The pit was colder than he expected.
Not in temperature—no, the blood-slick floor steamed with the heat of torn bodies dragged off moments before—but cold in a way that reached deeper. In the stone. In the silence. In the air itself, thick with the memory of violence.
It was a place that remembered.
Every scream. Every broken jaw. Every death that wasn't quick or clean.
It remembered—and it welcomed him.
Renner stepped forward into the ring.
Bare-chested. Barefoot. No armor. Only the thinnest of black wrappings around his wrists and ankles, like a ritual garb from some forgotten order. His skin, pale as bone, shone beneath the flickering torchlight. Fresh bruises bloomed along his ribs. Blood crusted at the corners of one eye.
But he stood straight. Unbothered.
Above him, the crowd thundered.
