The Gamer’s POV

Both brothers let out a groan of pain as Dion's forehead slammed into the bridge of Bryan's nose with a sickening crunch. Stars exploded in Dion's vision, and for a heartbeat, the world went blurry.

But he didn't care as he clamped his hands tighter around Bryan's wrists and drove his head again into the same spot.

The second collision was even more brutal, sending a fresh jolt of agony through Dion's skull. Blood that was a mixture of his own skin splitting and the heavy spray from Bryan's shattered nose immediately began to slick his forehead and run into his eyes. But the impact had done its job. Bryan reeled back, his posture breaking as he instinctively clutched at his face, letting out a pained, muffled roar.

Both of them were dazed and bleeding heavily. Dion quickly shook his head to clear the stars from his vision and immediately pushed off the ground, shoving Bryan's chest with both hands to throw the heavier boy back into the sand.

Then he quickly grabbed his spear and crawled away, putting distance between him and his brother. As he scrambled back, he wiped the mixture of blood and grit from his eyes, gasping for air while his heart hammered against his ribs.

At that moment, Ino's voice echoed in his head:

'Are you okay, Dion?'~~

Dion, who was squeezing his eyes and wincing hard from the pain, replied, 'Take a look at me Ino, do I look okay?'~

It was quiet between them for a brief moment, then Ino finally said, 'We need to hurry. We are almost out of time.'

…The huge hourglass which hung above the center of the arena was designed to run for roughly thirty minutes. Right now, more than half of the sand was already sitting at the bottom of the glass. If they did not kill Bryan soon, the entire colosseum would trigger its final mechanism, killing them both.

Dion quickly but painfully pushed himself off the floor, shook his head again, and then tried to focus his vision on his brother who was also now up.

Bryan took off the helmet he wore and threw it to the ground, ran a hand through his hair, and inhaled deeply. His nose was a mangled mess of red, and blood was already matted into his hair, but his eyes were still hollow, almost as if he could not feel the pain.

At this point, the cheering in the arena had grown even more deafening. Of course the cheers were for Bryan as they kept yelling in repeat:

"Kill for the glory! Kill for the glory! All hail the undefeated Gaul of the ludus sanquinis!"

Dion braced himself, gripping his spear tight as he started walking to the left in a circle. Bryan did the same in the opposite direction, his eyes locked on Dion while they both moved like predators waiting for a gap.

'I need to get past his defense. I need to get behind him,' Dion thought, running ways through his head for how he could end this quickly.

Unlike his brother who had the berserker attribute, Dion was a swashbuckler and his attribute enhanced his speed and precision in a fight. He knew he couldn't win a head-on collision, so he needed to use those quick reflexes to his advantage right now.

…A second passed, and then another, and then… as if responding to a silent signal, both of them yelled a battle cry and lunged at each other with Bryan moving first. Bryan charged like a bull, his shield held low in front of him, while Dion sprang forward with his spear leveled, aiming for his brother's head.

However, just before they collided, Dion sidestepped to the right, dropped to his knees, and using the momentum of his rush, he slid across the sand, slipping right past Bryan's guard. Before his brother could adjust his weight or swing that heavy shield around, Dion stood up in a single, fluid motion. He spun his spear, gripping it with both hands, and drove it deep into the only exposed part of Bryan's back, which was his neck.

The tip of the spear tore through the soft tissue and severed the spine, emerging out the other side in a spray of crimson. Bryan's momentum died instantly.

The "undefeated" Gaul didn't even have time to scream; his body simply went limp, his heavy shield clattering into the sand as he dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Instantly, the noise in the arena shifted from a bloodthirsty roar to a heavy, suffocating silence. The thousands of people who had been chanting for Dion's death were suddenly frozen, their mouths open but no sound coming out. It was as if the entire colosseum had lost its breath at the exact same moment Bryan hit the sand.

Dion, now breathing heavily, slowly took a trembling step forward. He dropped beside his brother's kneeling corpse, reaching out to pull the heavy frame toward him. He hugged the body tight, pressing the cold metal of Bryan's armor, now slick and warm with blood, against his chest.

Then he closed his eyes and broke down again into tears.

"I'm sorry bro, I'm really sorry…"

While he was still crying, a weak female voice echoed in the arena:

"Ahh… thank you, Dion…"

Almost immediately after, the arena began to crack. Massive fissures tore through the stone floor, snaking outward from where Dion knelt with his brother. The heavy silence was replaced by the grinding of rock and the sound of the world breaking apart.

The armor Bryan wore began to dissolve like sand, pouring through Dion's fingers and spilling onto the floor. The heavy bronze plates and leather straps vanished into the cracks, leaving Bryan in the white tunic he wore before. Then, the large tattoo of a lion that painted Bryan's arm also dissolved. The dark ink seemed to lift from his skin, turning into grains of black sand that poured off his limb and into the growing fissures below.

Finally, the massive hourglass above cracked and shattered and the sand from it flooded the entire colosseum like a tidal wave, dissolving the very fabric of reality.

In the next moment, the arena was gone.

Dion, still clutching the body of his brother, vanished and reappeared back on the foothills of the mountains. He was dropped into the middle of a catastrophe of charred earth, blood, and black flames, right where the rest of the party was still locked in a desperate battle against the King of Souls.

At that moment, Dion opened his pale gray eyes, which were now filled with a cold, terrifying rage and were shining with a sharp, silver light. Then, he muttered chillingly to himself, "I'll kill him..."