The platform doors emitted a sharp beeping sound, then slowly began to open.
Before they could even fully retract, loud screeching erupted from all four platforms simultaneously—a sound that was simultaneously insectoid and reptilian, high-pitched and grating, the kind of noise that made teeth ache and skin crawl.
Twisted mandibles protruded through the widening gaps, biting at the metal doors, trying to force them open faster. Multiple sets. Not one or two creatures, but dozens.
The doors hadn't even finished opening when the first wave flooded into the arena.
They were nightmares made flesh.
Each creature was roughly five feet in total length, standing about two to three feet tall at the shoulder when moving on all six legs. Their bodies were covered in a chitinous exoskeleton that gleamed with an oily, dark green sheen under the arena lights—segmented plates that overlapped like armor, providing protection while allowing for terrifying flexibility.
The head structure was the worst part. It combined the elongated snout of a crocodile with the compound complexity of a massive insect. The skull was plated with thick exoskeleton, but the jaw—the jaw was a horror show of biomechanical efficiency. Twin mandibles flanked a central mouth filled with rows of serrated teeth. The mandibles were twisted, asymmetrical things that moved independently, each one capable of gripping and tearing, while the central jaw could bite down with crushing force.
Their eyes were multifaceted clusters set on either side of the elongated skull—hundreds of tiny lenses that gave them nearly 360-degree vision. No blind spots. No escape from their gaze.
The body was low-slung and powerful, built like a crocodile but with the segmented flexibility of an insect. Six legs—thick, armored, ending in curved claws designed for both gripping and eviscerating. The legs moved with disturbing coordination, allowing the creatures to scuttle forward with shocking speed or pivot instantly in any direction.
Their tails were long and whip-like, ending in a serrated blade of hardened chitin that could slash or impale. Each segment of the tail was articulated, giving it a serpentine quality that made it nearly impossible to predict where it would strike.
The exoskeleton wasn't smooth. It was ridged, pitted, covered in small spines and protrusions that served no obvious purpose except to make the creatures even more grotesque. Between the plates, glimpses of pale, wet tissue could be seen—vulnerable points, but few and hard to target.
They made sounds constantly. Not just the screeching, but clicking mandibles, the scrape of chitin on chitin, wet breathing sounds from somewhere deep in their thoraxes. The smell that came with them was immediately noticeable even from the viewing section—rotting meat mixed with something chemical and alien.
And there were so many of them.
They poured out of all four platforms like a flood—twenty, thirty, forty creatures, maybe more, scuttling over each other in their eagerness to enter the arena. Their multifaceted eyes immediately locked onto the two fighters in the pit.
Both Odd and Son paused, their fight forgotten as they redirected their attention to the platforms.
The creatures didn't hesitate. The moment they had targets, they rushed forward from all four sides, converging on the center of the arena in a chittering, screeching wave that left no room for escape.
"Oh HELL YES!" Jamal's voice boomed through the speakers. "Now THIS is what I'm talking about! The crowd has unleashed CARNAGE!"
"This is extremely dangerous," Haurang said, his usual calm cracking slightly. "Both fighters are now in a survival situation."
Both fighters were no longer focused on each other. This had become a matter of life and death.
Or at least, that's what Odd thought.
POW.
The punch came from nowhere—a devastating strike to Odd's left ribcage that lifted him off his feet and sent him flying across the pit. His body slammed into the barrier wall with bone-jarring force before crumpling to the ground.
CRACK.
Pain exploded through his torso. Multiple ribs broken, he was certain. His vision swam with stars.
In the brief moment of Son's attack, Odd had instinctively triggered his abilities, flooding his body with gel that softened the impact and dispersed the force throughout his frame. It had saved him from far worse damage, possibly death.
But it wasn't without serious consequences. He could barely move, every breath sending lances of agony through his chest.
Son had used Odd's distraction to land a kill shot. Or as close to one as he could manage.
---
In the viewing section, Lucius's expression didn't change, but his eyes had narrowed to slits.
