White light surrounded them and he felt a momentary burst of vertigo that he now associated with teleporting. When he opened his eyes again, he was in the middle of a colosseum like that in Trianon. The stands were empty except for giant black cubes pointing at them. With Jason’s help, Res caught his balance.

“Bro, it has been so long since I have seen some nice tech. Seems like the klengan have finally created their own version of a camera.”

Res couldn’t concentrate on the weird people in the stands. Instead, his attention was encapsulated by various enormous beasts in cages. Some Res recognized, like the mountain lion, the bull, and a jaguar. Others, Res had never seen nor heard of. Eagles the size of an apartment building, a spider bigger than a bear, and a colossal goat with the head of a tiger, to name a few. All the bars holding the animals in place clattered to the ground. Akeem had already turned to face the monsters, and Res knew that they could beat beasts with aether. The only question was whether Xenia would survive. Res scooped the screeching Xenia up in his arms and pushed himself off the ground. Only the fraction of a second later, an enraged gorilla missed them by a hair’s breadth. In the air, Res could see that the animals were only occasionally attacking each other. Instead, they focused their attacks on the two humans.

Akeem was wreaking havoc among the beasts with his inflating muscles. He even conjured up extra muscle fibers that strangled animals to death. Serafina was like a gleaming whirlwind of cold iron, and the beasts fell like weed. Her blade danced through practiced motions with ease. Her collected demeanor was replaced with that of an infuriated battle goddess. The only warning Res got was a cry from Xenia before something clawed at his hardened shoulders. That wasn’t the problem, though. Xenia was bleeding from a deep cut in her right arm. With a push of aether, he created some distance between him and the attacker. The shrill cry confirmed Res’s fears that the enormous eagle was behind him. Frantically, he searched for a way out, but all the ideas he came up with were batshit crazy.

“Bro, I don’t want to pressure you or anything, but that giant eagle is coming for your ass.”

He held Xenia in his arms and whispered in her ear. “Brace yourself”

For a moment, he let go of his hardened body, curled up around Xenia, and pushed himself backwards. His body impacted the eagle’s torso with a satisfying crunch. He could feel how he crushed various layers of bones and intestines and emerged from the other end. Xenia was screaming for most of the time and only when her mouth was full of blood, she stopped. After crushing the eagle, Jason had to stop his momentum so they wouldn’t crash into a translucent barrier.

Res softened his body and gave Xenia a reassuring smile. “We killed a giant eagle.”

Xenia broke out into maniacal fits of laughter and she clung to him even tighter. Pieces of eagle heart and liver covered her face and every part of her was drenched blood. Down at the arena floor, Akeem finished up the last animal, a goat with the face of a tiger. Serafina stood basking in the sun with her blood-red sword in her right hand. Res descended and let down the dizzy Xenia. Serafina found her bearings and supported Xenia. The voice of the announcer resounded through the room for only a second: “Room number 23 has passed while Room num …”

Akeem and Serafina were talking to Xenia, so Res thought it would be a good time to cultivate. With Xenia being wounded, he needed to be much stronger to keep her alive. In his time at Xenia’s manner, he had regrown a small stump of his arm and leg. He tapped into that power as he pushed down against the ground. The small stump of his arm managed to push his influence twenty meters into the ground. Res heard several people talking around him but ignored it for now. When he had a firm hold, he pulled at the ground until he finally got the ball rolling. This time, he expected the wave of aether and completely recreated his arm and leg. With a sigh, he opened his eyes and stared at a man with blueish skin and long flappy ears. The rest of him was like that of a human and he held a tablet with a sheet of paper on it. The being seemed irritated and cleared its throat. In a very annoyed tone, it asked: “Name?”

Out of reflex, he answered. “Res.”

His three teammates wore undiscernible expressions on their faces. Jason surfaced from his ghost world and shouted in glee: “A fucking klengan …”

Then, his tone turned disappointed. “Not a female though. Bro, I promise you, klengan women are hot af. I swear, if you see one of their females, even you will take a trip to their brothels. You know, big breasts and asses are actually ugly here.”

Not being able to hold his tongue, he blurted out to the man with the tablet. “Do you think that big tits are ugly?”

The blueish man, apparently named klengan, wrinkled his nose in disgust and said in his grading nasal voice. “I am sure that you are the exact man to favor such traits. Flabby sacks of meat. Thanks to you, I will now need to climb up a primitive ladder.”

The blue klengan gestured up and Res realized that his cultivation had carved out a twenty-meter-deep hole as wide as the colosseum floor. Res scratched his head and laughed nervously. “Oopss, didn’t mean to.”

