The Gamer’s POV

Not long after his party members had engaged the hollow dominants, Dion gripped his spear and turned away from Celeste's burning corpse toward the battlefield, where he saw a hollow dominant slowly approaching him too.

However, his eyes went wide with shock and his body trembled when he finally saw the face of the figure.

The boy had the same beautiful silver hair, the same piercing gray eyes, and the same uniquely tanned skin as Dion.

"Br… brother?"

Dion suddenly felt his grip on his spear go weak as he stared into the hollow eyes of his junior brother.

A flood of questions began to run through his mind.

Of course, he knew that his little brother had also crossed the veil with him. After all, they were both first years and in the same class. They even crossed over together, but after crossing, they ended up being separated. Dion prayed silently every day to the gods, hoping that his junior brother hadn't been as unlucky as him, and had instead made it to the puppeteers' grove safely.

Seeing his brother suddenly appear right now in front of him as a minion of a random attacker felt like a jagged blade through his heart.

…It was a nightmare.

"What is this? What… what happened, Bryan?" Dion muttered feverishly, his voice trembling as he took a tentative step toward the approaching boy.

At that moment, Bryan Athamas suddenly stopped and pointed the gladius he held in his hand toward Dion, forcing him to halt. Then, he spoke in a hollow, distorted voice.

"Welcome to my colosseum."

Almost immediately after he spoke, a massive whirlwind of fine sand began to swirl around the figures of both Bryan and Dion. In the next instant, the sand swallowed them up, and they vanished, suddenly reappearing in the very center of a massive colosseum.

By the time Dion could register what had happened, the deafening cheers of thousands of spectators slammed into him.

He slowly opened his eyes, shielding them from the blazing sun high above, and then he swept his gaze around the familiar colosseum.

Then, his gaze shifted from the thousands of people to a giant hourglass that hovered in the air high above the center of the arena. The sand inside was already beginning to slip away.

Dion paled as he immediately recognized where he was and what was happening.

"No, brother. Stop this. Snap out of it! It's me… Dion!" He began to stumble forward, tears rolling down his cheeks. "Don't you recognize me? What's happened to you? Why are you doing this?!"

Bryan didn't answer and simply stared at Dion as heavy bronze armor, a high-crested helmet, a thick arm guard, and polished leg greaves suddenly began to materialize on his body. Then, a vortex of sand spun and hardened until it solidified into a round shield that clamped onto his left arm.

While this was happening, Ino's voice kept echoing in Dion's head:

'Hey, Dion. Dion listen to me. Dion?'~~

But he was too heartbroken and still in shock to hear.

When Bryan was fully armored, he looked at the sobbing Dion and tilted his head. Then he raised his gladius and spoke. "This is a match to the death. The rule I set for this match is: there shall be no use of exclusive skills."

At this point, Ino began to panic. Even Dion froze, suddenly overcome with terror.

This entire colosseum was Bryan's bonded ability called Gladiator's Arena.

His bonded ability created a massive colosseum in a separate dimension where he could drag his opponent into. The bonded ability also allowed him to set one rule for every time he brought an opponent into it. Like all bonded abilities, the authority and laws concerning them were final, and so, the only way to break out of the Gladiator's Arena was to either win the duel or have Bryan choose to expel you himself.

Like most bonded abilities, the cost to use this ability was paid after activation, which was why he was able to use it now. The cost Bryan paid to use Gladiator's Arena was that after he was done with a match and exited the arena, all his physical needs would be at the max. He would crave food, water, and even sex all at once for a full day to the point of losing his mind, like a rabid dog.

Both Ino and Dion knew a bit about his ability, as he had once brought them into the Gladiator's Arena to show them his bonded ability. Back then, the huge hourglass that hung in the air above the colosseum was still.

Bryan had explained that it only began moving after a match to the death was decided. If the opponent was not able to kill him before the sand ran out, the opponent would automatically die.

