Yvain stood in the center of the arena, a towering figure at six-foot-five, his spear's shadow stretching across the sand. Across from him, his opponent was barely over five feet, a wiry, scaled aberration whose limbs twitched with reptilian quickness.
The announcer's voice rang out, echoing over the Pit:
"BEGIN!"
The crowd leaned forward, expecting an immediate clash. Instead, both fighters remained still, circling with their eyes, weighing the other's stance, breathing, and intent.
Yvain kept his movements restrained. On paper, he was registered as a necromancer, nothing more. The rules of the Games didn't forbid other disciplines outright, but revealing them here, before the wrong eyes, could draw dangerous attention. That meant holding back. It meant fighting at a disadvantage.
A ripple of impatience passed through the spectators. Jeers and boos rolled down from the stands. Someone threw a cup into the sand.
"Get on with it!"
"Spill some blood!"
"Kill the runt!"
Gnash grinned, a jagged mess of yellowed teeth. His tongue slid out. Long, black, and sinuous, more like a tail than anything belonging in a human mouth. He dragged it across his lips in a slow, obscene gesture, never breaking eye contact with Yvain.
Then, without warning, he lunged
Gnash came at him fast, scimitar drawn, feet kicking up bursts of sand with every stride. He moved like a striking serpent, all speed and intent, closing the distance in a heartbeat. The blade came down in a vicious arc.
Yvain shifted just enough, letting the weapon cut only air. The steel whistled past his shoulder.
Gnash twisted with practiced fluidity, coiling into a spin. His chest expanded, a faint, unnatural heat rolling off him as he prepared to draw breath. He'd been told his opponent was a mage, and he knew one simple truth, any mage foolish enough to let a duelist into reach was already dead.
With a rasping hiss, Gnash poured that breath into his weapon, the scimitar's edge taking on a slick, sickly green sheen. The stench was immediate, like rotting algae and stagnant water. It was a crude art, a martial trick he'd bought from some half-drunk mercenary in the Undermarket. It wasn't true knight's craft, but it had been enough to keep him alive.
"Die!" he roared, lunging again.
Once more, Yvain stepped aside. This time, his hand shot out, clamping around Gnash's wrist like a steel trap.
The lizardman snarled and swung with his free fist, but Yvain caught that too, holding him in place as if he were little more than a child.
"I thought you would be stronger," Yvain said evenly, though there was a faint glimmer of disappointment in his eyes.
Gnash's snarl twisted into something uglier. He jerked his head forward, cracking his brow against Yvain's. The blow rang through the arena, but the necromancer didn't release him. Not even a step back.
Instead, Gnash felt it, a subtle shift in the man's gaze. Disappointment fading into something colder. Pity.
Then came the sensation. It started at the wrist. A crawling, hollow ache, as if his flesh was sinking into itself. His arm began to shrivel before his eyes, scales dulling, muscle melting away into nothing.
Panic surged through Gnash's chest. He knew this. He'd seen it before, in the gutters of Necropolis, when unlucky lowlifes crossed the wrong kind of mage.
Necrotic touch.
Death, delivered by inches.
Gnash thrashed, kicking up sand, his claws scrabbling for purchase. But Yvain's grip was unyielding. The green glow on the scimitar sputtered and died as the magic fled him, replaced by something far worse.
The shriveling spread past his wrist, crawling up his forearm in dark, branching tendrils. Scales cracked and fell away like brittle paint, revealing the parchment-dry flesh beneath. The muscles underneath tightened into cords, then slackened entirely, as if rotting in fast motion.
Gnash's breath turned ragged. He let out a guttural, animal howl that dissolved into a rasp. His chest heaved as the decay climbed higher, stripping the vitality from his body with every heartbeat.
The crowd was oddly silent.
By the time it reached his shoulder, his arm hung uselessly, little more than a husk clinging to bone. His skin sagged over his ribcage, his other arm beginning to wither despite Yvain holding it still. His knees buckled.
"Please—" he tried to say, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, dry as stone.
Yvain's expression never changed. He gave the faintest twist of his hands.
The withering surged. Flesh collapsed inward. Bone blackened. Gnash's head lolled as the necrotic magic consumed his neck, his jaw shrinking into a skeletal rictus.
There was a final, brittle crack, then his entire body crumpled in on itself, collapsing into a heap of desiccated remains and tattered scales. A hollow shell, barely heavier than the sand beneath it.
Yvain released what was left of him, letting the husk hit the ground with a whisper-soft thud. The fight had ended as soon as it had started, startling even the crowd, but soon the cheers came, thundering through the Pit, echoing like a drumbeat of approval.
Yvain ignored the rising tide of cheers, their crude chants and stamping feet already fading from his mind. Without looking back at the husk he'd left behind, he turned and walked into the tunnel's shadows.
"That was quick," Celeste said, her tone halfway between amusement and mild surprise.
He shrugged, loosening his grip on the spear. "I'm as shocked as you are."
Out in the arena, the crew was already dragging Gnash's remains toward the far arch. In Necropolis, death was rarely the end. Given a few hours, and whatever foul pacts kept the city running, the lizardman would be walking again. Scarred, weaker perhaps, but breathing all the same. Still, repeated deaths took their toll. Three… maybe four more, and Gnash would be marked for the Pilgrimage.
And that wasn't the worst of it. Every fighter signed the same binding contract before stepping into the Pit. Any death here means forfeiting your corpse to the Grey Rose. Once they claimed your body, they owned you. You'd come back in a shape and form that suited their purposes.
The announcer's voice rang out again, drowning the last of the crowd's mutterings.
"From the west arch, wielding twin axes forged in the depths of the Bone Forge, we have… The Maw!"
A giant of a man stepped into the light, his bare chest crisscrossed with old scars, each one thick as a rope burn. The axes in his hands looked like they could cleave an ox in two with a single swing.
"Another new contender comes to our sands..." the announcer continued, voice dipping into something more theatrical, " the Bloodhound!"
Celeste rose the moment she heard the name. Without a word, she stepped past Yvain and Mars, her boots striking the stone with a confident rhythm. The roar from the stands shifted, cheers melting into jeers, jeers turning into whistling catcalls.
She walked into the arena without glancing at the crowd, her eyes fixed on her opponent.
The Maw regarded her with a deep frown, as though he were staring at a child who'd wandered into the wrong street. "You should surrender," he rumbled. "A young girl like you has no business in a cruel place like this."
Celeste tilted her head, smiling faintly. "You're sweet. I won't make your death painful. I promise."
The giant snorted.
The announcer's voice boomed like a struck drum.
"BEGIN!"