GoldenLion wanted to respond, but before he could open his mouth, he and Finn were both teleported to the arena.
"For our first match of the day, we have GoldenLion versus Chained Trickster!"
Dina shouted, making her voice resonate throughout the arena.
The audience was still butthurt about Finn's victory against Olivia, so they decided to cheer for GoldenLion instead.
"GOLDEN LION!"
"GOLDEN LION!"
"GOLDEN LION!"
The audience chanted, but Finn didn't care about them and kept glaring at GoldenLion with bloodshot eyes.
Loki wanted to tell him to get a grip, but he stopped himself, thinking that this might be a good lesson for Finn.
Fighting while influenced by emotions will cloud one's judgement and make him more prone to making mistakes, so Loki didn't say anything to let Finn discover this on his own.
After all, people learn a lot more when they learn from their own mistakes.
Loki did want Finn to win the tournament, but if Finn were to lose this match, the experience he would gain from it would be more valuable than the one he would get from getting first place.
"The players had an hour to look at each other's matches before, but since they had seen their opponents matches live in the waiting room yesterday, they will be teleported inside the arena without getting to analyze anything!"
Dina explained, but the audience kept chanting GoldenLion's name, so she decided to start the match.
"Both players get ready!"
GoldenLion pulled out two long swords that he had on his back and held one in each hand.
Finn didn't change his posture, making him look calm, but the way he was tightly gripping his sword handle revealed his inner feelings that he hid behind his mask.
"Begin!"
"ROAAARRR!!!"
GoldenLion used a skill and roared at Finn, who was preparing to run at him.
Suddenly Finn felt that his body had become heavier, and a system message popped up in front of him.
[You have been inflicted with Lions' roar and will have your stats lowered by 10% for one minute.]
Normally, Finn would start playing defensively and wait for the debuff to go away before he would start attacking, but at the moment, Finn's head was filled with only one word.
'Kill!'
His loving family, which he had already lost once, his loving family that he had loved more than anything in the world, his precious family that came back to life because he met Loki by chance.
This precious family was now being badmouthed by some idiot who lost a small number of coins to Finn.
Finn was used to being pushed around by stronger and more powerful people in his previous life, but now that he had the power to defend himself, he'd had enough of staying passive.
If someone was so daring as to curse his lovely parents, that person deserved to die.
This was a game that didn't allow people to die in real life, so Finn settled on a different idea.
He ignored his lower stats and rushed at GoldenLion, wanting to take his time in defeating him.
"You really are an idiot! Come on then, if you want to die so badly, I will fulfill your wish!"
GoldenLion shouted and prepared to receive Finn's sword.
SLASH CLANG
Their swords clashed, and even though Finn was weakened, he managed to hold his ground with the use of his Vital hit skill, which boosted his attacks.
They slashed, blocked, stabbed, deflected, thrusted, and the longer the fight was taking, the more worried GoldenLion started to be.
'This kid fights like this when he is weakened? Fuck! I didn't want to use that yet, but I can't afford to lose this fight.'
GoldenLion blocked Finn's strike and pushed him away.
His body started to glow with a golden aura, and Finn immediately recognized what it was.
'His strongest move, King's aura… no, it is too weak. His mastery over it must be way too small, so it will only boost his stats by a negligible amount.'
Finn remembered that GoldenLion used this skill a lot in his previous life, and it made him into one of the top 10 players because it enabled him to become a lot stronger for a certain amount of time, but compared to its future self, the current aura was like comparing a spark to a wildfire.
"HAHAHA! What do you think? You are probably so scared that you are pissing yourself!"
GoldenLion laughed, but contrary to his expectations, Finn ignored his newly emerged skill and continued pummeling him with sword strikes.
CLANG CLANG
The audience loved the fight because it made their blood boil, just like the people who watched the gladiator matches must have felt.
"GOLDEN LION!"
"GOLDEN LION!"
"GOLDEN LION!"
They screamed at the top of their lungs, mostly because a lot of them had bet on GoldenLion to win this fight.
SLASH
Suddenly, their strikes finally connected, and both of them landed a hit. A shallow wound appeared on Finn's leg, and GoldenLion's shoulder was also cut.
"Finally, we see the first blood appear!"
Dina yelled, and the crowd chanted GoldenLion's name, even though he had also been cut.
The fight quickly escalated, and that one slash turned into two and then three.
Soon both of their bodies became filled with shallow wounds that made them bleed all over.
They were both losing blood, and because Finn was ignoring his defense, he was bleeding a lot more than if he were to fight in a smart way and not use brute force.
SLASH
At one point of the match, Finn's debuff and GoldenLion's buff had finally ended, and Finn managed to pierce through GoldenLion's armor.
