“You shouldn’t have done that,” Akulis said as he helped strapping the leather armor back onto Linea’s body.

“Huh?” Linea asked as the old man dragged her thoughts back to reality.

“You shouldn’t have angered the emperor like that,” Akulis said and pulled at one of the leather straps. “A Gladiator doesn’t live long if the emperor dislikes him or her.”

Linea only gave him a dry laugh. As if that man would ever look favorably at her.

The slaughter Sarah had performed earlier was still in her mind and, even if she didn’t have high regards for humans, it weighed heavily on her mind. And on Sarah’s mind.

The former human was not squeamish about killing, that much Linea had learned. Yet she felt sorrow and cold rage emanating from her soul sister. She had tried to talk to her about it but Sarah had waved her off. There was nothing to talk about in her opinion. She did what she had to do.

Now they prepared for the next fight. Akulis refrained from any more discussions for now and led her towards her gate. Sarah took over without a word and Linea let her. Even though she was used to it by now the feeling of not being in charge of your own body was disconcerting.

They met Joven and Ashul again who admired a gigantic broadsword with blue-glowing runes etched onto the blade.

“Meh never saw such a weapon,” Ashul said as Sarah took the blade from them. Linea felt Sarah’s powers taking hold of the sword making it lighter for her. A necessity because the blade was over two meters long, at least as wide as her hand and in consequence rather heavy. For a normal fighter in a normal fight more than unwieldy.

Sarah pointed the sword towards the gate and held it with one hand in the air.

“Enchantments?” she asked.

“Extra sharp and increased hardness,” Joven explained and pointed at the runes. “You could cut steel with that but wyvern scales are magical as well. Don’t expect this thing to cut through those. Aim for the weak spots on the underside of the neck and the belly. The chest could work as well but it is slightly better protected.”

“The wyverns are probably slightly starved to be more aggressive towards you,” Akulis added. “But don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. One mistake and they will eat you whole.”

Sarah nodded and let the sword tip down onto the ground.

“What about fire breath or something like that?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Akulis replied. “Wyverns may be cousins to the dragons but they are not even close in strength and abilities. Those beasts are clever predators but that’s about it.”

Sarah nodded again.

The others left her alone with her thoughts when they realized that she wasn’t as responsive as usual. Linea played with the idea of distracting her for a few minutes but she feared Sarah would be better off focusing on the next fight.

A few minutes later the voice of the arena announcer echoed into her corridor calling for the Slave Princess again. Sarah clenched her fist around the hilt of her sword. The gate opened, and she strode into the arena and this time she didn’t even bother making her way to the balcony. The sword carved a line into the sand as she dragged it behind her. She placed herself in the middle of the arena facing the biggest gate where according to Akulis the wyverns would emerge from.

“And now as a treat from Kind Turandir we proudly present this matches opponents for the Slave Princess!” The announcer said with his reverberating voice. The spectators were on the edges of their seats as they tried to get a glimpse at the big gate as it slowly opened.

They heard a deep growl and the earth slightly trembled as the first wyvern stuck its head into the open. Linea would have been terrified on her own but the experience between Sarah and the Void dragon a few months ago put this beast in perspective.

The wyvern was a beauty and stood four meters at the shoulder. Its red scales had a brownish tint in the afternoon sun. The most distinguishable difference between a wyvern and a dragon became obvious when Linea saw it before her. Instead of four legs and two wings wyverns only had two hind legs while the forelegs were a mix of legs and wings.

It was sad to see but whoever had brought the wyvern into the city had mutilated its wings to such a degree it wouldn’t be able to fly. It made sense in a way but in Linea’s mind it was cruel.

The surrounding crowd screamed when the wyvern turned around and tried to climb the walls in order to attack the humans in its vicinity. The panic was replaced by cheering when the spectators realized that the beast only clawed at the magic barriers around the arena. Linea sensed the drain of magic which was surprisingly substantial. However, the most chilling was the Void energy which coalesced somewhere under the arena just to flow… somewhere.

‘Did you feel that?’ Linea asked as she tried to follow the energy stream but she lost it after a few hundred meters.

‘No. What are you talking about?’ Sarah replied and blinked.

‘The magic shields around this arena…. There was Void energy, and it followed a stream somewhere.’

‘Okay?’

‘I… Just focus on the fight. We can talk about that later…’

Linea cursed herself. She let herself being distracted again and worse she distracted Sarah before an important fight. But whether Sarah was mad about that or not, she didn’t say it.

