The ritual which has become embedded into his mind. Waking up at the break of dawn to perform his daily training wearing the new chainmail and wielding the new broadsword he received to get a feel for it and understanding how it would limit his body's functions regardless of the fact that he has a fight in the next 4 hours.

He had considered the possibility of the morning training hindering his performance but it made no sense entering a fight with equipment he had no idea of how it would limit his body against a type of opponent he never fought. That thought left an unsettling feeling within his mind throughout the night and it became uneasy to sleep. The restlessness persisted until he began to train and it soon slowly faded away soon after. He performed routine breakfast with Cornelius, Jason, and Susan soon after training was finished with everyone wishing him good luck in the fight today.

3 hours passed in no time and before he knew it, it was already that time of the day, he had to leave, he quickly took a shower and changed into a long sleeved grey tunic, with some black pants made of cotton fabric and black leather boots, he placed all his gear into a bag and strapping both swords to his waist, he prepared to descend down the hill.

Cornelius's home was a mansion which stood atop a hill giving a beautiful view overseeing the city. Kólasi was a beautiful city, the building styles of this city greatly differed from that of Mephisto. The buildings of Mephisto, were generally made of gleaming marble surfaces which were smooth, curved, furrowed, or opulently sculpted to reflect the sun, cast graded shadows and change in color with the changing light of day and night whilst the buildings here were made of blocks of stone, had a sleek yet elegant design and possessed multiple levels where different people lived within the same building, although it was different from that of Mephisto it was still aesthetically pleasing in his eyes.

The pit was located in the center of the city of Kólasi as it was the main attraction of the city bringing people from various lands to come witness the spectacle. As he walked down the hill, he heard Cornelius shouting from behind on his horse

"I'm heading to the city right now, I'll give you a drop to the pit!"

"Thanks, much appreciated" he responded

The descent down the hill took less than a minute on horseback there was a road at the bottom of the hill, all roads in Kólasi were connected leading to the center of the city and they soon entered the city, making their way through the hustling and bustling of the market street they arrived at the pit.

"You know now that I think about it, my business isn't all that important so if you want I can come watch the fight," Cornelius told the boy

"Thanks but your business still has a higher priority than my fight, no matter what you say," he responded

"I guess you just don't want me to watch your fight, huh, well I'll be with you in spirits, GOOD LUCK," Cornelius said patting him on the back.

The boy quickly dismounted himself from the horse and began to walk towards the entrance of the pit. People were already lined up by the cashiers to pay to witness the fight.

As soon as the transaction was completed they were transferred to one of the 3 areas using teleportation magic.

The fighters were given separate entrances to the pit. There were 2 stairwells descending down into a cell, one on each side of the pit. The waiting cell smelled of piss and shit but it was the area that the fighter had to stay until it was their turn to fight.

He took off all his clothing, put on a tattered gray shirt, the black leather jeans he had received, black boots, and the chainmail. He thought about putting on the gauntlets he wore from the last match, but they had a decent amount of weight and would slow the speed of his strikes so he chose not to wear them.

He stared at his helmet for around 30 minutes looking into the eye holes seeing only darkness within. A feeling of unease came upon him whilst waiting for the cell gate to open leading him into the pit. The gate slowly began to open and he quickly put the helmet over his head. Standing behind the gate, the screams of the crowd took away all feelings of unease he had before. He entered the circular ring standing within the steel fencing and soon after his opponent entered from the opposite gate.

A mysterious figure cloaked in black robes covering the entire body. Not even the hands were exposed as the person wore gloves, the only distinguishable feature was the height of the individual, about 5 foot 9 inches in height.

"Ladiiieeeeeeessssss and gentlemen, today we have a special fight, we have a new member entering the pit, so a battle of the newbies, The Demon's Child against the Robed Mage, also today we have some very special guests, King Dwen of Omorfiá and the founder of the pit Ikko, let the fight begin!" the announcer shouted

From what the boy had heard from Cornelius, it was a common occurrence in the pit, the king and the founder of the pit were good friends and often they would view the fights occurring. As much as he wanted to look up at the center crowd to get a glimpse of the king and the founder, the boy could not take his eyes off the opponent before him. The mysterious figure walked to the center of the ring and raising both arms forward facing his direction and began chanting. He couldn't understand the words being chanted. He quickly pulled out the new broadsword from the side of his waist.

Well since you're putting it out there for me I might as well take you up on the offer

Holding the sword like that of a spear, he began to perform a short run up and placing his feet firmly in the sand on the ground his body bent slightly and the arm holding the sword falling back he quickly straightened up, swinging his arm releasing the sword. He had aimed for the chest of the individual, but his aim was off falling to the right, it pierced through the individual's left hand.

