I take a bit of perverse pleasure in looking up at the faces above me. Men and women throw their leftovers and random odds and ends they have on hand against the magical barrier separating them from me. The crowd is in a really bad mood now. Maybe it has something to do with my cutting short whatever redemption story Mace was trying to go for in such a straightforward manner.

  These people truly hate me. They don't even know me, not really, but they have no problem throwing their anger and frustration my way. A part of me knows that this is how it has to go. None of what is to come would work unless the well-off of Faethian society truly want to see me beaten, want it more than anything. Still, there is something fun about standing out in front of all the boos and shouts for someone to rip my head off.

  Reputation. My name having clout and a power all its own. I have been backed into this situation because I lacked it. I am here to get it. If I stop now, shake my head, and wash my hands of this business, I wager that I would have earned myself a reputation of some kind. It just wouldn't be the one that I need.

  The yelling of the crowd above grows so loud as I stand and smile up at them that they even begin to drown out Galla's amplified voice. I return the crowd's love by kissing the ring finger of my left hand and offering it up to them. I thought they were mad before, but some of the dwarves up in the audience actually begin to turn purple at the gesture.

  Despite myself, I think I might be having fun.

  A ringing screech cuts through the arena, drowning out all other noise. For ten entire seconds, it sounds as if the most sadistic cat in the world drags their claws down the world's largest blackboard. When the noise is done, the crowd above stands silent. Some hold their hands over their ears while others merely stew in their seats.

  My attention is away from them. The sole other occupant of the arena floor with me, Galla, slides a device back into a cleverly disguised pocket in her dress. A few strands of hair stand apart on her head, the only hint that she is beginning to feel anxious. For all I might dislike what she symbolizes, the woman is a showman.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, I understand your anger.” The woman's voice carries over the grumbling above as she turns a glare on me. “Trust me, I do. However, I might remind you that this is a civil affair. If a challenger evokes our ire, we have a way to rectify that. Speaking of which, I believe I hear the next champion of our fine arena approaching.” As she holds her hand to her pointed ear, the sound of footsteps against stone begins to echo through the chamber.

  More than in any of the previous matches, there is a sense of anticipation in the audience. Galla begins to extol the exploits and titles that the next fighter has claimed, but I ignore the woman. I already know who is next. This will be the sixth ranked fighter of the arena, the man Treston Mox is blackmailing me to humiliate.

  As soon as the man's head begins to appear from the illusion covering the floor, I identify him with my eye. What I find is not what I expected.

  Senya

  That is it, just a name.

  Out from the well of light marches a faethian dwarf with a smile so bright it could blind bandits and charm vulnerable maidens. His hair is a fine silver tied into a ponytail and decorated with an assortment of golden beads and enchanted jewels. His beard is short, uncommon for dwarven men, and cut to precisely accent the prominent jaw he holds proudly. Magic bleeds from everything he wears, the enchantments woven into the simple white linen shirt and black leather pants enough to cover the costs of all the gear I currently wear. Over his shoulder, he carries a golden harpoon that reflects the white light in the chamber in a rainbow cascade. He stops just past the light and holds his jeweled hand up toward the audience, laughing pleasantly to himself as he throws them a wave. The fickle lambs up above cheer wildly for him.

  I can’t really blame them. I have been in the city for months, and not a single faethian has managed to turn my head, but this man would have managed it. So, this is the man sleeping with Mox's daughter. I would be pissed too.

  Despite querying Galea for information about the man multiple times, she fails to give me anything more than his name. It isn't that he has some providence blocking item on his person. If that were the case, I wouldn't even get his name. No, Senya simply isn't a magician, an endowed noble, or even a holy man. There are many more powers in the world beyond those, but by studying him, I didn't think any of those were the case.

  What Mace said just a bit before comes back to me. I thought he had been criticising me for using enchanted equipment in these fights, but perhaps his comment had been directed elsewhere. Because, standing in front of me in the middle of this arena, is simply a mortal man wearing hundreds of thousands of suns' worth of enchanted items. A part of me is curious about how exactly his soul can withstand the incredible burden that the equipment must place on it, but I push that question to the side.

  The different flavors of the magic surrounding him are laid bare before my dragon's eye. I recognize the signatures of many of the magics without needing Galea to identify the individual items for me, though, of course, I have her do that as well. I can't be too careful.

