Chapter 463 - A Trio

When some time had passed, and they had yet to see the beast arrive in the arena. The workers started to wonder what was going on. This led to the original organiser of the arena to send his men underground. 

This was where the beasts would be kept, King tier, all the way up to the emperor tier. Usually, the place would have a routine check-up. Still, due to the beasts' aggressive nature, they would try to keep people out of there whenever possible. 

The cages were strong, but eventually, they would be worn down, especially by the stronger beasts. However, when the men went to check out what was going on, perhaps their automated system had malfunctioned, as soon as they entered the dark pit, a strange smell hit them. 

It was thick and heavy, the smell of death. Entering the room, each one of the cages that held the beasts in places had been destroyed, and inside, all of the beasts had been killed. 

"What could have done all this?" One of the guards said. 

They all seemed to have two things in common, first, their heads ripped from their body, and second a puncture wound in a certain place. Most commonly, where the beast crystal would be. Beasts crystals could be anywhere inside a beast, so even if the puncture wounds seemed random, they weren't. 

It made sense on the weaker beasts if something or someone did this, but as the two guards walked forward, the tier of beast increased, and the pattern was the same. 

"Were they not even able to put up a fight, how strong was the thing that killed them?" Then they saw it, they saw the three emperor tiers they had in captivity all killed the same way.

This was reported as soon as possible, and when the information had finally reached the emperor's ears, he was already looking at the beast that caused it all.

The humanoid ant beast had just killed one of the contestants', and from his pressure alone they were struck with fear, too scared to move. 

"Hey what do we do, should we go down there or let the empire deal with this?" Kyle said. Right now this was a foreign land. In a way, the emperor was the enemy, so he was confused with what to do, but these people were innocent as well.

The one they all turned to look at was Sylvia. However, she was completely out of it, grabbing her eyepatch. 

"Hey is she going to be okay?" Kyle asked. 

Roy rushed over and snatched off the eyepatch covering her eye. The shadow inside it was moving about, and slowly it looked like it was creeping over to the other side. 

"This is bad," Roy said, looking at the beast. It seemed like somehow the beast in front of them was affecting Sylvia, but Roy was starting to fear the worst.

The shadow ant stood there, and from its four hands that were clenched shut at this point, it opened them, dropping something on the ground. The others knew what they were, but the ones who could sense Ki greatly or the ones that could see a little better like the contestants in the trench could see it. 

It had dropped several crystals down on the floor. It was clear that some of them were at the emperor tier level and king tier, while there were a few others. 

Knowing this fact alone just added to the intense moment.

The normal calm and calculated Alexander looked frustrated, this clearly wasn't part of the show nor in his plans at all. 

"I never thought the shadow would come for us so soon," Alexander said. They were the furthest away from the shadow continent and at the same time had done the least to harm them. They never helped the other kingdoms and had really only had a few scuffles with shadow beasts here and there. 

Unlike the other kingdoms who had gone into battle, especially the Alure kingdom. 

'Was it because of the facility, did they find out what we were trying to do?" Alexander thought. It was the only thing he could think of. 

He grabbed one of the crystals which allowed him to communicate with both Sera and Roki directly. "That beast, you need to get rid of it now, before it brings this entire empire down!"

"Tell them the event is Called Off, and get the people to leave now!" Alexander said to his aide, who was off. 

The scene down below was still at a standstill, no one had moved and that included the ant beast. It seems like the message had reached the audience's ears, and they started to leave. However, screams were heard, and some chose to rush in back to the arena.

"Keep an eye on her." Kyle said, as he ran through the people and rushed to the top of the arena. He used his black sash skills to help him scale up the wall until he finally reached the highest point allowing him to see out of the arena. 

On the ground floor, he could see several different people all coming towards the arena. They were surrounding it. The knights from the arena went out to engage with them, but they were killed with a few swings and hits. 

"Great," Kyle said. "Now all we need is the Dark Guild leader to appear out of nowhere," Kyle complained referencing the fact at Avrion's own tournament something similar had occurred.

Looking at the people closer, Kyle noticed that he had seen a few of them before, he started to rack his head, and it had clicked. He looked at Sylvia, looked back towards them, before looking at Sylvia again. 

They were from the facility. Was all of this the doing of the Shadow ant. According to Sylvia, she had been injected by the shadow at the time, to her and the others it seemed harmless, but it turned out not to be true at all. 

Maybe dormant was the correct term, and now this creature had arrived activating it.

That's when Kyle saw it, Sylvia was standing there, and now, both Roy and Martha had backed away from her, and Harry had his two swords drawn. 

'Slyvia, she's being controlled as well.'

Kyle looked to Ray, to see if he had noticed anything, but he was far too concerned about a more pressing matter. If he knew about this, it would only distract him more.

'Save Sylvia and then save the rest, it's all up to you, Kyle.' He said, rushing down to get with the others.

"Old man, give me your spear." Sera stood up and had his hand held out. 

For a second, Jones hadn't heard him for the only thing he was looking at was the shadow ant. But Sera wasn't going to ask twice. 

A fist came out, punching the old man in the face and breaking his nose. Then a kick to his body and the spear was yanked out of his hand. 

"You old fool, stop gawking at the thing. If none of you are going to fight, then you might as well leave this place. Go fight the idiots outside!" Sera said. 

They were confused at what Sera was talking about. 

"There are true infected are outside," Ray said. "They are approaching the arena and possibly have us surrounded. The knights of the empire are strong, but they lack experience. They have never faced a true infected before. 

Go to help them." 

His words, short, simple and straight to the point. They wanted to move but felt like they still couldn't. If they did the beast would kill them, they could feel it. 

Ray sighed before waving his hand. 

[Skill cast]

[Mind calm]

Suddenly, they no longer felt a great pressure that was once there, and they could move again. 

It was a skill that Ray had unlocked after freeing those slaves. He never really saw a use for this skill, Fear was sometimes a good thing, not good to run for your life when your body was telling you. 

But here, it was too much. They were scared to the point where their body had given up. 

Most of the others now with their mind free had chosen to leave, but a couple of people had stayed. Jones, who had a bloody nose, got up from the ground and Savana. In truth, they knew that if these three weren't able to kill the beast, then they were all dead anyway. 

I might have been selfish of them not to help the others, but they wanted to witness the fight that would determine their fate. There might even have been a chance they could help. 

Now walking from the trench, a trio that never thought they would be working together walked towards the beast. Sera, Ray and Roki.

*****

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