A few days later, the army of Atholl, who had been captured by Featon, arrived at their camp near Lionheart. Friedlier and numerous of the Featon captives did not continue with the army into the barracks, and they were handed over to the City Guard of Lionheart some distance from Lionheart. Armed with long knives, the city guards of Azor escorted them to a large ancient arena not far from Lionheart.

Friedlier was keenly observant of everything around him. He found that many of the buildings in the city, including the city walls, had a distinctly Garland classical style, and that not all the people walking outside the city were dressed in the costumes of Asol. This made him understand that even after walking for half a month, he was still far from reaching the territory that originally belonged to Asol, and this was obviously the homeland that Garland had long lost.

What surprised Friedrier was that many of the Garland people dressed in Garland costumes were able to live peacefully under the rule of Asol. They toiled in the fields, talked to each other, and in their laughter and demeanor, Friedlier could not detect a trace of oppression from the Atholls. There were even a few Garlands greeting the soldiers of the City Guard in a friendly manner.

As he approached the arena, Friedlier heard a tsunami of cheers from inside the huge oval-shaped arena. He turned his head to look, and he saw that in front of the main entrance of the tall arena surrounded by five layers of arches, there was a bronze statue of a small but lifelike figure.

The bronze statue had lost its golden luster, and had become a patina. Friedlier didn't know whose image this rusty bronze figure was portraying, and he knew little about Garland's culture. But the patinated figure was holding an object that struck Friedleer's eyes: a staff with two wings and two snakes entwined underneath.

Friedlear recalls that when he was sorting through his father's belongings, he had seen a book with a green cowhide bound cover, which was very special, and there was no text on the cover of the book, just a golden symbol, which was a flat copy of the scepter held in the hand of the bronze figure in front of the arena.

As for the contents of that book, Friedlier has a vague memory of most of them, and he is not a human being, contrary to his father. The only thing he could remember was the sentence written on the title page of the book: "All things come from the contemplation of one thing, and all things are born from the transformation of one thing." He remembered it because his father had spoken it to him before he died.

A soldier of Yasol stepped forward and pushed the reminiscing Friedreel, and the weakened Friedlier stumbled, interrupting his attention to the bronze statue and his memories of the past.

A short way around the arena, he and the other Pacton captives were taken by the soldiers to a row of low buildings in the style of Asor. Standing in front of this row of flat-roofed low houses, Friedleer saw that the buildings were clearly built later by the Azores, and that they were very alien to the elegant and classical Garland architecture in the neighborhood.

The soldiers of the City Guard of Lionheart divided the Pacton captives into separate rooms, and after being pushed into one of them, the door was slammed shut, and the room was pitch black, and he heard the sound of chains bolting outside the door, and he knew he was locked in here.

After Friedlier's eyes briefly adjusted to the darkness of the room, he found that it was as simple as he had imagined, with only a dirty blanket to sleep in, and only a few thatchs and two small barrels, one large and one small.

Friedlier fiddled with the chains in his hand, then sat down on the blanket depressedly. In the dark hut, Friedlier thought that he might be used as a fighting sheep by the Azor, to be put in the arena to fight other captives in order to please them. When he was a child, he had heard the islanders of Garland tell about such things, and many captives would die in it, and even if there were captives who could win in the arena all the time, he would not be able to live long, because people needed freshness.

Friedlier expected him to be sent to the arena soon, but what he didn't expect was that he would be here for eight days in a row. For eight days, he had only stayed in this dimly lit cell, and the only thing that kept him from going mad was the change in the sun's rays outside the door, the swaying figures, and the sound of soldiers talking.

During his time in the hut, Friedreel quickly understood the purpose of the two barrels, where the soldiers would only throw food and water into the house through a small window in the door, and Friedlier would not be able to go anywhere. In the other bucket, the stench of Friedlier's own excrement was so unbearable that he almost went crazy every day to slam the door, but no one paid any attention.

On the morning of the ninth day, when the door finally opened, Friedlier weakly shielded himself from the sunlight, and saw two soldiers standing in the doorway waving to him to get out of the house himself.

They took Friedlier, who had fallen into a trance, to a small clearing in a camp. Friedlier saw that there were many captives from different regions and nationalities gathered in this clearing, none of whom were Phaedonians, and the only thing Friedlier could tell from their appearance was that they were all male.

Friedreer stood there, taking a deep breath of fresh air. His gaze was a little sluggish as he looked at everything around him, and he felt as if he had just been in the house for ten years.

