The giant orc growled in anger, shoving past a crowd of children like a monster plowing through tall grass.
Its eyes were completely bloodshot and locked onto Ran. Its club was so thick and heavy it looked like it could turn a grown man into meat paste with a single casual swing.
The orc slammed its massive foot down onto the stone floor.
An extremely violent tremor rippled through the arena. The ground bucked beneath Ran's boots, and his footing vanished instantly.
He tumbled backward, the impact shaking the floor so violently it threatened to break his teeth from his skull.
Before he could even try to stand up, the massive club was raised in the air.
It came down in a crushing arc straight for his head. Ran didn't even think about trying to block a blow that heavy.
He forced the mana down into his legs. His thighs burned with a sudden, bursting energy.
With a desperate kick against the trembling stone, he launched himself sideways, moving in a blur of unnatural, speed.
BOOM.
The spiked club shattered the stone where Ran had been standing just a millisecond prior.
The impact sent deadly shards of rock flying through the air like shrapnel. Ran slid across the grit, the sharp stone cutting into his skin.
He clenched his hand, ignoring the pain, and lunged forward.
He shifted his focus, channeling his remaining mana entirely into his sword.
The blade began to glow with a faint light. Standing right beneath the monster, he delivered a blindingly fast upward slash.
The reinforced edge of his sword bit deep into the orc's thick thigh, slicing through the tough hide.
The orc bellowed in rage. It spun around instantly, backhanding the air with its free hand.
Ran dipped low to avoid the strike, but the sheer wind pressure of the massive swing was enough to knock the seven-year-old off balance.
The orc seized the moment. It stomped its foot down again, sending another violent shockwave tearing through the floor.
Ran went down hard, the jarring impact vibrating through his spine. His fingers went numb, and his sword slipped from his grip, skittering across the sand.
The beast loomed over him as it raised the massive club high, preparing for a definitive, crushing blow.
Ran was still gasping for air. His chest was in so much pain it felt as if his lungs were burning.
He tried to jump away, but his mana core felt sluggish. He couldn't channel enough energy into his legs in time. He was trapped.
"Hey, ugly!" a voice screamed from the side.
A jagged piece of masonry struck the orc square in its left eye.
A few yards away, a bruised girl holding a broken sword was shouting at the top of her lungs, deliberately drawing the monster's fury.
A second later, another boy threw a dagger from the shadows, piercing the orc's shoulder.
Is dagger even allowed?
Ran was dazed for a split second but it was not the time. They created an opening.
He lunged across the floor for his sword, his small hand gripping the hilt tightly.
He poured every single ounce of his remaining mana into his legs.
He exploded forward, turning into a tiny streak of lethal speed.
Bypassing the swinging club entirely, Ran used the orc's bent, wounded knee as a stepping stone. He planted his boot and launched himself high into the air.
Hovering above the beast, Ran shifted the entirety of his mana out of his legs and into his sword. The sudden, dense weight of the energy made his young muscles scream under the pressure.
The orc snapped its head back. Its single good eye widened in sudden, primitive panic as it realized the boy was no longer on the ground.
Ran brought the sword down with catastrophic force. Fueled by the concentrated mana, the blade sliced through the air like a falling star.
It cleaved straight through the orc's thick collarbone, biting deep into its chest, severing everything in its path.
The sheer impact force was so heavy, it shatted the stone beneath the beast's feet into powder. The orc gasped, its muscles locking up.
The massive iron club slipped from its numbed fingers, clattering uselessly onto the ground.
The giant orc toppled backward, crashing into the arena with a heavy, final thud that kicked up a cloud of dust.
Ran landed roughly beside the corpse. His small chest heaved violently as the mana drained completely from his body, leaving his limbs trembling with deep exhaustion.
He took a quick look around. The battle in the arena was still raging violently. To put it simply, it was chaos.
Some of the kids had old grudges against each other, using the madness of the battlefield as an excuse to settle scores and kill their peers.
Others were doing it out of a grim sense of obligation, knowing it could gather some eyes of family.
There were various types of people in this bloodbath, but one fact was absolute: everyone was fighting entirely for themselves.
Ran was completely exhausted. His core was empty, and his mana was totally depleted.
In a place like this, weakness was a death sentence.
Spotting his state, another boy eyed Ran with malicious intent, raising a weapon and stepping toward him. Ran was too vulnerable to fight back normally.
Left with no choice, Ran reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, purple candy he had been saving for future.
The candy was an item meant to double a person's mana pool and instantly restore it.
Since it could only be used once in a lifetime, he was regretting it but it was emergency.
In normal case, a person belonging to this world should not have its effect.
Ran was an anomaly in this world. He had only guessed that it would work on him.
He popped the candy into his mouth and swallowed.
His guess was right. A sudden, violent surge of energy exploded from his core, rushing through his veins like liquid fire.
He felt an overwhelming wave of fresh power.
As the opportunistic boy rushed him, Ran spun and delivered a clean, slash, dropping the attacker instantly.
But there was no time to celebrate. On the other side of the arena, a massive viper was in a total frenzy.
A vast majority of the dead had been slaughtered by this single, monstrous serpent. The viper was on a terrifying killing spree, tearing through the remaining survivors like paper.
Up in the spectators' view, Roland was sitting on his chair, smoking a cigarette.
