This time, there were hundreds of tables with steaming food all around the room. Each group had their own table, chairs and a glimmering shield boxing them into that area. Res realized that many teams were now one or two members short. Most of the survivors had nasty bruises and cuts all over their bodies. A closer glance at their table revealed that the ‘food’ was a gooey brown mass. An enormous barrel of water was the only extra furniture apart from the table and the chairs.

“Bro, they give you space food? Bahh …” Res asked for specifics and Jason explained: “If you want to get from one world to another with cargo, you have to fly through dark empty space. That is the food you eat on the journey.”

He didn’t like the sound of that but still took a seat. Xenia slid out of Akeem’s grasp and sat down next to him. She gave Akeem challenging stares, and he finally relented. Res knew that this stigma couldn’t be allowed to continue to grow if their lives were on the line. “Akeem, do you agree that we can’t fight like this?”

Akeem eyed him suspiciously as he took a seat opposite him. “Yes”

“First, I would like to propose a deal. You are uncomfortable with me. What can I do to satisfy your concerns?”

Immediately, Akeem shot out. “Don’t touch her.”

”So, I should have let your sister get killed by a giant eagle?”

“No. You should halt your romantic relationship for now. I will stop shepherding Xenia as long as the two of you don’t actually engage in romantic activities.”

Immediately, Xenia shot out: “No way.”

Res held out a hand to Akeem which he took. Xenia pouted and Res turned her so she faced him: “Look, there are lives on the line.”

Serafina pulled her over and whispered something in her ear. Then, Xenia and Serafina opened themselves completely. Res broke out into a coughing fit when he felt how much lust Xenia was feeling for him. Akeem studied all of them. “There is something going on here.”

Xenia giggled and Res turned his attention to the disgusting brown goo. With a crude metal spoon, he shoveled the goo in his mouth. Maybe the meaty and salty flavor would hide his embarrassment. Under the watchful gaze of Akeem, they all finished the goo while Serafina and Xenia kept their emotional channels open to him. Their feelings of disgust for the soup, hate of Akeem, and fear of being killed at any moment flooded his system. After several minutes of quiet eating, Res couldn’t bear it anymore and asked: “Do you want to tone it down a little?”

Xenia giggled and continued the direct connection while Serafina followed his request. The difference between the two was as jarring as it could get. When they had finished, Res pointed to the barrel of water and had everyone drink plenty. With the leftover water, they washed out Xenia’s wound and cleaned a piece of cloth they used for bandaging the wound. Res felt Xenia’s pain as they picked pieces of dirt and eagle blood out of her wounds.

In the middle of bandaging her, the voice of the announcer resounded through the room: “Hello once again to all you winners. You gave as an extraordinary show today and we are thankful for that. Here is a small bonus tip as thanks: You can gear up and heal if you do well in the actual tournament. Because you are so many, we will need to do an extra two rounds of fighting which will begin in twenty minutes. Aaannnd, you won’t get another chance to rest.”

They continued tending to their wounds and when they were finished, Res began: “We need a tactic. How do you gage our opponents, Akeem?”

Him asking for advice drew Akeem into the plan and Akeem began: “First, we have the battered group of crafters and farmers that fight in taverns. They won’t pose a threat to us and we will repeat the tactic of you defending Xenia with Serafina while I beat them up. Secondly, we have the thugs. They will use underhanded tactics and will attack our weakest member, Xenia. It would pressure us into giving up ground and fighting on their terms. The best tactic would be for you to just fly into the air with Xenia. If they randomly assign the tournament fights, I would say that they are the likeliest group to face. If we meet one of the elite palace guards, we are in serious trouble. Their military way of thinking will crush us if we let them act like they want to. Res, I will need you to immediately attack together with me while Serafina guards Xenia.”

Res raised his eyebrows. “That is a very solid plan. What about the eight northerner groups? Their giant axes will pose a significant threat to me in the air. Have you seen southerners throw stuff? They are accurate.”

Akeem made as if to reply, but was cut off by a bright light. A second later, Res found himself in a replica of the colosseum they were in before. He had no time to discuss further plans as his eyes were completely fixed on his four enemies – The shadows of the assassin’s guild of Trianon. One of them recognized him and gasped out distorted words, but the shadow in the front shushed him. With an enormous aether push, he tackled Serafina in time for a wicked blade that had materialized out of a shadow portal to miss her.

