Chapter 120

When they arrived at the Colosseum, the first duel had been more or less decided, it would be between Solif and Turan.

Since they had not been able to determine a clear winner when they first met, this was an opportunity to properly settle the score.

However, unexpectedly, Meisa stepped forward first, volunteering to be Turan's first opponent.

‘Sorry, but can I go first?’

‘Hm? Oh, well... sure, go ahead.’

It was not all that surprising, really.

After all, the reason the two had first grown close was because of Meisa's stubborn refusal to lose, which had led her to recklessly use magic she did not fully understand, ultimately causing her to collapse.

She might sometimes seem timid due to her upbringing, but when it came to magic, her pride was second to none.

'Wonder who will win.'

Solif glanced at the empty crystal orb and tried to predict the outcome in his head.

It would have been nice to see the battle onto a screen, but that would mean everyone in the waiting room would be able to watch the fight.

If they did not want the entire town to be filled with rumors of duel between two powerful nobles, that was not an option.

‘Meisa has much stronger magic power, their raw talent is almost equal, and she has been trained in magical combat since childhood, so...’

At first glance, it seemed like the match would be completely one-sided.

However, Turan had his own advantages, he could skillfully wield various bloodlines thanks to the Mimic Relic, his slingshot gave him formidable physical attack power, and his combat instincts were exceptional.

Since both of them had immense magic power, Solif expected the battle to turn into a long fight.

With that in mind, he gave up his seat so his parents could sit and rest comfortably.

Just then, a flash of light suddenly erupted, revealing the two fighters.

“What? It’s over already?”

“Yeah.”

There was no proper clock in this place, so it was hard to tell the exact duration, but it definitely had not lasted more than ten minutes.

In fact, compared to most, the duel had ended relatively early.

Unlike the calm and composed Turan, Meisa was running both hands over her face.

That alone made it obvious who had won.

“Are you okay, Meisa?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah... This was harder than I expected. I could vividly feel my head shattering into pieces.”

Although injuries sustained in the Colosseum, as well as any damaged objects, were fully restored, the pain itself remained as real as ever.

Even after a duel was over, it was not uncommon to see fighters writhing in agony or screaming from phantom pain.

If not for such restrictions, a facility as useful as this would not be so carelessly maintained.

Solif sat Meisa down, handed her a glass of water, and immediately turned to Turan with a questioning look.

“How did it end?”

“I sniped her.”

“You found an opening for that?”

“I made one.”

Turan went on to explain the layout of the Colosseum.

It was a square arena, three hundred meters long and wide.

The floor, walls, and ceiling were made of well-polished marble, and the height exceeded thirty meters.

“With that much space, it must have involved spatial transfer. There’s no place in this facility large enough to allow for such movement otherwise.”

“Yeah. I couldn’t sense anyone else’s presence at all.”

Spatial transfer was one of the fields modern magic had yet to conquer.

Just as Meisa had been unable to use decay magic due to not understanding its principles, spatial transfer remained unusable simply because no one knew the theoretical foundations of crossing space.

Not a single person was known to possess a bloodline ability related to it either.

On the other hand, ancient imperial structures often contained devices capable of distorting space or moving people.

Just like in the Tomb of the Gods, where Turan had previously entered.

“So how exactly did you win?”

“Well, roughly speaking...”

The first clash was an ordinary shooting battle.

Turan fired spheres created from the Light of Judgment while secretly mixing in steel balls.

Meisa, on the other hand, detonated the Spirit of Fire to move quickly and evade, all the while raining down lightning without pause.

Additionally, she wielded a modified magic artifact acquired from a noble of House Zahar, an estoc that could unleash shockwaves for physical attacks.

As both fighters unleashed every offensive tool at their disposal, an array of various minor techniques also came into play.

They disrupted each other’s flight with gusts of wind, bent light to distort their positions, and, upon landing, reshaped the ground to trap their opponent’s ankles or scattered seeds to grow vines that would ensnare them.

For an ordinary person, mastering just one of these techniques to this degree would have taken years, but both of them wielded such abilities as effortlessly as breathing.

