapped in two before he could even finish his first incantation. The assassins from the desert, who were masters of stealth and surprise, found their skills utterly useless in a head-on, daylight brawl.
Of the fifty-odd hopefuls who had queued up with such bravado, only ten were deemed competent enough to not be an immediate, embarrassing stain on the arena’s hallowed sand. Lloyd, of course, had passed his own trial with a contemptuous, almost lazy, ease. He had not even drawn a weapon. He had simply used a subtle, invisible pulse of his Void power to disorient the three attacking lynxes, causing them to crash into each other in a confused, yowling heap. The weary knight, who had seen it all, had simply sighed, made a small, cryptic mark next to the title ‘The Challenger’ in his ledger, and had waved him through.
Now, the true spectacle was about to begin. The sun was at its zenith, a white-hot hammer in a sky of brilliant, cloudless blue. The great arena was packed to its absolute, suffocating capacity, a roaring, seething cauldron of seventy thousand souls, all of them baying for blood and glory. The noise was a physical thing, a solid wall of sound that vibrated in the very stones of the coliseum.
Down in the waiting cells beneath the arena, in the cool, subterranean twilight, the ten surviving challengers waited. The earlier, arrogant bravado was completely gone, replaced by a grim, sweaty-palmed silence. The distant, muffled roar of the crowd was a constant, terrifying reminder of the fate that awaited them on the sand above.
The first name was called, a reedy, echoing cry from a herald in the tunnel. A hulking barbarian with more tattoos than sense strode out, his massive axe on his shoulder. He was met with a deafening roar from the crowd. Five minutes later, a team of arena attendants were quietly, efficiently, sweeping up a small pile of smoking ash.
The second challenger, a knight whose silver armor had been so bright it had hurt the eyes, lasted for three minutes. His armor had proven to be an excellent conductor of heat. He had been dragged from the arena, a screaming, half-melted wreck.
And so it went. One by one, the champions of the kingdom were offered up to the god of the arena, and one by one, they were found wanting. The initial, festive energy of the crowd was slowly being replaced by a more grim, almost disappointed, silence. They had come for a contest, for a glorious, heroic battle. What they were getting was a series of swift, brutal, and utterly one-sided executions.
Then, the fifth challenger’s name was called. “Gias of the Southern Reach!”
A new, genuine wave of excitement and hope rippled through the crowd. Gias was different. He was not an unknown, nor was he a posturing fool. He was a genuine, bona fide hero, a warrior whose name was already well on its way to becoming a legend. He was a man in his late twenties, powerfully built, with a handsome, confident face and a mane of sun-bleached blond hair. He was the captain of a famous mercenary company, The Sun Hawks, and his reputation for skill, courage, and a certain, infectious charisma was known throughout the kingdom.
He strode into the arena not with the arrogant swagger of the knights or the grim resolve of the other mercenaries, but with a wide, brilliant, and utterly confident smile on his face. He waved to the crowd, his polished steel armor and the golden hawk crest on his helmet gleaming in the sun. He was a creature of light and life in this place of death and shadow.
The crowd erupted. They roared his name. They threw flowers onto the sand before him. He was their champion, their hope, the David who might finally, finally, stand a chance against the fiery Goliath.
Chapter : 850
In the Royal Box, the veiled Princess Amina, who had sat through the previous slaughters with a look of bored, clinical detachment, leaned forward slightly, a flicker of genuine interest in her dark, intelligent eyes. Even she had heard the stories of the charming and capable Gias.
Gias reached the center of the arena. He drew his sword, a magnificent, two-handed greatsword with a blade that seemed to sing as it caught the light. He did not look at the great, iron-wrought gates at the far end of the arena. He looked up at the crowd, at his people, and he raised his sword in a salute, his smile never wavering.
A deep, groaning, metallic sound echoed through the arena as the massive gates were winched open, revealing a dark, cavernous tunnel that seemed to lead to the very bowels of the earth. For a moment, there was nothing. Only the darkness.
And then, a wave of pure, incandescent heat washed out of the tunnel, so intense that the spectators in the first few rows recoiled, their faces flushing. A deep, guttural, and profoundly angry roar, the sound of a living volcano, echoed from the darkness.
And the Jahl, the Demon, Ifrit, was unleashed.
It did not walk. It did not run. It flowed out of the tunnel, a twenty-foot-tall river of molten rock and roaring, crimson flame. Its form was chaotic, ever-shifting, a mockery of a bipedal shape. Its great, gaping maw of white-hot fire pulsed with a terrible, hungry light. The obsidian chains that bound it glowed with a faint, purple energy, seeming to hiss and steam as they strained to contain the impossible, elemental fury within.
The Demon paused at the edge of the arena, its form coalescing, its non-existent eyes fixing on the small, shining figure of the man who had dared to challenge it.
Gias’s smile did not falter. “So,” he said, his voice a calm, resonant baritone that carried across the suddenly silent arena. “You are the famous beast of the mountains. I must say, the stories do not do you justice. You are even uglier in person.”
The casual, almost friendly insult was an act of supreme, audacious confidence. The Demon let out another roar, this one not of rage, but of pure, focused, and murderous intent.
And the first, glorious, and thrilling dance of fire began.
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The Jahl did not waste time with posturing. Its roar was the opening salvo of a war it had fought a hundred times before. The great, fiery maw on its formless head opened wide, and it vomited forth a tidal wave of pure, liquid flame. It was not a simple gout of fire; it was a moving, rolling wall of incandescent, all-consuming energy that surged across the sand, turning the very air to shimmering, super-heated glass.
The crowd gasped as one, a collective, horrified intake of breath. This was the opening move that had turned so many previous champions into ash.
But Gias was not just another champion. He was ready.
Instead of retreating, he planted his feet in the sand, his powerful legs braced. He held his greatsword in a two-handed grip before him, the point angled down. His handsome face was a mask of pure, focused concentration. A pale, golden light, the color of the morning sun, began to glow from his body, enveloping him in a shimmering, translucent aura.
“Sun Shield!” he roared, his voice a clear, commanding bell of power.
The golden aura flared, coalescing in front of him into a solid, concave disc of pure, solidified light. The wall of fire slammed into the shield with a deafening, cataclysmic hiss. The sound was of an ocean being poured onto a sun. For a breathtaking moment, the two opposing forces were locked in a stalemate, the roaring, chaotic crimson of the Demon’s fire warring against the serene, unyielding gold of Gias’s shield.
The heat was so intense that the sand around Gias’s feet began to melt, turning into small, bubbling pools of glass. Sweat poured down his face, his muscles straining as he held the shield against the relentless, elemental onslaught. But he held. The shield did not break. He had weathered the first storm.
The Jahl’s fiery torrent subsided, its initial, overwhelming attack having failed. It seemed to pause, as if in surprise. This challenger was different. He had not just survived; he had defied.