The creatures. He hadn't accounted for this.
He'd known there was something beneath the arena floor—his hydro-sense had detected water signatures in a large space below during his reconnaissance. But his senses couldn't penetrate thick barriers or solid objects, even when they were within the range of his zone. Not unless he—
He cut that thought off.
The immediate problem was Odd. The man was hurt, badly, and surrounded by dozens of those things.
Shit. If this gets out of hand, I might need to do something.
The thought brought immediate complications.
Interfering could expose him. He didn't have to do it directly—he could switch, but no. That was too risky. Not here. Not in a place filled with criminals and unknown threats.
He wasn't here to declare all-out war. He was here to gather intelligence and get out. And the likelihood of him leaving alive if he revealed himself? Low.
The fighters currently present wouldn't pose a threat if he got serious. Neither would most of the guards. But this was the Underground—prime Big Boys territory. There were too many unknowns. Once they called in backup, once the Enforcers arrived, that would be a problem.
And then there were the executives in the hidden area. Who knew what sort of people they had working for them? What abilities they commanded? What contingencies they'd prepared?
It's not like I've known Odd for that long, he thought, his internal monologue cold and analytical. He's just some guy who happened to approach me in the mess hall. Tried to give me advice about quitting because he thought I was a kid.
Why should I risk everything for him?
"Because you already decided you would," a voice that wasn't quite a voice whispered in the back of his mind.
I didn't decide anything, Lucius thought back.
"You did. The moment you gave him tactical advice. The moment you told him he'd be fine. You don't say things you don't mean."
I say lots of things I don't mean.
"Not about this. Not when it matters."
Lucius's jaw clenched imperceptibly. He was arguing with himself again. Or with them. The line blurred sometimes.
Just watch. If he survives, good. If he doesn't... that's not my responsibility.
"Keep telling yourself that."
Shut up.
Next to him, Seung was leaning forward in his seat, his face pale. "Oh shit. Oh shit, is he dead? Is Odd dead? Fuck, I put a lot of money on this!"
Lucius didn't respond, his attention completely focused on the arena floor. Seung's voice became background noise, easily tuned out.
---
On the arena floor, Odd lay crumpled against the barrier wall, his vision blurry, his body screaming in pain.
The screeching of the creatures was getting closer. He could hear their claws scraping against the sandy floor, could smell that horrible rotting-chemical stench.
Is this it? he thought, his consciousness wavering. Dead in an underground criminal tournament when I promised I'd be better?
An image flashed through his mind. Sudden. Vivid. Overwhelming.
A hospital room. Sterile white walls. The smell of antiseptic. Exhaustion mixed with joy.
His wife—younger, her hair not yet touched by the gray that stress would bring later—lying in the hospital bed, cradling a tiny bundle wrapped in pink blankets. She was smiling despite the exhaustion etched into her features, looking up at him with eyes full of love and hope.
"What should we name her?" she'd asked, her voice soft.
Odd—younger then, barely more than a kid himself, still going by his real name—had looked down at the tiny face peeking out from the blankets. Perfect. Innocent. Completely dependent on him.
"Something strong," he'd said. "Something that means she'll never have to be afraid."
That was the moment. The exact moment when everything had changed. When he'd realized that being a thief, being a criminal, being someone who took shortcuts and broke laws—none of that was sustainable anymore.
He had to be better. For her. For them.
The memory dissolved, replaced by the present. The pain in his ribs. The sound of approaching death. The feeling of failure crushing his chest worse than any broken bone.
Then another image. His daughters—older now, the youngest barely six—waiting at home. Wondering when their father would come back. Trusting that he would.
No.
The word formed in his mind with absolute clarity.
I cannot let it end like this. Not for their sake. They'll never have to go through what I did. I promised.
Odd's eyes snapped open. His hand pressed against the barrier wall, gel forming across his palm, hardening, giving him purchase. He pushed himself up, ignoring the agony in his ribs, forcing his body to move through sheer willpower.
