After a white flash and a terrible feeling of vertigo, seeing forest he's in the smell of rot and death invaded Arthur's nostrils sending him into a trance. 'Is this real? I wanted it to be true and was even doubting the messages being real. Sure enough it was true but what now?' Arthur's mind continued to race.
The cherping of birds brought him to his senses not because of their beauty but because of what that signifies.
"Birds? But that should be impossible. The monsters should've killed them. If they're alive then..."
Getting to that point Arthur started to get a sense of incongruity. He decided to get up high to survey the surroundings. Climbing a tree the smell of rot becomes thicker and at the top of the tree Arthur sees something that sent chills down his back.
"No, impossible, how can this. But this is monster territory. They... that, HOW COULD THERE BE A TOWN!!!"
Almost instantly after shouting an explosive boom was heard and Arthur's vision went black.
Waking up Arthur looked around and saw the insides of a dungeon cell while run down he could tell work was done to patch up the mess. The smell of death was so strong that Arthur was forcing himself to hold back his food.
A sound of clanging was heard behind the iron door and a small slot in the door opens. A pair of eyes peer through and a hoarse voice rings throughout the room, "What, are you? You look human but I don't feel the urge to kill you! I feel no hatred for you." A chuckling echoes throughout the room. "It matters little, your human that's more than enough to have you in chains. Luckily, you probably won't be in them for long. Get some sleep, you'll definitely need it, oh don't think for a second you'll escape that box has only one door and we're about eight miles underground."
Taking in this reality Arthur began analysing his situation. 'From what I saw of their town there was a colosseum, so it's within reason that I'm probably going to be fighting in that.' A smile grew across Arthur's face, 'I'll be fighting sooner than I thought.'
Even though he thought about what fighting will be like he stayed awake for a while gathering his thoughts and tried to open his status screen just to be given an error message saying;
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User is currently being suppressed by an unknown force.
Mission: User must find a way to stop being suppressed by this force.
Reward: ???
Failure conditions: User dies or User submits to this force.
Penalty: Death/User is forced to stay weaker than the suppressor.
Until the user either succeeds or fails the user will be unable to use the system. Good Luck.
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'The hell is this, how am I supposed to fight against an enemy force that can use magic and abilities if I can't even gain a single spell or skill. Even my stuff was taken, this sucks.'
After some time Arthur began thinking again, 'No this is good, right. I could use this opportunity to sharpen my own skills and abilities, it may not be magic or unbelievable techniques but I have things on my side. I'll manage somehow and I'll figure this situation.' While Arthur hadn't really shown it he had be very worried deep down, he's in a place that's so far from where he's used to and has been thrusted into a completely unknown and highly dangerous situation. 'But seriously they took my stuff. They better not break anything.'
Throwing the fact that all of his stuff was taken to the back of his mind Arthur tried to get some sleep. That night he got the best rest of his life. And he awoke feeling completely liberated even though he was bound by chains.
After getting up properly Arthur was escorted to the colosseum that he spotted on the tree. The man from last night was completely cloaked in a dirty, hooded rag. And inside there were thousands of demonic looking humanoids sat in the stands some were part beast while others completely fantasy-like. Vampires and Minotaurs were present while oozing danger seeing them Arthur felt a fire burn inside because he wanted to get as strong as them.
After reaching the arena a flamboyant man, in an outfit that looked like a jesters while also looking like a businessman's suit and a comedy mask on jumped out and said in a voice that seemed both male and female said, "Ladies, Gentleman and all those in between we have a very strange contestant today as our challenger and even better it's a human. While they are human as you've probably noticed you don't feel the urge to destroy it. While that's true it's still definitely a human so this fight should at the very least be fun to watch. After all nothing struggles quite like a human. Bwehahhahhahhahhahhahhahhah"
As he started laughing so did the audience and as they calmed down the flamboyant man shouts at the top of his voice, "Bring out the doomstarved bull!" The gate on the other side of the arena opened and a gigantic black bull with glowing red eyes, horns and hooves charged into the arena. The bull was clearly enraged and was breathing flames out of its nostrils. every step it took left large hoof-shaped imprints on the ground. The bulls attention was momentarily on the audience until it noticed the pale boy across from him.
Arthur got chills from the bulls stare and as it got ready to charge Arthur realised that a barrier was on top of the arena separating the audience from the fight. He felt that these monsters were very similar to humans.
As the bull charged Arthur dodged to the left and rolled, after getting to his feet he realised the bull had continued to charge for quite a distance after where they would've made contact. He couldn't do much to the bull but if the bull were to hurt itself that would be a different situation.
Charging at the bull Arthur prepared to dodge again and flank the bull. However the bull started to turn red and flames erupted from it and engulfed Arthur. Normally a human would have burnt to a crisp however Arthur managed to survive by taking cover in the bulls hoof print. He climbed out of the hole and continued to charge which enraged the bull even further.
Fuelled by its rage the bull got into a lowered posture and charged at the also charging Arthur. As the two got closer and closer Arthur's posture changed and he seemed to trip.
Seeing that Arthur had tripped towards the bulls foot the audience braced for the oncoming brutal scene.
However, the boys body continued towards the leg of the bull and made contact with the leg of the bull rather than the underside of the hoof and the bull began to tumble instead. Flipping in the air the bull landed on its head, it quickly lost consciousness. This was a fight to the death therefore being unconscious didn't end the fight and Arthur had no weapon to kill the bull with.
The only thing Arthur could do to kill the bull was use his body to kill it he went to its head and stopped at its eye and opened the eyelid. Bracing himself for the disgusting actions he was about to have to do Arthur thought to himself, 'I hope the fire it used doesn't change the body temperature of this thing or I'm about to die from my own plan'.
After hesitating from that thought Arthur straightened his hand and lunged it at the bulls eye and hit the pupil directly in the center the liquid felt disgusting to Arthur and as he was about to pull out he found his resolve and pushed deeper and started to push more than his hand in and after getting shoulder deep a message appeared in front of Arthur saying.
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Racial skill [Spiritual Assimilation] has been unlocked.
Spiritual Assimilation - Gold - (Active) - Racial - User can completely absorb a target by becoming one with the target.
Do you wish to use this skill?
Y / N
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'Why does its description have to be so, well 'Spiritual'?' Deciding to ignore the suggestive description Arthur chose to use the skill and instantly the bull got sucked into his arm and he got another message.
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Doomstarved Bull absorbed.
Abilities unlocked -
Magic-
Horn growth (green) 100%
Element Utilisation (???) 30%
Low Fire Utilisation (blue) 100% [Low affinity]
Skills-
Wild style (purple) 100%
Charge (blue) 100%
??? (???) 1% [Conditions not met]
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Intrigued by some of the abilities and the applications for his new racial skill Arthur made sure that there were no remains of the bull and looked towards the flamboyant man who immediately pronounced Arthur the winner. "What a shocking upset! It seems the human has won and completely erased the bull. For those who lost your bets, remember that the human is private property and any damages to the human will be retaliated against in full force. Now the next fight will be between a True-Spider-Monkey and a Darkskull the odds are 1:7..."
The man continued however Arthur was already escorted to a waiting cell that was his new 'home' however Arthur had immediately begun experimenting with his abilities. He grew horns from different parts of his body and could even cover them in searing flames.
He wondered why fate had given him flames when his best attribute should be ice. However, knowing that he can instantly kill an opponent put Arthur at ease and he felt that if his skill could become an ultimate trump card as long as he could figure out what "becoming one" meant.
Thinking this Arthur fell into a deep sleep after the exhaustion from the fight had sunk in.