Even after laughing at Reed, the first player to fight against the beast, he went ahead and picked one of the strong long wooden sticks Lucian had gathered for the fight. He held it tightly and glanced at his first opponent that was already waiting for him in the arena; letting out a silent curse, he stepped into the fighting arena.

"Ohh." Darion let out a mischievous smile, "How interesting." Flint was by his side like a trapped prisoner who had no choice.

"A wooden stick?" The beast asks. Her body gave a partial transformation, revealing her cursed beast form that replaced her nails for claws, her human skin melting away into something eerie and inhuman, and when she growled, it brought a putrid smell in the air, sick. While her growl sounded like that of a wounded animal hungry for blood and chaos. "You think that you can defeat me with a wooden stick?" The beast felt insulted.

From the cell where the other beasts were watching, Yasmin stiffened; she moved her gaze to Reed from afar. The victorious smile on Reed's face confirmed her suspicion that this was what he had used to kill Gaia.

The player froze at the awful sight of the beast form and gulped in fear.

"Take out your sword, and fight properly before your death." The beast ordered in a cruel tone.

The player was now torn between using a wooden stick and a sword. His tense and confused state made him feel powerless. He sucked in a deep breath as though he were suffocated by the mere presence of the beast. He spent too much time thinking, and before he finally decided to just use his system magic, the beast had impaled her claws into his chest.

With wide eyes the player made a weak attempt to poke the beast with the wooden stick in his hand, but it did nothing against the beast. The beast let out a wicked smile and ripped his heart away from his chest; it raised the bloody heart over its opened mouth and squeezed it, laughing in glee as blood dropped into its mouth.

"Finally you choose to drop that human nonsense and look like a proper cursed beast." Darion chuckled, his voice filled the arena, and caught the attention of the beast that was about to swallow the human heart.

The beast threw the heart away and began to roughly wipe the blood away from its mouth. "No. I'm… I'm human." It said in a shaky tone as it slowly shape-shifted back into its human form. Her eyes were full of tears, and she continued to obsessively whisper to herself, "I'm human," making Darion laugh harder as he watched the beast's agonizing state.

Reed is roughly pushed to the ground.

"Didn't you say that this damned wooden stick is their weakness?" A male player lifts up the stick, about to use it to beat Reed for leading one of his teammates to death with false information.

The wooden stick slapped harshly into the palm of Lucian's hand as he protected Reed and forcibly took the stick away. "This isn't the time for us to attack ourselves; it's not like it's going to bring your dead friend back to life."

"F*ck you. That scrawny kid must be in your party; that is why you are protecting him even after the lie he told. You are supposed to punish him!" The male player glared at Lucian.

Lucian gave one look to Reed, who had a dark expression on his face. They weren't friends, but he still had a feeling that Reed told the truth. "Reed is from the hero party."

An expression of disbelief takes over the face of those who had come together to beat Reed.

"If you touch him, you will get in trouble with you know who; let's just go." They mumble among themselves, deciding to use a sword for the remaining fight.

'It didn't work?' Yasmin thought. She looked at the state of her comrade, who won the fight but lost at the same time. Yasmin didn't want to lose herself like that, but at times, the beast in her was difficult to control when she let herself taste human blood.

"I don't want to fight!" The female player in the arena turned around and tried running away from the next beast approaching the arena, but Darion's magic held her in place.

"Shit! We are going to die; there is no way we can win against this beast." The players Lucian had chosen for the fight whisper among themselves, dropping their swords in defeat. The only ones who didn't complain were those from the Flint team and also Lucian's teammates.

Lucian turned to Reed. "Tell me how you kill a beast again." He demanded.

Reed shakes his head; he didn't want another person to die because of him. Perhaps he just got lucky with his fight against Gaia. It was just a lucky kill.

Lucian slapped Reed hard on the face; he was in a hurry. He didn't want too many humans to start dying in front of Darion, because Darion could get bored. His chance of survival ends if Darion puts an end to his deal because he couldn't entertain him as promised.

"Snap out of whatever damned thing you are feeling and tell me now!" Lucian's voice carried a desperate urgency.

Reed glared at him and told him the same story one more time.

'Go ahead and kill yourself, foolish villain.' Reed thought, his cheek still stung from the slap Lucian gave him.

Lucian took up two wooden sticks and a sword and then stepped into the arena; he brutally beat up the female player that was meant to fight but was struggling to escape from Darion's magic instead.

"That sick bastard." The female player's teammates mumble from afar. "When all this is over, let's kill him."

"My captain saved her!" Marta shouted, but her words only brought death glares as they fell on deaf ears. The only way Darion would let Lucian take the girl's place was if she was put in a condition where she couldn't fight.

Marta thought of Lucian's actions as an act of kindness, and it warmed her heart. But in reality, Lucian's actions were for a more selfish gain than Marta thought.

"Step aside." Wisteria stepped in front of her sister after seeing that the opponents changed to Lucian. "Killing him is my responsibility." She took the place of her comrade and quickly attacked Lucian with her fiery claws. Her attack broke one of the wooden sticks he was holding into two.

'Damn it.' Lucian thought he was trying hard to be calm, but fear was slowly slipping into his heart. He thinks back to his discussion with Reed, trying to figure out why the wooden stick isn't working, but then stops as he realizes that Reed used firewood to fight against the beast that attacked him; the wood he used must have been slightly burnt and covered in ashes.

Lucian let out his fire magic. Wisteria took a defensive stance, expecting Lucian to attack her, but stopped when she saw that he was slightly burning his wooden stick instead.

"What is he doing?" Wisteria asks.

"He figured it out." Darion snickered to himself. Flint, like many others, watches Lucian in confusion.

"Do you think that I won't kill you, Lucian?!" Wisteria jumped, her claws stretched out to rip Lucian's face. "Use your beast magic if you know that you want to stand a chance against me."

"Please work." Lucian muttered and held the two broken sticks in his hand like a spear even though they weren't sharp. Then he threw them at Wisteria, who had left herself carelessly open because she saw his weapons as harmless.

The two sticks passed through Wisteria's body like sharp spears and then hit the ground like normal, harmless wooden sticks.

Wisteria fell, two gaping holes in her body that refuse to heal. Pain and disbelief filled her expression as she realized that she was going to die.

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