"AHHHHHHHH" the robed mage screamed, whilst pulling the sword out of the left hand and dropped it to the ground and regained composure almost immediately after, continuing to chant.

The boy was confused, that wasn't the scream of a man, that voice was feminine. He understood now that it was a woman he was up against. It didn't matter though, the fact that she came to the pit means she understood what was about to happen, one of them was going to die. He had no intentions of going easy on her.

He immediately pulled out his other sword quickly grasping it in his left arm. The xiphos had a shorter range than the broadsword so he would need to be in point blank range to land strikes. He began to run towards her in a zig zag motion as a precaution in case she had planned to use any offensive magic. He was directly in front of her and the chanting stopped. He took a big step thrusting the sword when suddenly a ring of flames emerged from around her burning the arm grasping the sword forcing him back.

He attempted to sprint in the opposite direction away from her trying to cause a gap between them, but before he knew it something had made its way into the right side of his upper back.

The wound wasn't deep, he took his arm and felt something cold protruding from his back. It was an ice spike, the chainmail had stopped the shard from causing a severe wound. He quickly pulled the shard out and threw it on the floor.

Turning around, he clenched his sword even harder than before. Then he felt something slowly run down his back, it was a feeling he hadn't felt in years. The blood trickling down his back. He began to feel a strange sensation tingling throughout his body.

It felt fuckin great, it was the first time he experienced a feeling like this, the pain he was experiencing was turning into pleasure. The pain from the burn wounds left his body and an immense feeling of pleasure ran throughout his body, although no one could see it, he was smiling on the inside of his helmet. His arms began fidgeting with excitement as he stared down the woman.

Then to the shock of the crowd, he took off the chainmail casting it aside to savor the fight even more.

He had lost track and dazed off from the feeling he was experiencing and didn't notice that the mage had raised her arm into the air and was conjuring a fireball of massive size. She swung her arm and with that, the fireball came at him at a great speed. Although it was fast, the massive size dragged down the speed, he no longer had any extra weight tying his body down, the chainmail was gone and he was at full speed. Running to the right he narrowly dodged the spell and it collided with the steel fencing seemingly disappearing into nothing, the heat could still be felt within the ring.

The woman began gasping for breath and he could hear it, a spell of that magnitude must have taken a toll on her, this was his chance. He began running at her but his body suddenly became exhausted, he felt as if he was on the verge of falling asleep mid run.

He knew now what she had been chanting, it was a sleeping spell. She had probably planned to put him to sleep and finish him quickly.

This was a tricky situation he was on the verge of collapsing and the woman stood there looking at him, she had regained her breath and was waiting for him to collapse.

I can't keep this up, this sleepiness is unbearable, I know now what I gotta do.

He ran back causing about a 20-meter gap between them. The sound of something cracking could be heard even from the audience. They were puzzled but then they noticed what he had done, he had grabbed his pinkie finger and broken it using his right arm.

This isn't enough, this amount of pain isn't enough to keep me awake.

Quickly he took off his boots and cast them aside.He placed the sword in his right arm and using the hilt of his sword he quickly crushed the big toe in his left foot and threw the sword at the woman to buy some time, but it fell short. It was about 5 meters from where she was.

The pain was unbearable but it kept him awake. The crowd was shocked, and the woman was done playing around, she understood that he would not just sit there quietly and fall unconscious. 5 firebolts encircled her and launched at him one after the other, he dodged them by running to the left in a linear line.He had successfully dodged 2 of the fire bolts but the sleepiness was overtaking him again, that would cost him another finger, he quickly broke his middle finger to maintain the pain level and dodged the other 3. Although it hurt a lot, the adrenaline flowing throughout his body paired with the pain felt great, although it could not be seen, he was trembling with excitement.

The temperature in the pit was getting higher and higher. The reason for this was the fact that there was a barrier and steel fencing imbued with magical seals stopping the magic from escaping to protect the viewers, thus causing the temperature to rise. from all the fire magic she was using.

Black leather pants, a gray shirt and a helmet, this was all he was wearing and he was sweating like a pig, his shirt had become drenched in sweat and the heat was slowly but surely getting him more exhausted as the time went by. This time he broke the ring finger in his left arm to keep going.

If this is happening to me and this is all I'm wearing, I can imagine how bad she must be feeling the effects of this heat.

Then suddenly, the woman took off the robe, it was a beautiful young woman, fair skinned, green eyes and long wavy red hair with a barrette pulling her hair back reaching around shoulder length. She was covered in silver armor with floral patterning protecting her entire body with only her hands and face being vulnerable to attack and from how her face looked he deduced that she was probably around the same age as him.

