I don’t know how I survived so long. My eyes were filled with sand and blood. Jo'Xa'Jaru fought like a lion, and I was just a ball and chain at his feet. San'Xa'Hu laughed and whipped the tail of another worm that wanted to kill us.

  I felt like something was about to tear my neck apart. The terrible, body-piercing pain seemed to rip me along my right side. Not only were we barely alive, but my evolution had also started at that exact moment. Level 30. I felt like something was breaking my bones from the inside, like every organ and tissue was being scalded with boiling water. Finally, I saw a menacing head, its eyes dark brown, like the richest earth I hadn’t walked on in ages. The third head roared and thrashed, and I thought it was about to die.

  “Damn rock-beast! It’s hitting us with that leash again! Agh!” shouted one of the lizardmen and stabbed a huge bug that had appeared out of nowhere between us.

  I watched it forming, organs growing, blood and entrails swelling to be covered by flexible skin and other horrors. “Only one group survives! Fight! Kill! Only one—” echoed endlessly in my mind.

  Enough! Damn golem!

  The head to my left, cut by a crazed orc’s blade, hung by the last tendons and skin. I had no strength left. I made a decision. I concentrated my aura and willpower to force the newly grown head to tear off our two. Then it was supposed to strike the golem’s hand to snatch the leash and restore freedom — not just for me, but for the lizardmen too.

  Risky tactic, but worth trying. The last thing I remembered was the terrible pain below my head and the sound of teeth tearing my neck apart. Then came silence and darkness. How pleasant. For the first time in a long time, I felt peace.

  “Get up, Artax!” called Jo'Xa'Jaru. “You’ve regenerated for too long! Too long for a hydra. You almost missed the whole show.”

  I opened my eyes and, lying down, I saw the massive body of something that looked like a gray-silver western-style dragon from European legends! The beast was huge, loud, and overwhelmingly powerful. Even in this city, its aura made grains of sand tremble.

  Level 172! The first time since meeting Zod I had seen a being so powerful. I didn’t have the strength to stand or think. I saw the woman who had grabbed me in chains when they surrounded me in the tunnel — though now she had wings and was shouting furiously.

  “Come on. Let the consecrated mud give you strength. Get up and die with us, instead of leaving first like some heartless monster!” San'Xa'Hu kept up a brave face till the very end. His mud, filled with aura, was indeed extremely effective at easing the pain… I hadn’t expected someone at level 55 to be such an excellent medic. “Come on. We’ve got death to experience.”

  A great whirlwind swept across the arena. The previously loud crowd went silent. Some lost consciousness, others bowed or fled, sobbing and calling words I couldn’t possibly hear from so far away.

  The huge dragon suddenly began to transform; its body turned into gray misty auras, shrinking and thickening. Soon, I saw a hunched old man in rags, with a beard as long and clean as some Santa Claus. His eyes were turquoise and kind. His movements were slow, yet radiated grace and confidence.

  A pale woman in black clothing, like some dark fantasy cosplay outfit, stood among the slaves, right beside the high-level old man.

  My hearing slowly returned. I barely heard what they were saying. The lizardmen had to help me stand. Soon, the woman’s heels clicked, and as she walked with her accompanying powerful aura, she knocked a few slaves to the ground with sheer will.

  “Pf! You disgusting lizard. Growing a bit and already thinking you can ruin my fun? I should whip you. A proper beating with a wet rattan should teach you whose city this is! Pf!” she threatened, clenching her fists and tapping her boot tip in the sand.

  The old man approached silently. I felt that if he wanted, he could destroy this place and kill us all in a second.

  “Dala, what did you say earlier?” he reminded her.

  She just shook her head, rummaged in her pocket, and pulled out two coins — gray-silver and thick. She showed them to me.

  “I’m giving you the choice for everyone. You ruined my birthday, so you’ll take responsibility. Either all of you become my warrior-slaves, or you can play a little game with me…” she said, smiling. The coins rattled in her hand. “I have two coins. One has a crown, the other a black dragon. You pick one, and if it’s the black dragon, I’ll kill you all! Every single one! I’ll crush your skulls!” she threatened. Everyone’s spirit weakened. The weight settled on all of our hearts. I hesitated too. “Crown means freedom…”

  With my excellent vision, I saw that both coins had a black dragon. That bitch wanted to kill us all. And that damn old man did nothing, though he surely saw the same! Not even a few seconds passed, and half were already kneeling, willing to become some kind of disposable slaves… Think. Think. Think! I studied years at an economics university! I had to figure something out.

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  “I choose the game…” I said boldly.

  The third head nodded, the second hissed. I grew half again and felt stronger too. Maybe that’s why I was so confident in my choice.

  “Excellent!” interjected another winged woman, with slightly purple hair and dark dragon horns.

  She appeared out of nowhere. How could she be so fast! Level 143, no wonder!

  How many crazy monsters do these dungeons even have!? She stood in a tight dark outfit, high boots, and fur on her shoulders, making faces, being playful with the black-hair woman.

  “Come on. Choose!”

  I did as planned. I took the first coin I could reach with my teeth, and as she opened her mouth, grinning, ready to kill me… I swallowed it!

  “Show me what you’ve got,” I said, confident, standing my ground.

