Grir roared as he looked at the crowd and raised his arms. The crowd cheered wildly. John decided this was the perfect opportunity to attack. Who told Grir to show off. He wove lightning and chained them one after the other to hit Grir. The lightning bounced harmlessly off Grir’s armor. What sort of armor was that? It must have cost a fortune. It had absorbed every bit of lightning John weaved. Grir pointed at him and began to laugh. John could hear him all the way from across the field. Grir began running towards John. He was fast. Very fast. How could a big guy run so fast? The ground was trembling beneath him. John looked closely at him and discovered that Grir’s armor was covered with the strange energy unique to martial artists. Martial artists really were a pain to deal with. John began shooting his gun while he quickly wove fireballs. Grir shrugged off the explosions without changing speed. Fire didn’t work, and neither did lightning.

John made pits in the ground by weaving earth but Grir jumped over any obstacles in his path. He was as agile as a cat. He soon came within range and began to attack. John wove a bolt of darkness. This drained his aura away but it always worked. The bolt did melt a little bit of Grir’s armor, but Grir himself was fine, if somewhat dazed from the impact.

John phased into the aether, hoping to put more distance between him and Grir, but Grir had other plans. As soon as John phased Grir launched his net. John was thrown out of the aether and caught in the net. He swung his glaive, aura cutting through the net like a hot knife through butter. This Grir had come prepared for him. He wove blocks of light and sent them hurling at Grir with speed. Grir was thrown back, but he quickly recovered his position and swung his trident at John. Still affected by the static field of the net, John couldn’t phase dodge. He got hit, which was luckily only a superficial wound on his arm.

“First Blood!” he heard the announcer scream. Was blood such a rare and magical thing that the audience should cheer like that? Their roars were deafening.

John felt dizzy. Was there poison on the trident? Didn’t the organizers check his weapon? He had to finish this quickly and there was only one way to do it. He created a spatial rift between him and Grir and then wrapped darkness around himself and his weapon. He now looked like a black shadow. The darkness would allow him to pass through the spatial rift without much harm. His aura reserves were almost over, but they were recharging quickly under pressure. Grir launched another net at John thinking he was going to phase. John easily cut through it and launched himself at Grir.

Their weapons moved so quickly that only sparks could be seen from when they made contact. Though Grir was bigger than him, with John’s strength, speed and stamina circuits going at full blast he was able to push Grir back. He slowly herded him towards the spatial rift. Grir could sense there was something behind him. He kept glancing behind him when his full attention should have been on John. Time was running out. John found it harder and harder to breathe. With a sudden burst of energy he pushed Grir into the spatial rift. It cut Grir into two perfectly symmetrical halves. The crowd shouted in delight, but John felt sick, both from the spectacle of gore as well as the poison. He grabbed Grir’s poisonous trident and ran out of the arena ground to seek treatment.

The trident’s poison was analyzed and he was injected with all sorts of medicines. The team attending him then told him to rest.

“Why didn’t my weaving hurt Grir?” he asked Sor Al later while lying in bed.

“His armor was made to specially resonate with his internal energy. Martial artists are a real pain to deal with. You have to be clever while fighting them.” That was funny. He’d thought the same thing as well. They really were a pain.

John’s next match was postponed by two days as he recovered from the poison. As John was the challenger the other champions didn’t have to fight each other. Instead, there were other fights by former arena champions to please the crowd. These were not fights to the death like his was. John watched them to gather some tips and tricks in dealing with his next opponent. He didn’t learn much. The former champions were nowhere as good as Grir. John had a feeling that his next opponents were only going to get more powerful.

Two days passed quickly and John was back on the arena floor. The announcer introduced John, and then his opponent.

“Now entering the arena are the Infamous Twins, the Banshees of Horror, the Reflections of Death, the Witches of Salzar, the Champions of the Asi Conglomerate, the Brrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiyaaaaaaa Sisssssssssssterrrrrrrrrrrs.”

