Helial was certainly not the only one who had been busy, both during the two weeks before the clash with Medusa, and after.

Orma's two greatest talents certainly could not sit on their hands: Circe and Pseudonym had sprung to the Late stage of the Third Phase within a few weeks.

Firmly clutching Curse of the Demon in his hands, Helial looked ahead. A frighteningly strong figure walked sinuously towards him.

Helial looked around.

Lulu, Lumia and Frankenstein were lying fainted on the ground. They had been knocked out in a split second, as if nothing had happened.

Only a few minutes had passed since the start of the clash and most of his party had already been rendered useless, and Helial was covered in blood from head to toe. His every muscle was aching, but that didn't stop him from using every second of respite to recover Mana.

Gritting his teeth, he looked over his shoulder at those two bastards who had refused to join the match.

Vlad and Snowflake were calm and relaxed, sitting in the tunnel that led to the arena, between the stadium and the passage. Snowflake had one eye half closed and one half open and Vlad, with his elbow resting on the cat's back, observed the unlucky end of his companions.

"I said it, didn't I," Snowflake remarked sleepily, "that this Supreme Cat would never get killed so brutally."

The scarlet-haired boy nodded, although the reason he had decided not to participate was not the same.

Snowflake and Vlad had refused to participate in that match, since they had considered it a hopeless fight. But Helial, at that moment, was alone because all his companions had been defeated in a few minutes and was surrounded by all their enemies, about to be defeated.

"Hey, honey," Circe, closer and closer to Helial, let out a chuckle that seemed far too adorable to him. "Remember, you promised me that if you lost, you would have agreed to use that cute little thing with pulleys and ropes."

The audience of the Colosseum could not help shivering hearing that.

Snowflake had a disgusted expression. "Between this lunatic and the incestuous girl, Helshit is standing in one hell of a mess."

Vlad nodded again, this time really agreeing with the cat.

Everyone knew how powerful Circe and her men were, but they did not expect that Helial's group, after soundly defeating and massacring Medusa and her team, would lose in such a humiliating way.

Furthermore, judging by the Witch's words, there was a rather large stake.

Nobody at that moment envied Helial. Circe may have been an unparalleled beauty, but it was quite well known how unconventional the Witch's methods were.

After taking care of Lumia, Lulu and Frankenstein, Circe's companions began to slowly approach Helial, amazed. They knew that Helial was very strong, they had also seen him fight in the arena against Medusa, but they did not imagine that he could resist so much under Circe's claws.

"You seem to have softened a bit," Francesca laughed at Circe. "You're usually a lot more aggressive."

The daughter of Cesar and Nelia, sister of Germanicus and princess of Orma was in the Witch's team.

"Softened?" Circe laughed, "I'm just playing around with my mouse."

In addition to Francesca and Circe, there were three other members in second place in the Colosseum Ranking for the Third Phase.

Circe was overtaken by a muscular boy, who stopped right in front of Helial, with a mocking smile. It was Zion. "Your team is pretty pathetic."

Propping a huge two-handed sword on his shoulder, Zion looked up at Helial from head to toe. He had a mask on his eyes, with two mini-binoculars. It was a Device that allowed him to increase his accuracy every time he hit.

Zion was known as The Surgeon. He was Circe's right arm.

The strangest thing about this man was the contrast between his nickname and the huge weapon he always carried with him.

Helial, watching him fight, had understood what his abilities were. Despite having a huge weapon unsuitable for precise attacks, the Device he wore and his tremendously sharp vision allowed Zion to launch attacks that were precise to the millimetre and with a terrifying force.

Beside him were Lev and Sidra, a boy and a girl with white hair and long-limbed shapes, who looked boringly at Helial.

They were all in the Intermediate stage of the Third Phase.

By now, there was little to do and the whole Circe's Team had started to slow down.

At that moment, Francesca had an idea to make the clash interesting. He stared intently at Vlad, forcing him to look at her, and then smiled at him with a sly smile and a wink.

Vlad nudged Snowflake, who was licking his paw to smooth his fur, completely disinterested in the fight.

Perhaps nobody could have understood how, with a single glance, Francesca had turned Vlad's soul inside out like a sock. The scarlet-haired young man was probably one of the most difficult people to convince to move his ass in the whole Orma.

In recent weeks, Helial had tried to convince him in every way to train, with good and bad - but above all with bad -, beating him up several times. And just when he thought he had managed to change his mind, it was then that he found Vlad sleeping perched somewhere.

If Vlad hadn't had a outworldy talent, by now he would have been left behind, unable to walk side by side with the others.

Yet such a person had just been completely upset by a simple glance.

“Let's go eat again in that place you liked so much, and this time we will make the Guild of Life and Death foot the bill. The old bastard owes me a bit after we defeated the Sect of the Worthy," whispered Vlad to the cat next to him. "Although the old man's daughter is incredible, this time the humiliation for the Sect of the Worthy will be even greater, because we, the next generation, will defeat them."

Snowflake pretended to think about it for a few seconds, then got up and stretched his bones. He yawned so hard that Vlad almost lost his hearing.

Helial suddenly turned to them, glad that his friends had finally decided to act, after seeing him in such a situation.

He would probably have been less happy to know what had convinced those two to engage in battle ... What would he have done if he had known that the only reason they had moved was because Vlad had been bewitched by Francesca and the cat by lasagna?

As the sandy ground of the arena started to move because of gusts of wind, Frankenstein, Lulu and Lumia regained consciousness and slowly got up.

Snowflake and Vlad advanced one to Helial's right and the other to his left respectively, while the rest disposed in attack formation.

Helial had regained some confidence, he was convinced that now they would have a new opportunity for victory. "Today it won't be so easy to defeat us."

The audience, enthusiastic, had begun to believe that these kids would succeed again and began to scream louder.

…

Vlad and Snowflake were wearing so many bandages that they looked like two mummies.

"Have you seen how fast this cat is?" said the mass of bandages from which white tufts sprouted, moving his eyes, the only part of the body that he was still able to move.

"Mfmpfmpf," replied Vlad from under his bandages, trying to nod, but to no avail. "Mpfmfpf-" annoyed, he managed to free himself from the bandages that covered his lips: "And that arrow that almost pierced the heart of d-mpfpmf?"

Despite the attempts, the bandages had fallen back on his mouth.

Snowflake would have crossed his paws and nodded wisely if he could.

"Incredible, incredible," approved Snowflake.

Frankenstein intercepted them: "So why couldn't we defeat not even one of them?"

Suddenly, in their heads there was the echo of Helial's screams as he was dragged away from the Colosseum by Circe, tied like a salami, as if he were her spoil of war.

"Don't you think it would be good to check what happened to Helial?" asked Lulu, worried.

Fortunately, she and Frankenstein had suffered minor wounds, unlike Lumia, who was still unconscious. Circe had beaten her up nicely.

Frankenstein, Vlad and Snowflake, brave warriors as they were, brutally ignored Lulu and began to comment on how beautiful the clouds had been that day.