Seeing that the hourglass was currently draining and that Bryan had declared a match to the death, it was clear that not only did Dion have to kill his brother in order to survive, but he had to do it before the sand above ran out.

But the problem was…

Dion could not bring himself to kill his junior brother whom he had vowed to protect.

"No… no, no… This can't be happening," Dion muttered, his voice cracking as he took a shaky step back.

His frantic thoughts began to shift from what exactly had happened to his brother, to what he needed to do to snap him out of it.

"I… uh… I need to find a way to snap you out of it," he muttered to himself frantically.

Since he didn't know the exact nature of Yami's power, he probably thought that his brother was under some kind of mind control ability… or something similar.

The fact that his brother was truly gone… that his brother was now just a fractured soul without a consciousness didn't occur to him at all.

Until, all of a sudden, all the cheering in the arena suddenly died out. The thousands of spectators leaning over in the stands froze as if time had stopped, and a heavy silence took over.

Then a female voice suddenly echoed through the vast arena:

"Dion…"

Upon hearing the voice, Dion's eyes darted around frantically. Then he looked up toward the high podium. "Is that you, Lanistra of the Ludus Sanguinis?"

…The Lanistra of the Ludus Sanguinis was the moniker of Bryan's bond. Looking at the spectators in the stands and the hourglass above that had all frozen, Dion could immediately tell that this was her doing.

"What is this? Tell me, what is happening to Bryan!"

He had barely yelled that when the voice immediately echoed again, speaking really quickly.

"Listen to what I have to say carefully. Bryan is gone. You need to kill him. You need to kill us."

"Wh… what?! What do you…" Dion interjected.

But then the voice continued even faster. "That strange cadet approached our party. We let him join us only for him to attack us when we were injured after a battle with some creatures. I don't know what he did, but I can no longer feel Bryan. Bryan and everyone is gone. Everyone is now being controlled by him. Bonds cannot kill their bearers, and so we are stuck with our bearers even though they do not have any consciousness. Please, you need to end this… you need to…"

She was still speaking desperately when Bryan… or rather Yami through Bryan, suddenly spoke, cutting her off:

"Hey, what do you think you are doing?"

He looked up to the podium and spoke again in the same chilling manner. "Shut the fuck up, wench."

The moment he spoke, his eyes darkened and everything in the arena snapped back to life. The cheering of the crowd returned at full volume, and the sand in the hourglass above began to pour once again. He then shifted his gaze back toward Dion, who was frozen in place, with his mind struggling to process everything.

At that moment, a white cloth suddenly fell into the arena from the podium. The second it hit the sand, Bryan lunged at him.

'Dion!'~~

Ino's panicked scream momentarily snapped Dion out of his daze, and his eyes widened as he pivoted, dodging the blade. However, Bryan didn't miss a beat and bashed him with the shield, sending Dion sprawling into the sand.

'Hey, snap out of it, Dion!'~~ Ino yelled as Dion scrambled backward, spitting sand out of his mouth.

'Please… Dion, listen to me. You need to get a hold of yourself. You heard what she said, Bryan is gone. If you do not get a hold of yourself, we will both die.'~~

Bryan brought down his gladius again. This time, he was really close to finishing Dion. Dion barely managed to roll to the side and the blade buried itself deep into the ground, sending sand flying into the air.

"Ack!" Dion gasped as he tried to get up on one knee after the roll, but then Bryan smashed him again with the shield, sending him tumbling backward and rolling in the dirt.

"What am I supposed to do, Ino?" Dion choked out as he tried to crawl. His eyes were unfocused and his face was caked with blood and grit. Tears began to track through the dirt on his cheeks as he looked up at the empty shell of his brother. "I can't… I can't…"

He was still sobbing when Ino suddenly snapped: 'Rage. That's what you need to do. If your brother is truly gone, then let out your rage at the cadet who did this. Take revenge for your brother.'~~ Her voice grew more piercing. 'But before that, you need to survive.'~~