His body felt strange.
Surabar felt as if he were burning with fever.
He could no longer judge calmly or move with meticulous calculation as usual.
There had never been a bell to signal the start of a match in the colosseum, but the moment he faced Baimart, he could no longer hold back.
It was as if some brainwashed signal had been triggered inside him—his blood surged rapidly.
The heat within him refused to cool, repeatedly stoking his brain until it felt like perfectly grilled meat.
Under normal circumstances, he would never have started the fight this “excited,” like some feral beast.
He would never have fought so recklessly.
But the heat, the lava-like fire blazing within him, hurled his reason far away.
There were several possible reasons.
Jasmine was one.
Paramir was another.
Garland, who had brought them all the way to the Bers Kingdom, could not be forgotten.
The pitiful Bar women treated like slaves in the gladiator quarters were also on his mind.
“Huff, huff…!”
Breathing heavily, Surabar was shocked to realize that the warhammer he gripped so tightly felt unbearably heavy.
Was he exhausted?
No, that couldn’t be.
…Yet his warhammer, practically an extension of his own body, now felt like the heaviest burden.
‘No way…’
It was true he had moved more violently than usual.
But that wasn’t all.
…Despite pretending otherwise, ever since he heard it from the old knight Morik, the invisible pressure of having to reclaim Jasmine had never left him for a single moment.
Was that what had worn him down?
Duty.
Responsibility.
Obsession with his long-time companion…
All of it pressed down on Surabar, driving him relentlessly.
He was reduced to a frail kitten, staggering and whining, flailing uselessly again and again.
“That’s it! Baimart! Show them the power of the champion!”
“I believed in you, champion!!”
He had been caught off guard.
Surabar couldn’t even mount a proper counterattack against Baimart’s flashing eyes and relentless assault—he was knocked down again and again.
Cheers and curses alternated, sometimes overlapping.
Surabar couldn’t clear his head; he floundered helplessly.
The round shield in Baimart’s hand, instead of blocking and deflecting attacks as intended, now acted like a blunt weapon flying toward him.
A shield could sometimes be used as a powerful striking tool.
Surabar gritted his teeth amid the dizziness and steeled himself.
Tung—!!
With a loud sound, his forehead tore open and blood flowed.
In that moment, Surabar suddenly felt his mind clear.
Late afternoon.
From the moment the final match began, the heat that had tormented him vanished all at once.
As he grabbed the spear bare-handed, Surabar suddenly realized how vividly he could feel the pain of torn and shredded flesh.
The moment pain struck, he regained his cold composure.
But the hearts of the audience had already shifted to Baimart.
“Do not forgive me.”
Baimart demonstrated the most cowardly yet effective tactic a seasoned colosseum gladiator could use.
Sand and the broken spear shaft rained down on the exhausted Surabar like a hail of arrows.
Surabar blocked them with his forearms, but the sand wasn’t just sand.
It dug into his skin, and if he hadn’t dodged the broken spear shaft, he would have collapsed instantly.
Huff, huff…!
His breathing grew ragged.
He tried to move, but his limbs felt as heavy as mountains.
Baimart continued his tiger hunt by throwing the endless supply of sand from the arena floor.
Cheers, jeers, curses, and the various food and empty wine cups the spectators held rained down chaotically onto the arena.
Surabar dodged the sand Baimart scattered and snatched a falling wine cup mid-air.
There was no time to throw it back by hand.
Instead, he spun in the air and hurled the cup he had caught with his tail straight at Baimart.
‘This is it!’
With that move, Surabar realized he could return Baimart’s “dirty” attack with an equally “dirty” one of his own.
The various small items the audience hurled down with curses—wine cups, women’s brooches, jewelry—became excellent throwing weapons.
In response to Surabar and Baimart’s actions, the spectators threw down their canes, and some wealthy ones even drew their swords and tossed them, scabbard and all, into the arena.
“Kill him! Kill him already!”
“How long are you going to throw sand and fight like a girl?!”
“Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
“KIIIIIIILL—!!”
Surabar had discarded his warhammer.
Baimart’s weapon had been shattered.
New weapons rained down on both gladiators endlessly.
There was no shortage of things to throw at each other.
They hurled anything hard or sharp they could grab in a straight line at one another, dodging at the same time.
Yet they closed the distance, and whenever their weapons could reach the other, lines of blood sprayed across the arena.
The colosseum became a complete mess—broken walls, sand, and spectators’ belongings scattered everywhere.
The colosseum managers, who should have stopped it, simply turned a blind eye and let it happen.
The heat grew more intense, until finally Baimart’s sword severed Surabar’s tail.
“KRAAAAAH—!!”
The unsharpened blade did its job perfectly.
The tail wasn’t cleanly cut—it was nearly torn off and rolled across the arena floor.
It was a decisive moment.
Beastmen, especially those with tails long enough to touch the ground, normally used their tails in strange and unique ways alongside their limbs in daily life.
Among them, Surabar was a mercenary supremely skilled in combat that incorporated his tail.
Losing his tail brought not only pain but also the loss of balance.
Surabar could no longer hold his center, staggering and stumbling away from Baimart as if about to collapse.