The winner of the battle fought in this manner was Meisa.

Although she had been grazed by steel balls multiple times, drawing blood in several places, Turan suffered far more severe injuries, one of his arms was broken, several of his ribs were fractured, and the nerve damage from electrocution went without saying.

“From the way you're telling it, it sounds like you got completely crushed.”

“That’s why I used my trump card.”

Cornered, Turan absorbed the surrounding light using the light-absorbing cloth, then cast Concealment Magic and used the Earthmover Bloodline's terrain manipulation to hide underground.

Meisa hastily summoned a sphere of light, but light could not penetrate through soil.

While she struggled to locate him, Turan carved out a long, narrow shooting tunnel beneath the ground, then opened an exit and sniped her, shattering her head with precision.

The propulsion gained from wind currents and the Spirit of Fire, combined with the force built up by repeatedly spinning his slingshot, was enough to pierce through her defensive magic artifact.

“So you won purely through trickery.”

“Thanks to that, I learned a lot. My magic power is one thing, but I also realized my overall skill is still lacking.”

Her magical talent was nearly on par with Turan’s, but there was a significant gap in their time spent properly training in magic.

Meisa had been trained as an heir since she was twelve, whereas Turan had been self-taught in an undisciplined manner until he was seventeen.

Of course, since he was a genius in his own right, their techniques were not drastically different, but in any field, at the highest level, even the smallest differences could lead to significant outcomes.

When they practiced magic normally, they went easy on each other, so the disparity was not noticeable, but in a real battle, it became painfully clear.

“Well, if your head got blown apart in one shot, at least it probably didn’t hurt too much.”

“Fortunately. Too bad I failed my near-death experience.”

There were generally two major ways to slowly approach death.

One was suffocation, as in when he previously force-fed food to her, and the other was excessive bleeding from inflicted wounds.

Unfortunately, Meisa’s death this time fell into neither category, meaning she had gained nothing from it.

“But I’m not sure if I can actually do it.”

“Do what?”

“Killing someone. Even knowing it’s fake, it doesn’t feel good.”

Turan recalled the sight of Meisa’s shattered head rolling across the floor.

He had seen that image countless times before in his battles against enemies, yet simply because the one lying dead was a close friend, it left him feeling utterly disgusted.

At that moment, Solif suddenly gave Turan a light punch in the stomach.

“Even if you say that, don’t expect me to go easy on you, man.”

“...Same here.”

Though his words were teasing, a faint smile appeared on Turan’s face.

*

While Meisa was recovering from the shock of death under the care of the Varaha couple, Turan and Solif entered the Colosseum for their match.

Since magic power was also restored perfectly upon return, there was no reason to waste time.

The Colosseum official widened his eyes at Turan’s declaration that he intended to fight twice in a single day, even at the cost of two hundred gold coins.

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I can manage.”

“Huh...”

Technically, as long as one kept winning, they could fight multiple times a day. However, due to battle fatigue and the pain from injuries, few actually chose to do so.

Ignoring the official’s amazement, Turan stepped into the arena for his second match and, unfortunately, suffered defeat at the hands of Solif.

He had used many of the strategies he had learned from his fight with Meisa to push Solif into a corner, but breaking through the defenses of a noble with the powerful Guardian Bloodline was no easy task.

Especially since, unlike typical Guardians who lacked ranged attack capabilities, Solif also possessed the extremely offensive Sun Bloodline.

Solif relentlessly advanced, deflecting every attack with the Light of Judgment, while Turan continuously retreated, launching steel balls from his slingshot.

After an exhausting battle that lasted over an hour, it was Turan who ultimately surrendered due to magic depletion.

“I lost.”

“Yes! I won!”

Overwhelmed with joy, Solif stomped his feet for a brief moment before clicking his tongue softly, knowing that if he had not awakened his Guardian Bloodline, he would have lost outright.

Of course, by that logic, Turan possessed at least five bloodlines, but the Zahar Bloodline was hardly suited for combat.

