Perfect Avatar
Chapter 213: Gladiators

Chapter 213: Gladiators

The sun was rising in the land of red sand, and in the center of the mysterious city, a temperature was rising inside the boiling arena.

Screams of joy, songs in honor of an individual, the public was in turmoil, and on the ground, on a sandy and rocky ground covered with pools of blood, two gladiators slit each other’s throats.

On one side, a gladiator with an axe, and on the other, a gladiator with a mace, both caught in a dance of death.

The axe-wielding gladiator spread his arms wide, taunting his opponent who was bleeding from the right side of his stomach.

The latter raised the spear high and uttered a cry of rage before spinning his weapon and jumping on his opponent, both emitting a red aura.

The spear hit the ground hard, the impact creating a crater and raising dust into the air, and behind him the mace hit the ground, covered in blood and parts of the skull it had just crushed.

The audience roared in ecstasy, with the mace warrior raising his weapon towards the audience.

In the stands, Iris and Morgiana watched in disgust, the spearwoman gulped.

"Yeah...I regret every decision I’ve made in my life. This place is just the worst."

Next to her, Iris bit her thumbnail, thinking hard.

"Say, why do you think he only asked Mercy and Lilith to follow him?"

Morgiana glanced at her, forcing a smile.

"Hm? Oh, are you surprised? Maybe he judged Lilith to be stronger than you?"

"Could we stop hating each other for a second? I’m thinking about what he... what the other Dora said before, when we were in the savannah... Candidate of Wrath. What does that means?"

Morgiana crossed her arms and shook her head.

"Well, he said something about a plan C, is that really important?"

"Yes, it is! In the boat, Zuri also said something weird... one compatible... several uh... hm... I don’t remember what she said, but she said something similar, and now Dora is pushing Mercy into all this. Candidate of Wrath, Avatar of Wrath... don’t you see where this is going?"

"...Mercy is stronger than y- OH MY GOD!" She hid her face while the gladiator disemboweled his opponent’s body and exposed his intestine to the ecstatic audience.

Iris turned to the side, looking apprehensively at a paper bag under the foot of a woman next to them. She swallowed and grabbed Morgiana’s arm, moving closer to her ear.

"I think it’s related to the pseudo-avatars... it’s too weird to be just a coincidence..."

Meanwhile, in an underground room, Dora, Lilith and Mercy waited, the former looking at the ceiling.

"Very good, it’s starting to get quieter, it will be our turn soon."

Mercy swallowed, grabbing her arms worriedly, but next to her, Lilith was showing different behavior from before.

Her hammer on the ground, she watched the ground, without any words, but inside, her heart was beating like never before.

She felt the flow of her blood increase and goosebumps pass through her body like shock waves.

"...Hey, what happens if we have to fight?" She said, her head bowed.

"It won’t happen if we get good feedback from the public." Dora replied. "Gladiators fight endlessly to the death, and it’s rare to see one truly stand out. If we get recognized, they’ll be excited for a titan duel and to make it better, they’ll make sure to not let it happen too soon."

"How are you so sure?" Mercy groaned.

In response, Dora snapped his finger, dropping an object on the girl’s head.

She flinched and took it slowly, then, when she recognized the shape of a finger, she threw it away with a muffled cry.

"Fuck...Stop doin’ that!!!"

Dora looked at the ceiling with a satisfied smile and even Lilith started laughing.

Then footsteps approached them and a tall man wearing a mask came into their room.

"Yeh, get ready."

Dora uncrossed his arms, took one last look at the girls and followed the man.

They walked through a dark corridor, passing a few helmeted gladiators, the piercing sensation of their gaze reaching the young boy.

His body adopted a smile, the morning star on his back reflecting the voices of the audience that reached him despite the distance.

(...Is it because of his pressure? I feel very excited now...)

The audience’s chants increased as they got closer to the exit.

The man with him slowed down.

"If yeh die, who do yeh want to give yeh organs?"

"Hm?"