Son was charging toward him—still in his minotaur form, blood covering his hide from multiple creature bites, horns lowered, murder in his eyes. He was tearing through the creatures as he came, grabbing one and literally ripping its head off, using another as a bludgeon to smash two more, crushing them under his hooves.
But even Son was being overwhelmed. There were too many. For every one he killed, three more latched onto him, their mandibles biting into his thick hide, their claws finding purchase in the gaps of his transformed anatomy.
Odd jumped, trying to get out of the way, his body protesting every movement.
But Son's massive hand shot out and grabbed Odd's left leg mid-air.
He swung Odd like a rag doll, building momentum, and then tried to throw him directly into the swarm of creatures pursuing him—creatures with mandibles clacking, with that horrible screeching filling the air.
But Odd triggered his abilities mid-swing. His entire body became coated in gel, and he stuck to Son's hand like glue, refusing to release despite the centrifugal force.
In the viewing section, Lucius leaned forward slightly. "Yes. That's it. He can still survive this."
Son felt Odd stick to his hand and roared in frustration. He started pulling his hand back, preparing to smash Odd into the ground with enough force to turn him into paste.
The motion was violent—Son's entire body weight behind it, his massive arm pulling back and then beginning to swing upward with devastating force.
Just as his hand reached the peak of the upward motion, Odd changed tactics.
He released the sticky gel and flooded his body with the slippery variant instead. His entire form became impossibly slick, covered in the amber-colored substance that made him almost liquid in consistency.
He slipped out of Son's grip like water through fingers.
The momentum of Son's lift combined with Odd's release shot him upward through the air. He flew toward the barrier wall—not the top barrier that sealed the arena from above, but the vertical barrier wall that rose high above the pit floor.
Odd twisted in midair, extending his hand. The gel coating his palm shifted, hardening on contact as he slapped against the barrier wall.
SPLAT.
He stuck. About twenty feet above the arena floor, clinging to the solid energy barrier like a fly on glass.
Below him, Son stood in the center of the arena, surrounded by the creatures. With Odd out of immediate reach, every single creature redirected their attention to the only remaining target on the ground.
They swarmed him.
Son fought back with the desperation of someone facing their own death. He was a force of destruction—grabbing creatures and tearing them apart, using his horns to gore and fling them, his hooves crushing exoskeletons with sickening crunches.
CRUNCH. SPLAT. TEAR.
He grabbed one creature by its mandibles and pulled in opposite directions until the head split apart, green-white ichor spraying across his chest. He caught another mid-leap and slammed it into the ground so hard its exoskeleton shattered like ceramic, internal organs spilling out onto the sand.
He gored one with his horns, lifting it into the air and shaking his head violently until the body tore free and flew across the arena. He used one creature as a weapon, swinging its body to smash into three others, breaking their legs and leaving them twitching on the ground.
But for every one he killed, two more took its place.
They climbed over each other to reach him. Mandibles bit into his thighs, his arms, his back. Claws found the gaps in his transformed anatomy—under his arms, behind his knees, at his neck. Their serrated tail-blades whipped forward, opening cuts across his hide.
Blood—his blood—began to cover his body, mixing with the creatures' ichor. He was slowing down. Each movement took more effort. Each breath was labored.
Son tried to retreat, to run, his survival instinct finally overriding his desire to win the fight.
That's when he heard it.
"Over here! Grab my hand!"
Son's head swung toward the voice. Odd was on the barrier wall, one hand stuck to the surface holding him in place, his other arm extended downward, reaching toward Son.
The crowd's reaction was immediate and confused.
"What the hell is he doing?!"
"Who offers to help their opponent?!"
"Is he stupid?!"
Even Jamal seemed momentarily at a loss. "Uh... folks, Odd is apparently trying to SAVE the guy who just tried to feed him to those things! I... I don't even know what to say about that!"
Lucius watched from the viewing section, his expression unreadable. "This guy is too nice. A minute ago Son was trying to kill him. Actively. Deliberately."