The klengan clerk harrumphed and went to the edge of the pit where a rope ladder dangled. When the clerk was out of the way, Xenia ran over to him with Serafina tow and opened herself up through their bond. Res felt the emotion of fear she had felt when she was attacked, but also the assurance that he was there. The part of him wanted to hold his feelings secret cracked and Res opened up too. With a sigh, he gave her a glimpse into his genuine emotions and Xenia tripped immediately. Akeem hurried over to her and helped her up, but Xenia was only staring at Res. She looked at him as if he had turned into an elephant and Res crossed his arms: “What?”

She dusted her dress off, all the while staring at him. Both of the girls look made Res squeezy. “Why didn’t you feel anything? How …”

To spite her, he opened himself up once again and showed her the anxiousness he was feeling right now. Then Xenia laughed. “You are scared right now because I stare at you?”

He closed the connection to her and promised he would never do it again. He stood up, dusted himself off, and cleared his throat. “Great teamwork back there. We should go now.”

His change of topic didn’t work out as intended, and the silence only deepened further. Xenia walked up to him and looked him in the eyes. ”Thank you for saving me.” Before Res could protest, Xenia was hugging him and she cried for some reason.

“Bro, crying is something women do. Men do it too, but we do it alone in the pub’s bathroom while drinking the twentieth beer.”

Two powerful hands grabbed Xenia and pulled them away. When Res looked up, he was staring in the dead cold eyes of Akeem who was holding the struggling Xenia. With the same dead cold voice, he whispered: “I will uphold a ban that disallows Xenia from being in the presence of this pervert, let alone touch him.”

Xenia protested: “We are in the same team and we need to do a tactical assessment. Can’t we turn him into my consort now? I want to use him to let off a little steam.”

The prospect of being used as a training dummy disgusted his rational. His male instincts were a completely different story. They were screaming at him to take the opportunity, if not now then as soon as possible. When he saw how Serafina was watching him with dead eyes, he slapped himself mentally. He wanted to retort and tell Xenia that he won’t be toyed around with, but the sound of a lone cello playing a romantic tune interrupted him. Akeem threw Xenia over his shoulder and Xenia cried out dramatically. “We won’t be divided. Not for long.”

Now trumpets and a piano were added into the mix. Xenia ignored the music and cried out: “Love knows no bounds. We will find a way. There is always a way.”

The music built up to a crescendo. Now a full-fledged band was playing such a passionate tune that Res was carried away as if he was in some play. “Akeem, you don’t have to man-handle her this way.”

Now even Jason was singing along with the melody: “Neaarrrr, faaarrr, whereeever you are, I believe that thee heart doeeeess go onnnnnnn. Onceeee moorrrreee you …”

Akeem tried to find out where the sounds were coming from and finally gave up. With a powerful heave and several strands of muscles, he bound Xenia to his body and climbed the ladder. Xenia called out and the tone of the music turned sorrowful and even louder. Now, Res could make out that the sounds were actually coming from several of the black boxes that were fixed on the edges of the colosseum. Somehow, it felt like he was being set up to play a role and he didn’t like. Determined to not let himself pushed into a role, he tried to push off. Yet, he found that he was surrounded by a blue-white force shield that held him bound to the ground. Frustrated, he screamed out loud, but it only reinvigorated the orchestra. Klengans appeared in the colosseum ranks to adjust the black boxes. A klengan clad in red robes shouted instructions to the other klengans about angles and exposure.

Out of the corner of his vision, he realized that Serafina had watched him the entire time. When their gazes met, they both stared at each other for an indeterminate amount of time. He saw the cluelessness he felt mirrored in Serafina’s eyes, and he opened himself up. In contrast to Xenia’s passionate lust, Serafina felt curiosity and a mix of affection and respect. The difference was so jarring that Res’s mouth hung agape. When Serafina saw that, she blushed furiously and turned around. It might have been his imaginations, but Res thought Serafina was shaking her hips as she went up the ladder.

When Akeem had reached ground level, the directing klengan nodded. With a whirr, the blue barrier around him vanished. Res shook his fist at the klengan who must have been responsible for him getting caught up in this, but the klengan only laughed. With a burst of aether, he propelled himself up the pit and landed next to Akeem who was still Xenia. The clerk snorted at Res and walked through a door that was inlaid into the colosseum wall. The room beyond was the same cold white as the starting room. The klengan clerk directed them to stand on silver disks embedded in the floor. When the clerk used a highly sophisticated aether spell, the pads vibrated. After feeling the usual vertigo, he found himself standing in the same nondescript starting room.