The Emperor Has Returned

Chapter 15 – Repaint (3)

“What the hell happened here?!” Sina exclaimed in shock at what she saw happening in the colosseum. She had never liked the slave fighting, but was still worried for Juan. After some pondering, she had decided to come and bear witness to Juan’s last moments. But the result was something she would never have imagined. All four gates to the arena had been opened, with monsters swarming in, and the entire place including the grandstand, were flooded with blood.

“S-Save me! Save...-” the scream of a spectator awoke Sina, who had been stunned by the scene in the colosseum, out of her stupor. She quickly drew her sword and severed the troll’s arm, but the man’s arms had already been bitten off. The man convulsed, dropping to the ground.

“Ossrey! Command the knights! Save the spectators and bring them to safety! Get the most junior knight to go and request reinforcements from the Knight Order headquarters!” Sina ordered.

“Yes, Dame! What are you intending to do?” Ossrey asked.

“I’m going to ask Daeron how he intends to contain this situation! Get moving!” Sina commanded.

The Order of the Blue Rose spread out quickly and started fighting back against the monsters in the area. The knights commanded the colosseum’s soldiers and panted as they cut down the monsters, but there were a few that seemed too hard even for the knights to handle.

‘Just how on earth did they bring such strong monsters here?’ Sina wondered.

Although Sina had been hearing that the colosseum had gone above and beyond in this celebratory event for the emperor’s birthday, this was way too much. Sina went to the balcony with the intention of demanding an explanation from Daeron.

The door to the balcony had already been destroyed, and a huge spider with a fat stomach was trying to squeeze its way in while trolls were hanging by the railings. The soldiers resisted the monsters as they stabbed away at them, but only a few drops of green substance came out of those monsters. They weren’t able to pierce through the monsters’ skin.

The spider suddenly used its front legs to skewer one of the soldiers and put him into its mouth. The soldier screamed agonizingly as his insides spilled out. Meanwhile, Sina swung her sword in a circular motion while running toward the spider. A bright light shone, cutting off the spider’s head and legs. Sina then stormed inside the balcony as she stepped over the spider.

She grabbed Daeron by his collar the moment she saw him and yelled, “Daeron! What the hell is all this?!”

Daeron was completely frozen, drenched in cold sweat. Sina had never seen him so flustered even though she had interrogated him many times. Clearly, this was no longer a situation within his control.

“I-I... I just wanted to see His Majesty descend...” Daeron stuttered. Just then, a troll climbed up using the railings and Sina killed it, spilling its blood everywhere. Daeron, who was splashed with the blood, was startled and groaned at the stinging pain.

Sina pulled him up by the collar and shouted, “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER! The spectators will all die if we don’t control this situation right away!”

Hearing this, Daeron regained some of his senses and pointed to somewhere within the colosseum.

“T-The control room is over there! You can control the gates there!” Daeron stuttered.

“It’s too late! All these beasts of yours have already entered the colosseum!” Sina replied.

“No! I-If we close the gates now, the worst situation can still be avoided...”

Crack— thud!?

While Daeron was still stuttering, something broke down. Daeron shuddered in fear while Sina looked toward the source of the sound. One side of the colosseum had collapsed as something appeared within the dust clouds, its size so big that it made one wonder how it could have been hidden. Its face only had one huge eye in the middle.

“A one-eyed giant? How did you even get that...” Sina mumbled, looking in disbelief. She had no idea how they could even hide something like this within the colosseum and why it only appeared now.

The one-eyed giant was about eight meters tall and caused the whole place to tremble with each step. As it walked inside the arena, it noticed someone: Rekto. The giant trampled him right over, as he stared blankly at it. And that was how the champion of Tantil’s colosseum became a pool of blood, without the chance to even scream.

“Ha. Haha... It came up in the end...” Daeron laughed hysterically. Sina felt dizzy hearing Daeron’s hysterical laugh. There would be even more deaths if a one-eyed giant made its way here. Even if the entire Order of the Blue Rose was here, they still wouldn’t be able to prevent the huge number of deaths that would be caused.

‘Only a Priest or someone higher in rank could sort out this situation...’?Sina thought, but her train of thought was interrupted. Someone very small had appeared from the control room: it was Juan, who had been missing this whole time.

***

Releasing the locked demonic beasts and monsters had been extremely effective; a large amount of blood gathered, strengthening the flow, making it easier to track down Talter’s location.

