Jax was slowly dying.
He could hear every thud, every heartbeat in his chest
With every frantic beat of his heart, blood gushed out of his mouth and nose.
Every passing second inevitably brought him closer to death.
He choked, literally drowning in his own blood.
" Ah, this sucks..."
He stared somberly at the flickering lights on the tunnel ceiling.
He turned, staring at the corpse on his left.
The nameless young man who had been the giant's victim.
A short distance behind the young man's corpse, a second corpse lay staring lifelessly at the tunnel's ceiling.
The light flickered once more, a low humming sound permeating the air.
Gritting his teeth, Jax slowly craned his neck, turning to face the blind man through sheer force of will.
The blind man had fallen to the ground and was desperately trying to stem the bleeding on his neck.
"How the mighty have fallen."
Jax broke into a grin, then coughed violently.
For the giant's prodigious inhuman strength, he still bled like a human.
" Ironic... so this is how I die. "
The old man gasped, then slowly grew still.
Just then, a sharp whistling sound sliced through the air, and the giant's head flew off his neck, crashing a short distance away from Jax.
Through the thick haze clouding his vision, Jax saw the giant's head roll to a stop a short distance away from him.
His eyes widened slightly.
"What the hell... Kill steal…this bastard, arrgh."
He inwardly cursed, groaning slightly.
If he made it out alive, the giant was supposed to be his kill.
And with it, every kill the giant had obtained.
But with the newcomer's arrival, all his plans had been temporarily set back.
In the next moment, Jax's own biometric band beeped, lighting up with an ethereal blue light.
[Kill Steal confirmed]
[Entry: Jax Arclet]
[Estimated Threat Index: Tier 1>>>Tier 3]
[Threat Index stats]
[Combat Ability: 6]
[Anomaly Factor:7]
[Influence Potential:6]
[Observation:8]
[Kill Count: 15]
[Audience Support: locked]
[Audience perks: locked]
[Innate skill: Calibrating]
[Overall ETI: Tier Three baseline]
His eyes widened for a brief moment of surprise, then the full implication of what had just happened hit him.
"Damn."
In the end, the giant had died before his head was severed, which meant all his kills belonged to Jax.
Still, despite seeing the giant in action, it was still a bit terrifying that in the short span of time he'd spent in the arena, fourteen people had fallen to him.
" I've got to get out of here."
He groaned and rolled into his stomach.
The effort ripped a pained scream from this throat.
"Ah, fuck, fuck, fuck."
Blinking back tears, he struggled to focus through the haze of pain.
" Come on."
He moved his hand, weakly clawing through the dirt.
He momentarily saw stars, nearly blacking out from that simple movement.
He grunted, straining slightly.
With every movement, a wave of blinding pain rolled through him.
In the distance, he heard the sound of footsteps rushing his way.
" Shit!"
Three dark figures burst into the tunnel a short distance away from him and the unknown entry.
He inwardly rolled his eyes, then froze on the ground.
" Just what I needed."
Jax smiled at the hilarity of what was happening.
No, really, his situation was turning a bit too comical.
Lying helplessly on the ground, he was now caught between the four entries.
The new entries wore masks obscuring their faces from view.
The large man at the front, evidently the leader of the trio, took a step forward.
"Looks like we have a straggler." He said in a gruff voice.
Jax resisted the impulse to curse.
" Damn it."
"Ellie, take care of the straggler; we'll deal with the runner."
At that point, a soft, feminine giggle sounded from the lone entry behind him.
Jax's eyes widened slightly.
" Well, that was certainly unexpected."
" I'm sorry, I couldn't help but overhear what you said. Runner? Who's running?"
The masked leader silently stared at her for a few moments, then let out a low chuckle.
"Well, if you're not gonna run away, then I suppose that makes things easier for us."
Everything happened fast after that.
The two men lunged forward, sprinting across the distance separating them from the lone entry within seconds.
At the same time, the other entries, Ellie, dashed forward, sliding down.
Without wasting any time, she unsheathed a blade holstered to her thigh.
Jax cursed desperately, raising his hand to shield himself.
In that brief moment, a new figure appeared, latching onto the masked woman.
A split second later, ' Ellie' flew back with a startled yelp, landing heavily on the ground.
Jax was pleasantly surprised, but at the same time, his vision started fading fast.
"Sumi gaeshi", he thought groggily.
" Interesting. "
Without missing a bit, the blade-wielding woman lunged forward, slashing through the air with clinical precision.
Her longer blade increased her reach much more than the small knife Ellie was wielding.
Staggering forward, the masked entry tried to speak but only gurgled incoherently.
An obscene amount of blood splurged from the slit on her throat, spraying through the air.
"One down," the feminine voice said," two to go."
The voice broke through the cloudy mist around Jax's eyes.
A startled yelp rang out.
" She killed her, just like that."
" You bitch!" A voice roared.
" You'll pay for that!"
The two men charged forward, their footsteps thundering through the dirt.
" You're all so noisy," the woman said in a bored tone, cocking her head slightly.
Jax could've sworn he saw her lips curling into a faint smile at the approach of the other two.
" She's crazy, she's a lunatic."
Another terrifying realization simultaneously popped up in his mind.
" Or...she's not. And they're woefully outclassed."
Another intense wave of grogginess slammed into him.
Jax gritted his teeth, feeling his consciousness fading once more.
"Crap!"
He struggled to stay conscious, focusing on the ongoing battle.
What he saw left him breathless and slightly mesmerized.
The woman was like an elusive wraith, dancing in between the violent attacks of the two men.
Her movements had an eerie, ghostly grace to them, each of them flowing unpredictably.
The fight had a delicate balance, each of the sides hanging on precariously with neither side gaining the upper hand.
Despite the uneven odds, the woman held her own against the two men with seemingly relative ease.
"What a monster..."
With the passage of time, the candence of the battle was slowly shifting, barely perceptible at first, then more evidently.
Of course, in such a fight, one of the most crucial things was the stamina of the foe, and in the end, the first one to fall was the one who slipped up first.
In the end, one of the men stumbled in the dirt.
And that mistake cost him his life.
With inhuman precision, the dark blade slithered across his throat, sending him staggering back.
" You monster! I'll kill you!"
The roar ripped through the silence in the tunnels.
Soft mocking melodic laughter overlapped with the sound.
Jax sighed.
" Idiot...he's dead."
From the start of the fight, the gap in skill between the three entries and the female attacker had been evident.
The man inevitably fell after a while, his body thudding heavily on the ground.
Jax closed his eyes, feeling the soothing embrace of the darkness around.
A jarring kick rolled him back onto his back, forcefully dragging him back to consciousness.
Jax gasped, instinctively clutching at the wound on his side.
Jax coughed, smiling weakly.
Small beads of sweat rolled down his face.
A dark shadow dropped across his battered firm standing over him for a few moments.
"Well?" He grinned.
" Don't keep me waiting. Get it over with."
A pair of icy green eyes stared back at him.
A sharp blade touched the side of his throat, a thin stream of blood flowing across its silvery edge.
Just then, both of their biometric wristbands beeped.
[Broadcast Audition Complete]
[ All Entries are prohibited from fighting. Failure to comply will result in immediate elimination.]
[Initiating Entry Retrieval…]
[Calculating Rewards…]
[Highest Kill count: Jessy Jones]
[Longest kill streak: Jessy Jones]
Jax deliriously stared at the interface in front of him.
"Jessy Jones…"