Luckily, Jason understood the gravitas of the situation and activated the ring of shadows. Res heard frightened screams of Xenia and cursing from Akeem. He opened his connection to Xenia and catapulted himself towards her. With open arms, he grabbed onto the first human-shaped object in his path and pushed himself upwards. Yet, when he emerged from the globe of darkness, he held a struggling shadow in his hardened arms. In front of the man, a portal would flicker in and out of existence.

“So, you can’t portal out if someone is touching you”, Res whispered into the man’s ear. The shadow flailed around, but Res wouldn’t loosen his grip. Like a puppet with cut strings, Res plummeted down. With a meaty thud, he impacted the ground with the shadow taking the fall. Res was undamaged, but the shadow’s brains were spread across the entire colosseum. The shadow magic receded to reveal a middle-aged man underneath.

The announcer called out from the black boxes: “In Arena 45, Res aka. Mr. Romantico has …. WOW, that was brutal. Was that a modified tombstone finishing move? That will go down in history, ladies and gentlemen. That is our Mr. Romantico, he won’t only break your heart. Lots of action going on right now. In Arena 12 the …”

Then the black boxes stopped playing. Everyone tried to disengage when the announcer’s voice resounded through the arena. Akeem picked up the fight against two shadows. Serafina used the distraction to ram her sword into the last shadow’s guts. The blow wasn’t fatal though and Res had to watch as the shadow teleported behind her with the last ounces of his strength. With blood bubbling from his lips, the shadow ripped her back open with a black dagger. After the slash, he collapsed dead on the floor, but the damage had been done. One of the shadows fighting Akeem released a spiderweb of darkness at him. It gave one shadow the time to teleport behind him. Now he faced the dilemma of either letting Serafina possibly die or Akeem surely die.

Utilitarianism won over and he tackled the shadow behind Akeem. Once again, the shadow experienced the same fate as his successor. The man’s head scraped against the packed dirt, which left a trail of blood and brain behind. Hurriedly, Res shouted over to Akeem: “Grab and hold him! Don’t kill him.”

Luckily, Akeem had heard him and grabbed the surviving shadow in a chokehold. Res hurried over to Serafina, who lay panting on her stomach.

“Bro, you need to fucking clean her wound ASAP and get a clean bandage.”

He ripped off her shirt, which revealed the gash underneath. He sighed out in relief when he saw that the cut was clean and only some dirt had entered the wound. Yet, Serafina was losing blood fast. Res cut open Serafina’s shirt and waved to Xenia. “You need to strip, give me the clean shirt under your dress.”

Xenia reddened and Res turned away: “No time, quick!”

When he received the shirt, he cut it into makeshift bandages with Xenia’s jeweled dagger. Akeem stared at him menacingly and Res snorted: “Do you think I would choose propriety above Serafina’s life?”

Akeem stopped staring after that. Serafina had closed her connection off when she felt the pain. Now, she was reaching out to him in sheer desperation. Res tried to reassure her, but through their mental link, he could only open himself up and show what he felt: compassion and uncertainty. The uncertainty part didn’t help to calm Serafina. He had her stand up and Akeem cried out in protest when Res cut away her dirty shirt.

“Calm down Akeem, she has rolled around the floor in that shirt. I don’t even want to think about what wearing a dirty shirt over such a wound would mean.”

Serafina was surprisingly open to his aid as he had opened himself and she didn’t feel any second motives. Maybe he was deceiving himself a bit. Occasionally, his hands would bump into something soft and warm and his excitement levels would skyrocket. Every time it happened, Res thought he could feel … amusement? No, that couldn’t be.

Still, it felt to Res like Serafina was now flaunting her womanly charms. Thankfully, Jason educated him: “Bro, what the fuck? Are you incompetent? She is hitting on you like crazy and you want to play it off as another quirk? Ugghh, the main character vibes I am getting are infuriating!”