He watched the slaughter below and let out a heavy sigh, exhaling a cloud of gray smoke.
This is getting excessive.
Not even in his own generation's trial had such a devastating beast been released into the arena.
By his count, roughly four hundred children were already dead, and it had only been about an hour and a half since the trial started.
Roland shifted his gaze, eyeing the small kid who had just taken down the orc beast. He wondered silently if a kid would be the winner.
Suddenly, the giant viper stopped its rampage.
Its massive head swung around, its yellow, slitted eyes locking directly onto Ran, who was on the far side of the arena trying to keep his distance from his peers.
A few yards away from the serpent, Kael and Vael, a pair of twins who were about to be crushed by the monster's heavy tail, froze in astonishment.
They stood stunned as the viper completely abandoned them, turning its back to slide straight toward Ran at breakneck speed.
Ran saw it coming and felt a wave of pure frustration wash over him.
Why the fuck were all of these monsters ganging up on me?
His muscles still throbbed with a bit of fatigue, but a solid, heavy chunk of fresh mana pulsed deep within his core thanks to the purple candy.
A sharp, scraping sound echoed against the stone behind him. The beast was already there.
Ran spun around in a hurry. Now that he was seeing it up close, the viper was absolutely terrifying. Its body was the size of a tree trunk, covered in sickly green scales.
Its cold, reptilian eyes stared down at the seven-year-old with pure rage.
Before Ran could even position his feet into a proper defensive stance, the viper unhinged its massive jaws.
A large glob of bright green spit launched from its fangs like a stone fired from a catapult.
Ran leaped violently to the left. The acidic spit struck the floor right where he had been standing a second ago.
It hissed loudly on impact, instantly dissolving the sand into a bubbling, toxic puddle that gave off a foul stench.
The viper didn't give him a single second to breathe. It struck forward with blinding speed, using its heavy snout like a massive battering ram.
Ran didn't have the positioning or the time for another massive leap. Realizing he couldn't dodge, he channeled mana into his sword arm and raised the blade to parry the incoming blow.
CLANG.
The sheer impact vibrated straight through his bones, nearly dislocating his shoulder.
The force sent him skidding backward across the grit. His boots dug into the floor, leaving long white streaks on the sandy floor before he finally came to a halt.
The beast hissed, a low, vibrating sound that shook the air. Suddenly, a thick, emerald fog erupted from the gaps in its scales, rapidly expanding outward in every direction.
It was an AOE poison gas cloud.
Ran's eyes widened. Inhaling even a fraction of that green mist would melt his lungs from the inside out.
He concentrated his mana into his legs again and bounded backward, trying his best to outrun the spreading cloud.
But the gas was incredibly fast. It caught up to him, cutting off his vision and burning the exposed skin of his face and arms like acid.
Coughing violently, Ran realized he couldn't survive by staying on the defensive. If he kept running, the gas would eventually corner him. He had to end this fight right now.
Using the last of his speed-burst mana, Ran circled the perimeter of the expanding cloud, using the mist as cover to get around the monster.
He emerged suddenly on the viper's blind flank. Shifting every bit of the remaining energy from his legs into his arms, his sword began to glow with a faint light.
With a fierce shout, he leaped through the air and drove the blade deep into the side of the serpent's body.
The edge tore through the thick, protective scales, ripping an enormous, bleeding gash down its flank.
The viper thrashed in sudden agony. In a desperate, wild reflex, its massive tail whipped around through the air.
Ran was still airborne, unable to dodge. The blunt force of the heavy tail caught him squarely in the ribs.
The impact shattered the air from his lungs with a sickening crack. The force sent him flying across the arena floor like a ragdoll.
He hit the ground hard, tumbling violently through the dust. His fingers loosened, and his sword went flying, clattering across the floor far out of his reach.
Ran tried to push himself up, planting his hands on the grit, but his body completely refused to cooperate.
His ribs were broken, every breath was pure agony, and his vision began to swim with black dots.
The heavy shadow of the viper loomed over him once again.
The viper didn't care about spitting poison anymore; it just wanted to consume the boy.
The serpent opened its jaws wide, its black gullet expanding wide enough to swallow a horse. It lunged downward, aiming to swallow the boy whole.
Ran looked up, staring directly at the rows of needle-like teeth closing in around him.
He was completely trapped inside the dark shadow of the monster's mouth. Knowing he couldn't escape, he managed to pool the absolute last, desperate reserves of his mana into his right fist.
He braced himself, preparing to unleash a final, suicidal strike from the inside of the beast's throat.
Thwack.
The distinct, heavy sound of leather boots echoed clearly over the roar of the arena.
A figure blurred past Ran's failing vision, moving faster than anything he had ever seen. A tall man stepped directly into the path of the descending jaws, standing between the boy and certain death.
In a single, fluid motion, the man drew a gleaming silver blade from his hip. A flash of blinding white light severed the darkness of the arena.
The viper's massive head was cleaved cleanly from its body mid-air.
The severed head crashed heavily into the dirt just inches away from Ran, its jaws snapping shut on empty air one last time before the light left its eyes.
A second later, the colossal green body toppled over, hitting the ground with a massive thud, completely dead.
With his failing vision, he glanced at the man in front of him. It was the eldest son of Bloodrune house, Leon Bloodrune.
The exchange event was over.