I stood at the highest point of the Flavian Amphitheatre in the evening. I was using Occultare, which meant no Fluxer or scanner could detect me. That is the beauty of being human.
Below me, the crowd was roaring. Tens of thousands of Fluxers - some Commoners, some wannabe Nobles - were shouting and hollering. The gladiatorial arena was packed.
Tonight's fight was a group of ten Exi Category Fluxers versus a Class 5 Frost Beetle. Not a bad warm-up for a crowd that liked seeing people freeze to death for entertainment.
I crouched low on the rim, squinting down. The Beetle was massive, about six meters tall. Its body is made of plates of translucent ice that reflected every light in the arena. Its breath came out as gusts of frost that froze the sand. The gladiators below were armed to the teeth, glowing weapons in hand, trying to keep formation while the creature skittered with the elegance of a tank doing ballet.
Class 1 to 4 Fluviums are jokes to me now. They can barely cause a scratch unless they caught me off guard. But Class 5 to 10? Those were something else. Even for me, an Ennèa of the Third Awakening, a Dual Fluxer and a God-touched Fluxer, know I can't take a Class 5 without going all out. And the higher the Class went, the worse it got.
A Class 6 Fluvium was roughly twice as strong as a Class 5. And it kept doubling all the way to Class 10.
Still, I needed a Fluveheart from a Class 5 or 6 Frost Beetle. If I could get that, my black strings could adopt a freezing attribute with Neveolus' influence. But of course, nothing's ever that simple.
The Noble Fluxers, the ones with permission to hunt higher-class Fluviums, wouldn't participate until August. Which meant the arena was crawling with Commoners and mid-tiers trying to earn their shot at the big leagues, which is a perfect time for me to sneak in.
The crowd cheered below as one of the gladiators was smashed into a wall of ice and didn't get up again. I exhaled slowly, pulling Faceless Identity.
"It's showtime."
The moment I put it on, the world dimmed. My physique shifted. My height adjusted slightly and muscle tone was compressed. My entire body blurred into something else. My outfit melted away into a dark bodysuit. A faint hum resonated in my chest as the mask sealed. In my hand, a staff of void materialized.
I took the appearance of the Lone Nomad. To the CATF, he is a Commoner Fluxer who formed a duo team with Princess Radellei in Nairobi before the floating stadium blew up.
I leapt off the edge of the amphitheater.
The wind rushed past as I descended, Xana swirling faintly around me to break the fall. I landed silently in one of the shaded corridors behind the arena. A couple of stagehands ran past, shouting something about "next round prep," completely unaware of me.
I had signed up under the alias Lone Nomad. Thankfully, I didn't need to apply physically since there's a website for that. My first fight was tonight. Win a few matches, move up, attract attention and eventually earn a ticket to face a Class 6.
I stepped into the preparation bay. The room was dim, lit only by a few floating bulbs. The smell of sweat, iron, and ozone filled the air. Around me, other participants sat sharpening weapons, adjusting armor, or meditating like they were about to go to war.
One guy - big, bald, and built like a refrigerator - looked up and snorted when he saw me.
"You're the new one? You look... soft."
I tilted my head. "You look overcooked."
A couple of the others snickered. The big guy frowned, muttered something about "kids these days," and went back to polishing his hammer.
Typical.
I checked my staff. The Faceless Identity ensured no one could trace my Xana signature. Even the scanners would read me differently.
A bell rang somewhere above. The next round was starting.
The announcer's voice boomed through the stadium, distorted by the Flux speakers:
"NEXT MATCH! The Lone Nomad versus the Iron Guild Squad!"
Ah, a group fight. Great. Ten versus one. Classic Rome.
I sighed, stretching my shoulders.
"You know, I really should stop volunteering for things that sound like suicide."
I stepped into the light.
The arena sand crunched under my boots. Tens of thousands of eyes turned towards me. Across the ring, ten fighters waited in formation. The Frost Beetle from earlier had been dragged away. This was just a preliminary match. Good. I needed to warm up before the real hunt.
I twirled my staff once, feeling the hum vibrate through my bones.
"Lone Nomad," the announcer said dramatically, "a newcomer who dares to face the Iron Guild alone! Let's see if he can last ten seconds!"
The crowd laughed. I didn't.
The timer started. And as the first hammer came swinging toward me, I whispered to myself.
"Let's dance."
They came with their shields up, hammers glowing and blades ignited with dull orange light as their Combat Flux flared. It was supposed to be intimidating. Maybe it was, for anyone else. But I didn't move. I didn't even raise my staff yet.
