Sorp picked a target and without hesitation sprinted towards them. It was a pair of similarly leather clad men.

Sorp picked them because they were one of the two closets and he liked their outfits. He felt they would put up a good fight.

One of the two held a spear. While the other held two short swords. They staggered when they saw Sorp’s blatant charge.

They had all the time in the world to consider how to take him on, but they felt strange. This was their first fight. They were big men. They were fighters themselves.

But right now they were a bit scared. One of them snapped out of it and let out a low shout. The other followed.

They got into traditional stances. In truth neither had practiced fighting with weapons, yet here they were. They felt powerful. The whole environment was egging them on. It was exciting.

Once Sorp was in range of the spear, he got it thrust in his face. But he discarded it entirely and just shifted his step, dodging it. He could feel the sharp wind blast by him.

The next moment he was thrusting his gauntlet deep inside the man’s eyes. Before the man could scream he slammed him into the ground.

He positioned himself in a way to receive his other opponent. But his opponent was just standing there, shocked. His face was a sheet of white, as if his soul had left him.

His friend was on the ground screaming. He was in agony and was blind. He squirmed on the ground, his hands on his bleeding eyes.

“W-wait!”

Sorp moved closer. He was interested to see how the man would fight with two swords.

“Don’t come closer!”

Sorp barely heard the man over his friends frantic screaming. When Sorp took few more steps towards the sword wielding gladiator, the gladiator threw his swords at him and ran.

‘What?’

Sorp felt a rare moment of anger. What is this? But even in anger Sorp didn’t lose control. It had taken him years to manage his fury. And this bastard wasn’t going to change that.

Instead he just chased after him in calm manner. All the while the man screamed to leave him alone.

The entire colosseum was somewhat quiet. This wasn’t that unique of a situation but it wasn’t common.

Sorp caught up to the man and beat him to death, once the man breathed his last, only a moment went by before the audience shouted in celebration.

Sorp looked up. His hands bloodied and splatters on his face and body. He was happy. This is what he wanted. It was lacking a challenge, but it was what he wanted.

Sorp’s friends were observing the fight and only felt this was natural. They had seen him literally tear out a man’s eyes. They’d seen him slowly and methodically break every other bone in a person's limbs.

It looked violent and explosive. But it was fast and exciting. Nothing like a cruel display he had shown them before. They were just excited. Because they’d get decent returns from their bets.

It wasn’t a lot of money but it was something. If they could continue betting and winning, they might even live off it. It wasn’t easy but it was possible.

Sorp wasn’t the only one fighting. The animals knew no hesitation and just rushed together and attacked the nearest enemy.

These beasts were not there to just be slaughtered. These were vicious beasts. The felines would even play with their prey. The larger ones would just rush over whatever was in their way.

Sorp looked up and saw the fighting. He let out another roar and started making his way towards the nearest fight.

This was two versus three fight. They were calm and trying to find the time to overwhelm their opponents. Sometimes striking, sometimes feigning. This was a traditional fight.

Despite seeing Sorp arrive, they weren’t too worried. They explained the defeat of the others to them being newbies.

Which was true. But their mistake was not to take into account that Sorp was also a newbie. It was very apparent. Everyone had information the others before the fight.

Sorp was new. Two other teams were newbies. One of the teams were dead. And the other was under attack of three large feline animals. Being circled around and played with.

Three teams were experienced, two of them were in that three way fight. The third being a team of virtual humans. It is almost impossible to differentiate between them.

They expected Sorp to be like them. To be cautions and try and find openings. But Sorp wasn’t that kind of person. He hadn’t fought strong people.

He hadn’t fought strong people, so how could be wary? He wanted a challenge, but when did it present it self? He had always just tore people like delicate paper.

When he walked close enough, a weapon was swung at him. He wasn’t prepared for such a good strike. The strike forced him to actually guard against it.

His only way to to guard against a sharp blade was to use the metal on his wrists. His fingers would never handle it.

That’s what he did, he swung his hand. It looked like the swatting of a fly. And it directly collided with his hand. The metal band was small, connected with chains.

Upon meeting the chains snapped. Leaving only two chains still intact. The metal fingers remained but they could easily dislodge now.

The person that had swung the sword felt his sword vibrate. Being experienced, he knew it had been blocked.

Sorp felt the shock travel to his bones. The ache was real. He savored it but never stopped moving. His hand had been blasted downwards so he could only swing up.

Before they could even consider Sorp a threat, his right hand had pierce into the lower jaw of a man.

Sorp moved to retreat slightly, as expected when fighting multiple enemies. But three of his five metal fingers were left behind inside the man.

The man staggered a few steps back, his sword on the ground and his hands reaching for this throat. Blood spilled down his neck and burst out from his mouth.

His friend looked at him. The way he had been positioned didn’t allow them to see what had happened.

Sorp had swung his hand like a money. From beginning to end only Sorp and the audience saw what had happened.

Sorp felt the weight on his right hand lessen. He saw the three bare fingers. He was confused then enlightened.

‘He stole them.’

He didn’t like it but he needed a weapon. The metal gauntlet was all but destroyed. The circle had been bent into his wrist, it was now bleeding.

