The Pit hummed with activity. It was a vast, low-ceilinged chamber where dozens of races, scents, and dialects mingled together. Here were those awaiting their first fight, and those who had survived ten but lost their minds in the process.
Raksha immediately staked out a corner for them far from the center, where a brawl was brewing over a piece of moldy bread. She simply snarled and bared her fangs, and two scrawny humans decided it was best to retreat.
"Don't let your guard down," she whispered to Axis, sitting with her back to the wall. "It's every man for himself here. If they find out you're weak, they'll eat you alive. If they find out you're strong, they'll gang up and slit your throat while you sleep."
Axis nodded, scanning the space. The vectors vibrated, sensing the movement of air currents in the musty room. Now, without the suppressors, he felt as though heavy winter clothing had been stripped away. The world had once again become a crisp schematic of forces and directions.
"Your friend is right, boy," a creaky voice rasped from the deepest shadow in the corner, right beside them. "But she is mistaken about one thing: you aren't weak. And you aren't strong. You are... strange."
Raksha leaped up instantly, shielding Axis with her body, but he placed a hand on her shoulder, signaling her to stay calm.
A figure emerged from the shadows. It was an old man sitting on a pile of rotting straw. His skin looked like parchment stretched over bone, and his long grey hair was matted into clumps. But most striking were his eyes-they were clouded over completely white, without pupils.
"You're blind, old man," Raksha grunted. "How would you know what he is?"
The old man cackled, revealing sparse yellow teeth. He reached a bony hand toward Axis but stopped it half a meter from the boy's face, as if pressing against an invisible wall.
"Eyes often lie, orc. I lost mine twenty years ago in a battle with a basilisk, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now I see what is hidden."
He wiggled his fingers slightly, as if plucking the strings of an invisible instrument.
"The air around you, boy... it doesn't flow. It freezes. It bends around you, afraid to touch. It's as if space itself respectfully steps aside. I have never encountered such magic. It isn't elemental, nor spirits, nor arcane... It is something else entirely."
Axis tensed. This old man was dangerous. He "saw" Axis's passive defense-a microscopic layer of vectors he instinctively maintained around his skin to ward off filth and sudden blows.
"Who are you?" Axis asked, not denying the blind man's words.
"We have no names here, only nicknames," the old man leaned back, resting his head against the stonework. "They call me Tyron. Once, I taught the Empire's battle mages to sense mana flows. Now, I am just a piece of meat too stringy for the beasts to eat, and too old to entertain the crowd. I am the janitor here. I clear away the corpses after the fights."
Tyron "looked" with his white eyes directly at Axis's forehead.
"And that pattern on your forehead... It burns. Not like fire, but like ice. It distorts the space around itself. No one here will understand what it is; they just see a tattoo. But I can feel the lines of the world converging on that single point."
Raksha looked from Axis to the old man, not understanding half of what was said, but sensing the gravity of the moment.
"Will you tell them?" Axis asked bluntly, nodding toward the guards at the grate.
"Why?" Tyron shrugged. "If I say you're dangerous, they'll just put heavier shackles on you or simply finish you off. What's that to me? I'm bored, boy. Nothing changes in this pit for years. Blood, shit, screams. But you... you smell like change."
The old man rummaged in his rags and produced a small, smooth stone.
"In the Coliseum, it's not the one who hits hardest who survives, but the one who knows how to surprise. Your power... it doesn't require waving your hands or shouting incantations, does it?"
"Correct," Axis answered cautiously.
"Good. Hide it. Let them think you're a nobody. Let them pit weak opponents against you. And when the time comes..." Tyron squeezed the stone in his fist, then opened his hand-the stone had turned to dust. "...surprise them."
"Why are you giving me advice?" Axis didn't believe in altruism.
Tyron smiled, and the smile was unsettling.
"Because I want to see what happens when that 'symbol' on your forehead truly wakes up. And because you're the only one here whose footsteps don't sound like those of a walking corpse."
At that moment, the massive grate leading to the arena clanked and began to rise. Torchlight and the roar of the crowd outside burst into the pit.
"Fresh meat! Move out!" the overseer bellowed, cracking his whip against the wall. "First cull! Everyone into the circle!"
Tyron laughed hoarsely.
"So it begins. Stick close to me, half-breed. I'll show you how not to die in the first five minutes."