Juan hadn’t intended to kill everyone in the colosseum, but their deaths didn’t sadden him either. In any case, his objective had been achieved.

“Is it this fellow?” Juan wondered as he stared at the one-eyed giant, but concluded that it wasn’t the main body used to draw in mana, even though he could feel Talter’s mana from it. To top it off, he could sense that the one-eyed giant was forcefully raised. It was probably sent to clean up the current situation.

‘It could be Talter’s avatar too.’

It was commonplace for the gods to groom avatars in order to influence humans more aggressively. While this one was still a young one-eyed giant, mana had been forcefully injected, making it abnormally huge.

‘Would I be able to take this guy on?’?Juan wondered.

He found it rather amusing that he was questioning whether he was capable of taking down the avatar, when it wasn’t even Talter’s main body. It was wiser for him to run away when his body was so weak, but he had no intentions of doing so.

After having killed so many gods, there was no way he would let one of their avatars go. It seemed that the one-eyed giant still hadn’t realized Juan’s presence. The giant continued attacking everything indiscriminately as it was irritated by the surroundings—the sunlight that it was seeing for the first time, the stench of blood, and the screams coming from all directions.

“Juan!” Sina called out to Juan from behind, and ran down to the arena as soon as she saw him. She looked like she had cut down a few monsters, as she was covered in their bodily fluids.

“Let’s get out of here, now! We must get out of here first!” Sina shouted.

Juan stared blankly at Sina, wondering what she was talking about. But he soon realized that his situation probably looked dangerous, like he was on the edge of a cliff; he was just a child in the midst of numerous monsters. Juan replied, “Don’t worry about me, you go on ahead first. I still have unfinished business here.”

“Nonsense! Do you know what that is? That’s...”

“A one-eyed giant,” Juan cut her off. “It’s around six years old and it’s been raised to that size forcefully, with mana; the proof is the traces of torn skin on it. Because of how fast its bones grew, it had a lot of growth pains. And now that it has been forced into a noisy and bloody environment, its violent tendencies have become more intense. But it’s still not as strong as other one-eyed giants of the same level, since it’s been kept underground this whole time without needing to compete at all. This guy’s just very confused right now.”

Sina’s jaw dropped at the long explanation Juan had just given. No one would believe this was the analysis of a nine-year-old. Furthermore, something that Juan said caught Sina’s attention.

“You said it stayed underground the whole time? Are you saying that this monster was raised below the colosseum?” Sina questioned.

“You probably know this already, but… this colosseum is the former temple of Talter and has an incredibly huge underground space; it’s a space made for the gods, and it was sealed after Talter was executed. They probably raised it there,” Juan explained.

In Talter's days, tons of corpses and other offerings to Talter had filled these tunnels, turning this place into a hell on earth. Appalled by the sight, Juan had ordered the underground space to be sealed after killing the god, so the tunnels had been abandoned. But as Daeron had been developing this place into the colosseum, he had secretly opened up this area for the monsters to live in. Juan could deduce that much from how the tunnels were constructed and the flow of mana.

They had probably brought the one-eyed giant in when it was smaller, and Juan could imagine what had happened after that. Talter’s mana was the problem here; Juan might not know the details, but Talter’s mana had chosen this one-eyed giant youngling.

Upon noticing the accelerated growth of the one-eyed giant, Daeron must have hoped for its death by sealing the whole place off. But Juan had released all the imprisonment devices within the colosseum, causing the one-eyed giant to be drawn outside by the large amounts of blood spilled in the arena.

“Daeron, that bastard... He even committed such atrocities...” Sina cursed.

It didn’t seem to occur to Sina that Juan had been the one who had released all the imprisonment devices. Juan didn’t think there was a need for her to know either, since she probably would not understand. On the other hand, Juan had driven countless beings to their death or killed them himself when he had been the emperor. The only difference was that the ones dying now for the sake of Juan’s objectives were humans.

“We’ll convict Daeron of his crimes later on, let’s get out of here first!” Sina urged Juan.

“I said, you can go ahead first. Go save others if you want. I’ll take care of myself,” Juan replied, annoyed as he waved his hands.

Sina looked blankly at Juan and mumbled, “What about you?”

“I’ll do as I’ve always done, kill monsters,” Juan replied as he jumped lightly.