“Briya! Briya!” The crowd began their chant. They seemed to favor the sisters more than John. This wasn’t fair. He was fighting two of them at once. Of course they held the advantage. Why hadn’t he looked at the rules before he’d chosen to participate? If he could have brought a companion, he would have brought Sor Al and blasted them all to smithereens.

One Briya sister held a lazin spear, beams of blue light emitting out of a metal handle. It was just like a light saber. The other sister held a velo dagger in each hand. John could sense that they used aura, but in a different way from him. As soon as the gong sounded they began to weave. John disintegrated their weaves as quickly as he could, forcing them to use quick simple weaves that he easily dodged. They ran towards him while they were weaving. Their weaves were strange. Was Human spell casting so different from Elven weaving?

John was not prepared to defend. A good offense was the best defense, he always said. He shot his gun at them, but the laser beams were unable to penetrate their aura shields, even when he set the knob to max penetration. This gun was useless. He threw it to the ground and held his glaive with two hands. He divided his attention between breaking their weaves and making his own weaves. He did not try anything too complex. The sisters were as accomplished as he was in unraveling weaves. Fireballs blasted on both sides, aura shields glowing a brilliant blue and purple. The sisters were almost upon him. He phase dodged their weapon strikes and appeared behind them. They had nothing to counter his phasing.

As he thrust his glaive at the dagger wielding one she turned into smoke. The smoke swirled around him. He tried to phase dodge again but it came a second too late. The dagger Briya physically appeared, her arms coiled around John, preventing him from moving. The spear Briya thrust her weapon into John’s stomach. He groaned as he wrestled out of the Briya’s hold. The spear had not penetrated anything vital but it hurt like hell. The wound was cauterized, so he wouldn’t bleed out. There was no poison on it, like there had been with Grir. He phased out of harm’s way and wove dark rainfall. The rain corroded their aura shields causing minor wounds to appear on them, but the sisters then turned into smoke and moved towards him.

There had to be some sort of limit to their smoke form. John gazed at them intently through his perceiver circuit, and indeed there was an anchor just like when he phased. He blasted their anchors with fireballs and the sisters were dispelled out of their smoke form. They were too close to him to use dark rainfall again and he didn’t have enough energy for it anyway. He wove lightning. The bolts disoriented them while he closed the distance between them.

They wailed like banshees when they saw John coming. He could feel his ear drums pop. Was this some sort of sonic attack? He covered his ears with aura but could still feel his ear drums vibrating nonstop. Blood flowed from his nose. Keeping them at a distance was the best strategy but he had already come in too close. All he could do now was move forward. With fire and aura wrapped around his glaive’s blade he phased behind the spear Briya and slashed her neck. Her head became lopsided and she fell to the ground lifeless.

“No! Sister,” the dagger Briya howled. She rushed at John, her dagger moving at lightning speed. He could not help getting scratched as he tried to fend her off. She was too close and had gone berserk, not caring for her own safety. He couldn’t use his glaive properly. Whenever he phased she’d be right behind him, as though she had a sixth sense where he’d appear. He let go of his glaive, dodged her dagger and jumped on her back. She was not tall for a woman, but she was taller than John. He throttled her from behind. She put up a good five minutes of struggle before breathing her last.

John pointed his glaive at the crowd, adulating in their cheers. This feeling was addictive, but he knew that feeling this way was wrong. He walked back to his team, pondering over the morality of what he was doing. His conscience had begun troubling him. He had killed on the battlefield, and hadn’t felt much guilt. The arena was completely different. It felt good to kill here, basking in the cheers of the crowd. He had felt excited when dancing with death on the arena's floor. He had felt a thrill when choking the Briya to death, while the crowd chanted 'Kill! Kill! KIll!'. Was he turning into a murderous monster? He had always thought of himself as a peace loving man. Had his entire outlook on life changed after his reincarnation? John thought through these questions the whole night, unable to sleep.