"Haven’t seen yeh yet, so yeh not popular to sell good price, no one want common organs so yeh can choose to give to friend o’ family. Who yeh chose?"

Dora’s eyes widened then he glanced to the side, a smile on his lips.

"Oh...so when a gladiator dies, their organs are put on the market? That’s why there’s so much blood stench outside."

"So? Anyone yeh want? Now time to choose."

Dora took the morning star and let the mass of spikes roll onto the ground.

"The only one I want right now isn’t on the field, everyone else is just casualties."

He walked past the man, up the stairs to the light, and then a new world embraced him.

A tremendous roar of spectators seemed to shake the ground, the heat of the rising sun burned the skin, all these things mixed with an invisible aura increasingly devouring reason, forming a cocktail of madness in which Dora began to get drunk.

His breath released a red mist, his blood flowed at high speed, and all his muscles seemed to burn with the same desire.

Step by step, his weapon brushing the ground, he moved towards the center of the arena and when he looked up, he found himself face to face with a large gladiator measuring at least 2 meters, wearing a lion mask and holding a sword.

"Ahr? Child? Lost yer way home? What ar’ thee doin’ her’?"

Dora’s gaze wandered everywhere, without paying the slightest attention to his opponent.

Around, the audience chanted even louder, the gladiator in front of him seemed well known and well liked, as he said before, here he was the new challenger serving as food for the rising star.

His eyes slowed to one side of the arena, before the clash of sword on shield fell before him.

"Dare’ngnore meh? Look her’ thee bastard!!! Meh goin’ to crush thee head!"

The boy’s eyes turned to the gladiator, his pupils narrowing.

"...So bastard is a universal word?"

In the cavea¹, Iris and Morgiana watched with growing anxiety. They had never doubted Dora’s power, but the overheated atmosphere increased a feeling of unease.

Something was wrong in the air and this feeling grew stronger over time, and then, in the center, the two adversaries slowly moved away from each other.

The gladiator swung his sword towards the audience like a dance, eliciting more and more cheers, but on the other side, Dora slowed down, his eyes fixed on one side of the arena.

The gladiator turned towards him, striking his sword against his shield.

"Pray thee God, yer death will be painful."

He began jumping sideways towards Dora, swinging his sword in a circle, clearly a spectacle intended to amuse the audience, and with great success.

Dora stopped moving, his morning star to the side and his smile disappearing.

"Child, say goobye!"

The gladiator, with one last jump, raised his sword above and swung it towards Dora, and then... a gust of wind knocked him off balance.

"NGht?!"

The morning star’s sharp ball grazed the gladiator’s head and spread far behind.

He stumbled and regained his balance.

"Aight... yeh little freak... Yeh think yeh can get me so easy? Now we stop playing!"

A red aura began to cover his body, converging towards his sword, he prepared to jump on Dora, the roars of the audience increasing and turning into screams of terror, a boost for the gladiator who roared in turn and understood too late the meaning of these screams.

"...Uh..."

Behind him, just as time stopped for him, he felt an object touching the back of his helmet, and the next second the morning star struck his neck, passing through his skull and emerging from the face.

The gladiator’s head became a relic of the past and the ball of death continued on its way and stopped right in front of Dora’s face.

The ball had followed a winding path, as if possessing its own consciousness and offering the first sight of the sun to the gladiator’s brain.

The audience’s screams exploded, expressing either shock, frustration or anger.

One of their favorite champions turned into a corpse and fell to the ground.

Iris and Morgiana in their seats remained speechless, they were already used to this sight of their friend, but this time this action had a different weight.

Dora’s morning star shrank and returned to its original size. The boy, now wearing a new smile, turned towards the side of the arena he was scanning and pointed his weapon towards it.

For the first time, the audience stopped making noise. They looked at the boy in amazement and slowly, their gaze turned to the direction he was challenging.

Iris, frowning, followed their gaze, then, in a place where nothing seemed special until then, she saw him.

On the other side of the cavea, seated on a large throne made of rock, in the middle of two statues of gladiators at the top of a staircase, appeared the one who had been invisible until then.

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