“Thank you. What should I do now?“

“Are you fucking around? … You know what? Fine. Play along, kiss, fuck. In that order. Do you know where babies come from?“

Res ignored the insult and made a mental note to stop asking Jason for advice. The advice seemed too impractical. All the responsibility entailed in most of his suggestions would shorten his relaxation time significantly. Playing along seemed easy enough, but kissing and fucking entailed consequences he didn’t want to think about. Then he would need to resort to dodging responsibility like Jason in his previous life. The thought of how much responsibility Jason had to dodge with over 1000 children alone stressed him.

“No thanks“, Res grumbled.

When he was finished, Serafina wore Akeem’s undershirt, which was way too big for her. Res found himself oddly attracted to the image. Res had forgotten that he had left their connection open and was reminded of it when Serafina grinned shyly at him. As fast as possible, he cut off the connection, and Serafina’s look turned pleading.

Xenia stepped forward and under the watchful eyes of Akeem asked. “Can you open yourself to me?”

Res tried to play it off. “I opened myself to Serafina because I needed to help her. We should concentrate on the arena.”

Akeem gave Res a questioning look and tightened the grip on the shadow. Xenia pouted and poked him in the chest again. “You did it for Serafina. Don’t you want to open yourself for me?”

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Res sighed. “Fine …”

He opened his connection with Xenia and she pulled his hand to her chest. Even though he had an inkling of what was coming, his manly instincts went into overdrive. Akeem hissed at Xenia. “You aren’t allowed to do that. The agreement.”

She danced away while giggling merrily. Akeem gave him a dirty look as if everything was his fault. With an angry snort, he made as if to turn the man’s head, but Res stopped him. “Wait, I can cultivate some more.”

“You mean that technique where you can let earth vanish? A nice party trick, but we need to get going.”

“Even if I won’t get stronger, we will have easier opponents. Think about it: We will be matched against opponents who took a similar time to complete the fights. If we wait, we will fight tired opponents.”

The voice of the klengan clerk spoke through the black boxes. “Ahhh, you aren’t allowed to do that.”

Akeem looked back at Res and grinned mischievously. “If they don’t want us to do it, we will do it.”

The voice became even more stressed out: “Wow, I want you to stay. Why don’t you stay for a bit?”

Res blended out the klengan clerk and felt for the connection to Jason. “What body part should I do next?”

“I doubt they will allow you to remain there for more than four hours. Do your right arm. You can live without an arm, but if you drop out of the air without a leg, you are fucked. In other words, your genitalia will be crushed.”

Seeing the sense in Jason’s advice, Res felt for the aether reserves of his arms. The urge to release all the potential locked up within his arm nearly overwhelmed him as usual,. This time, he had expected it and managed to hold back. He tried to … *Wham* Aether pushed through his entire being and his influence now extended fifty meters deep. Yet, he realized that he could still feel an aether reserve in his right arm from the elbow up.

His instincts screamed at him: “That is a disgrace. Aether is potential. Aether is there to be used.”

Luckily, his rationality held him back from going further. Keeping his rational at the forefront of his mind, he began to pull on the matter that was under his control. The wave of aether hit him hard this time, even as he was prepared for it. When a small strand of aether escaped into his right chest and exploded within his muscles, he comprehended the gravity of his situation. If he were to slip up now, he would explode like a tomato under a sledgehammer. With this metaphor in mind, he pushed through the pain of hundreds of lice crawling under his skin. Finally, he tore open his eyes and found himself back in the colosseum. Akeem was taking a small nap with the shadow still enveloped in a bearhug.

On the other side of the stadium, Serafina and Xenia were having a hot discussion. Xenia waved when he opened his eyes and the annoyed voice of the clerk resounded through the room: “If you haven’t killed or incapacitated your last opponent within ten minutes, we will unleash all the leftover beasts into the ring.”

Akeem twisted the neck of the shadow without a shred of regret. A ladder was once again thrown down into the pit. The klengan clerk from their previous fight waved at them from above. Once again, they were led into the same room and onto the same silver pads. The klengan said several phrases into a small black box and cast the complicated spell once again. Akeem gave a last motivational speech and Res welcomed the feeling of vertigo – He was ready for another fight.

When the bright light abated, the first thing he thought before battle adrenaline kicked in was: “Shit.”