The arena pulsed with the roar of the crowd, a living, breathing entity that thrived on suffering.
Benjamin's breath was ragged, his body sore, but his stance was solid. The weight of the sword in his hand was unfamiliar after years of chains, but something in him remembered. The shield on his other arm was dented, scavenged from a fallen fighter, its edge chipped, its surface cracked—but it was better than nothing.
The Tinnin's glowing filaments flared as it stalked forward, its clawed feet sinking into the sand, its tail swaying behind it like a coiled whip waiting to strike.
Benjamin wasn't the only one left.
A handful of thralls still remained—bloodied, panting, each barely clinging to life. Some had been fighters before slavery, others had only ever been workers before they were forced into this pit of slaughter.
But none of that mattered now.
The Tinnin wasn't here to test them.
It was here to end them.
---
Benjamin circled the beast, his muscles tight, the leather-wrapped hilt of the sword slick with sweat in his grip.
The thralls around him scattered, avoiding its direct line of sight. The smart ones stayed at a distance, trying to let others die first.
One wasn't fast enough.
The Tinnin moved suddenly, explosively, its massive frame a blur as it lunged.
A thrall—a wiry man covered in scars—raised a rusted blade too slow, too late. The beast's jaws snapped shut, and a wet crunch echoed through the arena as it lifted him into the air, tearing him in half with one motion.
Blood sprayed across the sand. The crowd erupted.
The other thralls backed away.
Benjamin did not.
Instead, he ran forward.
---
He wasn't faster than the beast.
But he didn't have to be.
He only had to be smarter.
The moment he moved, the Tinnin turned to meet him, its luminous tendrils twitching as it adjusted to his trajectory. Its tail lashed out, and Benjamin lifted his shield, bracing.
The impact sent him skidding backward, his boots dragging furrows through the sand. His arm screamed from the force of the blow, but the shield held.
The Tinnin hissed, momentarily thrown off by the resistance. It expected prey, not opposition.
Benjamin pushed forward, pivoting around the beast's flank, his blade slicing out in a calculated arc—
Steel met scaled hide, scraping but not cutting deep.
Not enough.
The Tinnin whipped around, lunging again.
Benjamin ducked, barely avoiding the snapping jaws as the beast crushed the sand where he had been standing moments ago.
Then—an opportunity.
In dodging, he found himself under its belly.
He drove his sword upward, aiming for the softer flesh between its ribs—
And missed.
The blade struck too shallow, glancing off with only a gouge of flesh instead of a lethal stab.
The Tinnin howled, whipping around violently, its tail catching him in the ribs.
Benjamin's world spun.
The air rushed from his lungs as he was thrown across the arena, his back slamming against the sand, the force rattling his bones.
His vision blurred.
He forced himself up before the beast could capitalize on the moment.
The remaining thralls seized the distraction, rushing in with what little courage they had left.
It was a frenzied attack—two with swords, one with a spear, another trying to stab with a sharpened bone.
They swarmed the beast, hacking at its limbs, trying to pierce its glowing filaments.
It barely slowed.
A swipe of its claws sent one of them flying.
A bite snapped down on another, crushing his torso like a dried husk.
Blood soaked the sand.
But for a moment—just a brief moment—they had its attention.
That was all Benjamin needed.
---
He had no raw power.
No arcane gifts.
No monstrous strength.
But he had knowledge.
The Tinnin's weak spots weren't its limbs or its thick hide—but the glands at the base of its skull, where its glowing filaments met flesh.
That was where its sensory tendrils connected—its nerves, its power, its instincts.
And Benjamin had one chance to hit it.
He sprinted forward, weaving between the carnage as the remaining thralls tried to avoid their own inevitable deaths.
The Tinnin sensed him too late.
He leaped, using his shield to deflect a desperate snap of its jaws, landing on its back as the beast thrashed beneath him.
With a single, precise movement, he drove his sword downward, plunging it into the tangle of bioluminescent tendrils at the base of its skull.
The effect was instantaneous.
The Tinnin convulsed violently, its entire body seizing, legs locking mid-motion as the glow in its filaments flickered wildly.
Then, with a final shuddering twitch, it collapsed.
---
Silence fell over the arena.
Then—
A roar of applause.
Benjamin rolled off the corpse, panting, his body aching, his mind reeling from the pure adrenaline crash.
He had won.
But the fight wasn't over.
As the gate on the other side rumbled open, Benjamin forced himself up, gripping his sword tighter.
The next fight was beginning.
And this time—
It wouldn't be beasts he was facing.
It would be men.
--
The Tinnin's corpse lay motionless at Benjamin's feet, its glowing filaments dimming into nothingness, the light that once pulsed within them snuffed out.
For the first time since he stepped into this pit, the arena was silent.
Then, the crowd erupted.
A thunderous roar filled the coliseum, a tide of shock and excitement rippling through the stands. Bets were exchanged, hands clapping, voices shouting— half in awe, half in disbelief.
