Chapter 66

“Hey, what gives!?” those in the crowds that were still sober enough or cared enough to pay attention complained and booed.

“Go back to the fucking!”

“And fix the Sphere!”

The lucid members of the crowds who were not busy fucking themselves, complained for selfish reasons, but the reasons were not unsubstantiated as far as the viewer experience was concerned. Since the rebellion of the arena staff, the flames around the arena grew weaker, the viewing sphere flickered. And with one of the shirtless men wounded and another dead, the viewing conditions deteriorated even further.

Number Ten used the chaos and worsening lighting as cover and sprinted to the narrow path with the fewest masked enforcers. Unlike the shirtless arena staff, these men were armed with swords and spears. Some of them even had leather armor.

Number Ten jumped up, and crashed down fists-first into the path, making it crack and tremble. The four masked men on that path staggered, nearly falling into the abyss. The beastkin woman used that opportunity to jump over the teetering enforcers and ran up the path, away from the arena.

“Suckers!” the beastkin woman grinned as she swiftly crossed the winding path over the abyss. Maybe that ‘Cock Gifter’ will win, maybe she won’t. I rather not place bets on others only to get caught in the crossfire myself—

SMACK!

“GHUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...”

A short, young, slim, and fit shirtless masked man appeared out of nowhere and with a single slam of his open palm into Number Ten’s chest knocked the fleeing beastkin off the arena.

“There shall be no unsanctioned fleeing from the arena!” the man said calmly as he looked through the tiny eye holes in his red and black mask down at the falling figure of the beastkin who quickly faded from sight and memory.

“She had the right idea,” Number Seven said when he heard Number Ten’s descending, fainting scream.

“You’re going to run too?” Uma asked, looking up at the giant mountain of muscle who would have towered over her, had she not stood twenty feet away from him.

“I have no interest in the so-called prize that Felicia promised us,” Number Seven said and put his gigantic ‘Cleaver’ over his shoulder.

“And what about you?” Uma asked Number Seventeen who approached the remaining pair of participants. An utterly average and generic human girl, whose only noteworthy features were her wide, red scarf around her neck as well as getting spit roasted before the start of the first round. Oh, and killing her spit roasters immediately after.

The human girl did not answer Uma’s question. Instead, she lifted her hand and grasped her scarf, gently pressing it to her cheek.

The arena fell into further darkness as the rising, exploding fireballs grew weaker and reappeared with increasing intervals. Instead, sudden explosions of fire flashed throughout the arena at different distances and times as the shirtless men engaged Felicia’s enforcers who were armed with shields, spears, and seemed to only increase their armaments.

Another group of masked enforcers ran straight toward the three remaining participants. Eight in total, they surrounded the smaller group and pointed the tips of their spears against the trio.

One of the enforcers said, “Thelicia gave you clear instructions for your final task! Why are you still standing here? Or have you decided instead of becoming champions and walking away with the grand prize to forfeit your lives right here and now?”

“Do you any of you know who this scarf belonged to?” Number Seventeen asked, still holding her scarf.

“No, and we don’t give a fuck!” one enforcer answer for the entire group.

“That’s right,” Number Seventeen nodded and took a couple steps forward from the other two participants. “Nobody remembers anymore. All the ‘losers’ are laughed at and forgotten. But I remember! I remember my brother! But nobody will remember you!”

“Kill he-HMFM!?” before the enforcer could even give his order, the scarf slipped from the girl’s hand, zapped forward and wrapped itself around the enforcer’s mouth and neck. The enforcer tried to rip the scarf off, but within two seconds his efforts were terminated with a subdued, unpleasant crack. The enforcer’s body went instantly limp, and he collapsed like a man whose neck had just been snapped.

The two enforcers next to their dead comrade screamed and lunged with their spears at Number Seventeen. The girl evaded both attacks while her scarf unwrapped from one dead prey and flew toward next one.

“MMMMMMMMFFFFMM!!!” the other enforcer screamed through the scar while his eyes went wide in horror for he had just witnessed first-hand what fate awaited him.

“NOOO!!!” Uma screamed.

Before Number Seventeen could react, she was cleaved clean in half with a single downward swing of Number Seven’s Cleaver.

“And nobody will remember you too,” Number Seven said to the two vertical body parts that fell apart and turned to a gory pile of meat.

The enforcers were frozen in shock at the sudden demise of their heroic foe and the way she was killed. One enforcer was particularly relieved because the scarf that tied itself around his neck and was about to snap his life instantly lost all form and power when its owner died. The enforcer tore the scarf off and threw the light piece of cloth as far away as he could, which was not very far.

“Brutal animal!!” Uma screamed as bright light shot out in a wide arch of her back and stomach, blinding the enforcers behind her and in front of her, except for one who stood in Number Seven’s shadow. Out of the light in Uma’s back the majestic, feathered wings of a bald eagle appeared once more.

“Please,” Number Seven smirked as he turned around to Uma with his enormous Cleaver raised above his head, held up with a single arm. Without saying another word, Number Seven smile widened as he swung down on Uma’s head before the eagle even fully emerged.

“Abraham!” Uma shouted and out of the light in front of her a massive, thick, hairy, horned head of a bison appeared, followed by the rest of the bison—taller than the summoner herself—a mass of hair and muscle named ‘Abraham’ charged Number Seven and rammed its head into his abdomen.