After the first wyvern had given up on the barrier it moved towards them. It sniffed at the air and growled again. Another three wyverns emerged each accompanied by loud cheering. One wyvern scratched at the barrier but lost interest even quicker than the first one.

Linea had expected Sarah to attack right away but for some reason she pulled back as far as possible. She raised her hand, gripped the tail of the front-most wyvern with her telekinesis and slapped it against the head of the wyvern behind it. The effect was immediate as the second wyvern bit the tail by reflex. The first wyvern turned around in a rage and snapped at the head of the other. They growled at each other and Linea smirked to herself as she saw Sarah’s plan unfold before her.

Wyverns were big beasts with strong muscles, yet they were just beast prone to feral instincts.

Instincts one could exploit.

Sarah stuck to the wall as far away as possible not to draw attention to herself. They watched as the two wyverns tore into each other. Both were clearly driven by their feral nature and it didn’t take long for the bigger one to overwhelm his opponent. The wyvern which had left the gate first seemed to be the dominant one in that little group and it made it clear as it pushed down the smaller wyvern. Pressed onto its back a loud crack signaled breaking bones. A painful roar followed instantly.

The smaller wyvern struggled to get its claws to the neck of his enemy but the bigger one was merciless. It inflicted gashes into the side of the pack leader but its efforts were ultimately in vain.

Fed up with this fight the bigger wyvern sank its teeth into the exposed neck of his opponent. Blood splattered over the jaw of the pack leader and with a yanking motion he ripped his opponents throat out. He let it fall down and roared in triumph.

The smell of blood was heavy in the arena and the remaining two wyverns sniffed at the dead body with obvious interest. Linea wasn’t sure if wyverns were cannibals by nature but those three showed no restraint as they went for it. Perhaps they were just too hungry.

When the wyverns were occupied with their feast, Sarah moved again. She didn’t dare to run at them but instead she floated ever so slightly above the ground making no noise.

The outer most wyvern on the right was slimmer than the other two and Linea suspected it to be female. Not that she had much experience in wyvern anatomy but it seemed like a possibility.

When they reached the wyvern, Sarah ducked under the swinging tail of her target and rammed the sword into the belly of the beast above her. With a swift motion forward she cut open the female wyvern, and she heard the splattering of entrails falling out. The beast roared and stumbled in an attempt to find the source of its pain but Sarah had used the confusion to slid to the side placing the dying wyvern between the two remaining ones.

But this had been the easy part of the fight. The wyverns were not sentient, but they were no imbeciles. Even they realized something was amiss now. The pack leader growled deeply and stretched its neck to get a better view of his surroundings.

Sarah tried to hide behind the dying wyvern but she hadn’t calculated for the resilience of her last target. Even though it was profusely bleeding and its intestines were scattered beneath it, the wyvern was adamant on punishing whoever dared to attack it. Sarah stood still and seemed to hesitate for a moment.

The wyvern however sensing his impending doom attacked right away. It slammed its claw down on Sarah’s position who only evaded by a hair’s breadth. She put a bit more distance between them and the wyvern collapsed as it tried to attack her again. The blood loss proofed to be too much at that point.

Half of the pack down, the pack leader finally caught up to what was happening. He and the other still living wyvern circled around their fallen surrounding Sarah. Both wyvern approached her slowly but Sarah wouldn’t give them any chance. Looking at the pack leader’s bleeding gashes, Sarah decided to tackle the uninjured first.

She charged by flying up into the wyverns face who took a snap at her barely missing her. Sarah put a telekinetic barrier between herself and the wyverns head and was pushed aside as the teeth came too close.

‘Those bitches do pack a punch,’ Sarah grunted as she stabilized herself in the air behind the wyvern. She assessed the situation but before she could react the tail of that wyvern whipped at her. Her telekinetic shield was her saving grace as she slammed into the ground losing the grip on her sword.

Sarah didn’t wait this time to watch where her enemies were. She pushed herself five meters sideways, and a trembling followed by a thumping sound made it a wise decision. The wyvern lifted its claw from the ground to look if its prey was dead, but it was disappointed. It searched around and gave Sarah a growl.

The pack leader had caught up to them by now and jump at her. Sarah lost sight of the other wyvern when she blocked the attack with her telekinesis as she was thrown against the arena wall. Linea could feel the pain of the impact and by pure instinct the control over her body reverted back to her. The telekinetic barrier fell in the same instant but the wyverns were too far away to threaten her in the second she was without protection.

