At night, Justin’s chamber looked deadly and ominous while illuminated only by a few candles.

"Come on Justin, you are no fun at all," Cain told him like he was talking to a child. Which made me wonder why Justin let everyone disrespect him.

"Fun? We are in the middle of a war, and you want to have a show?"

Justin was sitting behind his desk. Like Cain, he was wearing only a robe, but luckily, closed. His eyes were dark and hollow because he was dragged out of his bed to deal with us. Rodrigues was behind him, glaring at me with deadly intention.

Even Arlam was there, and to my surprise, he only looked annoyed at best. I swore he would be pissed that an assassination attempt against me failed. Or at last, be demanding my death.

"The guys need some fun, let them have it," Cain argued.

"I have a mission by the morning and Aron is to come with me," Rodrigues answered him, with venom in his voice.

"That human canvas tried to rape this ugly man's wife. And you all know there is bad blood between them now." Cain said, walking from one side to another until he stopped in front of Arlam. "Don't you agree it is only a matter of time before they kill each other?"

"I do," Arlam answered him.

"Then, we better put their fight to some use."

"Please M'lord, let me fight him!" I told Justin, getting into my knees, hoping that it would help my cause. "My wife would never feel safe if he was to live after what he had done to both of us.

"Haven't I told you -" Rodrigues started to argue back, but Justin raised a hand silencing him.

"Cain and Aron are right. This has to be dealt with before it gets out of control. We will hold a fight in the morning."

"What about the mission?" Rodrigues asked him.

"Come on, we all have our missions by tomorrow morning," Arlam told him, getting everyone by surprise. "An hour or two will not make a difference."

Rodrigues looked at me. "It will make a difference, so kill him quickly."

From what I have seen, the tattooed man was weak. He wouldn't last more than a minute against me unless someone helped him. I could already see him armed with all sorts of runes and powerful weapons, all provided by Arlam.

"What are the rules of the fight?" I asked them.

"There are no rules," Arlam answered me, getting a glass of wine from Justin's personal wine house. "You guys fight, one dies."

"We should make this more interesting," Cain said, too happily for my taste. "Let's sponsor the fight. I can do it with the human canvas!."

I looked at him and then at Justin, trying to guess how good or bad this was. Arlam would surely give my opponent everything he could to make sure I died. But Cain? I had no idea.

"Then I will be one too -" Justin started to say when Cain intervened

"That wouldn't work. You would not make it fair, we know we like him."

"Then I will sponsor him," Arlam said before Justin could argue back.

My heart froze. Knowing Arlam, he would give a straw stick to fight and tell me this was all a slave was worth sponsoring. I had to find a way out of that situation, but arguing back at him would never work.

"Why?" Cain asked him. "You dislike him."

"I have a change of heart."

A change of heart my ass. He wanted me dead.

"I agree with it, Arlam can sponsor him," Justin said, to my surprise.

That made no sense. He knew better than anyone else that Arlam wanted me dead and had intervened before. Now he was throwing me to the lions? Did he get tired of me, even after making me swear an oath to him?

Even Rodrigues looked at him like he was out of mind, and that meant a lot.

“If no one has anything else to say, I will prepare Aron for the fight,” Arlam told us, like he wasn’t enjoying it, but was simply doing his work. He walked toward the exit and waved his hand for me to follow him. I walked behind him, wondering what he would do and how I could survive a fight set against me.

I would have to avoid and block all his attacks while doing my best to break his shield, then kill him in one strike. Deep down I wanted to make him suffer a slow death, but It would be foolish of me to risk it given the circumstances. In the worst case, at least I had a trump card now that I somehow got a [Mana Heart]. Unless of course, he also got one, which I doubt.

“Are you nervous?” He asked me, too friendly.

“Wouldn’t anyone be?”

“You don’t need to, I saw both of you fighting and he has no chance. Now, I’m curious, why do you have this nasty scar?”

I didn’t know why he wanted to chat with me, but pissing him would only make things worse. “I cut myself.”

