The arena was simplistic, made out of a tough looking black rock that had enough seats for every person in the tribe. It did not have walls like a colosseum, and was more like a pitch than anything else.
The members of the tribe were already crowded around, excited to watch a battle between the oldest prince, and a potential traitor or savour.
There was a man stood in the middle of the arena, and Dante and Pyro stood on either side of him.
"Welcome everybody, thank you for joining us on such quick notice. The oldest Prince, Pyro, has challenged his brother's potential saviour to a duel to test if he is worthy. This battle is not one to the death, apart from that, nothing else is off limits. Let the battle commence!"
Cheers erupted from the crowd, and the battle begun. As he was angry and therefore more aggressive, Pyro made the first move. This attack came in the form of a huge mass of flames being shot towards Dante.
He obviously dodged out of the way of this, but Pyro was able to manoeuvre the flames once he had sent them out, which meant they engulfed Dante entirely.
"I knew you weren't strong enough to defeat the Tree People and save my brother, you see everyone, he's working with the enemy."
While he was shouting to the tribes people, Pyro didn't realise that his attack wasn't as effective as he had thought. He did realise this fact though, when a punch which had more weight than should have been possible based off of Dante's frame and size connected with his stomach.
This sent him flying back, but due to his rocky body and high endurance, Pyro stood up and looked at Dante who was stood without any damage from the fire. Pyro was shocked at this, and decided to try and attack again.
The flames surrounding him increased and became a mix of orange and blue, and his speed seemed to have increased immensely. However, Dante had his own way of increasing his speed, as he activated Sprint, and Pyro could see nothing but a blur in front of him, before Dante already had his fist planted in his stomach.
Once again, this blasted Pyro backwards, except this time he was unable to get back up. The man who had announced the fight shouted once more, "The battle has concluded, thank you for coming out watch the battle."
The tribe members all began to leave, seemingly disappointed that their Prince had lost against someone who looked so weak.
Dante approached the enemy who he had just defeated, feeling like he had grown stronger for some reason. He decided to check his status before doing anything else, and he saw that his level had increased, this worried him as he thought he had killed Pyro, and he hadn't intended to.
When Pyro stood up with a defeated look, this thought disappeared from Dante's mind, and he came to a conclusion. It seemed as though he could gain experience from simply defeating an enemy, not necessarily by killing them.
This was helpful information, as he thought he may meet some more civilised people in the future.
Dante walked up to Pyro, "Have you accepted that I really did save your brother from the Tree People?"
Pyro looked pissed off for a second, and then he sighed, "I understand now, I underestimated your strength just by looking at you. My apologies, I would like to reintroduce myself, my name is Pyro, the oldest son of the Glowing Tribe's Chief. My anger was misplaced previously, I would like to thank you for saving my youngest brother."
Dante was surprised by this change in personality, "Its fine, I understand why you would have been suspicious."
"Even so, I should not have judged you so quickly, I was simply enraged at the thought of somebody harming my family. If there is anything I can do to make it up to you then I will be happy to help."
Dante saw a good opportunity and took it, "I was wondering if there was something like a Boss on this floor? Maybe an incredibly strong enemy or something similar. Even a monster that is guarding a stairway down to the next floor would be great to know about."
Pyro thought for a second, "Come to think of it, I have heard rumours of a monster that lives on top of this volcano, if you would like then I can go with you to investigate."
Dante was happy to hear this, "Absolutely, it would be a great help if you could lead me there."
"I won't just lead you there, I'll help you fight against it if that's what you want."
"I'll see how powerful the monster is, and then decide if I need your help. If you have any information on what the monster is then it would be good to know."
"I'll let you know everything that I know while we walk up there."
Dante followed Pyro, excited to find the potential Boss of the floor so quickly. While they were walking up the steep and harsh environment, Pyro told Dante everything he had heard about the monster.
There were three well known theories on what the monster could be, all from different sources.
The first theory was that it was a humungous beast covered in hard armour, with large claws and a ginormous stinger on the end of its tail. This creature supposedly was incredibly poisonous, and was able to shoot fire from its mouth and heat its claws until they could burn through anything.
The second theory was that the monster was in fact multiple monsters disguising as one. It was once reported that hundreds of the Flesh Children, the name for the Fleshy Bastards which the Glowing People had given, had been engulfed in flames and had evolved to withstand the heat, and had created a physical form of magma which they all controlled together.
The third theory was that the monster wasn't real, and that it was in fact just the magma and lava inside the volcano being moved vigorously by something called lava waves, which blasted it around and were prone to looking like a monster to people who were tired or scared.
Dante hoped that it would be one of the first two options, or at least another monster of some sort, as the absence of a Boss Monster would be upsetting and would extend his stay on the second floor.
While they were talking, Dante didn't even realise that they had reached the top of the volcano.