When the empress spoke, the surroundings vibrated faintly as the rock and dirt resonated with her commanding voice. There wasn't a hint of Divine Energy in the action, as if the world itself was excited just to hear her musical words.
"Jakue Alla," she said, the arena shaking as of struck with an earthquake.
"Jakue Alla," repeated her subjects, their combined chant not matching even a percent of their ruler's voice.
"Death before defeat," she repeated in English, the words obviously meant for the men below.
"Men from the Auburn Wastes, you have been found guilty of illegally entering our great nation of Verfenda with ill intent. Our nation's women are not toys for your kind to take as you please, which we shall demonstrate today.
"Your punishment is trial by combat. Survive for seven days and seven nights, and I shall send you back to the depraved desert you came from, with a full recuperation courtesy of our nation's healers.
"Fail, and you shall die.
"Your opponents will be beasts and other men and women who have either broken our laws or seek glory. The former people will earn their freedom when they slay you, and the latter great fame. Both have bet their lives and futures on this, and will eagerly lop off your heads.
"Have you anything to say before your trial commences?"
"I got one," one of the men said, a lewd grin spreading on his face. He cast his eyes around at the women in the stands, taking great care to not look at the empress herself.
He was over nine feet tall and built like a tank, with a neck as thick as Fate's torso and biceps thicker than even that. The oil made his large muscles shine in the midday sun above, every beat of his heart causing his body to thrum with a powerful vitality.
His shaggy black hair matched his fellow men from the Auburn Wastes, his blue eyes suggesting an intelligence one wouldn't expect from such a brutish man. Like everyone present except Fate, his skin was bronzed from years under the sun.
"When I get out of here, do I get to take one of you beauties with me?" he finished.
"Joka, shut the fuck up," hissed another man, this one as lean as an Olympic swimmer. "That's what got us here in the first place."
"We came here for mates, and I'm not leaving without one," Joka said, his grin not fading. "Our numbers are dwindling. Shouldn't we get something for our troubles, Dedru?"
"The mating season has been the same as it always has," the empress stated indifferently, the vulgarity of the man's words not bothering her. "You are here because you could not wait for four months.
"But if you prove yourselves here, perhaps one of the women watching will consider you when the time comes.
"Anything else? What about you, pale one?" she asked, addressing Fate.
"Just one," Fate said. "What's taking this thing so long to start?"
The empress let out a snort of laughter before plopping onto her throne and crossing her legs, uncaring that her toga was too short to hide what was beneath. The men looked away instantly, averting their eyes from the delicate sight.
The woman seemed more amused at this than anything, the men proving themselves to be all talk.
Fate had long since looked away, even before she had sat down, his eyes now focused on one of the large metal portcullises that surrounded them. He heard the distinct sounds of rattling chains and snarling animals coming from within.
The empress leaned on her throne and propped her cheek on her fist, waving the other hand carelessly. The portcullis rose with the sound of metal grating on stone, a shape looming from within the darkness.
From within bounded out a large, snarling creature, like a warthog pumped full of testosterone and growth Concepts and riddled with scales and bony protrusions, as if a child had gone wild with glue and stuck random horns and scales all over the beast's body.
Judging by its aura, it was a Tier III Magical Beast. That matched the Personification Level of the other men in the arena with Fate, so at least this empress wasn't just tossing them to their deaths.
Three more of the beast's kind trotted out behind the first, yellowed teeth bared at the men as froth foamed at the corners of their mouths. Their eyes were as red as blood, with not a single hint of white, and their breath was so terrible Fate could smell it from thirty feet away.
The men from the Auburn Wastes gathered together, flexing their biceps and cracking their necks to intimidate their foes. Fate was the odd one out, caught between the men and the boars.
"Oy, pale one!" shouted Joka. "Get in formation if you want to live! Those Dragon Boars have a nasty charge!"
Fate didn't listen to the man, striding forward with all the confidence of a trained killer. The lead boar huffed and pawed at the ground with its hoof as Fate approached, lowering its head to ready for a charge.
Air formed in a tempest around its tusks, so sharp that it left thin marks on the ground below. Even though the creature was as tall as Fate, he showed no signs of stopping.
Then it broke forward, letting out an angry squeal as the wind expanded from the tusks of the beast and wrapped around its body by using the bony spikes along its body as jumping-off points, cloaking it in a storm that both increased the severity of its attack and protected it.
As it bolted forward, Fate planted his feet firmly and held his hands out in front of him. Just as it was ten feet away, he smacked the beast across the sides of its head with the full force of his Divine Grasp.
It spawned inside the tempest, bypassing the wind entirely, and rammed into the boar like a truck.
Even for a beast of this size, fifteen hundred pounds straight to the temples was harsh. The animal's head smooshed together like a pile of clay, eyes popping in a shower of blood as its flesh tore and bled and its skull fractured under the impact.