Their schooled faces, their unmistakable uniform, their formation - They stood in front of an entire unit of the elite palace guard.

“Guess we’ll die”, Jason added.

Before the appropriate strategy could come into his mind, the elite guards fanned out. A tactic used for fighting against a weaker opponent. Rage filled him at the thought of those bastards killing them and he roared out: “This is for you Orson!”

One of the female elite guards halted in shock at the name and Res ruthlessly used that hesitation. As soon as Res had only thought of releasing a fraction of his stored power, he was flung forwards. His body accelerated to speeds that would have killed anyone in his place. Before he could blink, he crashed into the colosseum’s barrier. It wasn’t like he hadn’t expected to improve after he cultivated, but that had seemed like instant teleportation. He could taste something in his mouth. It tasted like … Bones? If the rippling blue shield hadn’t absorbed most of the force, he would have turned into a human pancake. Dizzily, he slipped down the arena shield and stopped in a heap at the edge of the arena. With a groan, he stood up and spat out one of his back teeth. Everyone in the arena was staring at him in horror. One of the younger men went completely ape-shit when he saw the remains of the woman clinging to him. Enormous flames sprouted along his hands and he laughed maniacally.

“Claudia! What have you done? I will incinerate you! Incinerate!”

When he saw the elite palace guard coated in flame like a god, he pissed himself. Literally pissed himself. The other elite guards felt the same, but at least they tried to reason with the madman. Yet, the fire caster’s flame aura was radiating out so much heat that it turned blue. The aura grew bigger and bigger and the man’s rambling even crazier. Res’s skin burned, and he thought it would end by them being roasted alive. An ice shard impaled the fire mage, his flames were extinguished, and he fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Behind the madman, one of the elite palace guards had his hands still raised from when he had fired the spell.

“Bro, is there a ‘kill one get one free’ sign I haven’t seen?”

Res wasn’t up to jokes as the emotionless faces of the remaining elite palace guards promised pain. Lots of it. One of them held up their hand and an enormous arc of lightning struck out at him. Blackness. He regained consciousness early enough to notice an ice missile streaking towards him. A hasty dodge to his right, let the missile careen off his hardened body. A hailstorm of various ice, lightning, and earth spells pummeled him. Several times, he had to use part of his solid body aether to fuel a hardening of his body to escape a steel boomerang. Getting out of range or getting closer was impossible without getting sliced up. Res hunkered down into a hole that the steel boomerang had made, but being electrocuted by a lightning bolt made him reconsider that tactic. Jason threw a globe of darkness in the vague direction the bolt had come from. He slapped his spastically moving leg muscles and pushed off to continue his mad dash. All the dust in the air made it impossible for him to get any kind of target on the elite guards. His opponents with could just let loose one barrage after another in his general direction. Accompanied by a brief cry of pain, the steel boomerang turned into aether particles. By now, he had lost one tooth, and he had broken at least one of his ribs from that stupid boomerang. His skin was peeling off by the minute by all the burns he got from constantly being electrocuted. Last but not least, he had hundreds of cuts and bruises all over his body. His dodging had devolved into pushing himself into random directions. Sometimes, he would hide in the craters all the spells left behind. One of the beams of lightning hit him in his right leg, his last aether reserve.

“Bro, shit, one of your arteries tore. You will either need to use the lower part of that leg or die.”

As if summoned by Jason, the lighting user emerged from one of the dust clouds with his hands crackling with lightning. His pupils dilated as he saw the man pointing his hand at him and preparing a spell. Not only did he need to attack, he also needed to dodge. His rationality screamed at him to stop this madness. Yet, he had lost so much blood already that he had fallen into a trance of uncaring.

“Bro, we have to gamble!”

Drawing on the aether pool, he pushed himself to the side and then engaged his brain core. Everything apart from sight, memory, and two parts of his brain were shut off. Res watched passively as his body was flung to the side, which nearly broke his hardened neck. He waited for the perfect moment and changed direction. A moment before impact, he stopped circulating aether in his brain and returned to true consciousness. He only had the time to realize two things: First, that he had missed his target. Second, that he was flying into the mouth of a lightning dragon. For a fraction of a second, he felt excruciating pain, then he was enveloped by blissful darkness. The abyss rejected him and he found himself in his body again. The only difference was the extra layer of burning blisters that added to his misery. And the fact that he was flying in the air. From the edges of his vision, he watched the lightning spell that had catapulted him that far fizzle away. Akeem was locked in intense combat with the metal user. Their fight had degenerated into them, pummeling each other with their fists. It seemed like he couldn’t expect any help from that front. The only aether user who was alive and well, was the evil faced lightning bastard hunting him. Jason activated the ring of darkness once again to stop the lightning guard from zapping him in the air. With a bone-crunching thump, Res impacted the roiled-up dirt ground and came to a halt right next to a big rock. The image of the lightning dragon spell replayed in his mind’s eyes and he found some last vestiges of energy. With his left arm, he dragged himself behind the rock in time to dodge another lightning bolt.

A lovely voice whispered in his ear: “Don’t worry. If he comes here, I will stick my Katana in his heart.”

Horrified, he looked up into Serafina’s grinning face. She sat crouched behind the boulder and sent him feelings of encouragement. If it was that simple, he would have done it too. He couldn’t bear to watch her die and tried to stop her from this foolishness.

Serafina cupped her hand over his mouth: “Shhh, you need to be quiet.”

With tears of desperation in his eyes, he watched the crackling form of the elite guard rounding the corner. He had charged his entire arm with lightning and grinned wickedly: “See you in hell.”

The glow intensified until it had built up to a lightning storm. “Bro, you were a good host. What a shame that we weren’t able to visit the brothels at least once.”

“You are a good man, Jason from earth.”

A lone tear streaked down Res’s face and he accepted his fate. The light of the lightning began to dim and the attacker’s eyes widened. Only gurgling protest came out of his mouth as the lightning died down. When the lightning aether had vanished, the elite guard’s hands began to tremble. Finally, he toppled over with foam frosting from his mouth. Behind the elite guard stood a slim figure holding a bloody ornate dagger –

“Xenia!”, Res croaked out through his cracked lips.

All around them, doors leading into the arena banged open and countless klengan’s burst out. Several were carrying stretchers, and they were sprinting towards them. They hoisted him up onto a stretcher and carried to the same teleporting room. Soon, the others arrived too, and they were dumped onto the teleporting disks in the white room, too. The white teleporting light enveloped him, and he felt the vertigo again. When the light subsided, he found himself bleeding out on the white floor of the starting room. The life was draining out of him from the hundreds of cuts and he felt a numbing chill spread through his body. A nondescript voice spoke, but Res’s hearing was dominated by an insistent ringing that turned louder the longer lay on the floor. He was turned on his back and something cold burned down his throat.

Through their mental connection, Res felt Jason rejoice at something and Jason asked: “Res, if we make it through this, will you go to a brothel with me?”

Res didn’t think any of it and couldn’t deny some last wishes. “We will.”

“Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise.”