Chapter 61: This gentleman
[Before the Anomaly, Underground Arena, Preparation Passage]
The air was thick with a cloying, intoxicating stench. It was the smell of cheap engine oil mixed with a high concentration of combat stimulants.
"Hurry up! You bunch of bastards (inappropriate for children), get moving!"
A captain of the cult, clad in gold-trimmed armor, brandished an electric whip, driving his soldiers.
Dozens of fully armed guards were crammed into the narrow passage. Their eyes were bloodshot from overdosing on "Ecstasy," their pupils dilated, and uncontrollable drool dripped from their mouths.
Their hands trembled uncontrollably, not from a Parkinson's attack, but from an impatient thirst for sensory gratification.
Behind this pack of rabid soldiers stood four mountain-like gladiator champions.
The gladiators' eyes glowed even redder; each of them had just been injected with an overdose of berserker potion to fully unleash their potential.
Now, their reason was almost gone, their minds filled only with animalistic instincts.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the front of the passage.
Several automatons responsible for clearing the area were retreating with stiff steps from the arena entrance.
They weren't carrying stretchers.
Each automaton carried two enormous metal barrels.
The barrels looked heavy, and their contents swayed and groaned with each automaton's movement.
"What's this?"
The Chaos Cultist captain frowned and stopped one of the automatons.
He peered into the barrels.
Even the cultists, accustomed to bloodshed, felt their stomachs churn.
The barrel was filled with a mixture of red and white, mud, scraps, and metal fragments… a kind of meat paste.
It looked like the product of throwing several whole Grookes into an industrial meat grinder and grinding them for half an hour.
"Is this animal feed?" the captain muttered, covering his nose. "Didn't we have any of those damn alien beasts scheduled to appear today? Why are we getting so much meat paste? And it's hot?"
The servant didn't answer; its brain, partially removed, couldn't process such complex information. It mechanically bypassed the captain and continued carrying out the "cleanup" command.
"Who cares!"
A gladiator nearby growled, licking his lips and staring greedily at the barrel.
"Everyone! Prepare!"
From the loudspeaker at the end of the corridor came Lars's tearful, hysterical command.
"Charge! All of you, charge! The door's open!"
With a deafening clang of gears turning, the heavy adamantite gate slowly rose.
Blinding light pierced the dimly lit passage.
"Roar—!!"
"For pleasure! For ecstasy!!"
The cultists and gladiators, unable to contain themselves any longer, roared. They surged out of the passage and into the arena.
In their chaotic and fanatical imaginations, they envisioned a group of trembling mortal bodyguards standing opposite them.
They would slowly slice them to pieces with their swords, relishing the sweet pleasure of screams and blood splattering on their faces.
However.
When they saw the scene before them...
The frenzied charge seemed to be abruptly halted.
"Screech—"
Dozens of feet screeched to a halt on the sand, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The gladiator champion at the very front stopped abruptly, nearly tumbling from the momentum.
The cultists behind him couldn't stop in time and collided, the once orderly charge instantly turning into chaos.
There were no ordinary bodyguards in the arena.
In the center of the vast arena stood only one figure.
A…golden…"person"?
He was even taller than the Terminator veteran who had appeared earlier.
If you didn't count the towering tassel…the pointed helmet and the red plume, his height was probably three meters.
But he didn't appear excessively broad like the Terminator.
His proportions were perfect, like a statue of Ancient Terra.
Clad in dazzling golden armor, every curve and embossed detail was exquisitely crafted.
He held a long-handled weapon, its tip a broad, single blade, the lower part fitted with a munitions muzzle.
He stood there silently.
Leaning on a halberd, he was like a golden statue.
"What…what is that?"
The captain of the guard's Adam's apple bobbed, emitting a dry swallow.
No one answered him.
Everyone present, including the gladiators whose brains had been damaged by drugs, felt an unprecedented pressure.
It was the innate fear, a biological instinct, that emanates from the genes of lower life forms facing higher predators.
