The colosseum breathed like a living beast, waiting to devour the horde.
Seventy thousand seats loomed above, tier after tier of stone benches, each one packed now with knights and adventurers, their every hand clutching bow or a crossbow.
The great arena floor below glowed with interlinked mana circles, sprawling from wall to wall in a glimmer of light.
Lines of runes burned blue and white, weaving together until the ground itself looked like a giant heart with veins of magic pulsing in rhythm.
And the air thrummed with it.
Dozens of mages stood at the circle's edge, robes plastered to sweat-soaked skin, voices hoarse from hours of chanting.
Their arms trembled from the strain of holding the spell in place, yet the weave held.
An enormous trap forged out of desperation and precision.
Adventurers and the Knights lined the upper tiers, bows already drawn, crossbows resting against their cheeks.
Everyone knew what was coming.
The ground shook in little tremors, carrying the faintest hint of roars that grew closer with every heartbeat.
One archer licked his lips and muttered, "Gods above…" but no one shushed him.
Because they all felt it.
The tide was coming.
And this colosseum that was built to entertain seventy thousand was about to become the cage for monsters.
And a few beats later, those tremors swelled into earthquakes.
Dust rained from the old colosseum stone, drifting down like ash as the roars and shrieks of the horde finally bled through the walls.
Thousands of voices - fang, claw, fire, wing - all tangled into one deafening scream of hunger.
The horde was upon them.
And just then, three figures dropped from the night sky to the colosseum's highest tier.
Astoria landed first, her boots striking stone with the weight of command.
Beside her, Faris leveled his halberd, knuckles white around the haft.
While Lyra's descent was a soft tap, blood still crusted on her cheeks, but her grin never wavered.
Astoria's voice cut through the cacophony.
"On my mark!"
Below them, the ranks braced.
An adventurer's hands shook against his bowstring, the fletching quivering at his cheek. He clenched his teeth, muttering the same prayer over and over under his breath.
A bead of sweat slid down a young mage's temple as his eyes locked on the glowing magic circle beneath his boots, lips still whispering fragments of the binding chant, terrified of a single slip.
A knight drew his crossbow higher on the steps above, his breastplate rattling with every breath, the bolt aimed dead at the black gate where the thunder of claws was growing louder by the heartbeat.
Every gaze was fixed on the entrance.
And a beat later, from the black maw of the colosseum's gate burst a streak of red.
Odin.
The knights let out of roar of their own as he dashed.
His cloak was tattered but still clinging to his shoulders while his body shimmered gold like a star.
He wasn't running so much as cutting air apart. His boots hammered against the stone, eyes fixed on the high tier where Astoria, Faris, and Lyra stood waiting.
And behind him -
The horde.
It hit like a tidal wave of flesh and nightmare.
Orcs bellowing with tusks dripping with spit.
Kobolds snapping their yellowed teeth in shrill chorus.
Trolls pounding through stone with steps that cracked the ground.
Harpies and Manananggals screaming from the air, wings folding tight as they dove.
Hell-hounds vomited streams of fire even as they sprinted, setting ablaze their own.
And above them all the massive leathery wings of bats blotted out moon light, shrieking down into the arena.
They poured in shoulder to shoulder, claw to claw, in a living avalanche that swallowed the gate and kept coming.
The sound wasn't just roars - it was the earth itself groaning under the weight.
While Odin sprinted, his cloak snapping at his heels.
And in one smooth motion, he wrenched the broken sword free from his belt and hurled it toward the high tier.
The steel spun like a beacon under the moon light, glittering gold from the blessing.
And in the next blink, before the blade even kissed stone, Odin was there - teleported mid-arc before his boots landing hard beside the captains.
While the colosseum drowned.
The monsters poured through the gate without end, surging over one another until the arena floor vanished.
The intricate circle of runes, the trap woven from desperate chanting, disappeared beneath a heaving carpet of bodies.
Thousands packed shoulder to shoulder, so dense that even their snarls were smothered into one monstrous thunder.
The ground itself seemed to have sunk under the weight of it.
Astoria raised her blade, her violet eyes burning bright as her voice split the night.
"Now!"
The word rang like a war drum.
And the trap howled.
The colosseum floor erupted into light, every circle igniting at once, runes blazing up through fur and claw.
First came the lightning.
Bolts spider-webbed across the runes like jagged white spears lashing upward into every body packed on the arena floor.
The air was instantly filled with the stench of ozone and burnt hair.
Monsters convulsed mid-snarl, their limbs seizing as currents arced through them.
Harpies and bats stiffened mid-wingbeat, their shrieks strangled into crackles before gravity claimed them, bodies smacking the stone as spasms ripped them apart.
Then came the flames.
Blue-white fire burst from every line of the circle, roaring up the walls and filling the colosseum's bowl like a furnace.
Monsters already paralyzed were cooked where they convulsed.
Flesh blistered while fur went up like torches, tusks cracking from the heat.
Their cries were no longer roars of hunger but screams - high, ragged, unending.
And still the fire raged.
It didn't flare and die like mortal flame - it held.
The mages kept feeding it, channeling every drop of mana they could bleed out of themselves.
At the circle's edge, a young mage's knees buckled, his staff shaking as arcs of firelight scorched his palms. "Gods, I can't…," he gasped, teeth grinding as his veins turned faint blue from the strain.
Beside him, an older conjurer clenched both hands tighter, "Don't you dare let it stop. Hold it. This is the only chance we'll ever get!" His voice cracked, half-prayer, half-command, as the weave roared brighter.
Adventurers flinched at the heat even from the upper tiers, some raising shields just to block the searing wash of air.
Below, the monsters writhed in a single mass of flame, their sheer numbers turning the fire into a screaming choir that clawed at the walls of the arena.
But Odin's gaze didn't linger on that little victory.
His golden shimmer lit the tier's edge, his eyes already locked past the fire, past the dying sea.
His thoughts weren't on the thousands burning.
They were on the only one that mattered.
The shaman.
He turned to Astoria, voice steady despite the thunder around them.
"The rifle."
She handed it without a word, passing the weapon across as though handing over judgment itself.
Odin's hands wrapped around the familiar weight.
The scope glinted, the steel warm from Astoria's grip.
He check for a chambered round, the click lost under the chorus of shrieks.
[Now… let's end this…]