She couldn't actually die here, Natalie reminded herself, but it was a hard thing to keep in mind while fighting a bloodthirsty monster.

  The beast was bear-like, roughly, with dark e fur that was filthy and matted. It stood as tall as Natalie and was many times bulkier. Vicious curved bck cws swiped with surprising speed, and even Natalie was finding it difficult to keep it in check with sheer strength. It was dumb, though, aively easy to outmahough its thick hide and bulk absorbed her hammer blows with only grunts and staggers, rather than broken bones.

  Maybe it was better that she didn't keep her partial immortality in mind, she briefly mused. Fighting for one's life provided no small amount of motivation. Besides, she could still feel pain, and being disemboweled by massive cws would be aremely unfortable experience, even if the Arena would somehow … put her back together at the end.

  It was the fourth round of bat. The first had been ht trivial for delvers of her and Vaa's skill level. The sed and third had been simple as well, though increasingly less so. Only now, on the fourth round, had the difficulty raised to the extent she wouldn't call the fights easy anymore.

  Not hard though. If she were to pick a word, it would be … routine. Blood pounded in her ears, and her heart raced as she went through that deadly dah her oppo, but it was nothing she found frightening. She didn't eveo tap into her mana-based skills.

  Vaa had cimed the majority of finishing blows in their duo, but Natalie had the pleasure this time. [Valentine] crushed into the bear-like beast's skull, and without a sound, it crumpled into the floor a still. A sed blow, aioner's strike, ehe fight was over. Sure enough, the corpse evaporated, leaviher core nor Token behind.

  They caught their breath, briefly, as two stone pilrs emerged from the ground. tinue or forfeit, as the choices had gone each time before. The Arena was kind enough to let them recover between rounds. Only for a few mihough.

  "So," Natalie said. "Time to talk about it."

  They hadn't fiheir earlier discussion, ohey should call it quits. The fights hadn't warra; they were certain they'd be able to take on the round, assuming the jump in difficulty wasn't astronomical. So they'd kept going. With this medium-difficulty fight, though, it was teically possible they lost by some unlucky fluke on the , Natalie had decided, and so they had to address it. ht to address it.

  "Talk about it?" Vaa asked, though the sideways gold Natalie she knew what she was refereng.

  "Not saying that was hard," Natalie said. "Haven't even had to pull out basic skills yet, much less my heavy hitters." Vaa seemed ied in that; she hadn't seen [Smite], only her illusions. "But it's getting there. And some unlucky misstep might end up with one of us dead." Especially Vaa, the rogue. She was unbelievably skilled, but she was frail. All it would take was one wrong move. "So. Yeah. We should talk about it."

  "I guess you're right."

  She didn't offer more, so after a sed, Natalie tinued for her. "If we keep going, we might lose. Will lose eventually. When do you want to call it?"

  Vaa shrugged. "Not yet. Let's at least get to the harder fights before we worry too much."

  Natalie studied her for a sed. She wao press the issue, but that would be patronizing. Vaa knew what would happen if they lost. If she wao tinue, she was weighing the risk of defeat against the potential reward.

  So, she nodded, and they pressed the stoton that advahem to the round.

  Two more fights followed. The first, against three tall skeletal warriors. She and Vaa did best against single oppos, even if they were strong, because Natalie could distract while the assassi up devastating fnks. Even so, they dispatched the multi-enemy enter without too much difficulty. Natalie did o call up some illusions, though.

  The sed fight was against a bck stone golem. The fight went much the same way as against the bear, but many times more difficult. The overall strength of eater wasn't increasing expoially, but even linear jumps meant they were rapidly approag oppos that were being too much for them.

  Against the golem, she actually had to pull out [Smite]. Vaa seemed impressed by the immense ray of energy that burst from her hammer, though Natalie had only been able to charge it halfway; it was rare to find long enough openings to plete the el.

  She hadn't [Empowered] anythi, and wasn't sure if she would. These weren't lethal fights. She had no iions of trading perma adva points to get a little further into the Arena.

  Breathing hard, and bruised from a number of hits, Natalie broached the topic a sed time.

  "Keep going?" she asked. "We're getting to the point we might lose without a fluke. That guy was … tough."

  "Wasn't that hard," Vaa said.

  Natalie raised her eyebrows. Vaa too was breathing hard, bck hair matted by sweat. She'd taken a gng blow herself, which had to have left more than a simple bruise on her hip. The girl prodded at it gently, wing, though didn't seem to notice what she'd done.

  "Besides," Vaa said. "If we really do give up, we've gotta get farther than this. The stake ts for a big portion of the reward, so we have to make up for it in rounds."

  Except they might end up paying out along with getting deep into the Arena, if they weren't careful. But like before, Vaa had to know that. So Natalie just asked, "You sure?"

  The rogue walked up and pressed the button to tinue, which was answer enough.

  The fight was brutal. The [Crystalline Seraph] was an angelic being made out of stained gss, and it tore into them with twin bdes. It was both a well-suited and a horribly-suited fight for Natalie: the former, because its gss body was weak to blunt attacks, and the tter, because it was fast, agile, and its long dual-wielded bdes had nearly the same reach as her massive warhammer.

  Still, they made it through, pleting round six. About an hour had passed. Natalie was ag all over, and she was bleeding from several cuts—some of them deep. She missed having a [Healer] on standby. For now, they relied on healing potions, but only enough to stop the bleeding. No point in wasting valuable resources for a nohal fight.

  "It's a gamble to go again," Natalie said. "O in our favor." The st fight had already been a gamble. They'd eked out the victory using all their skills. Even Vaa had pulled out something new: she'd grabbed a nearby shadow and had sshed with it, somehow, dealing serious damage. Natalie would have been ied in talking about the ability with her if she wasn't exhausted and woozy from blood loss. "Do we call it?"

  Vaa hesitated. She looked away, cheeks flushing. "We handle one more."

  No, Natalie didn't think they could. And Vaa had to know that too. The fight would be even harder, and they were weak from their injuries. They would almost certainly lose.

  Maybe Vaa wasn't too worried about paying off their stake after all? Or was it determination and a o prove herself, the reckless sort of petitive spirit that was on i delvers? Either way, Vaa walked up and pressed the button to tinue.

  Natalie doubted they'd be surviving the seventh round. She would do her best, but she suspected Vaa had just deliberately chosen to pay their stake. Which meant, soon, they would be …

  Well. She put that out of her mind. She had a fight to focus on.

  Taking a deep breath, she rallied herself one more time.