  The man impossibly wears more than twenty enchanted items, more than half in his hair as decorations. The enchantments themselves are rather simple, amplifying mostly magic, perception, and speed, with his harpoon being the greatest piece, able to project a lance of powerful blasts of shadow to skewer opponents. On an endowed noble or a magician, the equipment alone might give him an edge in this fight. On a mortal man…Well, I am not very worried.

  “What say you?” Senya asks, waving his harpoon in my direction.

  I only vaguely recall the short speech he threw in my direction as I was investigating him, something about the indignity that I have shown and unchecked brutality. Rather boring words, but he has a way of saying such dull words that really excites the audience.

  “By the end of this, you will be on your belly, licking my boots, and I will be waiting for this arena to send out a real fighter,” I quip back, deciding to indulge in the back and forth. Why not?

  The man's face screws up as he looks down at my feet. “You aren't wearing any boots.”

  “Right. Exactly.” I say, like a dumb idiot.

  In this moment, the feel of the cold stone against my bare feet stands out more than ever. A blush rises to my face, and I make a note to never try quipping with an opponent again. Either that, or I should at least practice a bit more. Dovik is really good at quips; I should get him to help me.

  “I have places to be,” I say to Galla, trying to cover my embarrassment. “Can we start? I have better things to do.”

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  The woman does nothing to hide her displeasure, but she proceeds to launch into her preamble anyway, once more going over the accolades of Senya, while the man eats up every word.

  The way these people run this arena is truly baffling. Despite going to the trouble of ranking the fighters, nothing I have seen so far has shown me that any of those rankings actually reflect the relative strength of the fighters. If I were to grade them, they would all be at the very bottom of the second rank, just above layabouts who never bothered to learn how to use their phenomenal power in combat. Multiple people have told me of those, Third Sons they are called, the sons and daughters of wealthy merchants or nobility who were given sets of essentia and who live out their vastly longer lives in hedonistic opium dens with the occasional orgy on the weekend. While I can't imagine any of those that have faced me so far as being quite that bad, they aren't much better.

  The man standing in front of me, soaking up the adoration flung upon him like a sponge, might be the worst of the lot. In just a few seconds, that fact will be on full display.

  However, his incredible lack of any chance at winning poses a kind of issue. Treston Mox made it impossibly clear that he wants this man humiliated; the entire beating part seemed secondary. I can beat him, but doing that wouldn't be exceptionally humiliating. No, fighting a man like this would only make him shine in the eyes of the audience, even if he lost, and that would not please the man watching me from the highest booth in the chamber. There is no chance that Treston Mox is going to be very pleased at the end of the night, but I should honor our deal.

  My thoughts are thrown sideways as Galla begins to count down. Across the floor from me, Senya drops into a fighter's stance, his harpoon held tight in his hands as a ball of darkness begins to gather at the point.

  9…

  8…

  7…

  I begin my preparations as well. My soul presence expands away from me, conquering the stadium floor in the blink of an eye.

  5…

  4…

  Senya doesn't react to my presence. He can't see it. How could he have possibly made it this far? I hold my hand up, and a globe of black dust begins to gather in my palm.

  3…

  2…

  “I hope you will forgive me for this,” Senya says in a hurried rush as the final seconds pass. “I am going to…”

  “One!” Galla calls.

  As the word leaves her mouth, I press down on the arena with all the weight my soul can carry. As expected, Senya takes a step forward at the same time, preparing to race at me with his weapon held high. The man doesn't anticipate the sudden increase of weight on his body. He probably didn't watch the last fight.

  The toe of his well-polished boot hits the ground ahead of where he intends, and his ankle bends as his increased weight lands on his foot. There is the distinct sound of something snapping, and a roar of pain begins to leave the man's mouth. His cry is cut short as my ball of black dust hits him square in the face.

  Senya's golden harpoon rattles to the floor as he scratches at the dust covering his face, but it is already too late. The black dust digs into his skin like a million tunneling words, pushing into his flesh and bonding with the biomechanical mechanisms of his body. Without a soul presence to defend himself from the exotic magic particles, a mortal man is entirely defenseless when it comes to black dust.

