The red-silken noble lay sprawling in the bloody sand.
Moments ago, he had been sitting up high, placing bets.
Golden goblets, plush chairs, platinum railings, void shields, personal bodyguards.
Everything that had separated him from the slaves was gone.
Bloody sand clung to his face.
Gold coins rolled out from his robes, sinking one by one into the crimson sand.
He lifted his head.
The first thing he saw was Angron’s foot.
It was wider than his own chest.
Broken chains dragged beside it, their links caked in blood.
The noble’s lips trembled.
“I…
I am the heir of House Marius…” He tried to push himself up, but his legs were useless, soft as water.
“You can’t kill me!” He looked up, his voice turning shrill.
“I carry the bloodline of High Riders!” Angron looked down at him.
A few breaths ago, this man had been betting on how many slaves Angron could kill.
Now he lay in the bloody sand, unable to even crawl steadily.
Angron suddenly found it utterly pointless.
When these people sat up high, they seemed like gods.
Once they fell, they were uglier than the pit-slaves in their cages.
He stooped and picked up a bloody gold coin.
The front bore the crest of a High Rider house; the reverse showed a beast strangled by a chain.
Angron glanced at it and casually pressed the coin into the noble’s palm.
“Keep betting.” The red-silken noble froze.
Angron pointed at himself, then toward the stands.
“Bet on how many I can kill.” The last trace of color drained from the noble’s face.
The surrounding war-slaves went silent for a beat.
The next instant, laughter erupted.
It was not the forced laughter of slaves trying to please nobles in the Bloody Sand Arena of the past.
It was a roar rolling up from deep within their throats.
Low.
Coarse.
Reeking of blood and rust.
Karrus, coughing up blood, still raised his shock-spear and roared, “Bet, damn you!
Weren’t you great at betting just now?!” The noble lay on the ground, the coin shaking uncontrollably in his hand.
He looked up at the stands.
Not a single noble behind the shields dared to meet his eyes.
Those who had sat beside him were scrambling backward.
Someone even shrieked for their guards to open the exits, annoyed that he was blocking their view.
The red-silken noble finally understood.
He was no longer part of the Platinum Stands.
He was a thing on the floor.
He had become part of the show.
Angron didn’t look at him again.
He lifted his head.
The nobles in the stands were looking at him, too.
For the first time, those eyes held no excitement, no cold scrutiny.
Only fear.
Good.
This was just the beginning.
At the four corners of the Bloody Sand Arena, the Platinum Guard had already charged halfway across the floor.
They were no longer slowly forming ranks.
The fall of the red-silken noble was like a blade plunged into the entire stands.
Nobles could fall.
Nobles could bleed.
This terrified them far more than a slave revolt.
A roar of fury echoed from high above—the High Rider.
“Kill him!” “Kill him immediately!” “Shield crew, restore the VIP shield!” “Guards, clear the inner arena!” The Platinum Guard accelerated.
The short-barrel cannons on the combat servitors’ chests glowed with crimson light.
Angron dragged over the shield pylon he had ripped up earlier.
It was as thick as a man’s embrace, its severed end spitting electric sparks.
In his hands, it was like a massive iron club.
The first combat servitor opened fire.
Muzzle flash burst from its short cannon.
Angron held the shield pylon across his chest and charged straight into the hail of lead.
Explosive rounds struck the column, detonating in sheets of blue-white electrical fire.
Shrapnel grazed past the column, biting into his shoulder and flank.
His muscles clamped down on the fragments.
New flesh pushed them back out.
His stride never faltered.
A dark-green behemoth over four and a half meters tall, charging with a shield pylon in hand.
It wasn’t running—it was like a fortress wall collapsing downward to crush anything in its path.
The front row of the Platinum Guard raised their power lances.
The tips ignited simultaneously.
They were well-trained.
They had slain countless slaves and wild beasts.
But they had never faced a monster like this.
Angron slammed into the line.
The first row of power lances impaled his shoulders, chest, and arms.
Blood burst forth.
He didn’t step back.
He swung the shield pylon horizontally.
*Boom!* Three Platinum Guards were swept aside as if struck by a battering ram.
Their breastplates caved in instantly, their bodies flying sideways and slamming into the inner arena wall.
Before the fourth could hit the ground, Angron caught him by the leg, swung him in an arc, and smashed him into a combat servitor.
The servitor’s four mechanical legs dug into the bloody sand as its chest turret tried to pivot.
The Platinum Guard’s armored body hit it first.
Armor collided with armor; the crunch of breaking bones was drowned out by the screech of twisting metal.
Angron stepped forward, his five fingers digging into the house crest on the servitor’s chest.
“Things made by High Riders…” He ripped outward.
“…are all this fragile?” The servitor’s chest armor tore open.
A crimson power source flickered wildly inside.
Angron reversed his grip and rammed the half-broken shield column straight in.