But maybe that's why I would have intervened if it got out of hand, he thought. Whatever he's fighting for must be worth it. That kind of conviction... it's rare.
---
Son, bloodied and desperate, saw the extended hand. Saw his only chance at survival.
The creatures were overwhelming him. Their bites were getting deeper. Their numbers were endless. He was dying.
He made a decision.
Son broke away from the swarm, using the last of his strength to sprint toward the barrier wall. Creatures clung to his back, his legs, his arms, but he kept moving.
He jumped, reaching upward with his massive hand, stretching toward Odd's extended arm.
Their hands met. Gripped.
Odd held on, his gel-coated hand wrapping around Son's thick wrist. The weight was immense—Son's transformed body was easily over four hundred pounds. Odd's shoulder screamed in protest, his broken ribs grinding against each other, but he held on.
"I've got you!" Odd shouted, straining. "Just hold—"
Son's eyes met his. And in that moment, Odd saw the truth.
There was no gratitude there. No relief. Just cold calculation.
Son twisted his grip, grabbing Odd's forearm with brutal force. Then he pulled.
The motion was violent and sudden. Son used every ounce of his remaining strength to yank downward, his weight adding to the force.
POP.
Odd's shoulder dislocated with an audible sound that carried across the arena. His scream was cut short by shock.
The gel holding Odd to the wall cracked under the stress. Fracture lines spread across the hardened substance like breaking glass.
"NO!" someone in the crowd shouted.
Son pulled again, harder, trying to rip Odd off the wall entirely. His other hand reached up, grabbing Odd's leg.
Then, with a roar of effort, Son wrenched Odd free from the wall and threw him downward with every bit of force he could muster.
Odd fell toward the forming pile of creatures below—dozens of them, stacked on top of each other, mandibles clacking, waiting to tear him apart.
In the viewing section, Lucius's eyes began to change. The royal blue darkened, shifting toward a deep crimson red, the color bleeding in from the edges of his irises. His hands gripped the armrests of his seat with enough force that the metal beneath began to frost over, ice crystals spreading across the surface.
Time seemed to slow.
Odd was falling. Son was above him, that bastard smile on his minotaur face. The creatures were below, a writhing mass of chitin and death.
This was it. The moment Lucius would have to reveal himself. Would have to—
Odd coiled.
Mid-fall, his body contracted into a tight ball, arms and legs pulled in, head tucked. Gel erupted from every pore of his body, flooding outward in a thick wave.
The gel hardened instantly, forming a spherical shell around Odd's curled form. Not just hardened—crystallized, turning into something that resembled amber glass, completely encasing him.
He hit the pile of creatures.
CRUNCH.
The hardened gel sphere bounced, rolling, the creatures' mandibles scraping against its surface but finding no purchase. Odd had made himself inedible. Unpalatable. A solid ball of hardened gel that the creatures couldn't bite through, couldn't grip, couldn't consume.
The creatures lost interest almost immediately.
They turned their multifaceted eyes upward.
Toward Son.
Son, who was still on the wall, still gripping the barrier with one hand, still hanging above them. Son, who was made of meat and bone and blood. Son, who smelled like prey.
The creatures screeched in unison. The sound was deafening.
Son's eyes widened in horror as he realized what he'd done. What Odd had done.
The creatures began climbing over each other, forming a living tower, reaching upward toward their new target.
Son tried to climb higher, but his transformed body was too heavy, too exhausted. His blood-slicked hands couldn't find proper purchase on the smooth barrier surface.
The first creature reached him, its mandibles clamping onto his ankle.
He kicked it away, but three more took its place.
Then ten more.
Then twenty.
They pulled him down.
Son fell into the swarm.
In the viewing section, Lucius's eyes had returned to their normal royal blue the instant he saw Odd's solution. The frost on the armrests melted away, leaving only faint condensation. His expression was neutral once more.
Nobody had noticed. Everyone's attention was locked on the arena floor.
On what was about to happen to Son.
---
The creatures swarmed over Son's massive form the moment he hit the ground.
