Matth Oliver woke up with sand grinding into the open gashes across his back.
The taste of iron filled his mouth, thick and warm. For a second he thought he was still choking on his own vomit back in that shitty Tokyo alley where the truck had ended him.
No such luck.
Chains bit into his wrists and ankles. Heavy iron that smelled of old blood and rust.
He was naked. Cold wind licked across his skin, carrying the stench of piss, shit, and anticipation from the stands above.
He tried to push himself up. His arms shook like a drunk's.
Everything hurt in that deep, bone-bruised way that told him he'd already been worked over before he even opened his eyes.
Whip marks burned across his shoulders and thighs. A fresh cut above his left eyebrow dripped steadily into the sand.
Above him the arena roared. Thousands of voices blurred into one ugly animal sound.
Torches flickered along the stone walls, throwing long shadows that danced like they were already celebrating his death.
A deep voice boomed from somewhere high up, magically amplified.
"Fresh meat from the pits! Slave number 472! Level one! Trash talent! No mana signature! Facing the undefeated champion of the lower sands—Gorzak the Bonecrusher!"
The crowd lost its mind.
Matth spat blood and forced a laugh that came out more like a wheeze.
"Great. Isekai'd straight into the tutorial from hell. Zero to hero my ass. They skipped the hero part."
He looked down at his own body. Skinny. Pale where it wasn't already turning purple.
No muscles worth mentioning. No glowing runes, no mysterious pendant, nothing.
Just a crude brand burned into his left pectoral: a broken chain crossed with a skull.
Underneath it, faint glowing letters he could somehow read without knowing the language.
[Slave – Level 1 – Talent: None]
The letters floated there for a moment then faded, like they were mocking him.
A gate on the opposite side of the arena groaned open. Out stepped Gorzak.
The orc was a walking wall of green muscle and scar tissue. Easily eight feet tall, arms thicker than Matth's torso.
One tusk was broken halfway, the other filed to a point. He carried a club studded with jagged bits of bone and metal.
The thing looked like it weighed more than Matth did.
Gorzak grinned, showing yellow teeth, and slammed the club into the sand. The impact sent a tremor through the ground.
Matth's heart hammered so hard he could feel it in his teeth.
No weapons. No armor. No skills. Just bare hands and whatever shitty reflexes his old body still had.
He'd played enough games to know what level one against a raid boss looked like. It looked like red mist and a loading screen.
The orc charged.
Matth tried to dodge. His legs barely responded in time.
The club whistled past his ear and smashed into the sand where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. Grit exploded upward, stinging his eyes.
He rolled, chains rattling, and came up gasping. The crowd laughed.
Someone threw a rotten fruit that splattered near his feet.
"Come on, you green fuck," Matth muttered under his breath. "At least make it quick."
Gorzak swung again, horizontal this time. Matth ducked under it, feeling the wind rip across his scalp.
He threw a desperate punch at the orc's knee. His fist connected with something that felt like hitting a tree trunk wrapped in wet leather. Pain flared up his arm.
Gorzak backhanded him casually.
The world tilted. Matth flew three meters and skidded across the sand on his face.
Something in his nose cracked. Blood poured freely now. He tasted it mixing with the dirt.
Inner voice, dry as old bone: Nice. Real heroic. Maybe next time try biting his ankle. That'll show him.
He pushed up on shaking arms. His vision swam.
The orc was already stalking closer, taking his time now, enjoying the show.
The crowd chanted Gorzak's name in a rhythm that sounded like a war drum.
Matth's thoughts raced in ugly spirals. Died like a nobody on Earth. Reborn as literal garbage. About to get pulped for entertainment.
If there was a god watching, it had a fucked up sense of humor.
Gorzak raised the club high. The bone studs caught the torchlight like grinning teeth.
This was it. The killing blow.
Matth stared up at the descending mass of wood and metal. Time seemed to stretch.
He could see every crack in the club, every fleck of dried blood.
His body screamed at him to move, but the chains and exhaustion pinned him in place.
Not like this, he thought, the words sharp and furious in his skull. I didn't crawl out of whatever void death is just to—
A sound like tearing metal ripped through his mind.
[Primordial Devourer System initializing…]
The words burned behind his eyes, bright and wrong, like code forcing its way into reality.
[Error. Host compatibility unstable. Soul residue from previous world detected. Attempting forced synchronization…]
Gorzak's club was still coming down, slow in his perception but unstoppable.
[Warning: Devour protocol activating on death trigger. If host perishes before full integration, system will—]
The notification cut off mid-sentence, glitching with static that felt like needles in his brain.
Matth's lips pulled back in something that wasn't quite a smile.
"Yeah? Finish the sentence, you bastard."
The club filled his entire field of vision now. He could smell the rust and old death on it.
His last clear thought was cold, almost amused in its desperation.
Guess we'll find out together.
The swing continued its arc.
And the world held its breath.