‘I don’t want to know how that dragon would have hurt if it had actually been able to hit us…’ Sarah groaned.

She took over again as they watched the two wyverns closing in on them.

‘But the dragon never got the opportunity to do so because we didn’t dare to attack it in close combat,’ Linea said. ‘Just stay focused and draw the fight out. The wounds of the bigger one don’t seem to stop bleeding any time soon. Maybe he’ll fall unconscious.’

‘Yeah, I had the same idea but that bastard just won’t give up,’ Sarah replied and searched for the sword. It half buried in the sand between the wyverns. With a simple motion of her hand it floated upwards and shoot towards her. Just as the pack leader tried to gulp her, the sword landed in her hand and she swung it at the wyverns snout. The force of the strike reverberated throughout her whole body but apart from staggering the beast nothing happened. The scales were too thick.

Sarah pulled back from the bigger wyvern and shifted her attention towards the other one instead. The problem was that he expected her and faced her. Due to a wyvern’s anatomy their shoulders were slightly lower placed than their rear which hid all their weak point to an enemy in front of them only showing the scales on its back.

Sarah let her sword fly from her hand and let it float behind her. Slowly approaching the beast she layered multiple barriers in front of her. As expected the wyvern used the opportunity and opened its maw trying to eat her, but it slammed into the barriers and stopped before it could reach its target.

Sarah used the opening and let her sword fly beneath the wyvern while she landed on its snout. She punched right into its left eye and stabbed the sword into its chest. The wyvern yelped in pain and clawed at its own face to get rid of Sarah who complied and put distance between them.

Somehow the sword must have hit a nerve or a vital organ as the wyvern suddenly slumped down and moved no more. Sarah tried to get the sword out with her telekinesis but the weight of the wyvern proved to be too much.

‘Well, that’s not good…’ Sarah commentated and glimpsed at the pack leader. ‘ I can’t get the sword back. The wyvern is too heavy!’

‘Do you need to overcharge again?’ Linea asked fearfully.

‘Only if I can’t come up with an alternative,’ Sarah replied and withdraw from the pack leader. She examined the gashes on its side but they had stopped bleeding. It didn’t give Linea the impression of being overly keen on fighting at this point but they couldn’t stop. They had their orders and the wyvern wouldn’t just let it slide that Sarah had just killed two of its friends. Or three if one wanted to be nit-picky.

‘I guess there is no other way than brute-forcing it,’ Sarah murmured and charged at the wyvern. The beast took a step back cautioned by Sarah’s prior successes.

Sarah charged her right fist with her powers and simply punched the wyvern in the face. The effect was not immense, but the wyvern had to take another step back to keep its balance. Before it could react any further however, Sarah was already in its face again with another punch. A slight cracking sound signaled a bone breaking.

The pack leader hissed and snapped at Sarah forcing her to evade. It then turned around and whipped its tail around. This time Sarah was prepared and with some telekinetic pressure she was able to deflect the attack.

She closed the distance again and punched the wyvern again.

And again.

Again.

Again.

She packed every of her punches with every bit of power she could put into it and the wyvern was whimpering at this point. With one of her hits she had broken the left eye socket of the beast making it half blind.

The wyvern had retreated towards the arena wall but was trapped now. It tried to escaped through the spectator ranks but the magical barrier still prevented it.

‘I feel kind of bad for him…’ Linea said.

‘Me too, actually,’ Sarah admitted taking a short break. She panted because of the exhaustion caused by her attacks. Her powers proved to be stronger than ever but they were still taxing on Linea’s body.

‘I wished this whole charade wouldn’t be necessary. Nothing would give me more joy than to free those wyverns and let them loose on this god forsaken city,’ Sarah added.

‘I wouldn’t go that far…’ Linea said with hesitation. ‘Most people in this city are normal people. They have no hand in this.’

Sarah grunted but didn’t reply. Instead she charged the wyvern again which turned towards her but couldn’t see her in time to evade her next attack.

Another punch connected with the jaw of the beast sending its head flying against the wall. The wyvern reacted stunned by that and Linea wasn’t sure if it was still conscious at this point.

Sarah punched and punched again. The sound of breaking bones echoed through the arena satisfying the blood lust of the cheering crowd.

When Sarah was done, the face of the wyvern looked like mush and Linea was now sure it was dead. Brain matter was mixed with bone splinters and blood which spread out underneath them.

A shameful ending for such an apex predator.

Again Sarah didn’t even acknowledge the emperor or his guests and simply strutted out of the arena.