The sound of boots hammering sand echoed louder, the crowd already cheering, expecting the new entrant to get crushed in seconds. Ten against one. The odds were entertainment.
The first one reached me was a woman with a sword. She screamed, jumped, and came down with a vertical slash meant to split my head open.
I shifted my stance just slightly. The sword missed by a breath. My staff moved once and the crack that followed sounded like a branch breaking. Her jaw snapped sideways before she hit the ground.
I spun, bringing the staff horizontally across my waist, catching another blow from the side, this one from a hammer. The sheer weight of the impact made my boots grind into the sand, but the staff didn't break. Neveolus, the Primal Synsiline Treasure within me, had adapted even to this weapon.
I twisted my wrist. The hammer's shaft slid across my staff, dragging its wielder forward. My knee came up and drove straight into his chin. Blood sprayed like a red mist across the sand.
Two down.
The other eight hesitated just for half a second, but that was all I needed. The world around me slowed down.
I didn't need Flux. I didn't need absorption, sealing, or corrosion. Just muscle memory, discipline and the years of silence that came with a monastery where every mistake was punished by a strike and this body's harsh training.
The third came with a spear. I pivoted, letting the spearhead graze the surface of my face, then brought my staff down on his shoulder. I didn't stop there. The staff slammed into the side of his neck, his ribs, then swept low. His legs cracked like old wood. He screamed once before his throat collapsed under the fourth hit.
Three down.
The crowd wasn't cheering anymore.
The fourth one screamed and hurled a dagger wrapped in red Xana. It hissed through the air. I tilted my head, let it miss me by a hair, and when he blinked in confusion, I was already there.
My staff spun in an arc that connected with his temple. The sound wasn't a thud. It was a pop, like a balloon tearing open. His body dropped before the blood hit the sand.
Four.
The fifth and sixth came together, their swords drawn, moving like trained duelists. They attacked in tandem with one low and the other high. I dropped to one knee, catching both with a single parry that reverberated up my arm. The pressure was heavy. They were stronger Fluxers than the first wave.
I slid backward, pivoted on my heel, then struck upward.
The staff cut a clean line through the air, smashing into one's jaw, spinning me around in a full rotation. The second blade came for my neck. I ducked low and twisted my grip, reversing the staff into a backhand sweep that shattered his spine.
Six down.
The seventh came from behind with a roar. I didn't turn. I just swung the staff backward without looking. It caught his ribs mid-yell. Something inside him gave way with a wet crunch. His scream turned into a gurgle.
I grabbed the staff's midsection, flicked my wrists, and spun it vertically. The blood sprayed off like rain.
The eighth tried to run. He made it five steps before the staff left my hand.
The spin was clean and when it struck him between the shoulder blades, he fell forward, twitching once before going still.
The ninth came at me wild, swinging a saber that glowed red-hot. I caught it mid-swing between the fork of my staff, twisted, and yanked. The sword flew from his hand, and my staff's other end found his heart.
He didn't even scream. He just froze before collapsing backward.
The tenth... the last one didn't move.
He just stared at me, trembling. A man who had probably trained his whole life to kill in arenas like this, now watching his entire squad die in less than a minute. He raised his weapon anyway, his pride refusing to kneel. He charged.
For that, I gave him respect.
I lowered my stance. He swung and I countered. Our weapons clashed once, twice, three times. Sand exploded beneath our feet.
Then, on the fourth exchange, I stepped forward, breaking his guard. My staff twisted mid-motion, slipping past his defense and driving straight into his sternum. The air left him in a grunt.
I didn't let him fall yet.
"Breathe. Remember this moment. This is how they felt when you killed other gladiators."
I struck once more, snapping his neck.
Tens of thousands of people sat frozen, watching as the Lone Nomad stood alone at the center of the arena. The only sound was the soft drip of blood from my staff to the sand.
I lifted it slightly, resting it against my shoulder, and turned toward the tunnel leading out. My boots left dark prints as I walked.
Somewhere above, the announcer's voice cracked through the speakers, trembling:
"L-Ladies and gentlemen... The Lone Nomad... wins by... total elimination..."
The crowd didn't cheer They didn't clap. They just stared as I disappeared into the shadowed archway of the colosseum.
Inside, the cold air of the corridors wrapped around me. I took off the mask for a second, letting the metallic taste of blood mix with the wind. My reflection in the corridor's mirror looked like something carved from the dark.
"Still got it. Monastery discipline never fades even in another world."
The match would trend within minutes. People would speculate. Some would fear me. Some would try to recruit me but all I cared about was the Frost Beetle.