Pointing both arms with palms facing forward in his direction she cast 3 small successive fireballs in a row at a great speed. Diving to the ground he managed to successfully dodge 2 of the fireballs but one had managed to hit his right leg near the thigh, burning through the pants, the leather had managed to cushion the blow so the burns he suffered were not severe but it was still enough to slow him down. He was in the state where he could no longer run however she had not noticed this.

The temperature reached to the point where it was unbearable, he could see that she was clearly out of breath and was sweating like crazy, to wear silver armor like that and stay in the heat for that period of time would take a toll on anyone's body and she was now suffering the repercussions of casting all that fire magic, her armor was heating up and the heat within the armor had no way of escaping causing her to get exhausted quicker than him, her best bet would've been to take off the armor to let her body cool off but she could tell that this man had no intention of giving her a chance to do so and she began to chant.

The helmet he wore was getting heated and began to burn his face, he had no choice, he took off the helmet and tossed it to the ground.

Although she was chanting, she began to feel bewildered at the sight of his face. What stood before her was a young man with black bushy, messy hair reaching around eye level, dark brown eyes, light brown skin and an oval shaped jawline. It was not what she had expected, she thought that it would have been some older man with a facial deformity however it was a handsome young man who seemed to be around her age. The audience were amazed as they had the same thoughts as her.

She was chanting and could not stop at this point, she was already halfway through the spell and had no choice but to continue. The boy took off his shirt drenched in sweat and placed it on top of his head and soon after began wiping his body to reduce the temperature, his skin felt as if it was on fire and he could feel the heat emanating from his skin but soon after the burning sensation stopped. It signaled that his body had returned to an acceptable temperature.

The girl's face became flustered, the young man was muscular and his veins had begun to show on his muscles due to the heat. He had a certain aesthetic appeal to him. His body was perfectly shaped and had great proportions.

However, the audience had a look of shock on their face at the sight they saw, his back heavily covered in scars from the whipping he had received in the earlier years of his life. A young man with scars like this, some people began to wonder the kind of torture he had been through prior to this.

All of the time he had taken wiping his body, he regained his breath and realized he could force his body to run.

He realized that while the girl had been chanting the first time she was unable to move, it was his chance to seize the opportunity presented before him. He quickly put the shirt back on his body and forced his body to endure the pain being emitted from his leg and began to run towards his xiphos on the ground. As soon as he reached for the hilt of the sword, he felt a chilling air being emitted from the girl and he could see small ice shards being formed in the air.

Ice magic this time!? Fuck, I don't have enough time to get that sword, I got no choice but to go for her directly.

The spell had been cast, and the area immediately got colder, but the ice shards took too long to mature at that point, he was already up in her face, he launched a dropkick forcing her to the ground, he landed on his back and the shards began to fly towards him and he rolled side to side narrowly dodging a few, however he could not roll out of the way of the remaining two coming at him, he blocked one with his left forearm by placing it in front of his chest, it ran straight through the forearm stopping in front of his chest, and the final shard impaled his right shoulder to the ground. He could no longer move.

It was her win.

That's what everyone thought, but then suddenly she began screaming in pain whilst on the floor. She began having muscle spasms occurring throughout her body due to the sudden change of temperatures from extremely hot to cold in her body.

It was extremely painful and it hurt like hell, the adrenaline pumping in his body had stopped the moment he hit the ground and all the pain he had overridden from the pleasure hit him all at once, he wished to scream so bad but in his eyes if he screamed it would be seen as a sign of weakness, it was just his belief, he had no particular reason for feeling this way, he held it all in and he wondered if this is what being on the verge of death felt like but he knew it wasn't his time yet to die, he had been through worse.

Move, move, move, I can't die from something like this, this is a fuckin dumb way to die.

He began to slowly shake his shoulder, wiggling his body upwards to leave the ice shard in the ground and get his body out and then he pulled the remaining shard in his forearm out and tossed it aside. The blood was gushing from the wounds. He had to end this as quickly as possible before he would lose too much blood and faint as she laid there on the ground. She was about 3 meters from where he stood, and his broadsword lay there on the ground in front of him. Limping he reached for it with his right arm and slowly made his way in front of her.

It's a shame, if she had better combat knowledge she could've ended this fight the moment I charged at her when this fight began.

What she saw was a tall figure towering over her, she knew this was the end of her life, for the first time in her life she felt true fear, the fear of death but there was nothing she could do, her body refused to move.

"P-Please, I beg of you, I ha-" her sentence was interrupted

"I'll make it painless, I promise," he told her with a soft voice staring her in the eyes looking down at her.

It was the least he could do for her, she made him experience a feeling like no other and it was his form of gratitude.