Chapter 577: The First Fight
The showers were just what Laz thought they would be. Basically, tubs of hot water were brought into a room so that the men could dip rags in them and wipe themselves off. The only trouble Laz had was trying to wash his back since thanks to his injury, he had a hard time reaching back there. Jacob ended up helping him out again, but even he seemed somewhat uncomfortable when washing down the hideous wound on his back, although Laz understood why as his sense had allowed him to see the blackened, harden skin that almost seemed like a shell.
Afterwards, the men were all brought to a large open room with several guards lining the walls, that connected to another hallway. While there was a cage like door separating the two rooms, Laz could see the various amounts of old roman style weaponry lining the hall way. Spears, swords, shields, slings, bows. Almost everything that one could think of was available for those wanting them.
Some men came in and pointed to a few of the slaves, telling them to pick their weapons up and march into the stadium.
"What will they be doing?" Laz asked Jacob who was still by his side.
"It changes every time. Sometimes it might be a group battle to the death, other times they release monsters into the stadium and whoever is still standing at the end wins. They don’t tell us since they think it adds to the thrill of the fight. If you survive, you get to go to the winners chambers where you might be picked up by a person of high standing to serve them for a night, but you will be brought back to the stadium afterwards. Since champions are so valued, there is no way the Emperor will let them be taken as we all belong to him. As for those who come back seriously injured? Well... depending on their feats, they might get healed. But if their fight wasn’t impressive enough, they might just be killed to make room for others," Jacob explained.
"Ah..."
After that, Laz didn’t ask any more, knowing there wasn’t much else Jacob could say. Laz didn’t ask if he was already a champion, knowing from the bloodlust the man could radiate when he wanted to that he had obvious killed before. And Laz also wasn’t too keen on finding out just what kind of things the champions would be chosen for anyway.
Jacob went before Laz and smiled, being drawn out with three others. Laz had no idea what kind of challenge he would face, but there was nothing Laz could do to help anyway.
When Laz was finally called, it was with seven other individuals who were all pointed into the hall way. While they weren’t the first ones called, they weren’t the last either. As for the selection of weapons, it was still plentiful enough, but Laz wondered just what those at the end of the day would have to work with.
Laz picked a spear, a knife and a sword, opting to forgo a shield. He had never used one before and thought it would just hamper his vision, seeing as how it was a large tower shield.
"Ha. The cripple doesn’t even know the basics of the stadium."
"No kidding. Shields are a must when you can get them."
"Ha. He probably can’t even lift one. Look at that broken stance of his. How’s he suppose to move it around when it would stand almost as tall as he his."
Laz heard the jarring words from the others, but he didn’t take it to mind. He could have easily lifted the shield and crumbled it into a ball if he wanted, but that wouldn’t have really proven anything other than to make himself stand out more than needed. His strength was still there as far as he could tell, but his body was going to be the biggest issue with this up coming fight.
’Still feels like moving when I have a massive weight attached to my back,’ Laz said, thinking about his moving around earlier and when he tried to shower.
Still though, since he didn’t have a choice, he would deal with it.
Walking out into the sunlight, Laz was blinded for a moment before everything again became clear. The massive white stones of the colosseum he was standing in certainly gave him the impression he was back in the times of ancient Rome, the loud yells from the crowd almost made his blood boil as well.
Looking up into the blue sky, Laz was surprised by the two massive globes overhead, showing that clearly this wasn’t Earth, even if he had already known that.
"WELCOME TO OUR NEXT EVENT!" A man’s booming voice rang out over the crowd as they again roared in unison before quieting down.
"While I’m sure you all enjoying seeing the skills of our last group of combatants, this group has none of the skills needed to do the same thing. So as a special event, we decided to just go all out and see if any of them were hardy enough to survive."
The man took a moment to build suspense before continuing on.
"That’s right. For this blood boiling event, there won’t be any sort of dazzling feats or heroics, instead it’s every man for himself and the last thing standing wins."
With that, circles of lights appeared all over the grounds as dozens of massive beasts appeared within the arena, their bodies held in place by the same circles of light that brought them in.
Beasts as big as elephants with spikes jutting out of their bodies, bi-pedal, bear like creatures with huge claws and horns and even smaller, cat like beasts that looked at the now frightened men while acidic drool dripped from their foaming mouths.
"It’s a gore event..." One of the ones closest to Laz whispered in staggering fear.
"We’re all gonna die..." Said another.
Laz wanted to ask what a gore event was, but he knew that most of these men were already broken and he wasn’t going to get anything from them.
"Place your bets. Any human here has a one hundred to one shot to win while each of the beasts have their ratio displayed for your convince. Place those bets now before the event begins since once the carnage starts, the betting is closed. Look out now, the chains have already started to break," the announcer said, letting everyone know the even would start.
While the men seemed to curl up and die, Laz started walking, observing each of the beasts in turn.
’The more you know about your opponent, the better the chance at survival is. No matter what the odds, a clear head can still think, it can plan, it can adapt. Once you lose that, you lose any chance of winning,’ said the old, familiar voice in Laz’s head.
’Even all these years later, it’s your training that come to me when I need the most help Kat,’ Laz said, shaking his head to clear the memories from the past.
While the men were standing in the middle as they had been told to walk there when entering, the entire floor of the arena was open with beasts appearing all over. As such, Laz made his way quickly to the side and turned, his back against the wall as he took a deep breath.
Many of the beasts had been watching him move with a wild and hungry look in their eyes, but once he walked past, most of them then turned their attention back on to the group in the middle that had frozen in fear.
’Had they not been so useless, perhaps we could have worked together. But when you’ve already given up, there is no way to salvage that,’ Laz thought, wondering if he really could take on the whole horde of beasts by himself.
Laz had just made his way to a wall, not caring which wall he was at. What he didn’t know was that high above him, in a special area laid out just for himself, the emperor saw Laz walking calmly and carefully but paid him no mind as he continued to enjoy the feeding of grapes by the soft hands of the breathtaking servants feeding him.
Next to him on a couch sat two girls, one blond and one brunette. The blond was currently having her feet rubbed by a muscular young man who lacked a shirt, but was hard at work to please the woman in front of him.
As for the brunette next to her, she had been looking bored for a while now, but got a little interested with the young man making his way towards before turning around and facing the center of the arena.
"Hmm...?" She said, finally focusing on something other than what her father and sister had been doing.
Just as the lights were about to completely vanish, Laz took another deep breath and rested the butt of the spear on the dirt beside him as he slowed his heart rate, wanting to keep his blood in check. He couldn’t go all out, he knew that as it would only tire him out if he did so now.
Just as Laz was calming his mind, he heard something and noticed that several of the men were running in his direction as though only haven woken from their fear.
"It’s too late though," Laz said out loud, although mostly to himself.
The circles of light were gone as the beasts jumped into action.
