The sun dipped below the jagged ice peaks of the caldera, casting long, bloody shadows across the Arena of Fangs.
Hours had passed since the opening horn. The fifty thousand spectators, initially rowdy, had whipped themselves into a frenzy.
The smell of roasted meat and spilled ale mixed with the copper tang of blood on the ice.
The initial fifty combatants of Block C had been culled.
It was a brutal, Darwinian process. Leona watched from the sidelines as a Tigerman was dragged off the field by healers, his leg shattered.
She watched a massive Walrus-kin get knocked unconscious by a coordinated strike from two Panther brothers.
Every round, the herd thinned.
The ice, once pristine white, was now a slush of red and grey.
Throughout it all, "Leo" remained a silent anomaly.
She fought four times in three hours. She never drew a weapon. She never cast a spell. She simply walked into the fray, delivered a single, bone-breaking strike, and walked out.