  The gray-bearded man laughed, and the horned woman, who on my eyes could have been her twin, poked her in the back and nearly rolled on the ground laughing.

  “You cursed brat! You! You! YOU! I’LL KILL YOU!!!”

  I recoiled at the sight of her hand in the air and nearly lost consciousness, but then the old man stomped his foot, and the entire arena shook. The crazy girl held back her strike, and I stood on all fours.

  “You made a promise child… Leave them and do what you promised.”

  As he spoke, the girl in the youthful skin obeyed. Soon, the frog-like demon and the second one jumped to the ground. I saw countless chains materialize around all of us, binding us and driving us together.

  Each of us felt fear; we all breathed heavily, smelled blood and sweat.

  Even Banyak, barely moving with one horn broken, crawled in to get caught in the chains. Soon something incredible happened. The same flames I had traversed hundreds of kilometers of tunnels with engulfed us. Everyone panicked, screams erupted, two demons laughed.

  The last thing I saw was the furious black-haired woman, who, though enraged, looked like a teenager whose dad didn’t buy her heels for prom…

  Soon we were rushing at tremendous speed. All of us — few who survived the games. Time felt different — slower. I, weakened from recent events, only had strength to analyze what had happened.

  I wished all this were just a hopeless dream.

  Soon we found ourselves in total darkness, surrounded by huge tunnel walls. Free from chains. Of the 160 who fought in the arena, 34 survived… 32 lizardmen, me, and Banyak. All orcs, the remaining minotaurs, and over half of the lizardmen stayed behind in that underground hell forever.

  “May the gods of the swamp have mercy on them and lead their souls to the sacred waters of the Endless Swamp!” shouted San'Xa'Hu, staggering on his legs. His side had been pierced by a fang, and flesh hung from his hip. “We survived… We survived!”

  Some barely responded. Some cooled burns, others only after a while noticed the two archdemons, standing upside down on the cavern wall, looking at us menacingly.

  “Truly, coins of destiny are quite amusing. Who would have thought a silly lizard could devise such a trick…” said the frog-like brute. “My grand Mistress will hear about you, little lizard… She’ll hear how you broke the little black dragon’s heart. You’ll regret being born!” he yelled, then vanished into the darkness.

  “Clever one, you,” joked the demon-woman. “You would’ve been better off dying there… You’ll see yet,” she said seriously, following the other.

  Others frowned. Few had strength to speak. All were hungry, wounded, and at the edge of mental endurance. Plus, the awareness that we had barely avoided becoming worm food didn’t lift our spirits.

  “We must leave this cursed place,” said Jo'Xa'Jaru, straightening and looking ahead proudly. “Let’s leave this hell behind. We have someone to return to…”

  I nodded. I didn’t know how many days had passed, but definitely well over a few. Valeria might have been murdered by those goblins when Zod’s messenger was gone and didn't help her put on our tragicomic theater…

  I didn’t want to believe it. For now, all I thought about was making up for my mistakes and regaining what I had lost. I had to become stronger, and evolving into a three-headed hydra was a good start. I felt controlling it was more demanding, though unlike the second one, this one was less wild and more… Hmm? Attentive?

  It looked around and scanned stones and boulders.

  While we all pondered how to return, weighing the risks of choosing one tunnel, it focused a massive portion of my pitch-black aura and slammed it into the rocks — as if manipulating them? A passage opened. The second head acted like an earth mage. I felt where tunnels narrowed, where the ground became wilder. Hour by hour, I learned more about its talents and absorbed its skills.

  Journeying through the underground depths — stuffy and empty — became simpler and more intuitive. Perhaps fortune truly favored me? I couldn’t imagine a better talent. One could say I excelled at aura control, summoning and psychic abilities. The second head at fury, attack, and ferocious savagery. The third had talent for earth manipulation, earth control and terrain reconnaissance.

  It was getting really fun. I now even towered over the lizardmen leader. I was truly huge, even though my level was less than half of his, which wouldn’t have impressed him if he could see it.

  As we crawled along, eating mushrooms off the walls and hunting small insects, I caught familiar scents of ruins covered in moss and fungi… I had returned to that cursed underground Vort’Ayem! We emerged from one of the tunnels, and before us lay a huge city, slightly smaller than the Black City, but still damn impressive. Easily half a million beings could live here.

  A strangely large entrance to something like dungeons reminded me to stay cautious. The lizardmen didn’t know this place. I sensed their stress was even greater than mine. Old races considered abandoned and ruined cities unlucky, possessed, where one could vanish or even be cursed.

  San'Xa'Hu threw consecrated mud at us and hummed some religious tunes meant to invoke the swamp gods. I wiped dirt from my head, scratching it on a rock, when Jo'Xa'Jaru noticed a great narrowing we could climb at least 100 meters higher, still far from any exit though.

  “In the worst case, we’ll claw our way out with our nails,” he joked.

  I just bared my teeth in a forced smile and sighed. The second head shook its head, and the third smiled as if knowing exactly what I wanted from it.

  Coins of destiny, huh? Perhaps I’m meant to starve here. Who knows? Surely it wasn’t my fate to die on the arena, watched by tens of thousands of monsters, to the delight of even bigger monsters. And that's fortunate enough I guess.