‘I need to make that giant shorter first,’?Juan thought as he charged toward the one-eyed giant.?He used Blink as he flickered by the giant’s ankle while leaving a long cut on it. The giant bellowed at the unexpected pain and grabbed its ankle. Because Juan had hidden himself quickly, the giant wasn’t able to tell what had injured it.

‘It’s too shallow...’?Juan thought. He had succeeded in cutting the giant’s Achilles tendon, but the tendon had three thick layers in order to support the giant’s enormous body. Juan clicked his tongue at the sight. Now, the giant was on guard, while Juan had not gained much from it. At least, he had gotten the giant to bend down, and that was good enough.

“It’s quite a shame though.”

Juan kicked the floor again and used Blink. He landed on the solar plexus of the one-eyed giant, but it wasn’t able to feel him. To the giant, the thing that had cut its Achilles tendon was a tiny mosquito, and so it started to swat about, while Juan's goal was something else. He used Blink again to get around the one-eyed giant and managed to blind it with the sunlight by making it face the sun. The one-eyed giant bellowed, causing everyone in the colosseum, including the monsters, to stumble; some people even fell to the ground. White fluid and blood flowed down the giant’s face as Juan slashed across the one-eyed giant’s only weakness, its eye, with an old short sword.

The one-eyed giant fumbled to look for its unseen enemy, but it couldn’t find Juan anywhere. Juan had already used Blink and jumped into the air. At the peak of his flight, he turned his body and struck down like a lightning flash into the middle of the one-eyed giant’s forehead.

Clunk!

“Ugh!” Juan groaned as he got flung off, along with the sharp sound of iron breaking. Despite plunging down at an incredibly fast speed, he was unable to pierce through the one-eyed giant’s skull. Juan clicked his tongue as he realized that he had made a mistake by trying to end this fight quickly; if he had been strong enough to send mana into his weapon, then his weapon would have been strong enough to end this fight already. Juan staggered and tried to stand up.

The one-eyed giant growled as it bled from its eye and forehead. Due to having lost its eye, it had now become even more violent than before. As it swung around recklessly, it crushed a large scorpion demon beast in an instant.

‘Looks like I can’t get near it now.’

While Blink didn’t consume a lot of mana, it placed a huge burden on one’s body, since it was a technique that accelerated the user’s movement. It was even harder to endure for an untrained child’s body, and much more so for Juan, whose body was already sore all over from the side effect of the mana seal engraving process.

‘I can only use Blink two more times.’?

Juan would need one use of Blink to escape the colosseum, since he couldn’t possibly fight all the demons on his way out. However, the one-eyed giant needed to be taken down so that the tracks leading to Talter could become clear.

The one-eyed giant suddenly stopped in the middle of its rampage and looked at Juan with its injured, bloody eye. Juan tried to get up, but his legs couldn’t move properly because of the side effects from multiple uses of Blink. The one-eye giant swung its arm down from high above as if it was swatting a fly.

There was no way Juan could dodge this. Even if he survived it, he’d be critically injured and the rest of the monsters would probably kill him off. Juan wasn’t even sure he had enough mana to restore his body if that happened.

“Juan!” Sina shouted as she threw something toward him.

Juan caught the sword without a second thought and slashed forward immediately. This was not one of the colosseum’s old swords, but the sharpened sword of an empire’s knight. The one-eyed giant bellowed again as Juan used the sword to slash at its hand.

Sina looked at Juan in shock. She had thrown her sword at Juan without thinking, but not only had Juan caught it as if he had been waiting for it, he had also managed to cut off the giant’s hand.

“It’s been a while since I’ve held a decent sword,” Juan remarked as he struggled to stand up. As Juan’s mana flowed into the sword, it responded with a buzz and trembled slightly. Although it was a one-handed sword, Juan had to hold it with both hands because it was too big for his current size. He faced the one-eyed giant and lowered his body, while blue-colored mana started to cover the sword. The one-eyed giant stopped flailing around in pain and looked at Juan as if it were being controlled, just as it had a while ago.

Juan used Blink and disappeared; he had been waiting for the one-eyed giant to stop moving. On the other hand, Sina had not even realized that Juan was gone when she noticed that the one-eyed giant had stopped its rampage. Sina looked up and saw a fine crack slowly expanding on the one-eyed giant’s head.

Crack!

Followed by a loud crack, streams of blood started to rain from above the colosseum.