“GHUEHK!” Number Seven’s attack was instantly thwarted as his body made a C shape around the bison’s head before getting hurled back through the air, catching an enforcer who did not even see what was happening before Number Seven’s body slammed into him and sent them both flying back.

The bison huffed and knocked its hooves against the rocks before quickly turning to the remaining horrified enforcers and launched into another charge with its tail raised.

“UAAAAAA~” the men screamed in horror as they pointed their spears against the bison. Two of the enforcers threw their spears at the bison desperate to keep the animal at bay. One enforcer somehow managed to miss the giant animal at such a close range and pissed himself from fear. The other enforcer scored a hit with his spear but failed to penetrate deep through it’s strong hide and muscles. Both terrified men forgot that their spears were never meant for throwing, nor were they practiced in throwing the spears, so their attacks had little hope of success.

And with the attacks failed Abraham mowed down two more enforcers while the spear lodged in its side fell out.

“Idiots! Kill the summoner!” one of the masked enforcers screamed as he lunged at Uma hoping to skewer her before he suffered a similar fate. But that enforcer suddenly lost sight of Uma, his vision turning red and painful.

“AAAAAAAA!!!” the enforcer screamed in agony and fell to the ground while a bald eagle tore his face apart with its long, curved talons.

Rather than try attacking the summoner and face the wrath of Abraham, the remaining three enforcers turned to flee for their lives in different directions. Not like any of them could possibly dream of outrunning a charging bison unless they had a history of victories in races against horses.

Throughout the fight, Uma did not move a single step. The skirt of her white and blue uniform barely flickered when Abraham sprinted past her, chasing down the remaining enforcers. Abraham only let a single man escape who had run too far in an opposite direction from the others, screaming and crying all the way home.

And while Abraham returned to Uma, the fleeing, crying, pissing-his-pants enforcer made it to the path off the arena before he felt sharp hooks sink into his neck and nape. The eagle tore chunks of flesh out of the crying enforcer, causing him to stumble and fall into the abyss below.

“Not bad, not bad,” Uma heard a familiar male voice approach behind her. The gory-haired girl turned around and saw Number Seven, not only alive, but slowly approach her as if he was not just rammed by a six-foot-high, two-thousand-pound animal with a force that should have turned his organs to mush. The only sign of the previous attack was a red and blue bruise across his gigantic, shredded sixpack.

“Washington!” Uma called out and lifted her arm. Seconds later her eagle returned to her and landed on her forearm. Not only did the eagle’s talons not sink into Uma’s flesh deep enough to even prick her skin, but Uma seemed unfazed by the weight of the bird, as if it was as light as a feather.

Number Seven stopped some thirty feet from Uma, right where Number Seventeen’s corpse remained, and put his bloodied ‘Cleaver’ against the reddish puddle at his feet.

“Got any more pets?” Number Seven asked Uma as he rested his massive forearms against the straight, blunt part of his giant rectangular blade.

“Come here and find out, coward!” Uma answered, looking at the muscle mountain with anger and disgust.

“Coward?” the giant man asked. “I chose to stay, unlike that beastkin woman who’s now at the bottom of some pit.”

“Don’t even pretend!” Uma shouted. “You attacked that girl from behind! Unprovoked! Uncalled for!”

“Uncalled for? Did you forget that her, you, me, all of us are still part of the Games? Or did someone announce their cancellation?”

“You ... You’re still participating?”

“Of course! Didn’t you hear the final task that Felicia gave us?”

“After all that has happened? How can you even ... You said yourself that you would not participate in this! That Number Ten had the right idea!”

“I said that I have no interest in the so-called prize,” Number Seven shrugged. “And Number Ten did have the right idea. I would have killed her too, just like Seventeen, just like you.”

“Y-you ... Deceiver! Scum!!”

“And you’re a fool,” Number Seven stated, unfazed by Uma’s insults. “What stopped you from attacking me when you had so many opportunities? Just because you heard what you wanted to hear? Just like Seventeen, holding on to some stupid virtues or sense misplaced sense of justice as if that makes you better than me or anyone else.”

“I’m nothing like you! You’re a simple brute. An emotionless killing machine!”

“Really? What about when you had fun ripping your teammate to pieces?”

“That was different! He betrayed those that trusted him! A cowardly backstabber, attacking from behind! Scum, just like you! His treachery received a deserved punishment! As will yours!”

“How was he in the wrong for trying to survive?” Number Seven asked. “Only one was making it out alive out of each team. Did you offer to slit your throat so that someone else may live?”

“W-we had a plan.”

“Did that plan conveniently have you as the survivor?” Number Seven’s smile grew wider when Uma did not answer. “Ha! So, then you flip out and torture in most inhumane ways possible anyone that goes against you? Aren’t you a little tyrant!”

“Don’t talk as if you were there!” Uma burst out. “No wonder that one backstabber would sympathize with another!”

“Right, you’re all about a ‘fair fight’,” Number Seven chuckled. “Then why didn’t you help Number Forty when she was outnumbered one to seven? Or when she was thrown straight into another fight? Or how about helping Number Sixty-nine when she was wounded and surrounded? You had plenty of chances to intervene. But you were content with sitting on the sidelines. What good is all your talk if you behave just like everyone else?”