*Boom!* The combat servitor detonated from within.
As the flames erupted, the nobles in the stands shrieked again.
This time, not because a slave’s death was entertaining, but because it was too close.
The explosion caused the VIP shields to flicker violently.
Several nobles in the front row tumbled over in panic.
A noblewoman clutching a jewelry box scrambled backward, screaming, “My necklace!
My necklace!” An old noble beside her kicked her aside.
“Get out of the way!” Angron saw it.
The war-slaves saw it, too.
When noble folk were crammed together in terror, they were no more dignified than the beasts in the holding pens.
Karrus raised his shock-spear.
“You see that?!” he roared, his throat raw.
“They bleed!
They crawl backward, too!” A wild roar erupted from the slave line.
A young gladiator, who had been trembling moments before, suddenly threw himself forward behind a heavy iron plate.
He couldn’t knock back the Platinum Guard, but he made them hesitate for a fraction of a second.
Two chain-axe wielder slaves immediately lunged in, hacking wildly at the guard’s knee joints.
Short-rifle shooters fired through the gaps in the iron plate.
Where bullets couldn’t pierce breastplates, they targeted viewports, neck seams, and cracks smashed open by Angron.
A Platinum Guard dropped to his knees.
Before he could rise, seven or eight slaves pressed down on him at once.
Chain-axes bit into his throat.
Blood erupted.
More pit-slaves joined from the edges of the arena.
The dual-blade slave was among them.
Fast despite a slight limp, he darted low like a ground-hunting wolf, weaving past the iron-plate line and driving his blades under a guard’s armpits.
The guard screamed.
The dual-blade slave twisted, pulled, and rolled away.
Karrus saw it and laughed boisterously.
“Good blades!” Panting, the dual-blade slave looked up at the stands.
“I was supposed to die today.
Not anymore.” Karrus tossed him a short-rifle.
“Then let *them* die.” The war-slave line kept pushing forward.
Angron was at the tip of the spear.
Whenever the guards tried to form ranks, he smashed them open.
Whenever servitors fired, he grabbed corpses, iron plates, or shield pillars to block the shots.
He didn’t need to look back often.
The slaves behind him were learning how to follow—following his footprints, the breaches he forged, and the direction of the nobles’ screams.
It felt good.
Much better than tearing apart Iron Guards alone.
One strong individual was just a monster; a crowd following forward was a rebellion.
Above the Bloody Sand Arena, the VIP shield was being reinforced.
Tech-slaves were dragged to the console by the High Rider’s personal guards, their faces slick with cold sweat as their fingers flew across the controls.
The High Rider stood behind the Platinum Stands, his face livid.
“Retrieve that fallen piece of trash!” He glared down at the red-silken noble with annoyance rather than pity.
“Don’t let them keep using him as a spectacle!” Two Platinum Guards sprinted toward the red-silken noble.
The noble shrieked like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline, “Save me!
I’m here!
Save me!” Angron glanced over.
The guards were fast, but they weren’t trying to save a man; they were trying to snatch back a disgraced noble to stop the slaves from watching, to keep the image of a noble sprawling in the dirt from lingering.
The High Rider wasn’t afraid of one death—he was afraid of the image.
Angron understood.
He grinned.
*Then let them watch their fill.* He stepped out, blocking the path of the two guards.
The guards skidded to a halt.
One shouted harshly, “Step aside, rogue asset!” Angron looked down at him.
“Say that again.” The guard’s voice choked in his throat.
Angron grabbed the red-silken noble by the collar of his robes.
The noble shrieked, limbs flailing wildly.
Angron didn’t crush him.
He raised him high, hoisting him up where the entire arena could see.
“Look closely.” His voice was not loud, but it cut through the thunder of artillery.
“This, too, is flesh.” The red-silken noble wept—truly wept.
Snot, tears, and blood smeared across his delicate face.
The high noble stands fell into utter chaos.
Some shrieked not to kill him, some yelled for guards to open fire, some cursed him for bringing shame upon them, while others cowered behind their seats, afraid to look down at the Bloody Sand Arena for the first time in their lives.
The High Rider roared, “Open fire!” The two guards hesitated for half a breath.
Half a breath was enough.
Angron hurled the red-silken noble straight at them.
Not to kill him on impact, but like throwing a wet sack of meat, slamming him into the arms of the two guards.
Caught off guard, the guards caught him—and their formation shattered.
Angron slammed in.
The shield pylon swept across.
Guards, noble, platinum armor, and red silk tumbled together into the bloody sand.
This time, the war-slaves didn’t laugh.
They roared—a sound bubbling up from the bowels of the earth.
The red-silken noble scrambled up, still trying to flee.
The dual-blade slave kicked him back down.
A few newly joined gladiators surrounded him.
They didn’t kill him right away; they just watched—watching this man who had once sat on high placing bets now trembling beneath their feet.
Angron ignored them.
He turned