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Spoiler:

The next challenge of his long gauntlet rose up to meet him as the well dressed man with the control over the loud speaker announced that he would face bears. The man could not decide if this was good or bad. On the one hand, the lions had not presented to him a large issue,
but on the other hand the bears were of course unknown. They may be in a huge group,
in armor, or in some other way made to be fiercer or more deadly. Luckily he had not been attacked by anyone or thing waiting in the wings so as to "improve the show" by ensuring his defeat but still, his head remained ever swiveling, scanning for any and all potential threats. the iron grating which opposed him creaked open once more, the rattling of the inner chain muffled by the loudness of the announcement and the almost-silence of the crowd's anticipation.

Twin bears emerged, a number smaller than before, but they each strode out and weighed heavily into the sand. They were both huge, standing at easily eleven feet if they were to erect themselves fully on their hind legs and sporting rudimentary though effective armor on their heads, arms, and backs. This would to rather little to protect them, all things considered, but it would certainly help in turning aside the blade of the contestant who now stared them down. Upon their entry the audience erupted once more into a bout of fervent laughter and joy, awaiting to see which of the two parties would emerge successful.

The circle began then, the wild monsters which emerged from the darkened hole of the opposite tunnel already maddened by pain and hunger and driven forward to their eventual pray by the lashing whips of the men who had jostled them from the cages which lined the lower levels and many basements of the alter of war that they now fought beneath and within. The man took slow, deliberate steps back from the pair of beasts as he surmised their strength and looked for an opening or way to defeat them. As he did, they moved toward him with plodding steps.

His right food missteped and landed wetly upon the destroyed thigh of one of the lions. In that brief moment in which he needed to catch himself the two bears charged upon him, moving with a swiftness that seemed impossible when considering their prodigious size and the massive weight which they clearly carried upon them. Still, they charged with a slathering vengeance as those who had attended this most unholy of pastimes slathered along with them, thirsty for carnage and death.

The pair of massive slabs of meat and muscle had fallen upon him with a fury unknown to many of the crowd and the ensuing crash sent up sand and other bits of material in a kind of short lived smoke screen which concealed the trio for a short span of time in which the noise of those who attended fell to a bare, though not utterly silent, minimum. For two long moments this silence reigned supreme until a dismayed grown erupted a second after the announcer proclaimed that the man, the challenged, had emerged unscathed from the cloud.

He jettisoned from the cloud in the exact same direction as the charging bears who broke themselves from the screen a mere few moments after he had. The audience remained in the dark as to what exactly had transpired within the puff of sand but no matter for the battle once again raged with one of the bears turning instantly and charging once more, his partner hot upon his heels as he barreled forward. The man stood still, crouched into a higher stance with his swords, and awaited his moment to strike.

The first bear came to him in moments but, as with the wild cats, he moved around it with an alarming burst of speed and grace, his sword sweeping almost languidly past the upturned claw and drawing a thin gout of blood from the beast's massive paw. This was nothing which would fell the creature or even slow it notably but any hit was a good hit and the slash bled liberally into the still parched earth. It took a moment for the thing to stop itself fully which gave the now attacking man the opening he needed.

He continued his spin, rotating now in a full circle to bring himself face to face with the other monster who appeared intent to simply crash directly into him in an unhalting bid for chaos and destruction. The man continued on, having circled the first bear on its left while now circling this second one on its right, weaving between the gap that arose betwixt the two with an easy grace. His twirling dance brought him to the beast's side, which tried to turn but had built far too much momentum for such a feat and instead collapsed with the man having skewered its hind right leg, ensuring it would have a difficult time rising after its clumsy motion.

The bear to the rear had fallen and likely would not again rise. The second had finally halted its momentum though, but this time, the challenger had finished his maneuver and was moving toward his would be attacker. He had moved from defensive to the offense, charging the injured monster which had only just righted itself. The announcer followed his every movement and narrated the apparent status of the two behemoths he fought, though the man missed some things that his challenger did not. He did not see that the first bear, the one with the small cut on its paw, feared now the blade which had caused it the small but painful gash upon the bad of its favored striking limb.

It moved back to its haunches, crouching and bracing for the next blow and holding up its still unharmed limb to attempt and swat away the buzzing fly which charged it. Though huge and powerful, it did not move swiftly prior to building up a good amount of momentum, something which the warrior had not failed to notice. His feint caught up the monster and left the limb wide open for attack, allowing him to place a rising cut upon the under side of the leg, up near where the joint met with the main body of the bear and leaving the whole thing hanging useless after a flash of steel and a spray of crimson.

In an instant after the attack the man took a flashing step backwards, hands still holding his blade in the two handed grip he had maintained upon it the entirety of the fight so far. The beast howled in agony, its cries matched by the confused noises of the crowd, themselves uncertain if they should be pleased or enraged. He was winning, which was not to their liking, but he was also gutting these monsters, something which they greatly loved to witness. He judged that the support for either side was roughly fifty fifty, though at this point it seemed clear that the next challenge would necessarily need to commence.

The man took another step inward to the bear, ghosting after the panicked swing of its right arm, that which had but a small slash across the front surface. The blow aimed at nothing and hit nothing, but the man ducked in and drove the the tip up into the throat of the animal, piercing its brain and ending its life in a final, shuddering gurgle that sent a sluggish flow of red blood and spittle through its great, white fangs.

Turning back to the other poor creature, he saw that it had attempted to rise, failed, and had instead begun to pull its broken body towards the sworded warrior. He heard this as well, heard it between the noise behind him, though dulled by the roaring, and by the words of the announcer whose words seemed to speed up infinitely to accommodate everything that occurred. His left hand slid up to the base of the guard of the katana, switching to a now one handed stance as he strode slowly to the wailing creature before him.

The speaker continued to add flair to the proceedings, but his next act was simple, effective, and cruel. He simply walked clockwise from the monstrosity that crawled to him, keeping himself effortlessly out of its range and rotating to the side with its bad leg, preventing it from fully following his movements. When it began to turn in the opposite way, perhaps hoping to catch him by surprise, he reversed his walk. Moving back near the creature's face once more. As it turned and shifted its primary weight to its right arm, the one nearest the man, he shuffled inward and flared his blade, drawing a terrible red line across the bear's neck and effectively ending this bout.


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