Son of Love and Fire

Chapter 12

From what Perseus could sense this man was a violent person and obviously was strong, experienced and skilled at least in some regard. As the morning wore on 5 more fights had taken place, some were brutal and some had more honour, but none were overly intense, matched up fighters never having equal combat abilities. It was the next fight in which the man in the corner was brought out into the arena and even got special mention, his title being 'the blood monger' which another person in the pits explained was due to when he bathed the entire house of someone who had threatened him in his and his families blood.

Perseus watched as the fight began, the blood monger had waited for the other man to take action and that he did, the other fighter seemed competent enough although being a bit over a foot shorter and far less muscular then his monstrous opponent, and as he punched the gut of his larger opponent with as much force as he could muster the man had barely budged and retaliated with a series of strikes. Before they knew it, the nearby arena sand was wet with the smaller mans blood as the blood monger pounded his face into the ground until all life had drained from the limp corpse of a man.

As would be expected, great tension built in the pits as a few of the less skilled or experienced men tried to leave only to be told that they couldn't after they'd signed up. Perseus simply moved back to his seat, whilst the so called 'blood monger' was huge, he had killed beasts of far greater size, strength and with added powers as a young child on the island, the fight would be an interesting test of his skills if he held back his godly abilities.

Whilst Perseus had been almost completely calm besides his suppressed anger at what the monger had done to his competitor, that couldn't be said for spectators. The crowd had mostly been disgusted and flinched at the sight of the brutal fight and few cheers had been called at the mans victory but amongst them were many families of other competitors who were increasingly worried.

Despite Callie's previous disregard to any threat towards her brother due to his skill, seeing that monster of a man and what he had done sparked a good dose of fear in her and she wanted to run down to the pits and drag Perseus away but knew it wasn't allowed. Regardless, she knew Perseus was extremely strong and very skilled at the least and so he stood a chance, so Callie anxiously awaited the following fights. The rest of their group were almost quivering with nervousness as they thought of what might become of the new addition to their lives if he went up against the monger. Jason had covered Antheia's eyes as soon as the fight had escalated but he couldn't hide the bloodied mess that was left across the arena.

Antheia had immediately curled up into her fathers side and started sobbing, the image of Perseus leaving all that blood behind staining her mind, Perseus had become her closest friend, she only really had her father and him after all that had happened and she prayed to the gods that Perseus would be ok.

Hestia was more similar to Antheia, no matter the fact that she knew that Perseus could kill the monger like an ant underfoot with the slightest fraction of his growing powers, even without powers Perseus was so skilled that the monger still wouldn't stand a chance, but she had the same image stuck in her head of her beloved son replacing that man as the bloodied corpse. Pulling herself back together and pushing aside her fear for now, Hestia continued to watch the fights.

After the next fight had begun the announcer entered the pits and called for Perseus and another man for the next fight. Perseus took off his shirt and wrapped some of the cloth strips Cynthia had given him around his fists before walking over to the arena entrance opposite to where his opponent had gone. The man he was getting put up against was around 5'11", significantly shorter than him and was also less muscular although looked to still be quite skilled. Without his shirt on it was obvious to onlookers how physically powerful Perseus was, he had dense and large muscles but not to the point where it looked grossly bulging, he still had a form that would allow for great agility and held himself with the poise of a skilled fighter. Perseus had looks that could put the most handsome of people, even gods, although not to his knowledge, to shame, he believed it to be part of his connection to nature as his form and features were such that he could be linked to the perfection of natural beauty and not seem at all like he had forced himself to look like that. As such when Perseus walked out of the pits and onto the arena floor many gasps were heard from the crowd, predominately female, as they saw Perseus walk out, thinking a god themselves had walked out. Many women began calling out to him asking for him to be with them or sleep with him, some men cried out in protest towards him for various reasons due to their jealousy.