Watching him, Baimart panted heavily and closed the distance step by step.
He wasn’t unscathed either.
In exchange for cutting the tail, Baimart’s flesh had been torn away by Surabar’s sharp claws.
A massive claw mark ran from his neck, across his chest and stomach, down to his thigh—an injury as severe as Surabar’s.
‘I… I’m going to win…!’
The sword he held was merely a ceremonial weapon meant for show, but Baimart had used this thrown sword to sever Surabar’s tail.
Now Surabar’s movements were no longer agile and swift—they had become heavy and sluggish.
Baimart panted.
Blood and flesh dripped from his cuts and scratches, and from internal injuries, a clot of blood welled up and burst from his mouth.
Surabar leaned against the crack in the wall he had made, barely managing to stay upright.
To defeat Surabar, to achieve his tenth victory, to end the contract with the devil, to kill one of his own kind—Baimart took heavy steps forward.
His vision blurred moment by moment, and the distant cheers sounded muffled in his ears.
Baimart intended to thrust the ceremonial sword into the panting, motionless Surabar’s throat.
It was almost over.
Freedom, the curse binding Anastasia and his children’s hearts—everything would disappear.
Just one more step… one single step…
Grab.
“…?!”
Surabar reached out and seized the descending sword.
It was the same hand that had gripped the spear.
Blood still flowed from it, and the mangled flesh was in tatters, yet the blade didn’t cut or sever the hand at all.
Baimart looked at Surabar in shock.
Blue light flickered around his hand, his feet, and the severed stump of his tail.
“Swordmaster!”
Anastasia Greenwood, the Archduke watching the match, shouted.
“This should be enough, don’t you think? No matter who wins, the survivor will achieve what they desire. This is perfect.”
Cedmos spoke.
Cedmos Jaeger.
The one-eyed swordmaster.
The Guardian Deity of the Bers Kingdom.
The knight among knights who defeated Zork, the monster of the Demon King’s Army.
And.
“Do you want to reclaim your precious ‘toy,’ Your Highness? The tail-chaser? Jasmine? If you defeat me, the First Prince might just be able to do it. Tonight, no matter who wins, our battle will become legend. Those fools screaming down there don’t matter. It will be the greatest offering to the gods above!”
The greatest obstacle blocking Jasmine’s rescue.
Cedmos walked precariously along the edge of the roof.
He looked like a boy playing a childish prank, as if about to fall.
Yet he could charge at me anytime.
I was not letting my guard down.
I already held my sword.
We weren’t even looking at each other, nor had we crossed blades, but the fight had already begun.
This one-eyed swordmaster had sent a signal the moment the colosseum match started:
that we too would begin a life-or-death battle.
Just as I had confirmed Jasmine’s presence with mana threads outside the detached palace, he had sent mana threads to me conveying his intent.
Even without words, I could understand the meaning from the emotions carried in Cedmos’s mana.
Cedmos craved battle.
A perilous battle where he might die.
A cruel game where a moment’s jest or whim could lead to death.
We stood on the roof of the colosseum.
A place overlooking the city and its people.
From up here, the people looked like tiny ants, and their frenzied cheers sounded like the incomprehensible roars of beasts.
In truth, the people screaming down there were not so different from beasts.
To go mad watching fellow humans desperately trying to kill each other—this was madness.
“You’ve grown stronger. It seems you’ve undergone some very special training these past few days that I didn’t know about… truly impressive. To fight a young, talented swordmaster like you. Do you know how long I’ve waited for this moment? Whether it’s Redron or the dead Archduke Greenwood, no one can stop me now. I beg you—please don’t die too quickly. Young swordmaster from Mosul. Your courage will be remembered forever… within me.”
“…You talk too much.”
“If only you’d keep talking!”
You talk too much.
You’ll understand when you’re older.
The sun of tomorrow…
A crimson aura surged.
Cedmos held an ordinary one-handed sword, nothing special.
But the size of his aura far surpassed anything I could emit.
I didn’t need to clash auras to know how powerful it was.
Clang!
Just blocking one of Cedmos’s lightning-fast strikes made my insides tremble.
Guh—
A clot of blood surged up and spilled from my mouth.
With a single attack, I was pushed from one end of the colosseum’s round roof to the other.
If I had been even a fraction slower to react, I might have fallen straight down…
I wiped the blood from my mouth and nose with my sleeve.
“Not bad. But… is that all you’ve got?”
Of course not.
I infused aura into the dagger I had hidden inside my cloak and threw it like a shuriken.
Cedmos sighed at my petty attack and casually dodged it.
‘Monster bastard!’
If we fought strength against strength, I would be at a disadvantage.
The only way I could win was to force him into a prolonged battle, draining that overwhelming crimson aura until it weakened to a manageable level.
I had to drag this into a war of attrition.
The more weapons I had prepared in advance, the more effective it would be at wearing down his stamina.
“Please… don’t do this! I didn’t come here to play a filthy children’s game like this, you know? Hmm? Young swordmaster. If you keep irritating me like this…”
“You monster bastard!”
“…Should I just kill you?”
Cedmos closed the distance and his sword flew toward me.
His aura blazed like molten lava along my blade, threatening to slowly devour me whole.