The Colosseum was currently operating on a level of psychological terror that it had never quite achieved before.
Mongrel was not just defeating people anymore. Mongrel was mentally dismantling them.
Cielle stood in the center of the arena, holding a struggling Awakened by the ankle. The man had tried to use a highly complex, wind-based movement, combining his aspect and footwork to evade her chains. He had spent three minutes gracefully dancing around the edge of the arena, performing flawless, energy-intensive flips.
Cielle had simply waited for him to land, grabbed his ankle, and slammed him face-first into the digital sand like a wet towel.
She lifted him up again, holding him effortlessly in one hand. The man groaned.
"Mongrel," the man wheezed, blood dripping from his virtual lips. "Your strength... It defies logic. Are you seriously just an awakened?! What is the secret of your absolute stillness?!"
Cielle looked at him. She analyzed the question. He wanted to know about stillness. He wanted a philosophy.
She remembered a book Sunny had left on the coffee table. It was a translated copy of a very old, pre-Spell text from Earth. Sunny had said it was about strategy, but Cielle had mostly just looked at the sentences.
She took a deep breath, perfectly mimicking Mongrel's terrifying, resonant voice.
"Be like water," Cielle advised the man she was currently holding upside down by his leg. "Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
The man stared at her upside down, his eyes going wide with sudden, agonizing realization.
"I see..." he whispered, coughing. "My footwork was too rigid! I tried to control the wind, but I failed to adapt to the shape of the vessel! You are a genius! A true master!"
"Thank you," Cielle said politely. "Now I will crash."
She swung him like a baseball bat directly into an approaching challenger.
CRACK.
Both men exploded into sparks simultaneously.
"Mongrel has won!"
The crowd in the stands went absolutely rabid. The chat on the live broadcasts was moving so fast the text was just a blurry white smear.
User_Blade99: BE WATER MY FRIEND?! DID YOU HEAR THAT?!
ShadowStabber: He just redefined the entire concept of combat!
Scholar_Of_Light: Notice how he used the first man as a physical manifestation of a crashing wave to defeat the second man! It is a living metaphor! He is teaching us while he slaughters us!
Cielle brushed off her gauntlets and waited. The queue to fight her was currently backed up by several hundred people. They were no longer stepping into the arena to win; they were stepping into the arena in the desperate hope that Mongrel would bestow a piece of dark wisdom upon them before turning their ribcages into powder.
A tall, incredibly elegant woman stepped onto the sand. She wielded a beautiful, thin rapier and moved with an undeniable grace of a professional duelist. She bowed deeply to Cielle.
"Lord Mongrel," the duelist said, her voice full of profound respect. "I am Lady Vesper. I have watched your last twenty fights. I see the flaw in your philosophy. You rely too much on the external. You speak of water and mountains, but true power comes from within! I will show you the strength of the mind!"
Cielle tilted her head. She did not know what Lady Vesper was talking about. Her power did not come from within; it came from a highly optimized diet, adequate sleep, and punching things really hard.
"Are you ready to test your philosophy against mine?!" Vesper challenged, dropping into a flawless fencing stance.
Cielle needed a counter-philosophy. She rapidly searched her memory banks. What else had she read recently?
Ah. There was a very old, very famous philosopher from pre-spell. Sunny had complained about having to read his works for an Academy history assignment. Something about a guy named 'Nietzsche'.
Cielle raised her right hand, letting the heavy, spiked iron chain uncoil slowly onto the sand with a terrifying, metallic rasp.
"If you gaze long into an abyss," Cielle declared, her voice echoing with chilling, apocalyptic doom, "the abyss also gazes into you."
Vesper's eyes widened slightly, her confident stance wavering. "The... the abyss?"
Cielle nodded earnestly. "Yes. Also, the Gods are dead. And we have killed them."
The absolute, devastating silence that crashed over the Colosseum was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Nobody breathed. The commentators on the broadcast feeds entirely lost the ability to speak. Did... did Mongrel just declare that he had murdered the divine? Did he just announce the end of all spiritual authority in the universe right before an amateur sparring match?
"You..." Vesper stammered, taking a step back, her rapier trembling. "You are completely insane! You are a heretic!"
"I am Mongrel," Cielle corrected.
Vesper lunged, driven by a mix of fear and desperate outrage. Her rapier blurred into a dozen silver thrusts, aiming for the gaps in the dark armor.