After the battle was settled, they proceeded with the near-death experience that had been left unfinished in the previous fight.

The method was excessive bleeding.

Solif deeply slashed both of Turan’s wrists, then sat quietly in the back, waiting for death to arrive.

“How is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The blood... is it flowing enough?”

At Turan’s question, Solif grimaced slightly and nodded.

Seeing a friend slowly bleeding out and dying before him, he began to understand why Turan had felt unsettled after killing Meisa earlier.

Even though his mind knew this fight was nothing more than an illusion and that not a single hair was truly harmed, the act of killing a comrade felt horrifyingly unpleasant.

“This... I’m getting drowsy... and cold...”

Turan spoke in a languid tone as he gazed up at the gradually blurring ceiling of the Colosseum

He had not noticed before, but now, the ceiling of the Colosseum seemed to swirl and spin.

A sense of helplessness, as though his entire body was sinking into a hollow void.

With even the blood needed to keep his brain functioning running low, his consciousness faded.

Yet, in that fading awareness, Turan kept reciting the words from the soul magic book.

‘Within every human lies a unique self, which is, in essence, a god. This world is an illusion, and only that self is the truth...’

Unlike the fragile, perishable body that easily succumbed to wounds and death, the true self, the soul, refined into its purest form, is eternal and unique.

Endlessly repeating words he himself did not fully comprehend, Turan kept falling, deeper and deeper.

A moment that felt like both an instant and an eternity.

As he considered whether he would plummet all the way to the center of existence itself, he saw something below.

More precisely, he felt it.

‘This is-’

Gray clouds and golden lightning.

Pitch-black darkness, and within it, a single eye.

The four symbols that represented his bloodlines appeared before him, and at that moment, as if doused in cold water, Turan’s consciousness snapped back to reality.

“Hey, hey! Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

Only then did Turan realize he had returned to the real world, that what he had just seen was nothing more than a hallucination experienced in the moments before death.

Before he knew it, he was seated in the lobby outside the Colosseum.

“How long was I like this?”

“Nearly thirty minutes. You suddenly stopped talking and just stared blankly, so I thought something had gone wrong.”

He barely had time to apologize for causing worry before he noticed a burning sensation on both of his cheeks.

Curious, he asked about it, and Meisa, who was sitting beside him, lowered her head.

“Sorry... You wouldn’t snap out of it, so I slapped you a few times...”

“It’s fine. Honestly, I think it helped clear my head a little.”

Turan patted Meisa’s head a couple of times before suggesting they call it a day and leave the Colosseum.

After all, both he and Meisa had already died once, meaning the only ones left who could still participate were Solif and his parents, but there was no way those three would end up fighting each other.

They found a small, rundown inn near the Colosseum, where Turan laid out some cheap beer and sausages while explaining what he had just experienced.

“You saw the symbols of your own bloodlines within yourself?”

“Could it be because of the relic?”

Turan possessed two Mimic Relics, the mask and the necklace, that, when used together, allowed him to perceive another person’s symbols.

At Meisa’s suggestion, however, Turan shook his head in denial.

“It’s hard to explain in words, but... it felt different. When I use the relic, I ‘look into’ someone else’s symbols. But this time, it was more like I could just ‘feel’ that they were part of me.”

Even as he spoke, he realized how vague his explanation sounded, but it was the only way he could put it into words.

“Maybe the bloodline abilities we have are actually part of the essence of the soul. After all, even the gods use their own symbols to wield special powers.”

It was strange that soul magic, supposedly a power of humans, could be related to the bloodline magic inherited from the gods. However, given the circumstances so far, it was not entirely unreasonable.

After all, when the gods, specifically Ymir and the head of House Aravion, had displayed their true abilities, they had exhibited similar phenomena.

Listening quietly, Solif asked in a low voice,

“So, do you feel any sign of enlightenment?”

“Not yet. But I think I’m on the right track. It’s faint, but I can sense some kind of progress.”

Training in this manner was nearly impossible outside the Colosseum.

