The heavy iron doors of the Pit slammed shut behind them with a deafening, echoing metallic thud, sealing the five individuals inside the dark, torch-lit colosseum.
The noise cut off any remaining sound from the upper levels of the guild, leaving nothing but the sound of the wind howling through the stone vents.
High up on the stone judges’ balcony, Xan sat with her arms crossed over her heavy leather pauldrons, her sharp, calculating eyes scanning the sandy floor below.
Beside her stood Zaiden, his bare arms folded neatly across his tailored suit vest, his bunny face mask completely still against the damp chill of the arena.
Down in the center of the Pit, Leeroy Jenkins took a slow, deliberate step forward, his boots sinking into the loose sand.
A malicious, predatory grin spread across his face as his raw energy violently erupted from his pores.
With a sharp, electric hiss of kinetic gravity, his physical Premera Astral Materialization flared and hardened instantly into a heavy, glowing suit of dense armor encircling his entire torso.
The light cast long, shifting blue and red shadows across the stone floor.
“I’m going to break every single bone in your body, rookie,” Leeroy sneered, raising his massive, energy-coated fists as he stepped into his combat stance.
“Let’s see you scratch this paint!” BUZZER.
The loud acoustic horn blasted through the colosseum, signaling the official start of the match.
Leeroy didn’t hesitate; his animal-like legs flexed, and he instantly blurred across the sand.
He closed the five-meter distance in a fraction of a second, hurling a brutal, aura-coated fist straight at Ambo’s chest with enough force to shatter wood.
Remembering Zaiden’s strict warning from the morning practice session, Ambo suppressed his panic and didn’t unleash the full cackling devil shroud.
He knew his stamina couldn’t handle the agonizing drain.
Instead, he focused the terror in his bone marrow down into his forearms.
SPLAT.
A thick, bubbling surge of Black Goo violently erupted from his palms, completely coating his hands and forearms until they resembled a pair of massive, dense boxing gloves.
Ambo threw his arms up, crossing his goo-coated fists in a tight, desperate guard just as Leeroy’s armored punch connected.
BAM!
The impact sounded like a massive iron hammer striking a blacksmith’s anvil.
The dense, oily fluid on Ambo’s arms rippled violently, acting like an organic kinetic sponge to absorb the brutal force of the blow.
Still, the heavy physical weight of the strike sent Ambo skidding backward across the sand, his boots digging deep, messy grooves into the dirt until he hit the boundary wall.
“Is that all you’ve got, stray?!” Leeroy roared, his eyes wide with a manic excitement as he unleashed a relentless, rhythmic barrage of heavy physical punches.
He rained blows down upon the rookie, his armored fists blurring through the air.
The constant impact forced Ambo into a tight, defensive corner against the stone boundary wall.
Ambo grunted, his teeth grinding as the constant vibration of the armor began to make his muscles ache, the black fluid on his hands bubbling frantically to keep from dissolving under the pressure.
He needed to change his movements.
He needed to materialize a weapon, just like he had practiced with the captain.
But as Ambo tried to focus his mind, absolute panic seized his consciousness.
Because of his empty, wiped past, there was no library of memories inside his head to draw from.
He didn’t know what a proper sword looked like.
He didn’t know how a spear was shaped, and he had never held a mace.
There was absolutely nothing popping up in his blank mind to copy.
In pure desperation, Ambo ducked beneath a heavy, lunging swing and looked everywhere around the arena for any kind of inspiration.
His dark eyes scanned the ancient, grimy stone walls of the colosseum until they locked onto a faded, crumbling stone signage carved high above the eastern entry tunnel.
It was a blocky, primitive symbol from the old civilization—a long, straight handle topped with a massive, heavy rectangle.
Ambo had absolutely no idea what it was.
He didn’t know what it was called, and he didn’t know what it was used for.
But he knew exactly what it looked like.
Think it into existence!
Ambo screamed internally.
He closed his eyes, focusing every single ounce of his remaining stamina into a single, agonizing mental point.
The black goo on his right arm violently expanded.
It didn’t just grow—it erupted outward like a geyser of living mud, shooting straight up into the air and blocking out the torchlight.
Leeroy paused, taking a cautious step back as a suffocating, ominous pressure of the void filled the entire colosseum.
When Ambo opened his eyes, a jaw-dropping monstrosity was looming over his shoulder.
He had unconsciously materialized a big-ass rectangular hammer, towering almost 5 meters in total length.
The head of the weapon was a massive, solid block of dense, pitch-black fluid, held together by a thick, rippling handle of hardened goo.
Ambo blinked, completely confused.
He looked up at the towering, 5-meter weapon.
He didn’t feel a single ounce of physical burden in his muscles.
Despite its impossible size, the giant object carried absolutely zero mass in his hands—it felt as light as a feather.
“What the hell is that?!” Leeroy gasped, his arrogant demeanor fracturing instantly as he looked up at the towering shadow of the gargantuan block.
Ambo didn’t waste a single second.
Driven by pure survival instinct, he twisted his torso and swung the massive 5-meter hammer downward with all his might.
BOOM!!!
The impact was cataclysmic.
The solid block of the towering black hammer slammed directly into Leeroy’s body.
The sheer, terrifying shockwave made the entire sunken Pit arena violently shake.
A massive, jagged spiderweb of cracks erupted across the concrete ground, kicking up a blinding cloud of sand and thick debris that completely swallowed both fighters in an unreadable void.
Up on the judges’ balcony, Xan instantly stood up, her fingers ripping into the stone railing.
Beside her, Zaiden’s eyes narrowed behind his bunny face mask, his posture locking completely rigid as the swirling curtain of dust masked the field, hiding the outcome from the light.