Soon after, a number of Athorians in splendid costumes gathered in the clearing, each with peacock feathers, and they gathered in groups to talk about the captives who had been escorted by the soldiers. At this time, the captives were also pushed into a row by the soldiers of the City Guard for them to check one by one. Friedlier saw that a soldier stepped forward, and he drew a circle with the shaft of his spear in the open space in front of each captive.

Immediately afterwards, Friedlier saw the Scarface general who had captured him, and under his explanation and leadership, people began to throw peacock feathers in their hands into the circle in front of the captive. He saw several people toss the peacock feathers in their hands into the circle in front of him.

After everyone had cast the peacock feathers, the ten captives with a large number of peacock feathers in front of them were taken away. And Friedlier is in the middle of it.

He was quickly taken by the soldiers of the City Guard to a courtyard surrounded by high walls with guards standing at each corner, where he saw arrows, wooden figures, various wooden weapons, shields, stone dumbbells, and so on.

Once inside the compound, the soldiers of the city guard unshackled the ten captives and turned away. Friedreel didn't know why the Athollians had moved them here, or what they had done here. He looked around, and he couldn't even open his mouth to ask, for it was clear that none of the remaining nine captives were Phaedonians. In fact, even if a Yasol man were to say something to them now, Friedlier thought that none of the people in the courtyard would be able to understand it now. The only thing he could judge based on the current situation was that the day to enter the arena was approaching.

The captives in the courtyard did not speak the same language, and they looked at each other, and Friedlier sat in a corner of the courtyard and looked at everyone. He found that most of them were not simple ordinary people, he saw that most of them had well-developed muscles, some of them were bare with his scarred limbs, and some were even missing an eye and an ear, from which Friedlier could easily tell that they should be battle-hardened warriors.

A thin, black-haired, brown-eyed, yellow-skinned captive quickly caught the attention of Friedlier, who had never seen anyone of this kind before. Friedlier saw him smile and greet everyone in the courtyard, though not everyone paid attention to him. As he walked up to Friedley, Friedreel held out his hand to him, and he shook his hand with a slight smile.

"Hello, nice to meet you." He said.

Friedlier didn't speak, just smiled at him. It was difficult for him to tell the other man's intentions in a sentence that he didn't understand at all, but he thought that this person should be okay.

Early on the morning of the third day, the gate was opened again. The captives were pleasantly surprised to find that the soldiers had brought in a large amount of delicious food. Unlike naan and dates, today's soldiers brought a wide variety of food, including bread and even jerky and fruit, which were filled to the table. After the soldiers left, the captives did not fail to live up to the delicacies, and they frantically pounced on them, sweeping them away.

Friedlier ate a piece of jerky unhurriedly, and then took another piece of fruit. He looked around, and there was only the Oriental man in the courtyard who was like him, munching on the hearty food.

Soon, just as the captives had eaten the food frantically and sat on the ground with their bellies puffed up, a group of soldiers arrived again. They quickly took everyone out. Friedreel thought to himself that this was about to enter the arena.

In a room outside the arena's infield, the soldiers of Athore distributed leather armor and wooden shields to the crowd, but did not distribute blades to them.

Standing behind the arena's infield door, while waiting to enter, Friedlier clearly heard the shouts of the crowd inside the arena. A floodgate quickly closed behind the crowd. He looked around, and everyone else was praying to the gods in their hearts, pointing to the sky with their backs up, or closing their eyes and clasping their hands, or muttering to themselves. And at this moment, Friedlier, when he was about to face an unknown fate, he couldn't help but feel a trace of fear. He looked at the door of the infield that had not yet been opened, took a deep breath, touched the finger that had been wearing the Ouroboros ring, remembered the ancient Pheuthedon language that his father had spoken when he handed him the Ouroboros ring, and he recalled whispering, "There is no such thing as always being straight and without being in danger, nor is there always going forward without encountering repetition." ”

The inner door of the arena opened with a bang.

Friedlier tentatively walked into the arena along with the other nine. The space inside the arena was much smaller than it seemed from the outside, and around the arena, it was filled with spectators, who watched the captives walk inside, and let out a cacophony and boo. After a quick glance around the audience, Friedlier focused his gaze on the center of the arena. The inner field of the arena is not flat, and in the middle of the arena, there are a large number of stone monuments of various heights, like a labyrinth. And on the other side of the stele group, there is a spacious and flat land. Friedlier took a few steps into the infield, and he looked down at the ground beneath his feet, where he spotted messy horseshoe prints and ruts.

