The image of his right arm being severed kept replaying in Yochula's mind.
A dagger could not sever a limb so easily, so the Skinner had precisely stabbed into the gaps between the bones, cut through the tendons connected to them, and dismantled Yochula's arm as deftly as a butcher carving an ox.
Besides pain, Yochula's mind was filled with shock and confusion.
He had not expected the Skinner to cut off his arm from the very start.
This man had been chatting and laughing just moments ago...
"You were surely thinking of escaping too, just like that big guy and the others."
The Skinner glanced at Angron, who was locked in combat with the Nusa Twins. With one hand, he pinned Yochula's arm to the ground with a dagger and lifted it; with the other, he swiftly dismantled the entire arm with another dagger.
Skin, muscle, tendons... all of it was stripped away and tossed onto the already crimson Red Sand.
Even if Yochula had bandages, there was no way that arm could be reattached.
"I'm not like you." The Skinner was still smiling. "I enjoy fighting. I enjoy the cheers."
Only now was Yochula certain that this man truly wanted to kill him.
"If all of you run away..."
"Whose skin am I supposed to peel?"
The Skinner's smile did not change as he spoke, but to Yochula, he was as chilling as a vicious ghost.
"Y-you..." Yochula staggered backward, trembling. This teenage Gladiator might once have prepared himself for killing; when facing the Plebeian Butchers, he had even killed a Servant Knight.
But Yochula had never imagined that one of the Gladiators who had fought bloodily alongside him against the Servant Knights on the Red Sand, this one called the Skinner, the Gladiator who had comforted him just moments ago, had intended to kill him completely.
In a gladiatorial match where fighting to the death was not even necessary.
"When your mother comes to bring food tonight, I'll describe every last detail of how I peeled your skin off." The Skinner's smile vanished as he charged at Yochula.
Elsewhere.
Angron dodged the Nusa Twins' successive attacks.
Kleist had just cut apart the fishing net and was charging toward the twins with a curse.
Angron had not intended to kill anyone. Since no one had to die today, he had kept dodging, striking with a few chops now and then before evading again.
The cheers from the stands turned into curses. The spectators who had come to watch Angron perform brilliantly now transformed their previous lavish praise into unbearable insults because he was so obviously holding back.
Angron easily dodged the fish spears thrust at him simultaneously by the Nusa Twins. But just as he was about to pretend to counterattack, one of them suddenly drew a dagger from his boot and slashed Angron's neck.
Angron took two steps back and touched his neck.
The skin had been cut.
"You..."
Just as Angron was about to question them, the Nusa Twins rushed forward and drove their fish spears into Angron's left and right shoulders respectively.
"Are you insane?" Kleist swung her long spear, knocking both fish spears apart, then darted in front of Angron. "Are you trying to kill him?!"
The Nusa Twins retreated in unison, turned to look at the stands, then looked back at Kleist together.
"Wouldn't it be better if he died?"
"Then my brother, I, and you would still be the center of attention."
The brothers spoke one sentence each.
"What the hell are you talking about?!" Kleist cursed loudly, circling Angron as she drove back the Nusa Twins whenever they tried to advance, like she was warding off beasts. "He may be huge... but he still feels like a child!"
"He's not a child."
"Fine... maybe he is. But even if he isn't old, he's still a three-meter-tall freak, so stop saying such childish things."
One of the Nusa Twins raised a dagger, while the other lifted a spare fishing net, preparing to attack again.
"You two worthless bastards who were born without eyes..."
Kleist tightened her grip on the long spear, ready to teach the brothers a lesson.
But Angron's huge hand pressed down on Kleist's shoulder.
The female Gladiator turned around and saw Angron glance in Yochula's direction.
After a moment's hesitation, Kleist, believing Angron could handle the brothers, still left the Primarch's side and charged toward Yochula, who was running and dodging the Skinner across the Arena.
"Angron must be very confused right now..." Oeno said with a frown. "Why are the Gladiators who fought beside him against the Slaughterer yesterday, laughing and joking together, trying to kill him today?"
"The Nusa Twins used to be the most watched, right?" Qin Xa asked.
Oeno nodded.
Qin Xa asked no further questions. He turned to look at the other Gladiators behind him.
Some Gladiators were equally furious at the actions of the Nusa Twins and the Skinner.
Some were indifferent.
Some sat in the corners with cold gazes. When Qin Xa met their eyes, they revealed vicious smiles.
Qin Xa turned back to watch the Arena and merely let out a sigh.
"There are bad people among the Gladiators."
Angron, whom Qin Xa was watching, was indeed deeply confused.
He could sense many emotions from the two brothers... jealousy, hostility, ruthlessness, coldness.
But merely sensing those emotions did not allow Angron to understand why the two wanted to kill him. It only confirmed that they did.
Confusion.
Grievance.
And all manner of other emotions converged together. When those negative emotions accumulated to their limit, they became rage so fierce that he wanted nothing more than to kill them immediately.
Just as an ordinary person who had been humiliated might burn with the desire to slaughter the entire family of the one who had wronged him.
Rage rose in his heart.
"I'll tear you apart!" Angron roared. He threw the two axes in his hands to the ground, ignored the fish spears lodged in his shoulders, and charged straight at the Nusa Twins.
Angron's face twisted with savage ferocity, his brows raised sharply, his eyes seeming capable of spitting fire.
The instant they saw that expression, the Nusa Twins had the thought of dodging.
But before that thought could travel through their nerves to their bodies, the charging Angron had already seized both brothers by the throats with his outstretched hands.
As the brothers' bodies still mechanically attempted to dodge, Angron swung his arms inward and brought them together.
The sound of shattering bones rang out as the brothers' heads collided, killing them both at once.
Blood splashed across the Primarch's face.
As the first drop of blood slid down Angron's face and fell onto the crimson sand, the savagery and rage in the Primarch's expression drained away with it.
In the instant before the brothers died, Angron felt many emotions.
Regret, fear, terror, shock, surprise...
And the heartbreak at the moment of death—all of it flooded into Angron at once.
A tear slid from the corner of Angron's eye, mixing with the blood and bone fragments on his face before falling onto the Red Sand.
They were not the Primarch's tears, but the tears of two dead men before they died, merely flowing from Angron's eyes.
The Primarch stood where he was. After one heavy breath, he tossed aside the corpses and lowered his head, seemingly lost in thought.
Before you continue