He unlocked it and let it drop the ground. Leaving him with only a small metal finger on one of his fingers. Which was stuck for some reason.

Not wanting to be distracted, Sorp let it be. He didn’t like it, but he picked up the sword from the ground. It had a sizeable dent in it.

It was light. Sorp had never swung a sword before. Instead of a sword, he treated it like a club. He had held a club before. So the sword was now a club.

Sorp’s stance was odd. Holding it like a bat. He was ready to swat at them. It was comical, they would have laughed if the man on the ground wasn’t gurgling up blood.

The three different teams repositioned themselves. Sorp wasn’t the only threat, they still had to guard from each other.

Sorp wanted to resume his attack, but the two feline beasts and another large grey beasts were heading their way.

It was obvious to everyone except Sorp that they should fight the beasts first. It made sense. After the beast were dead they would fight each other. It made sense.

It made sense. To everyone but Sorp. Sorp just gave the beast an interested look. He saw the blood around their jaws. Their feet were dark red but in a different texture.

‘Must be the sand.’

It was the sand combined with the blood of their prey. Mashed into a eerie dark red color with flecks of untainted sand.

When he was done observing the beasts he turned to his nearest target and walked in an untethered manner.

“What are you doing!?”

After the man shouted, the rest of the people turned towards them. There was a silent agreement to deal with the beasts first. But this idiot was attacking them?

They felt a headache coming on. They weren’t here fighting for the first time, they had experienced victory and defeat on these sands.

There was an unspoken rule about dealing with the virtual beasts first. Are you a newbie? It was only now that they remember he really was a newbie.

It was strange. Because they had a hard time associating him with a newbie. Newbies were nervous even if they were talented fighters.

One of the men was exceptionally angry. He had a lot of money riding on this, he knew his chances of winning against the beast were low. They had to fight together.

He couldn’t help but tell Sorp that they should fight the beasts together. This was an awkward request. No one really needed to say it outloud but now one of them had.

The audience found it a bit strange to. Many found it boring that they were doing thing this way. If noone had said anything, it wouldn’t have been an issue but now they had.

The crowd started booing. The sound was carried to everyone's ears. It drowned out the roars of the beasts. It drowned out their own heartbeats.

For a moment all everyone heard was a terrifying sounds of a booing crowd. This was a pressure hard to handle.

It was difficult, for everyone but Sorp. He didn’t even understand what was going on. He just wanted to fight. And with that in mind, he attacked.

This time they were properly guarding against Sorp. so his attack was easily thwarted. After all, he was using as a sword. His physical strength was large, but they didn’t lack in this aspect.

The virtual world allowed you to import yourself into it. It didn't let you create an all power avatar. It was you, and nothing else.

Not even private rooms allowed you posses more strength. Best they could do was increase or lower gravity.

Sorp felt his sword be blocked. He wasn’t sure how to proceed. In the short moment it took the sword to touch the ground Sorp decided he’d just attack again.

With every swing that was blocked the beast got closer. The teams were now preparing to fight the beasts. And at the same time they had come to an understanding.

Once the beast were dead they’d kill this idiot. Sorp was going to be the next target.

In the colosseum, Sorp’s friends were watching. They were wearing frowns. This wasn't how things usually went. How were they block Sorp’s attacks?

This was the longest they had seen Sorp fight. They realized that maybe these other fighters were that weak.

Then they realized that if they teamed up to fight Sorp, Sorp would probably lose. This caused them to frown even deeper. They were one of the few people not shouting frantically.

For Sorp it was simple. He’d attack until he couldn't. For Every swing that was blocked he was getting more excited.

The fifth swing went down in spite of the man’s shouting telling him to stop. He man wasn’t shouting in fear, he was irritated and angry. This savage was just hammering on.

On the sixth swing. Sorp let the sword go and leaped towards the man. The man hadn’t expected this. The five other swings were all exactly the same. Just brute force.

When the sixth swing came he treated the same and struck out with this own sword. The sword blasted the other sword away.

The lack of counter weight almost threw the man off his balance, but he wasn’t doing this for the first time.

When he was stabilizing he looked up to see two bright eyes and a refreshing smile staring right at him.

He felt surprised. What is this? How can you smile like this? If he were a woman, he might blush. But he was a man. So he got angry.

He got angry, but it was too late. Sorp’s fist landed on his arm. This made him lose his balance and take two step back.

When he was about to fall, his hand waving in the air. The sword fallen to the ground.

He felt something grab him. He was terrified. He knew what had grabbed him. And when he looked up he saw that same inviting smile.

He felt his blood go cold. This was a strange type of fear. He felt his body clench, he felt locked inside his body.

Sorp pulled the man forward and slammed his fist into his throat. The sound was drowned out by the cheering of the crowd and the violent roaring of the beasts.

Sorp looked up as he let the man fall backwards. He saw a large grey beast knock a man into air, piercing him with a horn larger than his thigh.

He had never seen anything like it . He couldn’t help but savor the moment. He saw three other people strike the beast in the kneecaps.

The beast let out a bellow and fell onto the side. This could be considered out of commission, it wasn’t going to stand on those legs again.