The sun dipped below the jagged ice peaks of the caldera, casting long, bloody shadows across the Arena of Fangs.

Hours had passed since the opening horn. The fifty thousand spectators, initially rowdy, had whipped themselves into a frenzy.

The smell of roasted meat and spilled ale mixed with the copper tang of blood on the ice.

The initial fifty combatants of Block C had been culled.

It was a brutal, Darwinian process. Leona watched from the sidelines as a Tigerman was dragged off the field by healers, his leg shattered.

She watched a massive Walrus-kin get knocked unconscious by a coordinated strike from two Panther brothers.

Every round, the herd thinned.

The ice, once pristine white, was now a slush of red and grey.

Throughout it all, "Leo" remained a silent anomaly.

She fought four times in three hours. She never drew a weapon. She never cast a spell. She simply walked into the fray, delivered a single, bone-breaking strike, and walked out.

She broke the tusks of a Boar Champion. She dislocated the shoulder of a Bear Berserker. She moved with an efficiency that terrified the other contestants.

Now, only four warriors remained in the entire tournament.

The Semi-Finals.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The drums beat a slower, heavier rhythm. The fires in the great pits were stoked high, illuminating the arena in flickering orange light.

"Spectators!" The Fox-kin announcer screamed, his voice hoarse from hours of shouting. "

The chaff is gone! Only the wheat remains! Prepare for the Semi-Final of Block C!"

The heavy iron gate opposite Leona ground open.

THUD. THUD. THUD.

The ground shook. Dust fell from the stone archway.

Stepping out into the light was a mountain of muscle and iron.

It was a Rhinoceros-kin, standing nearly ten feet tall. But he wasn't just big; he was armored.

Heavy, enchanted black-iron plates were bolted directly onto his thick grey hide. He wielded a war hammer the size of a carriage axle, dragging it behind him like a toy.

"CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH!" The crowd chanted.

Crush, the Champion of the Southern Plains. He had never been knocked down. He breathed steam from his nostrils, his beady black eyes locking onto the small figure in the white cloak.

"You look crunchy," Crush grunted, his voice deep and slow.

Leona stepped onto the ice. The wind whipped her cloak, but she stood planted, her feet shoulder-width apart.

"And you look heavy," Leona replied, her voice distorted by the mask.

In the High Lodge, King Scar leaned forward on his throne. The boredom was gone from his eyes, replaced by a simmering unease.

"That boarder-rat." Scar muttered, swirling his wine. "He reached the semi-finals without a scratch. And he hasn't shown his aura yet."

"Crush will break him," Prince Gorn sneered from the side, sharpening his greataxe.

"Crush is a siege engine. You can't technique your way through a charging rhino."

"We shall see," Scar whispered.

"BEGIN!"

Crush roared, a sound like a steam whistle and charged.

It was like watching a landslide accelerate. The Rhino-kin lowered his shoulder, his iron-shod feet tearing up the permafrost.

He moved with terrifying speed for his size, aiming to trample the "cripple" into paste.

"Move, Leo!" A spectator screamed.

Leona didn't move.

She watched the mountain of iron rushing toward her. Ten meters. Five meters. Two.

At the last fraction of a second, Leona stepped in.

Rather than doge, she stepped toward the charge, slipping into the tiny, dangerous gap between Crush's shoulder and his swinging hammer.

THUD.

She planted her feet.

Using her good hand, her right hand, she grabbed the thick horn on Crush's snout. Using her bandaged left arm, the Void Gauntlet, she grabbed the rim of his breastplate.

"Up."

She roared.

It was a display of raw, impossible torque. Leveraging the Rhino's own momentum against him, combined with the hydraulic strength of the mechanical arm hidden beneath the rags, she stopped the charge dead.

Then, she lifted him.

WHOOSH.

The crowd gasped as one. The chanting died instantly.

The two-ton Rhinoceros-kin went airborne. His legs flailed helplessly. He looked ridiculous, a mountain suspended by an ant.

"Get off!" Crush panicked, dropping his hammer.

"Down," Leona whispered.

She slammed him.

BOOM!

The impact was catastrophic. She drove the Rhino-kin into the frozen earth with enough force to create a crater.

The ice shattered in a spiderweb pattern stretching twenty feet.

Crush bounced once, groaned, and went limp. His heavy iron armor was dented in the distinct shape of a hand.

The arena went dead silent.

Even the wind seemed to stop.

Then, the explosion.

"DID YOU SEE THAT?!"

"HE SLAMMED THE RHINO!"

"MONSTER! HE'S A MONSTER!"

Leona stood over the unconscious champion. She rolled her shoulder, adjusting her cloak.

She didn't look at the crowd. She looked up at the High Lodge, her gaze boring through the magical barrier protecting the King.

In the Royal Box, King Scar crushed the goblet in his hand. Wine and glass shards dripped onto the floor.

"That strength..." Scar hissed, his fur bristling.

"That isn't normal. That is Royal strength."

"Could it be?"

Remembering his brother he killed, Scar suddenly had a bad premonition.

He looked at the bandaged arm of the freelancer.

"Gorn," Scar ordered, his voice low and dangerous.

The Prince looked up, his arrogance shaken for the first time. "Father?"

"That warrior... he is not a freelancer. He is a threat." Scar pointed a claw at Leona.

"In the finals... do not play with him. Kill him. Immediately."

Gorn looked down at Leona, who was calmly walking toward the exit tunnel while fifty thousand people screamed her name.

The Prince gripped his axe until the lightning crackled.

"Understood."

The announcer's voice shook as he raised his trumpet.

"T-The Winner of the Semi-Finals! Moving on to the Grand Championship against Prince Gorn... is LEO!"

Leona walked into the darkness of the tunnel.

She touched the crystal at her throat.

"Young Lord," she whispered. "The warm-up is over. I'm bringing the crown home."

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