The walk back to our cell was marked by silence.
The fight itself hadn't lasted more than a few minutes, but in the end, we had used everything we had and pushed ourselves to the limit.
Everyone was exhausted.
It was strange how a few minutes of an intense life-or-death battle could rival the exhaustion of hour-long training sessions.
No one spoke.
We simply walked through the corridor in silence, heading back toward our cells.
Grateful that it was over.
Click.
Rash and I entered our cell and immediately walked toward our beds.
I climbed up onto mine and lay down.
Only a few seconds later, I had fallen asleep.
***
Morning arrived, and, as usual, a guard entered, refilling the water barrel and leaving a new crate of food on the table.
I woke as he stepped inside.
Climbing down from my bed, I threw a glance at the teen sleeping below me.
Rash.
He was still fast asleep, not even waking when the guard entered.
I turned my head away and walked toward the table. After taking some food from the crate, I left the cell. My footsteps echoed through the empty corridor as I walked. The bread and meat in my hand were already gone by the time I reached the arena.
Entering it, I felt that everything was the same as always.
Guards playing cards.
An empty patch of sand.
Weapon racks filled to the brim on both sides of the entrance.
The routine never changed.
Survive.
Wake up.
Go to the arena.
Train.
And again.
But today somehow felt different.
I pulled my sword from the rack and lifted it onto my shoulder before walking with slow steps toward my usual training place.
Yesterday's fight replayed itself in my mind as I walked.
The Snowbears.
Their massive frames as they stood upright, towering over us. The strength behind every strike of theirs. The waves of mana that rolled through the arena with every roar.
The beasts we had fought were strong.
Far stronger than any beast I had faced before.
It seemed that with every battle, the stakes rose and the opponents became more dangerous.
Surviving would grow harder if the difficulty kept rising like that.
But—
At the same time...
We survived.
Not just me.
We.
My group.
Thrown into the arena as strangers, not knowing what would happen next, and yet we survived the fast-charging boars. We lost two teens, but the rest of us survived.
The next battle had gone even better.
The Snowbears had been overwhelming, and yet—
We survived again.
No.
We won.
Not a single injury.
Not a single person in our group had been killed.
That was when I realized something.
The moment Rash had made his bear collapse and drove his sword into its neck.
They were strong.
I couldn't be fully sure about all the others, since I hadn't seen enough of each of them. But they all survived without injuries, and their support was also good.
But Rash—
I was sure about him.
He was strong.
Yes, he had beaten me in every one of our duels.
But beating me didn't necessarily mean he would survive against beasts.
Yet after seeing what he had done yesterday—
I was sure.
At the very least, he would keep surviving.
Just like me.
He had the strength for it.
And maybe—
With Rash and me together, we could really reach the end and survive until only our group remained.
It was a strange feeling.
I had gone through one Blooding after another. Batches of teens came and went. But in the end, not a single one had survived.
No one.
It was always the same after the final battle of each Blooding.
I would be standing in the same arena I stand in now. Surrounded by blood and corpses. The crowd's cheers echoed like thunder around me. And while looking at all that death around me, I would always have the same thought.
Alone.
I was alone.
Everyone else had died.
Thousands of teens.
And I was the last one left standing.
The last one still breathing.
After some time—
I had simply accepted it.
That I would remain alone in this arena as the last survivor.
But now—
After seeing what Rash had done.
After seeing how strong he was.
I found myself beginning to accept another possibility.
That maybe this time would be different.
Hope.
It started to take root inside me once again.
Hope.
That I would not stand alone in that arena again, surrounded only by blood, corpses, and death.
And—
It made me happy.
Because I am not alone.
Step.
My thoughts halted as I reached my training spot.
Thud.
I stabbed my sword into the ground before sitting down with my back leaning against the arena wall.
Haah.
I let out a breath to clear my mind, then closed my eyes.
Now wasn't the time.
I needed to train.
Shifting my focus to my core, I began.
Slowly, I led the mana toward my limbs and head. Warmth spread through my body, and with each passing second, I pushed more mana through my pathways. My temperature rose with the increased amount of mana.
Then came the pain.
The pathways slowly widened as I forced more mana through them, adapting them to the new intensity. Strength surged into my muscles while my senses sharpened.
It was painful.
Forcing all my pathways to widen at once placed a heavy strain on my body.
But the pain had lessened with every training session.
By now, I only felt uncomfortable.
The pathways in my head were the worst part.
Before my advancement, I had slowly adapted to my enhanced senses. But now I couldn't do that the same way. I first needed to widen the pathways connected to my eyes, ears, and nose. And for that, I had to push mana through them—which immediately enhanced my senses to a level bordering on pain.
Everything became too much.
Too sharp.
I heard the guards' whispers and laughter from across the arena as if they were speaking directly beside me.
The smell of blood and sweat—even the lingering scent of the beasts from yesterday's fight—stung in my nose.
My vision stretched wider than normal, taking in too much at once, and distant things appeared unnaturally close.
It was overwhelming.
Too much information at once.
My mind couldn't keep up with it.
It felt like a brain that could normally process ten things at once was suddenly being forced to do the same with a million.
The headaches and pressure that followed bordered on torture.
That was why I only did this type of training in the morning, with my eyes closed.
That way, the amount of information flooding into me lessened just enough for me to endure it.
This kind of training felt like torture.
But if I wanted the pathways in my head to fully adapt to the new denser mana, there was no other way.
I could already feel it with every session.
How my pathways slowly adjusted.
It wouldn't take much longer before at least the pathways throughout my head were complete, and I could finally stop this part of the training.
It was painful.
But I still forced myself through it.
Because I needed strength.
***
Time passed.
Slowly, the other teens began entering the arena one by one. With their arrival, I shifted my focus away from the pathways in my head and toward the rest of my body.
I focused only on myself and let everything else fade away. My surroundings grew quieter, and everything slowly vanished, leaving only me and the mana.
It was almost like a trance.
A deep focus.
Nothing mattered except the mana flowing through my body.
Until—
A voice broke me out of it.
"Hey, Adonis."
My eyes opened, and I looked into a pair of brown eyes.
It was Rash.
He was squatting a few meters in front of me at eye level. His sword was embedded into the ground before him, both hands resting on its pommel, his chin leaning atop them.
A small smile curved his lips as he looked at me.
"I called for you a few times, but you didn't answer. Good to see you healthy and all, but you shouldn't push yourself so hard during training that you can't even sense your surroundings."
His voice was soft, but there was an underlying seriousness to it.
And he was right.
I had spent so much time here that I had begun to grow too comfortable. But at the end of the day, this was still a Colosseum.
A place where you could be killed at any moment.
I shouldn't have let my guard down.
"Yes. Thanks."
Rash gave a small nod before standing up from his squat. Pulling his sword from the ground, he let it hang loosely at his side again as he asked with a smile.
"Duel?"