Cielle did not move. She didn't parry. She didn't dodge. She just stood perfectly still and let the rapier strike her chest plate.
Cling. Cling. Clang.
The Ascended armor absorbed the blows effortlessly, barely even scratching the paint. Vesper stopped, her chest heaving, staring in absolute horror at the terrifying, unmoving demon in front of her.
"The abyss," Cielle informed her calmly, "is currently unimpressed."
Cielle reached out, grabbed the blade of the rapier with her bare, armored hand, and simply snapped it in half. Before Vesper could even scream, Cielle backhanded her with the broken half of her own sword.
Vesper dissolved into a shower of defeated sparks.
"Mongrel has won!"
The stands erupted again, but this time, it wasn't just cheering. It was a mix of awe, terror, and frantic philosophical debate.
"He's right!" a man in the front row screamed, tearing off his own shirt in a fit of sudden enlightenment. "God IS dead! The Nightmare Spell tells the truth! Mongrel is the prophet of the new age!"
Cielle watched the man scream from the stands. She felt very proud. She was providing excellent public service. Sunny was going to be so happy when he saw how much culture and education she was bringing to his persona.
The next challenger was a massive, hulking brute carrying a shield the size of a dinner table. He didn't even bother to draw a weapon. He just planted his shield in the sand and roared.
"I don't care about your poetry, Demon! Break my defense if you can!"
Cielle sighed internally. This one didn't want to learn. He just wanted a physics demonstration.
She began to walk toward him, the chains dragging behind her. She needed one final, devastating quote to truly solidify the aesthetic before she broke his shield into tiny pieces.
She remembered a quote from a very strange, very old piece of media Sunny had watched on his communicator. It was an ancient cartoon about a man who was very good at martial arts but had terrible hair.
"You are already dead," Cielle stated factually.
The brute laughed from behind his massive shield. "I am at full health, you arrogant fool! Strike me!"
"Okay," Cielle said.
She didn't use the chains. She simply walked right up to the massive, reinforced steel shield, pulled her fist back, and punched it.
Her fist hit the center of the shield.
The sound wasn't a metallic clang. It was the sound of a bomb going off inside a tin can.
The heavy steel shield instantly buckled inward, shattering into a dozen jagged pieces. The kinetic force of the punch didn't stop there; it transferred directly through the broken metal, hitting the brute square in the chest.
He didn't fly backward. His digital avatar simply registered the sheer, overwhelming amount of blunt force trauma, instantly flatlined, and dissolved into sparks right where he stood.
Cielle stood in the empty space, shaking out her hand.
"See?" Cielle told the empty air. "I told him."
The Colosseum was dead silent again.
Cielle looked up at the digital sky. She checked the time mentally. Sunny was going to be home in thirty minutes. She needed to log out, take off the disguise, and make sure she was sitting on the couch when he walked through the door.
Cielle didnt know why but she knew sunny would not like her maintaining his reputation, maybe he would say something like "I am Mongrel, only i speak for myself, i eat, i drink and i breath for the one and only self!"
She turned to address the terrified, silent crowd one last time. She wanted to leave them with something deeply encouraging.
"Remember," Cielle boomed, raising one armored fist into the air. "Life is a journey. But violence is a destination. Have a nice day."
She hit the disconnect button.
The dark, terrifying figure of Mongrel vanished from the arena.
For a long, agonizing moment, nobody in the Colosseum moved. And then, the commentators completely lost their minds.
VIOLENCE IS A DESTINATION?!
Write that down! Someone write that down!
He just summarized the entire human condition in two sentences!
****
Miles away, in the quiet, safe darkness of the basement, Cielle opened her eyes as the pod hissed open.
She climbed out, feeling highly refreshed. She tapped the silver pendant on her chest, letting the heavy, terrifying illusion of Mongrel melt away, replacing it with her usual oversized grey t-shirt and bare feet.
She padded upstairs, went into the kitchen, and poured herself a glass of water.
She had done a very good job today. She had defended Sunny's win streak, she had provided excellent educational quotes to the masses, and she hadn't set anything on fire.
She sat down on the couch, entirely unaware that the global Dreamscape forums were currently experiencing a total meltdown, and that by the time Sunny checked his communicator, he was going to need medical attention.