Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Crowds roared in excitement and anticipation for the fights to come. They had already been treated to a handful. Some of which had major upsets. They won a few brave souls a lot of money, while costing those playing it safe their earnings.

Such was the way of gambling on fights in the arena. However, the next few rounds would be easy bets. No one would win much because they already knew the outcome. But if they did choose to bet on the unlikely winner, then they would walk home very wealthy men.

Kalliope knew this already. She had been fighting non-stop for a while now and was still undefeated. Everything they had chosen for her to fight with was to try and put her at a disadvantage. Short of pitting her against higher-ranked opponents, they had failed. She beat all the challenges.

In fact, she had started to find them entertaining and wondered if they would give her any sort of edge in future spars with Lucius.

Something like that required getting out of this place, though. Which looked extremely unlikely. The security in the fighting arena was extremely tight. Not only that, but they wore equipment that was designed to knock them unconscious with a single thought. So long as a guard had one of those mysterious crystals controlling the armor.

Unfortunately for her, every single guard had a control crystal. They were not attuned to a specific prisoner. Any crystal could activate any of the prisoners' armor at any time. This created a host of issues for any escape attempts, but there was a way to circumvent that.

According to Ethi, the crystals the guards carried were actually slave crystals to a single master. The main crystal was hidden in the personal office of the arena master, Itorin. If someone managed to destroy that crystal, then the special armor all the prisoners wore would essentially become normal pieces of fabric and metal. No longer capable of electrocuting them.

This was all a pipe dream at the moment, because they had no way to actually get to this master crystal that kept them all as slaves.

"And now we have it folks, the night's final event! Place your bets now or forever hold your coin! We have our new rising star, the Feral Mutt! Facing off against a rival from when she first graced these illustrious halls! Gett… the Destroyer!"

The crowd cheered at the announcement of Gett. Kalliope had yet to fight him since their initial spar when she kicked his ass into the dirt, but she had heard a little about his fights. Apparently, he had also been undefeated since his debut and was looking forward to her fight with him today.

Lately, his preferred strategy was to take hits from his opponents while hitting them back harder with the massive swings of his axe. So far, none had stood to his onslaught. Nor had they been able to scratch him even when he left himself open to their attacks.

She had no idea how he managed to gain that ability so quickly because he did not show such a skill in his fight with her. Normally, she would assume he was holding back. If that were the case, he would not have been as pissed off about it as he was.

"I'm going to kill you this time, she-wolf." Gett growled.

He looked larger than normal, and the rage in his eyes seemed wilder than before. Something about him was unnatural, but Kalliope could not tell. For a moment, her mind went to the strange potions Lucius found, but then she remembered that Gett had Arts. So if he drank it, he would have died already.

That meant something else had to be going on, and Kalliope didn't know what that 'something' was. Instead of worrying about that, she got into a ready position. She still fought without a weapon, so she readied her claws instead and shifted into her bestial form.

After the first few fights without a weapon, she actually came to enjoy it for the training aspect. This style of fighting would help her hone her Beast Arts. Which she felt she had neglected for the past few years. Part of her stopped relying on them after Lucius had told her what happened to his Beast Arts when he was a child.

Some part of her felt guilty for it for some reason. So she chose not to remind him of it. But for right now, he wasn't here. It was free game to use whatever she wanted.

"Fighters…" The announcer called out. "Begin!"

Gett roared in anger, the veins in his neck and face threatening to pop from the strain. He charged for her, nearly causing the arena to shake with every step. Kalliope decided that meeting this opponent head-on was a bad decision and decided to charge around instead and kite him along for a short while to gauge his reaction time.

She could tell immediately that he was physically stronger than her. Kalliope had to admit that the same was true before, but he felt on a different level now. A single blow from him might take her out of the fight.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

It was quickly proven that while his speed was enhanced with his strength by whatever mysterious method was used, she was still many times faster than him. Kalliope was able to duck and dodge under several strikes as though he were moving in slow motion.

Still, she did not want to let herself get over-confident. Over-confidence was the killer on many battlefields and was a lesson she had learned well with Lucius. Instead, she maintained a cool head and tried to analyze Gett's weaknesses.

He seemed incapable of protecting from attacks aimed toward his back at the moment. Due to the size difference, any attacks by her would not have a major impact. There was also the chance he was hiding his true reaction time and waiting for such a strike to land a grapple on her.

"Only one way to test that theory." She mumbled to herself.

Kalliope rushed to the side and then straight at her opponent. He raised his axe for a downward swing, but she slid along the ground and between his legs to dodge it. The moment she cleared his range, she hopped up and launched a kick into the small of his back. Unfortunately, she was right in her guess that he was hiding his true speed.

"Got you!" Gett said with a smile as he whipped around and grabbed her by the ankle. "You're mine! You bitch!"