The scorching sand of the Sunken Colosseum burned against Elian’s bare feet, but the fourteen-year-old boy barely registered the heat. The air was thick with the copper stench of old blood and the suffocating pressure of a hundred thousand screaming voices. They hungered for violence. They demanded a spectacle. High above, seated in their gilded balconies draped in crimson silk, the High Lords of the Aethelgard Empire looked down upon the pit with bored anticipation, fanning themselves against the oppressive heat of the twin suns.
Elian’s fingers trembled as they curled around the hilt of a rusted iron short sword, a pathetic weapon thrust into his hands by the laughing guards just moments before he was shoved through the heavy iron portcullis. He was not a warrior. He was a weaver’s son from the outer rim, a boy whose greatest crime was possessing the forbidden gift of Empathy—an ancient, quiet magic that allowed him to feel the heartbeat of the world, to sense the emotions of beasts and men alike. In Aethelgard, such gifts were a death sentence. Or worse, a ticket to the games.
Across the vast expanse of the elliptical arena, a secondary gate groaned. The massive gears ground together, shedding decades of rust and bone dust. The crowd’s roar shifted from a chaotic clamor to a synchronized, deafening chant.
"Ranger! Ranger! Ranger!"
The ground beneath Elian’s feet began to vibrate. It was a rhythmic, heavy thudding that traveled up his legs and settled in the pit of his stomach. From the pitch-black maw of the opposing tunnel, a shadow detached itself from the darkness.
Ranger stepped into the blistering sunlight.
The beast was a nightmare made of muscle, bone, and alchemical steel. Standing eight feet tall at the shoulder, Ranger was a chimera bred for pure destruction—a monstrous fusion of a dire wolf and a great bear, layered with thick, silver-gray fur that was matted with the blood of previous challengers. Heavy iron plating was bolted directly into his spine, and a glowing, arcane shock collar pulsed with a violent purple light around his massive neck. His eyes, completely devoid of pupils, burned with a chemically induced, feral rage. He opened his jaws, revealing rows of serrated, steel-capped teeth, and let out a roar that shattered the air, a sound so loud it physically pushed the breath from Elian’s lungs.
The crowd went into a frenzy. Flowers, gold coins, and torn pieces of cloth rained down from the lower tiers. Ranger had been the undisputed champion of the Sunken Colosseum for five years. He had torn through seasoned gladiators, armored knights, and rival beasts with terrifying ease. He was a god of death in the sand, a creature so lost to the Empire's torture and alchemical enhancements that nothing of his original soul remained.