"MY ARMM! FUCK IT HURTS!"
With a quick slash, Finn managed to cut GoldenLion's right arm off, but the audience still believed that GoldenLion could recover from this.
"DON'T GIVE UP!"
"GOLDEN LION!"
"GOLDEN LION!"
But with his arm gone, he had also lost one of his weapons, and his strength fell by 50%.
He tried to defend himself with only one sword, but because he didn't have a buff anymore and Finn's stats returned, he was soon met with another slash, and it took his left leg this time.
"AAARRRGGG!!! FUUUCKKK!!!"
He screamed as he fell, and even the audience's shouts started to falter.
"Golden Lion!"
"You can still win!"
"You still have one leg, so stand up and fight!"
GoldenLion clenched his teeth while ignoring the pain and tried to use his sword as a support to help him stand up, but Finn didn't let him and cut his other arm off.
"AAAARRRRGGGHHH! FFUUUUUCKK IT HURTS!"
He had a lot more energy than a normal person would have because his brain knew that this was a game and he wasn't actually dying, but the pain still felt very real.
GoldenLion kept screaming like he was being tortured, but since the audience couldn't feel his pain, they still believed that he had a way to win, like a skill that could regenerate his body parts or something.
"Golden lion!"
"Come on, use your ultimate skill!"
"Stand up!"
Unfortunately for them, GoldenLion had played for the same amount of time as the rest of the players in the tournament, so he had yet to find an overpowered skill like that.
Finn didn't pause for even a second before cutting his last remaining leg off.
SLASH
"ARRRRGGHHH! STOP I CONC-"
At that point, GoldenLion wanted to give up, but before he could finish his shout, Finn pulled his tongue out and cut it off with a dagger.
"MMMMMMM! MMM! MMMMMM!"
GoldenLion kept spitting blood and tried to look at Dina for help, but she just sadistically smiled back at him like she wanted to see him get tortured too.
"…"
"…"
"…"
The audience stayed silent because they had finally realized that the match had ended after GoldenLion had lost his first arm.
Finn looked at him coldly and watched him slowly bleed out, but the silence was interrupted when one of the spectators started shouting.
"This is not fair! He had surrendered already!"
Soon others joined him and also started defending GoldenLion, who now looked extremely pitiful with only his torso and head remaining.
"Why are you doing this, isn't this just torture?!"
"Administrator, you should stop this!"
"I knew that guy was an iredeemabl-"
Before it got completely out of hand and the spectators started jumping into the arena, Dina clapped her hands, and a holographic screen descended from the sky into the middle of the arena.
On it, the spectators could see GoldenLion standing in front of Finn in the waiting room.
["You are the bastard that killed my vice leader, forcing him to become level four, and you also killed a lot of my guildmates and stole the coins they dropped, right?"]
["Haha, it's all in the past now, dude. It was self-defense, and your guildmates tried to rob me as soon as I tried to enter a dungeon and as soon as I left it."
"I don't see it as me killing them. It's more like taking out the trash."]
["…You mannerless fucker! Did your parents not teach you how to talk to older people? Or maybe they are as braindead as you are, so they don't even know how to teach their own child simple things!"
"I will cut your tongue out so you can't surrender and then slowly cut all of your limbs off as I let your shitty family watch you bleed out!"]
"…"
Silence.
The audience didn't have anything else to say.
After hearing the backstory behind the fight, all of them realized that GoldenLion had dug his own grave, so they all obediently sat back down and didn't let out a single peep.
A minute quickly went by, and when GoldenLion looked like he was about to faint, Finn finished him off with a stab that pierced his brain.
GoldenLion only remained alive for so long because of his high endurance stat that he had put his attribute points into.
"And we have our first winner of the day! The winner is Chained Trickster!"
"WOOOAAHHH!"
Finn didn't know if the audience felt bad or if they really wanted to cheer for him because of the fight, but he was suddenly showered with praises and applause.
His clothes were torn and bloody. His mask remained intact, but it had a splash of blood on it, and his sword had lost its blue color and was now painted scarlet red.
The previously black clothes that were now stained with blood and the sword that had blood dripping from it made Finn look like a psychopathic killer.
He turned towards the audience, and when they saw him, they felt a chill run down their spine and goosebumps appear all over their bodies.
"WOOO!!!"
"GOOD JOB!"
"WOW! SO GOOD!"
This made them start clapping and shouting even louder, afraid that he might come for them if they didn't.
Meanwhile, Loki kept smiling, happy that his plan had worked out.
'See? Just like I said. If you don't want them to hate you, you just have to make them fear you and respect you.'