When the audience turned to look at the other end of the arena and let out a loud cheer, Friedlier's heart tightened, and he immediately quickly crossed the flat and empty area without hesitation, and he quickly dodged into the stone tablet forest with a round shield in hand.

When he ducked between the steles and looked behind him through the gap between them, a green chariot with two horses was already whizzing.

The two-horse chariot carried an ornate body, on which stood two heavily armed warriors, one of whom held the reins of his horse, the other armed with a bow and arrow.

As the chariot approached, the archer on board had already set up his arrows and opened his bow. When the chariot suddenly appeared from the side of the stele, the captives instantly realized that their enemy was actually a chariot. Before the captives could come to their senses in horror, an arrow from the chariot had already hit a captive who had not had time to raise his shield. The arrow pierced his thigh, and he fell to the ground in agony.

Just when the captives saw the scene in front of them, they quickly rushed to hide in the stone monument group. Friedlier watched as the captive, who had been hit by the arrow and dragged his wounded leg towards the stele forest, was immediately the target of a red chariot that arrived later. The red chariot passed by him quickly, and as it passed, the archers on the chariot took a spear and stabbed him to death.

The spectators inside the arena erupted in cheers after seeing the first captive killed by the red chariot.

After the captives panicked into the stele forest to take refuge, Friedlier saw that the blue and white chariots also appeared in the arena, and they were speeding around the stele forest with two other chariots. By this time, Friedlier had already understood that they were going to start a chariot hunting race against his captives who were hiding inside.

The archers on the chariot were obviously very good at archery, and the arrows they shot went straight to the target through the narrow gaps between the stone monuments, and Friedlier couldn't help but marvel in his heart after dodging an arrow, even if he had been trained for many years, if he was allowed to stand still and shoot, it would be difficult for him to pass through the gaps in these stone monuments, let alone hit the targets that were moving through the gaps, not to mention that the current Asur archers had to release arrows on high-speed chariots.

As the chariot quickly moved around the stele forest, the captives hiding in the stele forest also kept avoiding them, moving and running quickly. But soon, some people vomited because they had eaten too much and were now exercising too intensely. The captive, who had bent over and vomited, was wounded by the archers on the chariot as he stopped moving. Soon, under the continuous fire of four combat vehicles, one more person was wounded because he could not dodge.

After Fridlier used his shield to fend off an arrow that came through a gap in the stele, he quickly pulled the arrow out of the wooden shield and held it tightly in his hand. He raised his vigilance, he quickly moved through the stele forest to dodge, his eyes constantly tracking the chariot outside the stele forest, he was predicting the path of the chariot.

Another arrow was fired into the stele forest, and the prisoner, who had been wounded, was killed by an arrow from the archers on the blue chariot, and there was another deafening cheer from the audience.

The chariots galloped around the stele forest, and the arrows continued to penetrate between the steles, and the captives in the stele forest either raised their shields to resist, or ran to dodge, and soon another person fell.

As the captives were exhausted, a screeching metal crash was heard, and the four chariots began to slow down, and Friedrich realized by observing the chariots that this signal seemed to mean that they were going back.

The archers on the white chariots, having heard the sound, apparently let their guard down, while the coachman warriors were slowing down the horses in order to return to the entrance. Seeing the archer put down his arrows and put them into the quiver hanging from the cart, Friedlier seized the rare opportunity, and as the chariot passed by the side of the stone monument where he had been dodging, he instantly dodged out, and stabbed the arrow he held in his hand into the running warhorse.

With the help of the horse's running power, Arrow Blade cut a bright red wound on the unarmored flank of the warhorse, and the horse's blood immediately spurted out.

Friedlier was hit by the chariot behind his horse after his shot, but he had already prepared for it, and he rolled to the ground after kicking the body with his foot. He lay on the ground and saw that the horses that had been struck by this sudden blow were not only wounded, but also severely frightened, and the two horses pulling the chariot lost their sync in an instant under the panic and gallop of the wounded horses. The carriage rolled sideways after a frantic gallop, and despite the coachman's best efforts, the horses caused the carriage to swing in a serpentine shape, and the archers standing on the body were thrown to the ground in an instant.

The archer dropped his bow and arrows as he landed, and he was thrown to the ground and rolled for several weeks. By the time he came to his senses and was about to get up to grab the dagger at his waist, Friedrier's shield had struck him in the head.

Friedreer snatched his dagger with a quick backhand, and after slitting the archer's throat, Friedreer quickly dodged into the stele forest without waiting for the other chariots to react.

The entire arena was stunned by Friedlier's actions, and then the crowd erupted in a tsunami-like shout.