The guard offered me another gladius as I stood up. I grabbed it reluctantly and followed him outside of my cell and back to the Arena gate once more. I strode into the field as the gate fell, ignoring the cries of the crowd. I looked to the king; a smug smile was plastered on his face. He waved a talon towards the crowd in a futile effort to quiet them down. They quieted slightly, but the king grew increasingly angry as the dull roar failed to cease. Since he hadn’t tried to quiet the crowd before this, I figured his announcement was important and I raised my hands as if about to speak as well. In a matter of seconds, the noise in the stands halted and they locked their gazes on me. I shuddered a little as the king turned his angry gaze to me. He clearly didn’t like that fact that his subjects listened to me more than him.

“Greetings again, hero!” He boomed out, his voice filling the now silent stadium.

“Well met, king. Tell me, are your fights so pitifully short that you must request me again already?” The king scowled as a few chuckles broke out in the stands.

“No, you are summoned once more to suffer! Those who insult the king get no rest, no solace, no safety!”

“Hmm? Insult you? I made a recommendation that the strength of my opponents be increased. Obviously it’s not very entertaining when I crush my opponents with little to no effort.”

“By saying that my challenges are not adequate, you have insulted my honor. Therefore, I have no choice but to take away what little rest you get between rounds, and give you a much more fearsome opponent.”

“How fearsome we talkin’ here? I like killing shit, but you know... don’t wanna die...”

“Heh heh, you shall see, Sharky. Bring out Sharic!” I stumbled as a thunderous quaking started in the Arena. There was a fizzling noise and a flash of light as the magic gravity barrier suddenly became visible over my head and rose to the bottom of the stands, barely below the spectators. It vanished again and a whole side wall of the Arena burst open with a crash and a monstrous roar.

“What the hell?!” I had no idea that the Arena was capable of such self-alteration. What scared me more though, was that it needed to do this to accommodate my opponent. I crouched down readily, preparing myself for whatever horrible abomination was going to appear from the dust cloud that had formed at the broken wall.

“I love you~”

My jaw dropped as the thunderous growl erupted from the dust, blowing enough of it away to reveal a giant, purple maw.

“To death!” The rest of the dust was blown away by a swipe of a gargantuan purple tail with green spikes lining it. I was confronted by a dinosaur-like beast of titanic proportions, its head brushed the magic barrier. It had jagged, sharp spikes that formed from the scales on its face, elbows, hind leg joints, and along its neck. The pale scales along the beast’s belly were formed in the same pattern as human abdominal muscles, giving it a muscular and relatively intimidating appearance. Each of the monster’s fangs were like gleaming white swords, and his expression dripped with malice... and his mouth dripped saliva.

“... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!” I rolled on my back laughing, the creature reminding me of a harmless dino from my childhood. The king balked in confusion.

“Y-you laugh in the face of such a creature?!” The king exclaimed in surprise. “You are a fool to think this shall be an easy fight!” I tossed him a wicked grin as I leapt back to my feet.

“On the contrary your highness, I’ve just been waiting a looooong time to get a crack at this guy! I think it’s about time I showed you exactly what I can do!” I twisted my neck to the side to unleash a series of cracks as the monster started lumbering towards me. Without bothering to even throw up a defense, I started cracking my arms with a few languid stretches. The ground shook with thunderous power as the beast stepped towards me. The beast leaned down to scoop me up in his jaws...

And I let him.

I planted my feet in the spaces between his massive fangs on the bottom of his mouth and grabbed a fang on the top of his mouth as well. I held his mouth open forcefully as he attempted to bite down, causing him to howl as my braced legs forced his teeth to spread apart slightly. I leaned forward and stabbed the gladius into the roof of his mouth with my free hand.The monster wailed, opening its massive maw and flinging me out in a huge pool of blood and drool.

“... This is so gross.” I hacked in disgust. I wiped as much of the dark red blood off of my body as I could before the enraged dinosaur relocated me. Red rivers flowed from Sharic’s mouth, and he charged at me angrily. Each thunderous step brought him closer to me with the speed of a train. I had a sudden idea. I raised my gladius quickly and flinched as the stab wound on my back gave me some grief.

“I will kill your whole family!” Sharic boomed. I switched hands quickly and raised my gladius.

“Thundraga!” I shouted. Lightning struck my blade, causing it to crackle with energy. The energy stopped at the hilt of the weapon, but was still awesome as fuck. I braced myself as Sharic came bounding the last few step towards me. I leapt as high as I could off the ground and plunged the gladius into his chest. The lightning seemed to reach out and split the scales apart for the weapon to plunge into Sharic’s soft flesh. The lightning coursed into his body with a crackle and I heard some popping and sizzling inside of him. With a titanic roar, he started to fall forward. I panicked as I realized his dying body was about to crush me.

“What?! Impossible!” The king raged as I started frantically slicing into the monster’s chest. Blood flowed out furiously as I plunged my hands into the gash and pried it even further open. Sharic screeched painfully as I ripped my way into his chest. I closed my eyes and leapt into the gash right as the titanic dinosaur slammed into the ground. I was enveloped in blood and unable to breath. I could only struggle upwards through the warm insides of the beast, bumping into I don’t know what and trying not to vomit. I hit a wall and started slashing once more.

*GASP* I broke through the skin of the beast and heaved in as much air as I could. Blood and assorted bits of flesh and scales clung to my body, my bandage and battle skirt were ruined. I ripped the bandage from my body in hopes of getting rid of Sharic’s blood before it had much of a chance to seep into my wounds.

