"We know nothing about this Hollow so Gilgalor will have the odds in his favour for winning the match!" the announcer said trying to hype up the audience.
"Hehe, you think you can fight me, eh? Well, that was a grave error on your part, hahaha," Gilgalor laughed heartily as his monstrous figure intimidates the audience into silence.
As Hollow and Gilgalor stared each other down with daggers in their eyes before charging at one another with their full strength causing the ground to quake beneath them both.
Hollow quickly morphed his arms into blades and stabbed them into Gilgalor brutally as his arms made their way into his chest before they turned into a cone shape at the end Hollow then ripped them both out taking a large chunk of Gilgalors body with them.
Gilgalor now having a massive hole in his chest and his guts lying on the ground could only wish he hadn't been matched up with such a beast before falling to the ground with those as his last thoughts before dying.
-/-/-/-/-
"Do you always need to mutilate your opponents like that?," Seraphina asked before being sick as she wasn't used to such sights being presented in front of her.
"I wanted the match to be over quickly and that was an effective method to do that," Hollow said as if he thought it wasn't a gruesome sight to see.
"Isn't it your match next as well?," Hollow said before waving Seraphina off.
-/-/-/-/-
In the royal both exclusive to the city lord and those he invites, the city lord noticed something strange about a contestant other than Hollow and it was Seraphina.
"Could you contact my superior and tell them I suspect that Seraphina is back," the city lord said to his assistant before continuing to watch the matches with renewed interest.
-/-/-/-/-
Seraphina's opponent was a tall 7ft athletic woman who seemed to have been trained in many forms of martial combat as if prepared for this very moment in her life.
This woman was known as Talia the Battle Addict who was from far away from the city of Holalix and seemed to be a masochist as a child when she would challenge masters of combat to a fight to train herself.
Even after being thrown away time and time again she got up and continued to fight back causing the old masters to respect her determination and train her in combat.
Now as an adult she has developed into a more playful personality who wants to enjoy the fight rather than win them.
When Talia saw that her opponent had the aura of a spoon feed rich brat who has never seen a proper fight in their life she was disappointed as she would have preferred someone like Hollow who was trained in combat.
'It seems like it going to be an easy fight again this time,' Talia thought before sighing as it couldn't be helped.
As soon as the announcer started the match Talia ran at Seraphina without hesitation before strafing to the left to avoid a punch from Seraphina and kicking on the ground to lunge at her left side which was completely unguarded.
Talia bawled up her fist and pulled it back before pushing forward with the full strength of her arm and the lunge before impacting Seraphina causing her to go flying and land on the ground in agony.
"Are you done now?" Talia asked since she didn't want to kill an opponent who was on the floor and couldn't do anything to fight back, it just wasn't enjoyable then.
"I-I-I….I surrender," Seraphina said after some thought since it was clear she couldn't win and even if she could there would only be harder opponents after Talia.
-/-/-/-/-
"I-I couldn't do it!" Seraphina cried after arriving at a more secluded spot of the fighters both where only Hollow was seated.
"It's ok, nobody is amazing on their first attempt at something, you just need more practice," Hollow said trying to cheer Seraphina up after realising this is probably something important to her.
"Y-you don't u-understand! I need to win this competition! I need this so the council will recruit me!," Seraphina shouted at Hollow no longer able to hold her sadness in.
"Then I'll win for you! If this council thing wants to recruit me when I win then I'll just make them recruit you as well!" Hollow said as if he had a spark of genius.
"You would do that for me? We've only known each other for less than a day though," Seraphina said surprised at what Hollow said he would do for her.
"It's fine I don't need this council thing anyway I can do everything I need to get out of this realm myself after sufficient time," Hollow said casually not realising he is still revealing priceless information.
-/-/-/-/-
After a few more rounds of the battle festivals competition there were only a few competitors left in it meaning they were in the semi-finals.
These competitors were Dersi the paladin, Talia the battle addict, nilfor hydra the noble, a famous assassin known for their red outfit and black scarf, Hollow and a gladiator who had managed to survive until this round.
Dersi was easily able to defeat the gladiator he was matched up against keeping his honour as the paladin of Solaris.
In the match between Talia and the assassin in red, some of the important officials watching the matches had noticed that the assassin was wearing the colours of the heretics - red but proceeded to do nothing about it since this was already discussed beforehand between high-ranking officials.
The officials had better things to do rather than watch the competition but now that it was the semifinals they came to see who would win which is why they didn't know about the identity of the heretic participating.
Unluckily for Talia, she was unable to defeat the assassin as they bounced around the arena at a speed too fast for her to handle but she was excited nonetheless as this meant there were still people who could give her a good fight.