The pain had to be near unbearable levels, but the stronger of the scrawny combatants pushed on. Ted knew by now that the crowd would have eaten him, piece by piece, if he had restricted the use of excessive force or even tried to stop the match from happening at all.
He was proud of the roaring voices of the audience, proud of those who had forgotten that they were used to starving without complaining. He saw the same prominence of veins bulging on the necks of the fighters that appeared on the wiry necks of the onlookers.
He had never thought about creating his own traits in the cultists. It had felt too weird up to this point, almost gross to see a deformed reflection of himself on those dirty faces.
Now, though, he rather enjoyed the replication of his own, inner life in the cultists.
There was no reason to stop the fight.
Madorn had walked up to the deck, perhaps disturbed from his seemingly eternal calculations by the commotion.