He stopped and turned, staring me in the eyes. “You did it to yourself? Why?”

“To save someone I love from a painful death.”

He shivered. “I can’t see myself doing this to save someone else, you must be really cold. But you even fought me to save your wife. Maybe you are just a fool.”

“Something like that.”

“Justin believes you have some value, and now that you have been chosen by the Gods, no one can argue against it. But value is something that can be easily lost, don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” I told him, wishing that he would shut up for once.

“And more important, value is worthless in the wrong hands, don’t you think?”

If I was right, he wanted me to work for him, a change of heart that would only be explained by me being able to acquire a weapon from the [God’s Forge]. Even already knowing they were powerful, I have no way to compare it to anything else, but it must be something far above what I imagined if it made him change his opinion about me.

Of course, I didn’t plan to betray Julian to help someone who tried to kill me. Which could also be part of his plans. Either he didn’t know I was working with Julian and wanted me to work for him because of the weapon, or he knew it and wanted me to break my oath to suffer the consequences. Both cases were equally bad for me.

Yet, he didn’t need to know what I really thought.

“I believe so, there are people who don’t know how to use those with value. The best weapon is useless in the hand of the farmer; like they used to say back from where I came from.” Which was a lie, but he had no way to know.

“Wise words, that’s why I dislike your people. Most of you are useless aside from being used as common fooders. It would take years to train you all to be proper soldiers, years we don’t have! The orcs will feast on our meat, or the elves will burn our fields to the ground before this day arrive.” He looked way angrier than when I punched him. “And what will we do? To you all at them and hope for the best?”

I hate him, but it didn’t change the fact he was right. Numbers alone didn’t win a war against properly trained soldiers. Which should be even worse in a world dominated by magic. It wasn’t hard to imagine a couple of people attacking the same person, and doing almost no damage at all due to their stronger [Mana Shield], only to be wiped out by a spell.

Yet, that conversation could work in our favour. “You are right, but summoning people must be expensive and you are all wasting us. At least some form of training or a better gear could improve our odds of survival and help you in your war.”

His only answer was a murmur that I had no idea of what it meant.

It then occurred to me that could be doing it on purpose. I never saw someone using a spell without a [Spell Rune]. There had to be a high mana cost and some sort of restriction on it. For once, they normally didn’t control unless strictly necessary, which could mean there was a limit on how many times they could do it.

Maybe, if we got too strong, they wouldn’t be able to control us.

That was a dangerous line of thought. It could give people hope, but at what cost? Our numbers were too few, and I had no idea of how many gold or above rank knights they had at their disposal. Even if we somehow managed to kill everyone in the fort and take control of it, it was only a matter of time before they storm the place and wipe us out.

And even if they didn’t, we wouldn’t survive a war against the other species. If they were in need of summoning slaves of another world, it meant they were too hard to deal with. If they were losing the war, we would be slaughtered like children fighting against lions.

On the other hand, living as a slave wasn’t better than dying. In the end, there was no telling if their enemies wouldn’t win the war and slaughter us the same.

We lost, no matter what we did.

“You are too quiet.” He said, stopping in front of a closed room. “We have arrived.”

He opened the door and stood near to it, so I could enter. It was a simple place on the inside, small with a single bed and a wardrobe. There was nothing there that could help me.

“You can spend the night here. People will wage on your fight, and the better rest you are, the better your chances. As your sponsor, I will take all the wages for myself.” He pointed to the wardrobe. “There is a change of cloth inside it, don’t worry it will magically adjust to your size.”

That at least made me happy, I was in real need of a new cloth after all the fight. And a bath, but I doubt they would give me one.

“What about weapons and runes? I doubt Cain would offer himself to sponsor him if he didn’t plan to arm him to the teeth.”

“They will be ready in the morning. By the way, you should return what Justin lend to you.”

I already knew about that, but I kinda liked my armour and my new rune, even if it gave me vertigos every time I used it. I also didn’t like the fact I had to swamp things so often because It made it hard to get used to them. After the fight, I would see If I could buy something with my accumulated points.