Dozens of fully armed thugs, facing this one figure, dared not make a move.
This silent standoff nearly shattered the nerves of all the spectators.
Just then…
In the crowd, a cultist adjutant, who usually read a few books and admired "perfect literature and art," suddenly shuddered.
His brain began to work uncontrollably.
A powerful, illogical, even suicidal thought sprouted wildly within him like weeds.
"Speak! Speak!"
"I have to say something now! Otherwise, it'll be too embarrassing!"
"Mockery! Use your most sophisticated vocabulary! Show everyone your perfect literature and art!"
The adjutant's facial muscles began to twitch violently.
His biological instincts screamed at him: "Kneel down and beg for mercy! You idiot!"
But his mouth, as if possessed, opened uncontrollably.
Under extreme distortion and psychological struggle, the adjutant's expression became utterly bizarre—a mixture of crying and laughing, a wildly arrogant upturn at the corners of his mouth tinged with trembling fear.
He took a step forward.
In the deathly silence of the crowd, this step stood out starkly.
All eyes—including those of the golden giant (though his eyes were unseen)—were fixed on him.
The adjutant took a deep breath.
Then, in a standard aristocratic, impeccably polite High Gothic accent, he spoke:
"Ahem..."
"This...this gleaming golden...sir."
The adjutant's voice trembled clearly, but his enunciation was terrifyingly clear.
"In my opinion...although your armor is...very beautiful."
"But..."
He pointed a trembling finger at Cole's golden armor.
"Dressed so... flamboyantly, like... like a giant ornament."
"You must be... a pretty face with no real combat experience... ha... haha?"
A collective gasp rippled through the guards and gladiators.
Lars on the platform gasped in horror.
But the lieutenant wasn't finished. That mysterious thought continued to push him toward the precipice.
He even managed a forced, polite, mocking smile, more like a grimace.
"Someone like you... a 'decoration'..."
"Usually... your employer must be protecting you, right?"
"After all... you look... like you'd break at the slightest touch."
The words fell.
The wind seemed to freeze in the arena.
After saying that, the lieutenant collapsed, panting heavily, his eyes filled with bewilderment.
"Oh my god… what did I say? What am I doing? I want to go back to the 'Happy House' to find my mother…"
Cole didn't let out a furious roar.
His face, hidden beneath the golden mask, remained icy cold.
To the Imperial Guard, such ant-like language couldn't possibly stir any emotion.
But…
"Protected by my employer."
Those words…
Cole slammed his halberd to the ground with his right hand.
"Thump!!"
It wasn't loud.
But the sound was like a heavy hammer blow to the hearts of the guards.
"Crack—crack—!!"
Centered on the point where the halberd struck the ground.
The arena's thick stone slabs, even with a reinforced metal layer underneath, instantly cracked.
Countless jagged cracks spread outwards like a spiderweb.
One of the widest and deepest fissures shot straight toward the adjutant, stopping precisely less than a centimeter from his toes.
"Whoosh—"
A tangible, chilling storm of killing intent erupted from the center of Cole.
"Whoosh—"
All the gladiators and cultists around, even those who had lost their minds, were terrified in that instant.
They jumped back in unison as if electrocuted, some even collapsing to their knees.
A large area in the middle of the arena instantly cleared.
Only the adjutant, still speechless and already terrified, stood alone at the end of the fissure, facing the golden Grim Reaper.
Cole slowly raised his head.
He was waiting.
"The Holy Warrior's pre-battle instructions: Only act upon hearing the signal."
Cole silently repeated the command, considered a divine decree, in his mind.
"Ding—!"
The referee's life-saving (or perhaps death-calling) war bell finally rang.
Cole sprang to life.
He slowly raised the tip of his halberd. From a distance of several meters, it pointed steadily at the lieutenant.
"Very good."
A completely emotionless voice emanated from behind the visor, piercing the ears of every cultist.
Blue arcs of electricity flickered, the halberd blade emitting the prelude to death.
"You will have the honor of becoming… the most miserable heretic here."