The closer he got to the brink of death, the stronger this strange sensation, what he suspected to be enlightenment, became. However, if he made a mistake and actually died, it would all be over.

“Anyway, I’d like to stay here for a few more days and keep using the Colosseum. I’ve learned a lot by fighting at full strength like this. You guys feel the same way, don’t you?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Meisa, who lacked battle instincts, Solif, who lacked magical talent, and Turan, who lacked experience in managing his vast magic power and various abilities, all three had confronted their weaknesses through full-powered battles in the Colosseum.

Since they had all felt the benefits, they decided to stay for a few more days to continue training through duels and near-death experiences.

However, since dragging things out too long might give House Varaha enough time to recover and track them down, they set their deadline to one week.

*

Five days after their first visit to the Colosseum.

As Turan sat quietly, waiting for his turn, he overheard the murmurs of people around him as they gossiped about him and Solif’s parents.

It was nothing related to House Varaha, just talk about the lunatics who had spent over a thousand gold coins in the past few days, obsessively using the Colosseum.

Should they leave before rumors spread further?

As Turan pondered this, Meisa and Solif suddenly appeared.

“I won!”

“Damn it! I lost again! I couldn’t even land a single hit this time!”

Meisa raised both arms triumphantly, while Solif stomped his foot in frustration.

Their contrasting emotions were on full display.

“How many times is this now?”

“Three. Seriously, how the hell do you even beat her? No matter what I try, I can’t see a way to win.”

“I just work hard, that's all."

Since combat involved countless variables, victories were not always set in stone. However, after tracking their results, they had noticed a distinct pattern in their matchups.

Amusingly, the three of them formed a perfect rock-paper-scissors relationship.

Turan was strong against Meisa but weak against Solif.

Solif was strong against Turan but weak against Meisa.

Meisa was strong against Solif but weak against Turan.

And so, after each match, the winner would grant the loser a death experience to further their soul magic training.

From their experiences, excessive bleeding was the most stable method, so they stuck with it.

Solif’s parents had expressed some concern about how casually they kept killing each other, but fortunately, they had all grown strong enough to face death without flinching.

Humans were beings who easily adapted and developed through experience.

As a bonus, these battles greatly contributed to their combat prowess.

Although their raw magic power and magical artifacts had not improved, they had become significantly better at utilizing their abilities.

If the three of them were to fight their past selves from before entering the Colosseum, they would likely win with ease.

Later, in a duel against Meisa, Turan pummeled her face to a pulp until she surrendered, then delivered the finishing blow.

After the match, when they returned to the lobby, Turan suddenly sensed an unusual presence from a distance.

‘This is...’

Three high-ranking nobles.

Five mid-ranking nobles.

And one top-ranking noble.

An elite force capable of effortlessly crushing several magic houses was waiting outside the Colosseum.

“Looks like we’ve got guests.”

“Guests?”

“I’m not sure exactly who. If they’re from House Varaha, this is way too small of a force...”

If they had witnessed the group's power before, they would not have dared to come with such a small force unless they had lost their minds.

Any one of the three could have wiped them out in an instant.

Had they been waiting for their duel to end?

Sensing the approaching presence, Turan immediately ordered them to take battle formation.

Solif stood at the front, while Meisa and Turan positioned themselves on either side, shielding the Varaha couple from view.

At that moment, Solif, who was standing at the forefront, suddenly gasped and pointed at the approaching figure.

“Wait, you...!”

“It’s been a while, hyung! I heard you were spending quite a bit of money at the Colosseum, so I thought I’d drop by to see your face.”

A massive man approached with a cheerful voice.

He stood nearly two meters tall, and his thick arms looked about the same size as Meisa’s waist.

Not only was his body covered in hair, but even his sideburns and beard were so overgrown that they exaggerated his masculine presence.

Even without an introduction, Turan had a vague idea of who he was, but he asked anyway to be sure.

“Who is he?”

“Calais Ruvan. I met him once back when the heirs gathered to socialize.”

As expected, their visitor was the heir of the great noble house that ruled over the Frostwind Forest region.

***