“You should sleep now. I would hate to lose a bet.”

Arlam left and locked the room. I stared at the bed, which now looked alien after all I had passed. It also made me wonder if Vanessa was alright and sleeping comfortably because of our son, which then made it harder for me to sleep because It felt unfair to her. On the rare occasions, I managed to sleep, I soon woke up after dreaming that someone killed her.

Morning soon came, and someone unlocked the door. A masked servant entered the room and put a plate with bread and meat next to me; a second put a box like the one they gave us when we first arrived. When they left, I jumped at the plate and eat everything as it would be my last meal.

When I finished, I opened the box and inspect everything.

Leather Helmet of Miracle Aim.

Durability: 100%

Rune Slot: 0/1.

Effect: Has a 5% chance to show your opponent’s weak spot.

The helmet got me by surprise. Despite the low chance of it happening, being able to see a weak spot could change the tide of a battle. I wasn’t sure of how this would happen, but it had to be some sort of visual indication.

Leather Chest Plate of Strength.

Durability: 100%

Rune Slot: 0/1.

Effect: Increase muscular strength by 20%.

Leather Pauldrons of Strength.

Durability: 100%

Rune Slot: 0/1.

Effect: Increase muscular strength by 20%.

Leather Armlet of Strength.

Durability: 100%

Rune Slot: 0/1.

Effect: Increase muscular strength by 20%.

I had lost the increase in my [Mana Shield], but the increase in strength would compensate for that.

Greater Leather Boots of Agility.

Durability: 100%

Rune Slot: 0/1.

Effect: Increase movement speed by 70%.

That made me gasp. I could now move almost twice as faster as I ever could. I punched the air in front of me, almost not being able to see my own attack.

Ring of Mana.

Durability: 100%

Rune Slot: 0/1.

Effect: Has 100 points of Mana to be used by the wilder.

With the help of the ring, I now had a total mana pool of 300. I could now use more than double the spells I was able to, and no one would even consider it. I only hoped I wouldn’t need to use the mana of my [Mana Heart] because I wanted to keep it a secret as long as possible.

Contrary to my expectations, there was no shield inside the box, which meant I wouldn’t able to protect myself from my enemy's attacks. Instead, there was a pair of short swords with a rune on each.

Short Sword of Decay.

Durability: 100%

Rune Slot: 1/1.

Effect: By spending 10 points of mana, you can create an aura of decay for 10 seconds around the sword that will degrade everything the weapon touches. The aura will also affect the sword and the user.

Rune: Decay Resistance.

Tier: 1.

Type: Passive.

Mana Cost: 40 reserved mana.

Effect: Your resistance to decay increases by 30%

I was not sure of what to think about it. The decay effect looked interesting, but since it would also damage me and the weapon, It would be too risky to use. I doubt that 30% resistance to it would save me from the effect.

Short Sword of Healing.

Durability: 100%

Rune Slot: 1/1.

Effect: The sword will reserve 50 points of mana to add an aura of healing to your body. The aura will slowly heal some of the damage done to you unless it is a mortal wound, or the damage is impossible to heal.

Rune: Beholder of Slowness.

Tier: 1.

Type: Summon.

Mana Cost: 40 reserved mana.

Effect: Summon one Beholder to follow you. The Beholder will decrease the mobility of a single target it has its gaze on by 10%.

That brought a smile to my face. A beholder had already saved my life once, so I really liked it. I made quick mental math and after summoning it I would still have 170 points of mana left to use the decay or the banner inside my [Mana Core] until I realised it would affect others around me, and there would be a hell of lot of people watching. Using it would kill me.

I put the armour on, and the swords on my belt. This set was different from the last one. It was brown and had chain details on parts of it like it had one inner chainmail.

Lastly, I put the helmet on. It was kinda hard to see with it, but not enough to hinder me.

“You look like a champion,” Arlam told, resting at the door frame. “The bets are against you for some reason, so you better win and put the coin in my pocket.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not gonna lose.”

It was time to kill or be killed.

And I was one of the best at killing.