A thrall had killed a Tinnin.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
The other fighters, those who had somehow survived the beasts, were frozen in place. Their hollow gazes flickered with something unfamiliar—doubt, hesitation, fear.
Not fear of the crowd.
Not even fear of the Black Flame guards.
They feared him.
---
Then, from above, the voice came.
"Finish the round."
Boyan.
His voice was not angry. Not impressed. Merely entertained.
The weight of those words settled in the pit, and suddenly, the fear in the fighters' eyes was not for Benjamin anymore.
They hesitated, looking up at the stands, as if expecting some other command. Some reprieve.
It did not come.
A low, dark presence loomed over them all—not a voice, not a whisper, but an unspoken certainty. The Black Flame was watching. And in the Black Flame, there was no failure.
To disobey was worse than death.
One by one, their expressions twisted from fear to something else.
Resignation.
Then, hatred.
The closest lunged first, a young man—barely more than a boy, his ribs sharp beneath his skin, his eyes sunken with hunger and desperation.
He didn't want to fight.
But he wanted to live.
Benjamin saw it in the way the boy hesitated before his swing, the way his footwork was shaky, his blade unsteady.
He didn't need to read minds to know.
This boy had never held a weapon before.
But he still attacked.
And Benjamin, on instinct, parried him easily.
A strike too slow, an attack too predictable—Benjamin twisted his sword, knocked the boy's wrist aside, sent his opponent stumbling.
"Don't," he murmured.
The boy scrambled back, panting.
Then another came.
And another.
A cascade of movements, of desperation and obedience, of men and women who had once been slaves like him, but were now something worse.
Thralls.
Benjamin moved without thinking.
---
The first real attack came from the left, a wiry man with burns covering half his face, his blade angling for Benjamin's ribs.
He dodged. Just barely.
The second came from behind, a woman swinging low, aiming to take out his legs.
Benjamin leapt aside, twisting midair, landing with his knees bent, sword raised defensively.
It was chaos.
Bodies clashed, weapons rang, sand kicked up in thick clouds as the slaves turned fighters tried to overpower him through sheer numbers.
They were untrained.
But he was tired.
His body ached from the Tinnin fight, his breath came ragged, and his limbs burned with fatigue.
One thrust too close—a dagger skimming his ribs, leaving a thin line of blood.
A fist to his jaw, rattling his teeth.
He lashed out, his shield catching another blow, knocking one fighter into the dirt.
Then came the snap of bone, the wet gasp of pain.
And the first body fell.
---
Everything stopped for a fraction of a second.
The thralls hesitated again, their breathing ragged, their eyes wide.
Benjamin stepped back, gripping his sword, his pulse hammering against his skull.
The body at his feet twitched once—then stilled forever.
It was the first life he had taken since his capture.
Not a beast.
Not a monster.
A person.
For a brief, sharp moment, something inside him shook.
The silence stretched—
Then, they rushed him all at once.
There was no hesitation now.
The Black Flame was watching.
The Black Flame was listening.
And the Black Flame demanded blood.
---
It was not a duel.
Not a test of skill.
It was carnage.
The first to reach him fell swiftly—a knee to the gut, a quick twist of the blade across the throat. The second fell harder, his shoulder shattered beneath Benjamin's shield before his head hit the dirt.
The third almost got him—a wild, brutal swing that clipped his side, staggering him before he retaliated with a desperate strike to the stomach.
The fourth, fifth, sixth—he lost count.
He did not have the luxury of mercy.
Every kill felt easier than the last.
His movements became sharper, faster, his body running on pure instinct.
Dodge. Counter. Cut.
Block. Step in. Break.
It was like breathing.
---
And then, only one remained.
The boy.
The same boy who had been the first to attack him.
Now, his hands were shaking, his knees weak, his blade hanging limply at his side.
Benjamin raised his sword.
The crowd roared for the final strike.
The boy opened his mouth—maybe to plead, maybe to curse, maybe to scream.
Benjamin did not move.
The silence stretched too long.
From above, Boyan sighed.
And snapped his fingers.
A single crossbow bolt shot through the boy's skull.
He crumpled wordlessly to the sand.
The crowd exploded into cheers.
Benjamin just stared at the body.
"Not bad."
Boyan's voice carried over the arena.
"But it seems you still hesitate."
His tone was mocking, but underneath it—there was something else.
Something curious.
Benjamin looked up at him.
Boyan grinned.
"Let's see if we can't fix that."
---
The gates rumbled again.
But this time, no fighter emerged.
No beast.
No thrall.
Just a small, frail shape, dragged forward by chains, its body limp, motionless.
Benjamin's stomach twisted.
He knew before the figure even stirred.
Before the white feathers moved, revealing how the plumage had been stained with grime and dried blood.
Before the small, pitiful wings twitched—wings that had once been full and strong, now clipped and mangled.
Before the weak, barely-there breath escaped.
Atty.
Benjamin's chest went cold.
Boyan leaned forward, smiling.
"Kill the losers."
The crowd cheered, delighted.
Benjamin did not hear them.
He was already moving.