"A kinslayer has no honor."

The words rumbled through the stadium, shaking the snow from the rafters.

Elder Torrum stood like a mountain of grey fur and iron-wood, an immovable wall between the fallen Leona and the enraged King Scar.

"Move, Torrum!" Scar screamed, black lightning crackling violently around his sword, arcing indiscriminately into the ground.

"Are you senile! I am the King! My word is law!"

"Your word is poison," Torrum countered, his voice calm, heavy, and terribly sad.

He reached into the thick folds of his fur and pulled out a small, glass vial.

It was empty, but the residue clinging to the glass glowed with a sickly, distinctive green light.

"I kept this, Scar. For two years, I kept the vial you gave the Apothecary."

Scar froze, his lightning sputtering for a fraction of a second.

"I was too weak to challenge you then," Torrum admitted, his eyes filled with a deep, ancient regret.

"I feared your strength. I feared for the safety of my clan. So I stayed silent while you sat on a throne built on your brother's corpse."

Torrum looked down at Leona. She was barely breathing, her chest rising in shallow, ragged gasps, her blood staining the pristine ice a shocking crimson.

"But when I see a child... a cub... fighting with more honor than the Elders who swore to protect the clan..." Torrum slammed the butt of his totem staff into the ice.

BOOM.

"I can be silent no longer!"

"Lies!" Scar roared, sweat slicking his fur.

"It's a forgery! A plot! Guards! Kill them! Kill the traitor and the beast!"

Scar pointed his sword at the Royal Guards lining the arena walls, his eyes wild with desperation.

"Commanders! Slaughter the Mammoth Tribe! Kill them all!"

Silence followed.

The wind howled through the open roof, but no weapons moved.

The Commander of the Royal Guard, a battle-scarred Wolf-kin with one ear, looked at the King.

Then, he looked at the trembling Mammoth Elder defending the true heir. Finally, he looked at the crowd, fifty thousand pairs of eyes, waiting.

The Wolf Commander slowly lowered his spear until the tip touched the ice.

"No," the Commander said.

Scar's eyes bulged, veins throbbing in his neck. "What did you say to me?"

"I said no," the Commander repeated, his voice gaining the strength of steel.

"We swore an oath to the White Lion. Not to a poisoner."

He turned his back on the King, facing Leona, and dropped to one knee.

"The Guard stands with the Princess!"

That was the spark.

ROAR.

The stadium instantly exploded with cheers.

It was the sound of a dam breaking. Two years of fear, two years of hunger, two years of watching their culture rot from the inside, it all released at once.

Fifty thousand Beast-kin jumped the barriers.

"KILL THE USURPER!"

"FOR KING LEO!"

"PROTECT THE PRINCESS!"

They flooded the arena like a tide of fur and fangs, a living avalanche of rage.

"You ants!" Scar screamed, his sanity snapping. "I am a 6th Order God! You cannot touch me!"

BOOM!

Scar swung Nightfang. A crescent of black lightning tore through the air, vaporizing the first hundred warriors who rushed him.

Blood misted the air, turning the snow pink.

But ten thousand more replaced them. They didn't care about death. They climbed over the bodies of the fallen, driven by a primal need for justice.

"Die!"

A Bear-kin clamped his jaws onto Scar's arm.

Scar beheaded him instantly, but a Wolf-kin used the opening to stab a dagger into his thigh.

"Get off me!" Scar roared, blasting them away with a spherical pulse of thunder.

But he was drowning.

Elder Torrum charged through the chaos, swinging his massive totem like a battering ram.

BAM.

The tree trunk hit Scar squarely in the back, cracking his already damaged Dragon-Scale armor. Scar stumbled forward, gasping.

Then the other Elders joined the fray. The Tiger Elder, the Snake Matriarch, the Eagle Chief, they all leaped from the Council Box, adding their 5th Order auras to the storm.

Scar was powerful. He was an Elementary 6th Order. In a duel, he could have killed any of them.

But he couldn't fight a nation.

"I am... the King..." Scar wheezed, crushing a goblin's skull with his bare hand, but his movements were slowing. His mana was running dry. His "Mana Skin" flickered and died.

Hundreds of hands grabbed him. They tore at his armor. They clawed at his skin. They dragged him down into the slush.

"No! Get back! I am Scar! I am..."

THUD.

Elder Torrum swung his totem one last time, smashing it directly onto the top of Scar's head.

The King collapsed.

The black lightning faded into nothingness.

Under the wrath of an angry nation, a mere elementray sixth order was nothing more than that.

The mob descended, stripping him of his sword, his armor, and his dignity.

Within seconds, the "God" of the arena was nothing more than a bruised, bleeding pile of meat, pinned down by the weight of his own subjects.

Torrum raised his hand, his voice cutting through the noise.

"Enough! Do not kill him yet!"

The crowd paused, chests heaving, claws dripping red. They looked to the Mammoth for guidance.

Torrum walked over to Scar. He pulled a set of heavy, runic shackles from his belt, Anti-Mana Cuffs. With a heavy click, he clamped them onto Scar's wrists and ankles.

"He does not deserve a warrior's death," Torrum spat, looking down at the unconscious usurper.

"He deserves a trial."

Torrum turned to where Leona lay.

The Tribal Healers were already there, casting warm green light over her broken body, knitting bone and flesh back together.

Leona opened one swollen eye. Through the haze of pain, she saw Scar in chains. She heard the crowd chanting her name, a rhythm that shook the earth.

"Is it..." Leona whispered, blood bubbling past her lips. "Is it done?"

Torrum knelt beside her, his large, rough hand gently patting her head.

"Rest now, Little Lion," the Mammoth Elder said softly.

"The North is yours."

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