Sereth awoke in a room that he had been transported to the evening before. He felt extremely groggy. He had looked forward to the tournament ever since he heard about it. He prepared for the upcoming day with the usual morning meal of an orange and a bagel.
"Perfection at its utmost. That is, if anyone in this star system could make a decent bagel."
And unfortunately for Sereth, his serene morning of complaining about astral bakeries was interrupted by the sound of buzzing outside his door. He opened it to find a disgusting creature that had a body of a human, hands and feet of a dog, and the head of a mosquito.
"What the hell are you?" Sereth said with a sense of disgust.
"H-he-helpful... Schedule..."
"Schedule? Whaddya mean?"
The creature outstretched his hand and it projected a hologram for the day's matchups. It's hideous face twitched and squirmed like it was in pain.
"S-Sereth... I-I-I will tell you..."
Sereth realized that this creature was just here to help him, and even if it meant any harm, it probably couldn't do anything to substantial.
"So will you be back tomorrow?"
"Y-y-y-yesssss... I-If Sereth s-s-survives..."
"Hehe... Isn't that scary." Sereth chuckled to himself, this tournament was serious business after all.
"Okay then, Do I have any matchups today?"
"Y-y-you are f-f-first... Today..."
Sereth was excited about this, after seeing all the people, he thought he was going to have to wait before it would be his turn. He never thought he would be in the action so early. In fact, most people would have found it annoying, but if you couldn't tell already, Sereth was not your average man.
"Alright! let's do it!"
The creature opened a gate. Gates are like golden portals that only high level casters can activate, or if someone is designated to open a gate to another, already existing gate. In this case, the Creature was opening a gate to the arena, so that Sereth could get there quickly.
Sereth walked through the gate, eager as to what would happen next.
In the stadium, the spectators looked down into the arena with excitement for the oncoming battle. It was similar to an intergalactic colosseum, in the sense where two warriors would soon appear, and the crowd eagerly awaited the destruction of one of them. Suddenly, on one side a golden gate fizzed into existence and a tall, white haired man, with golden yellow eyes emerged with hands behind his head. As he gestured to the crowd, they became feral with excitement.
The arena was huge. It had hard stone floors, and a gigantic holographic blue forcefield that surrounded the battle stage itself, and excluded and protected the spectators. He looked around at the spectators all cheering his name. The stands were giant, holding thousands of people. The crowd roared like a pack of wild beasts. Then, a voice boomed throughout the arena.
"Welcome everybody! We have an exciting matchup for you today!"
"Well this sure is a spectacle" Sereth thought. "Just my kind of thing."
Sereth grinned as the voice announcer explained the rules.
"The rules are simple! Anything goes, but it's if your opponent surrenders or is incapacitated! The forcefield trapping the two fighters in will not come down until someone is defeated!"
"Damn. So they really want us to fight to the death... "
"Now lets introduce our fighters! Emerging from the golden gate is Sereth Vaelwyn! He earned himself the title of strongest on Jupiter, Kaeld, and Mars! Not too shabby!"
Sereth started laughing while he made cocky gestures to the crowd such as finger guns and blowing kisses. He found it fun to hear the announcer talk about how strong he was. He couldn't be more excited to fight in this tournament. Just then, a red gate fizzed to life on the other side of the arena, and the crowd roared up in excitement.
"And coming out of the red gate, you already know his name! Dragok the Titan! The flaming dominator!!!"
Emerging from the gate was a gigantic man, though it was arguably hard to tell he was a human at all. He stood at 9 feet tall, with very long red hair. His presence was that of the pure essence of violence. Sereth grinned at the sight of the giant.
"Aaaaaaaaaaand... BEGIN!"
It began. Sereth took off running, at an average speed at first, but with every step, he seemed to get faster. Dragok swung with his gigantic arm, but Sereth managed to weave and flow in order to dodge the attacks, he leaned back, sidestepped, and jumped high in the air to unleash a jumping kick, but Dragok was able to react and caught Sereth and threw him against the forcefield wall.
Dragok spoke, "Puny human! You no match for Titan of fire!"
In that instance, Sereth moved so quickly that it felt like he just appeared behind Dragok. he jumped and landed a spinning hook kick, and when he made contact, there was a sonic boom, and a glowing white aura where the kick had landed.
Dragok fell backward and Sereth approached slowly. Sereth looked to be about ready to unleash a finishing move as he knelt down into a sprinters position, but just before he took off, Dragok unhinged his jaw and released a wave of flames, and they overcame him.
But surely enough, He emerged, his coat singed, the smoke wafting around him.
"Is that all?"
The brilliant sun radiated down into the arena. Dragok laid dazed, Sereth stood boldly, preparing to launch another strike, the crowd roared with excitement, cheering and chanting Sereth's name as if he was some sort of deity.
Dragok arose, and let out a terrifying cry, as his entire body surged with fire. Shrieking and howling the fire grew in size and intensity,
Now at this time, Masaru had been watching in the stands, quietly observing how Sereth moved.
"I see..." Masaru thought, "I see no discipline... At least, not yet."