He tried to fight back. Oh, how he tried.
His fists swung wildly, connecting with exoskeletons, crushing several creatures with each blow. His horns gored two more, lifting them into the air where they twitched and died.
But there were too many.
One creature clamped its mandibles onto his right forearm and pulled, its entire body weight leveraged against the grip. The mandibles sawed through muscle and tendon with horrifying efficiency. Blood sprayed in an arc across the arena floor.
TEAR.
Son roared in pain and rage, trying to shake it off, but three more creatures had latched onto the same arm, biting, pulling, tearing in coordinated savagery.
Another creature crawled up his back, its claws finding purchase in the thick muscle there. Its mandibles opened wide and bit down on the junction between his neck and shoulder—that vulnerable spot where the minotaur transformation had left a gap in his defenses.
CRUNCH.
The sound of vertebrae breaking was audible even over Son's screams.
His left leg was next. Four creatures focused on it, their mandibles working in unison like a biological saw. They bit through the thick hide, through the muscle beneath, seeking bone. When they found it, they bit harder.
CRACK.
The fibula splintered. Son's leg bent at an unnatural angle. He tried to stand, to kick, but the limb wouldn't support his weight anymore. He fell forward onto his knees.
More creatures poured onto him. They covered his chest, his arms, his face. Their collective weight drove him down onto his stomach.
Son's remaining hand clawed at the ground, trying to drag himself forward, trying to escape. His fingers left bloody trails in the sand.
A creature positioned itself directly in front of his face. Son stared at it with one eye—the other was already gone, plucked out by a mandible strike.
The creature's twisted mandibles opened. Son opened his mouth to scream.
The creature lunged forward, its central mouth connecting with Son's in a grotesque parody of a kiss. Then it bit down.
CRUNCH.
Son's jaw shattered. Teeth scattered across the sand like bloody pearls. The creature's mandibles continued working, burrowing into his mouth, his throat, tearing through soft tissue.
Other creatures were working on his torso. They'd found the gaps between his ribs and were pulling them apart, widening the spaces, reaching inside to access the organs beneath.
One creature's mandibles closed around a loop of intestine and pulled. The tissue unspooled like rope, meters of it piling onto the arena floor in a steaming heap.
Son's body convulsed. He was still alive. Still conscious. Unable to scream because his throat was full of chitin and mandibles.
Another creature had worked its way to his spine. It bit down on one of the lower vertebrae and twisted, applying its entire body weight as leverage.
SNAP.
Son's body went still below the waist. Paralyzed.
But his arms still moved. Still twitched. Still tried to fight.
The creatures devoured him piece by piece. They didn't kill him quickly. They ate him alive, starting with the extremities and working inward, ensuring maximum suffering, maximum freshness of meat.
His fingers were stripped of flesh, leaving bare bone that still moved, still grasped at nothing. His arms were peeled like fruit, skin and muscle removed in layers until his radius and ulna were visible, white and gleaming.
One creature had burrowed into his abdomen and emerged from his back, dragging organs with it as it moved. His liver came out first, torn into chunks and consumed by waiting mandibles. Then his stomach, still containing partially digested food that spilled out when punctured. Then his kidneys, his spleen, his intestines pulled out meter by meter.
His chest cavity was opened. Ribs were pried apart with sickening cracks. His lungs were visible, still expanding and contracting, desperately trying to keep him alive even as everything else failed.
A creature bit into his heart.
The organ spasmed once, twice, then went still.
Son's remaining eye—cloudy now, unfocused—stared at nothing. But even in death, the creatures didn't stop. They continued feeding, reducing his body to scattered pieces across the bloody sand.
The entire process took three minutes.
Three minutes of living nightmare that would haunt everyone who witnessed it.
---
The arena was silent except for the wet sounds of feeding.
Then Jamal's voice, shaken for the first time since the tournament began: "That... that was... I don't even..."
Haurang's voice was hollow. "Son Tec has been eliminated. Odd is the winner by... by survival."
