"Father, where did you find such beasts?"
"That's not the question you should be asking," his father replied coolly, his eyes still locked on the arena.
"It's why that Seer is just standing there."
Prince Navi turned his gaze to the center of the arena. His brows furrowed, mirroring his father's.
There she was—the Seer. Still bound hand and foot, surrounded by chaos, yet utterly still. A sackcloth covered her head, and the guards who had led her out had long fled. She made no attempt to run, no motion to hide from the growling terror.
She just stood there.
In the crowd of slaves scrambling for survival, a man named Mark noticed her. Her stillness in the face of death struck him—bound, blindfolded, helpless. And yet, she did not struggle.
His conscience twisted painfully.
"Mark!" came the desperate cry of his wife, shielding their two children behind her. She had spotted him from across the arena.
"Get to the other side!" he shouted back, waving urgently before running toward the Seer.
His heart pounded—not from fear, but determination. He couldn't stand by and watch someone die without a chance to even see it coming.
"Mark! Mark!" his wife cried again, torn between the safety of her children and the reckless courage of her husband.
She watched in horror as he reached the Seer and struggled to pull the sackcloth from her head. Around them, the nightmare had already begun.
The monsters had started to feast.
From the royal balcony, the King, Navi, and the stunned crowd stared with rapt attention. Seconds after the attack began, the arena had become a slaughterhouse.
Then came the arrival of the King's other son—Prince Levi. He walked in briskly, hands in his pockets, lips pressed tightly with the urgency of news. But when he saw his father and brother frozen in silence, binoculars raised, he frowned.
Had they forgotten the pressing matter at hand so quickly?
He motioned for his own binoculars. The moment he looked through them, his lips parted in disbelief.
Madness.
It was chaos down there. Blood painted the sand. He watched as one of the monstrous lions caught a little boy by the ribs. With a single savage bite, it tore the child in half. Flesh dangled from its jaw as it growled and chewed like a demon at a feast.
It didn't stop.
It lunged at the boy's upper body, ripping through him with brutal, hungry abandon. When it turned back to finish the remains, a shriek echoed from across the arena.
A slave—young, terrified—was sprinting toward the locked gates, pounding them with her fists, begging for mercy. Her scream broke through the roar of the beasts.
That scream saved the boy's remains.
The monster looked up mid-bite.
Its gaze locked onto her.
She felt it. Like the icy grip of death crawling up her spine. Her knees weakened. Her teeth chattered as if she'd been walking barefoot in snow for hours. Slowly, trembling, she turned.
Three of them were staring at her now.
Three monsters.
Three walking shadows with gold-lit eyes and scarlet tongues.
"No…" she whimpered, a tear slipping down her cheek.
But her whisper was lost in the roar that followed.
They pounced.
Her scream was short—drowned by the sound of flesh tearing and bones breaking. Blood sprayed across the sand like paint spilled from a broken jar. Within seconds, she was gone.
The number of living souls in the arena had been reduced—drastically.
And Mark's family was dangerously close to the far end…
Where the monsters were now heading, eating their way forward.