“That was metal as fuck! That was disgusting beyond belief!” I shouted as soon as I could breath easily. The crowd erupted into massive cheers, easily dwarfing any previous cheers. The king, knowing it would be impossible to settle them down now, simply waved me towards my gate. I could have been wrong, but it almost seemed like he was trying to kill me with his eyes... a little. I climbed entirely out of Sharic with a shiver of disgust and started walking to the gate.

“T-that was amazing hero!” A gryffin guard shouted from the gate entrance. I frowned and wiped a bit of blood off my arms.

“I sure feel amazing. He didn’t have to die like that... That was horrible.”

“He deserved to die horribly! He tried to kill you!” The guard retorted. I stopped next to the guard and glared at him a little.

“He should have died and been left alone. Mutilating his body is too much. I don’t regret killing him, I regret the fact that I had to tear up his body.” I paused for a moment.

“... Why?” The gryffin asked simply.

“It just isn’t right. It’s disrespectful to an opponent. I just don’t like it.” The gyffin gave me an unsure stare.

“You’re a strange one hero... Most Arena fighters kill about half of their opponents, but you spared most and you seem to dislike killing this one... What makes you so merciful?”

“Mercy? Pfft, I kill the bad guys. I just don’t want to kill these fighters and beasts that are forced to fight. Now, could you please just show me to my cell? I would like some new bandages and something to clean myself with too if you don’t mind.” The gryffin leaped in mild surprise as if just realizing we were still at the gate of the Arena.

“Oh! Of course! Come with me.” We ventured once more into the twists and turns of the inside of the Arena. It occurred to me that if I wanted to, I could easily learn the path to the gate for myself, but I didn’t bother. The gryffin took me to a small room that was stocked full of bandages, medicines, rags, armor, weapons, foods, and firewood labeled ‘Body Disposal Units’. “Ah, they restocked recently...” He muttered. He grabbed a roll of bandages, a rag, and a leather battle skirt.

“Also, when’s lunch?” I asked with interest. I was pretty hungry after beating the crap out of my enemies. The gryffin handed me the skirt and started scrubbing the blood off of me with the rag.

“It should arrive at your cell shortly after I take you back to it. Assuming the king doesn’t decide to make you fight instead...”

“You think he’d do that?”

“You basically crushed some of his best warriors without breaking a sweat, then challenged the competence of his challenges, then crushed his higher level challenge in about half a minute. He’s a little pissed.”

“Huh. Well... You think I should fake the next battle and make it look harder? Will that make him happy?”

“Knowing him, you might have to struggle to survive the next battle. He doesn’t take insults very lightly.”

“I wasn’t trying to insult him!”

“I know, from what I can tell you’re really nice! He just gets mad when he’s not winning. Especially when he’s losing as bad as he is.”

“This is some sort of competition to him?”

“The Arena is a competition to him. He takes pride in being the only one to ever defeat it, and at the rate you’re going, that record won’t last long.”

“Well, then he’ll just have to go fuck himself deal because I’m not going to lose.” I stated firmly. Then it occurred to me that I was doing all of this to get permission to protect Gilda. I was doing it for a friend, but the king had made it personal. “... Wow. You know what? If he wants a competition, he’s got one. From now on, I’m not gonna hold back on these opponents. Not anymore. Oh damn, shit’s bout to get real! Hey, watch the talons there Mr. Queer!” I backed away slightly when the guard’s talon started moving up my inner thigh. The gryffin gave me a strange stare.

“... I’m a Ms. thank you very much!” She shouted. I could feel my eyes widen in both surprise and confusion. I didn’t recall saying anything about... her... gender, but I was still surprised to learn the guard was a girl.

“Uhh... That’s nice? Well... miss, if you could try not to touch me in that general area please, I’d appreciate it.”

“Why? I’m just doing my job.” She said with a coy smile. I frowned in confusion. I didn’t understand why she would smile like that if she were just doing her job.

“Well, that’s nice and all, but... I can just clean myself.” The gryffin snorted and tossed me the rag. I could see a small flicker of disappointment cross her face.

“Whatever, I like the Monster better anyway.” She mumbled. She left the room quickly and I followed after her. Sure enough, she led me back to my cell. I sat down in it and she left without a word. I quickly wiped as much of the blood and saliva off of my body as I could and changed my leather skirt. I wrapped the fresh bandage around my chest and sighed.

“Well, at least I know this is over half-way through.” I muttered. I had been through six fights, only four more to go. In mere minutes, I was brought more bread, fish, and water by a silent guard. I nodded a thanks to him... or her and he/she left. I ate the food ravenously, eager to finish it before I was summoned again. In under a minute, I finished the food.

Then I sat and waited for hours.

“Alright, what gives?!” I shouted impatiently. The king was mad, wasn’t he supposed to call me back with little to no wait? I sighed and reclined back against my cell wall. Another guard showed up with another tray of food. “Hey! It’s dinner already? Why haven’t I been called back to fight?” The guard jumped as I shouted suddenly, spilling the water all over the bread.

“E-each fighter only has five fights a day sir!” The gyffin dropped the tray entirely and stood at attention with a salute. I struggled to not laugh.

“At ease soldier. So then I guess now it’s almost time for...”

“Sir yes sir!”

“Crap... Well, I’m sure I can just talk whoever it is out of sex.”

“It’s 16 whoevers sir!”

“... I’m sorry, what?”

“You had so many bidders that the king decided to split your night into 16 parts! Each for one of the highest bidders!”

“... Shit. FUCK YES”