Blood Band Arena (05)

As Lat closed his eyes while the intense agony literally tore apart his body, he didn't feel regret nor disappointment for his people. He of all people understood what it was like to hold your interpersonal relationships dear, the only difference was that he considered all of his people as an unbreakable bond. He could feel each and every texture that ripped into his flesh, knowing their owners by heart. It wouldn't be a lie to say he knew every single name of the people that were so caught up in murdering him.

As he profusely bled until his veins dried, he sputtered out his last gasps of breath before abruptly dying. His eyes opened as his body disappeared, the lifeless eyes reflecting in all of the gheckla's maddened eyes. Although he had lost the faculty to even live, Lat saw all of this and metaphorically grit his teeth. His body that was fading away suddenly stopped before instantaneously reappearing, unharmed and no longer desiccated.

Lat brought air into his lungs before shouting to the paused gheckla. "C'mom ya guys! Aren't ya mad? You don't look like the people I remember, so let out all yer anger here!" He shouted, verbalizing his sacrificial courage. The loud noise drew the crowd's ire once again as they beset him, clawing at him for the second time.

The audience shrieked in ecstasy, not knowing how the blonde young gheckla was able to not die but spurring on his destruction with excited cries.

"Rip out his lungs!"

"Throw his eyes!"

"Isn't it such a pretty color? You don't see green blood like that everyday, ahaha!"

The hollers and cacophony of noises from both the attentive monsters and the enthralled gheckla stuck inside Krista's mind as she watched her brother continuously get ripped up. Every time he died, she died a little as well. Her heart felt petrified, cold, empty. She hated seeing her brother die before her eyes not just once, not twice, not even ten times. She counted each and every single green stain that marked the ground, her brother's blood a lighter green than the average gheckla.

With each death, Krista took a step further into insanity. With each wrongful death, she took a step closer to the crowd of gheckla. With each and every termination of her brother's life, she felt increasingly more violent.

She hated that smile upon his lips, the air of grace that was his countenance. She hated each and every gheckla that didn't even hesitate to take her brother away. To take the man who ushered in deliverance away. They were ungrateful, deplorable, appalling. Her face that was once stained with tears became completely blank as she shambled nearer and nearer to the group of aggressors.

She arrived directly behind an otherwise benign gheckla that was unable to participate in the violence, as it was too far from the center of the action. But Krista saw that frenzied look, those depraved eyes. Flexing her seemingly feeble arms, a strange strength imbued itself into her body. All she had to do was reach out, and...

The gheckla fell to the ground, dead. Krista saw the panel that all monsters in Nightmare had, signifying that she had leveled up and her existence had grown stronger. At the same time, her desires grew stronger as well. There was no snapping out of it, no second thoughts in her mind. Krista was on the warpath from thereon, not caring how many of her supposed kin she had to murder before she got what she wanted.

She calmly walked around the jammed procession of gheckla, her visage obscured by the darkening moonlight. The monsters continued to cheer, unaware of the small undertaker that set out to ruin their party. Krista killed the gheckla she came across in any way she could, sometimes crushing them, stabbing them, choking them...anyway she could. As she reaped lives her existence grew stronger and stronger, before there were only a minuscule 20 or so gheckla left. At that time, she had felt a limit. She had reached the third threshold.

Krista silently stared at the panels before her, noting that there was only one class choice. {Taboo Avenger}, it read, but she didn't stop to view it or any such thing. She chose to evolve on the spot, the leafy green tones that painted her from head to toe being absorbed into her body. Black wings sprouted out of her back and a black ring replaced the collar she once had. The ring levitated in the air and merely circled her neck, though the writing Krista could not see it. Her blond hair became a light black with streaks of blond instead, and a grim grey aura enveloped her. As she finally settled into her body, her pupils turned grey with faint hints of the mint green she had once had. She looked like a stunning fallen angel, one that had a gecko tail and the claws few geckos actually had, and grey scales covered her neck and shoulders.

Feeling born anew, she walked towards Lat's constantly appearing and disappearing form that was blanketed by the only gheckla remaining. The arena was strangely silent at that moment, her crisp footsteps the only evident noise in the entire area. This time, she did not make any attempts to kill the gheckla that were still tearing at her brother's body.

Krista knelt down and cupped Lat's face into her hands. The gheckla oddly avoided her very form, the solemn aura around her seemingly repelling them. Noticing this, she grabbed Lat's hand and carried him, allowing the gheckla to still rip at his neck so he wouldn't regain his bearings.

Guiding his hands to where the gheckla stood, Krista killed each and every one of her people using Lat's claws. She didn't feel any part of experience or anything else, so she assumed her plan worked. Lat, now free to revive, stirred and suddenly shot awake. His eyes took in the sight of Krista's demure smile before asking the only question he had.

"Krista...is it over?"

"Yes Lat, it is. Over forever." Her voice was affirming, but something seemed...off. She was clearly overjoyed, but not in the way someone would be when they were relieved. It was a sure kind of happiness, one that signified a completed deed. Lat pushed the sprouting doubts in his mind back down and tried to be optimistic, replying to her for the second time today.

"That's a relief, I didn't want my people to bring themselves to self-annihilation." Krista's face momentarily darkened, though her smile stayed the exact same. It disquieted Lat greatly.

"Yes, that would be sad, wouldn't it." It wasn't a question, but a statement. Lat was now visibly troubled at this point, straining his ears for maybe the booing of the crowd or the cheers of his kin.

And yet, silence.

"Yea it would- why's it so quiet?" He subconsciously answered before snapping to his senses, asking the urgent question on his mind. The answer he received was bone chilling.

"Oh Lat, it's over now. I'll see you some other time, okay?"

The orange light that signified being returned to their rooms didn't blind Lat fast enough, as he soon saw all the corpses of the gheckla scattered in the arena. Looking at Krista's smiling face, and seeing the new additions to her form...he knew what happened.

"Krista, you-"

"Bye~"

A distraught gheckla and a happy one disappeared from the ring, leaving only a gobsmacked audience and equally shocked announcer. The only monsters that weren't shocked were the cadavers that were the only real remnants of the gheckla's existence.