  As I begin to walk across the stone, I curl my fingers, controlling the sand bonded to his respiratory circuit and the skin of his face. Senya's jaw snaps shut, his lips sealing tight in a line as his nostrils bend downward to clamp shut. Blue fingers scrape against his throat as he begins to understand his situation, but it is already too late for that. With wide eyes, the man stumbles back, dragging his injured foot as I continue to approach him. The sound of muffled yelling tries to escape between his closed lips, but it is of no use.

  I don't hurry myself. As I walk toward the man, the lack of air begins to take its toll. His eyes grow more and more unfocused, and his panicked clawing at his own neck loses its frenzy. By the time I am standing in front of him, he is on the verge of passing out. That won't do.

  I flick my finger, and a single one of the man's nostrils opens just enough to allow him a single breath. The fog in his eyes begins to clear, the fear giving birth to rage, but I don’t give it time to mature.

  “Kneel!” I shout down at the man. The full might of my soul presence presses down on the man, and at this close, it feels to him like he has grown ten times as heavy. Both of Senya's knees crack against the stone as he begins to slump forward. I ease the presence on him as well and grab the front of his shirt with my hand to stop him from falling to his side.

  In this moment, I feel like I am watching myself from a distance. I thought when the time came to do this, I might feel disgusted with myself, but I don't. The wide, fearful eyes looking up into mine try to force sympathy, but what little I have left to give I guard tightly. This man should never have had to come across someone like me, but he has. A lot of things should never have happened; I know that better now than anybody.

  Jess should never have been hurt. Jor’Mari never should have lost his father and brother. Monsters should never have attacked Danfalla. The people in the Trial should never have let a monster influence them; I never should have. Samielle should never have died. I should never have been betrayed. Kendon should never have been turned into a murderer. The world should never have been so cruel.

  But it is. I can't see the light in it anymore, so why should hurting this man hurt me?

  I just want things to stop hurting me.

  My hand falls, my open palm slapping Senya's cheek. I've closed his nostrils again; asphyxiation will claim him soon, and hopefully, he won't remember much of this.

  I slap the man again as he kneels in front of me, only being held up by the hand I have wound into his shirt. The yelling begins to come from up above, but the irate audience can do nothing about this. Ten more times, I reel back with my hand and bring my palm against his face hard enough to bruise and severely injure a mortal man. If it weren't for the several defensive enchantments he wears, I might have even killed him. Then, as the last shreds of consciousness begin to fade from his eyes, I pull my aura back and let go of him. Senya wavers, swaying on his knees, but I can't let him fall on his own. With a quick movement, I wedge the bottom of my foot against his throat and throw him down to the stone. To everyone above, I appear to stomp on his windpipe, trying to kill him. But they have it wrong. As the man's head bounces against the stone, the barest gap exists between his neck and my foot. After all, this whole arena is nothing but a theatre.

  The black-clad staff appear in the arena in the next moment, rushing forward to fetch the downed fighter as I back away from him. I step back, sneering up at the audience, throwing my displeasure with them at them before they can hurl it down my way.

  High in his booth, Treston Mox sat forward, staring down at the spectacle below. A hundred times, he had imagined watching Senya being brutalized in his arena, but his imagination never quite captured the moment that it happened. Always, he had pictured a fight, an event where his paid champion slowly whittled away at Senya's array of armaments before finally beating him into the ground.

  What this woman did, this was far better.

  Senya, the man some were beginning to call The People's Champion in his fighting pit, never had the opportunity to fight. Instead, he was choked like a babe, made to kneel in front of the woman, and then she slapped him into unconsciousness. It was marvellous, and she had even taken the time to really make the crowd hate her. Treston had fielded his fair share of villains in his arena over the years, but rarely did they get the crowd frothing as much as this woman was able to. Yet, despite his pleasure at the outcome, he couldn't help but feel apprehension.

  Leaning forward in his chair, he watched as the woman flipped off the audience once again, laughing as she did so. The medical staff finally finished pulling Senya out of the arena. All that was left was for the woman to take her bow and leave the arena. He would release her friend back to her, and everything would be nicely squared away.

  “Alright!” Charlene Devardem shouted up at the audience, really putting an effort into being heard. “Who is next?”

  “Fuck!” Treston Mox swore.

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