"Did I overdo it?" Cole thought quietly.
The world was at a complete standstill all around him; the only thing he could feel was the pain in his eyes.
They felt like they had been stabbed repeatedly in a quiet moment.
As an urgent decision, Cole was forced to deactivate his Eyes of Scrutiny.
The expected relief didn't come; the pain was constant and even seemed to be increasing.
Cole was left completely blind to the actions of his opponent. After careful observation from the opponent, he came to realize Cole's situation.
"An ability backlash...uhhh, only newbies get those." The man taunted again as he rushed towards Cole.
In an instant, he appeared before Cole, resting the edge of his blade directly on Cole's neck.
"Whooooaaaa!" The crowd burst out in excitement seeing the end of the battle.
But Cole still wasn't bothered by all of this, like he previously was; this time his mind concentrated only on his eyes.
"You have lost a kid." The man said straight to Cole's face.
He then turned around to look at the crowd, raising his hands to further rile them up.
The moment Cole heard that comment, his muscles seemed to have melted as the battle state left him, and as a result, he fell straight to the ground.
This time there was no one to catch his fall as he fell straight into the sand as blood slowly seeped out of wounds all over his body, dyeing the sand a little bit of red.
The crowd seemed to love it.
Cole lay there in the sand, conscious but immobilized and partially blind.
About 10 minutes later, Cole could feel large hands grab his body, though he couldn't figure out who it was.
The man that came to pick up Cole headed back through the passageway Cole previously came through, but this time instead of going to the armory where Cole got ready.
He made a sharp left turn and headed towards another room; in this room a clear scent of blood was everywhere.
All around him men with varying degrees of injuries could be seen lying on tables. Each of them had something in common—they all seemed to have a very pained expression on their face.
The man carried Cole to an empty table in the room before straight up dropping him on the table.
"Uhhhhhhhh," Cole groaned as the impact seemed to amplify his pain.
The man ignored Cole's response and instead left the room quietly. Cole was now left on the table with no one to attend to him.
"Well done, kid," Cole suddenly heard the familiar voice.
"Though your fight was really pathetic, the crowd loved it." The menacing man from earlier said cheerfully.
Cole's chest tightened the moment he heard that; his suffering before seemed to be just a source of thrill for the crowd.
"I don't blame them though; the slum really makes people crazy," he thought internally.
Behind the man was a petite woman; the woman wore a very stern expression on her face.
She wore a pristine white coat, which was very rare in the slums; in her hands was what appeared to be a first aid box.
The man led her to the table Cole was currently laying on before saying,
"Just cover up his wounds; you don't have to do too much, Clarice."
The woman's face seemed to lighten up the moment she heard those words.
She dove straight to work, applying disinfectants on Cole's wounds. "Hisss." Cole winced in pain when the disinfectants made contact with the wounds, but the woman seemed nonchalant about all of this as she covered them up shabbily.
She left after she was done, not bothering to check how Cole was actually doing.
"I am sorry kid" She whispered to low for Cole to hear
Cole lay on the table quietly; the sound of moaning injured people kept sounding all around him.
His incapacitation gave Cole a well-needed moment of action and quietness needed for him to actually think.
"Why did the Eyes of Scrutiny suddenly turn on me like that?" Cole wondered.
"Could it be as a result of how powerful the opponent is or due to overuse?" Cole hypothesized.
His thoughts seemed to drift more towards the latter, though; he thought back to the past days.
He realized how much he was actually relying on the ability; he also noticed how fast-paced his life seemed to be. Multiple things happened to him within the span of a few days.
"I really need to cool things down, or I won't last long like this," Cole thought.
Like he previously did, he contemplated the decisions he had been making lately.
"They all seem quite hot-headed," Cole realized.
The events of the night taught Cole a very important point.
"The arena is no location to train."
The brutality he experienced personally and visually left quite a scar on him.
"Now that the option of training in the arena has been erased, where exactly do I turn to ".
"There are only two options now: Attending the academy or slowly training on my own ".
The former was more dangerous, as he actually didn't know what was awaiting him there, while the latter wasn't efficient in any way, and Cole was in urgent need of strength.
"I need to grow strong fast; the longer I live with the thought that the man is still there, the more hatred I feel." A heavy feeling descended the moment Cole began thinking in that direction.
"The Academy seemed to be only choice ",
"Even if it means I fall into someone else's scheme, I don't mind as long as I have my revenge." Cole thought with a burning gaze.
The pain in his eyes was slowly disappearing, though Cole still hadn't regained his vision as the night went on.
The night passed quite peacefully as the room seemed isolated from the noise of the other parts of the arena.
The next morning, "Get up, kid; you have overstayed your welcome," the familiar voice snapped, waking Cole up.
Cole attempted to open his eyes, and luckily he was able to, though his vision was still blurry.
The man threw Cole's belongings straight at him. "Get up and get out," he said.
Cole was shocked by the turn of events, but he still did as he was told and prepared to leave.
The process was difficult due to all the wounds present all over his body.
He finally finished and followed the man out of the room, leaving the still injured fellows behind.
It didn't take long for them to arrive in front of the arena.
"Come again, kid." The man said with a sly smile.
Cole didn't even bother to reply as he turned away and directly headed home, only a single thought dominating his mind
"Spiriters Academy, here I come."