The next day, the sky was overcast and chilly, with the north wind howling fiercely. EeDechi stepped into the arena once again.
Last time, she had been in the audience seats, but this time, she was standing on the fighting platform as a contestant.
She looked up at the four walls of the arena. The stands were packed as always, but the usual rowdy chaos was gone, and hardly anyone was cheering or clapping.
EeDechi felt a bit confused. She turned to her "support crew" behind her—Barrett, Sean, and Stella—and asked, "Why's it so dead in here? There aren't even a few people swearing."
Barrett explained, "This is the quarterfinal of the Warrior Captain promotion match, second only in importance to the final. It's the ultimate clash between Re-Estize's strongest warriors.
"The people qualified to watch are either rich or noble, and the arena tickets have jacked up the prices. So, most folks sitting here are well-mannered nobles and royals. Look, Princess Renner is in the VIP box."
EeDechi followed the direction of Barrett's finger. Their employer, Re-Estize's third princess, Renner, was watching them. When she saw Barrett and the others notice her, she flashed a sweet smile.
Beside her was her ever-present guard, Climb, along with a few old men who looked like wealthy merchants. A dozen seats away, a cluster of lavishly dressed nobles surrounded a slightly plump man with golden short hair—the second prince, Zanac.
EeDechi activated her Innate Talent, scanning the Justice Values of the nobles in the audience seats, and muttered, "I'd rather the arena be buzzing with curses and filth than put on a fight show for these hypocritical lowlifes."
In the central open ground of the arena, a mage stood every few dozen meters, maintaining a transparent magic shield that enveloped the center to keep the elite warriors' brutal fights from spilling over into the stands.
Not long ago, a truly horrific event had happened: a warrior's heavy hammer flew accidentally into the audience, killing several people and injuring over a dozen in a bloody mess that was even more gruesome than anything on the arena.
Learning from that last disaster, even though common folk in the audience still got no protection afterward, with a big group of noble lords showing up today, the organizers quickly rounded up over a dozen mid-tier mages, all set and ready to guarantee the spectators' safety.
The old announcer with the raspy, broken voice had been swapped out too. Now, a deep, rich, magnetic male voice echoed around the arena's four walls:
"The highly anticipated Warrior Captain promotion match is about to kick off! The brave warrior who emerged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood, Schroeve Dahlsen! Versus the fresh challenger, EeDechi..."
At the other end of the arena, a mountain of a warrior stared at EeDechi in the center, his heavy adamantite armor doing nothing to hide his bulging muscles. A blood-red giant sword stood beside him, its blade etched with a dense pattern of pine needles.
Odys Malcon Waverly raised his hand, pointing at EeDechi, and said in a sinister tone,
"Slam, do you see her? That's the culprit who killed your brother. Although I've already revived him, his mental state is a mess, and his connection to his body is unstable. All of this is courtesy of EeDechi. Haven't you been itching to kill her for ages? Go on, I can feel it—the fire of revenge is burning in your heart!"
"General, I will kill her." Slam clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking loudly. He yanked the giant sword from the ground and strode toward EeDechi.
On the central sandy ground of the arena, EeDechi craned her neck to look at her opponent and said admiringly, "This guy's really tall, but his Justice Value is a bit low—only -41."
Slam towered over EeDechi by five heads, broad-shouldered and wide-waisted, standing like a mountain that touched the sky. His head was as thick as his neck, and he was clad in a set of sharp-angled Adamantite full plate armor. Compared to him, EeDechi in her black cotton clothes looked like a tiny sapling beside a massive tree.
Slam glared down at EeDechi, golden light swirling in his pupils, raw fury boiling in his eyes like something tangible. He hefted his glacier-like blood-patterned giant sword and charged straight at EeDechi without a word.
EeDechi, empty-handed, couldn't dodge in time and took the giant sword's strike dead-on. She flew out like a black rag, slamming into the sandy ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.
The whole arena erupted in boos. No one had expected the duel between Re-Estize's strongest warriors to end in a single clash, with EeDechi utterly powerless to strike back.
EeDechi climbed up from the sandy ground, shook her head, and brushed the sand off her hair. "You little bastard, I don't mind playing around with you a bit."
A faint red mist enveloped EeDechi, her feet feeling like they were sinking into a swamp, completely trapped in Slam's Innate Talent "Death Domain."
Slam charged again, his force like a stampeding herd of rhinos. His giant sword, wider and longer than EeDechi herself, hacked down on her head, smashing the adventurer captain straight into the sand.
Seeing EeDechi with half her body buried in the dirt, Slam's smile twisted into something even more grotesque. The rush of revenge and joy surged through him. He hoisted his glacier-like sword high and bellowed,
"BROTHER! I'VE AVENGED YOU!!"
One slash! Two slashes! Three slashes! Four slashes! ... Slam hacked away at EeDechi on the ground without tiring, one brutal strike after another crashing down, like a hydraulic forging hammer pounding a tiny iron sheet on the anvil.
Yellow sand whipped through the arena, gasps rising from the stands in waves. The crowd was stunned by Slam's brutality, as if they could spot blood splattering through the swirling dust.
On the lowest level of the stands, Stella gripped her statue of the Gaia tight, her heart in her throat. Cold sweat dripped down Sean's forehead, and Barrett's face was grim—he'd never seen EeDechi get pummeled like this.
Only Odys stayed perfectly calm. He lifted a white porcelain teacup from his servant's silver tray, watched the scene in the arena, and smiled as he sipped his tea slowly.
CLANG! The sharp clash of steel echoed off the four walls of the arena. EeDechi held up the giant sword she'd just pulled from her spatial ring, blocking Slam's brutal strike.
She then swung sword, forcing Slam back two steps. EeDechi shook off the sand covering her body, climbed out of the pit, and said helplessly, "Your brother came looking for trouble with me on his own. You can't blame me for his death, right?"
Slam had a moment of shock, but the raging fury quickly devoured his reason. He raised his sword high, the pine needle blood patterns crisscrossing its surface, glowing with a blinding red light, and swung it down again.
EeDechi lifted her giant sword one-handed and clashed with him once. They passed each other, and a notch appeared in Slam's giant sword. Then the whole blade shattered along the pine needle lines into countless iron shards, clattering onto the sand.
Slam stared at the tiny iron fragments in his massive hands, his eyes wide. EeDechi strolled over casually, and he still hadn't snapped out of it.
The adventurer captain swung her giant sword like she was hitting a baseball. Slam's burly body flew backward, the cracking of his bones snapping loudly. He smashed through the mages' shield at the arena's edge and embedded himself into the stone wall beneath the stands.
Slam tumbled down from the wall, covered in blood, writhing on the ground like a lump of mud.
EeDechi walked over, pondering whether to finish him off, when the silent arena erupted in a tsunami of cheers. The announcer's magnetic voice rang out high and excited:
"The winner is decided! EeDechi wins!"
"How... how is this possible!" In the VIP seats, Odys trembled with rage. His withered palm clenched hard, Crack! Shattering the white porcelain teacup in his hand. Sharp shards cut his skin, blood dripping to the floor along with the tea.
An old man in an embroidered velvet robe turned to Odys and asked coldly, "General, care to explain? We poured all our wealth into creating this elite warrior just to take down Brain. How did he get beaten by some adventurer who popped out of nowhere?"
Odys slowly broke the thin porcelain shards into crumbs in his hand, his vulture-like eyes fixed on the black-haired girl in the center of the arena, his voice icy and venomous.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of her."