Near the barrier wall, the hardened gel sphere began to crack. Fissures spread across its surface as Odd released his hold on the ability. The amber-like shell fell away in chunks.
Odd uncurled slowly, his body trembling. He looked at what remained of Son—the scattered pieces, the blood, the creatures still feeding on the corpse.
His face was pale. His eyes were wide with horror.
He'd watched it all. Trapped in his gel sphere, unable to look away. He'd heard every sound. Every crunch. Every wet tear.
"Oh shit," Jamal said, his voice carrying across the arena. "There he is! Odd! He somehow enveloped himself in gel and hardened it, making himself not palatable for the beasts who then changed their target to something tastier! Brilliant! Horrifying! But brilliant!"
The creatures had finished with Son. Now they turned their attention back to Odd, who was standing on shaking legs against the barrier wall.
Then—
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The creatures' necks began emitting red light. Small devices attached to their exoskeletons, barely visible before, now blinked in rapid succession.
"Oh no," Haurang said. "The cleanup protocol."
BOOM.
The first creature's head exploded, sending green-white ichor spraying across the arena floor. Then the second. Then the third.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
One after another, in rapid succession, the creatures detonated. The bombs were small but effective, designed to eliminate the creatures once the fight was over—or in case a fighter somehow survived long enough to become a liability.
Each explosion sent a shower of chitinous fragments and pale fluid splattering across the arena. The smell was indescribable—chemical fire mixed with that rotting stench and something else, something alien and wrong.
Within thirty seconds, every creature was dead. Reduced to smoking chunks scattered across blood-soaked sand.
Odd stood in the center of it all, covered in ichor and blood—Son's blood, creature blood, his own blood. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, dislocated. His ribs were broken. His face was sheet-white with shock.
But he was alive.
"AND YOUR WINNER!" Jamal's voice finally recovered its enthusiasm, though it was forced now, strained. "By survival, by sheer goddamn will to live—ODD!"
The crowd's response was muted. Scattered applause. Uncomfortable shifting. A few cheers, but mostly just stunned silence.
People had come here for violence. They'd gotten it. But this... this had been something else.
Odd took one step forward, then his legs gave out. He collapsed onto the bloody sand, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Medical personnel rushed into the arena immediately, surrounding Odd's fallen form. They lifted him onto a stretcher with practiced efficiency, their movements quick but careful to avoid worsening his injuries.
---
In the viewing section, Seung was silent. His face was pale, his hands gripping his tablet so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
Lucius glanced at him. "You won your bet."
Seung didn't respond immediately. When he finally spoke, his voice was hollow. "I don't... I don't feel good about it."
"You weren't supposed to," Lucius said quietly. "Money gained from that kind of suffering never feels good, well for most people with a consensus at least. "
Seung looked at him, something haunted in his eyes. "Did you know? Did you know it would be like that?"
"No," Lucius said. "Everything after the drop was not expected, well to an extent."
Around them, other fighters were standing, leaving the viewing section. The energy had completely drained from the arena. Even the most hardened criminals looked shaken.
Liu Yan walked past, his face expressionless but his jaw clenched tight. William looked like he might be sick. Even the guards looked pale.
"Winner announced," Haurang said over the speakers, his voice professional but subdued. "Odd advances to round two. Medical report will follow."
The screens showed Odd being carried out through the medical entrance, still unconscious. The stretcher disappeared through the doorway, and the medical staff followed.
Lucius stood. "I'm going to check on him."
Seung looked up at him. "Why? You barely know the guy."
Lucius didn't answer. He just walked away, heading toward the exit.
Behind him, the cleanup crews were already entering the arena, bringing industrial equipment to deal with the blood, the ichor, the scattered remains of creatures and what little was left of Son.
The Underground had seen a lot of violence. But this fight would be talked about for a long time.
And Odd—if he survived the psychological trauma—would be known as the man who showed mercy to someone who tried to murder him, and lived to regret it.
---
TO BE CONTINUED