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The Arena of Saint Turrasa
District 25, Mar’si, Grand Theocratic Empire of the Holy Marsh
07:00 AM
Day eight of the Conclave was the final day Arch-Bishop Lainika would draw breath.
It had begun at midnight. She had made her entrance and by decree had banned any great fanfare or introduction for her. “Arshita Lainika, Holy Warrior,” was all that came out of the arena’s loudspeakers as she walked barefoot out onto the stone and sand of the arena floor. The fifty thousand in attendance did their part, however- cheering, chanting, but for the most part, prayer. Endless prayers from many Shrines and from the core joint texts. That was as she willed it. Her death would come with prayer, and what a death it would be.
Not for her was bending the knee to the systemic memetic contagion that had been unleashed upon her during the Long War. Her prodigious physical form, indomitable faith, and crushing disinterest in acknowledging the works of the Great Enemy disallowed it any import in her life. Yet despite all the methods available to the Holy Warriors, in time it made advances on her. The Medical System of the Church at large could have cured it, but the Holy Warriors did not trust it. It was not something that was fully understood or could be fully replicated. As such, she refused to use it.
That meant that when she was given the news two weeks ago that her infection had spread to nearly all parts of her body and it would soon cause her cellular structure to collapse, she knew what she needed to do. She needed to die doing what she had been very literally bred to do- kill the enemies of her Faith. So she decided to die in the arena, killing the POWs of various anti-slaver wars that were awaiting Final Processing. She would fight and kill and fight and kill and fight and kill kill kill kill until she breathed no more and in this explosion of violence find the only peace someone of true faith could ever really achieve.
The two weeks that followed could be described as chaotic by those who had not grown up with fields aflame and shell as sustenance, but Lainika found it all rather trite. Her final orders, her last two mass services, a flurry of proclamations and orders and the workings of faith and state. It was nothing compared to a true, final martyrdom. She went into the arena with gladness in her heart. That and, of course, a sheer and unrivaled contempt and loathing for all enemies of the faith and especially slavers that night,
She had given orders to summon one-thousand POWs. Her one rule for them- they had to have been in uniform when captured. They needed to provide a real challenge. The Arena Masters would then organize the rest. They were released to fight her alone (if they were considered to be superior fighters), in pairs, or even four at a time depending on skill level. Most were given some manner of combat knife and she would have her kukri. The same kukri she had been given nearly seventy years ago as a child and then buried in the chests of numberless cultists in her youth.
After signing a few more declarations of wars and other less important documents, she made her way to the arena. She stripped off all decorations of her office, released her guards, and made her way to the arena with only a single Holy Warrior- a lifelong friend- as her guard and guide. The Militia had ensured a straight path to the Arena which was difficult in the best of times, and worse now. Of the twenty arenas, Saint Turrasa was chosen only because it was the closest. It didn’t have the largest capacity and a number of them were newer and better for international broadcast but she didn’t truly care. She just wanted to kill some fucking slaving scum one more time before she died.
And she would. After she had entered and after the customary prayer, the combat began in earnest. First came the pairs. No great difficulty. She was older but she had experienced a lifetime of war before many people took their first drink. She didn’t unsheathe her kukri for the first hour of the fighting. She snapped necks, disarmed her opponents and turned their weapons on themselves, brutalized them with disabling strikes before leaving them to die paralyzed, and otherwise had a relatively breezy time. Then some individual fighters who were far more competent. She got some bruises from a number of them and it was during one of these encounters that she finally pulled out her kukri.
After a Ralkovian Death Guard Colonel fell dead at her feet, a number of quad teams and duos were sent against her. Her kukri worked like a charm. A sea of heads, limbs and viscera- a chorus of screams and prayers. The arena was her cathedral and her gospel was fire. Singles. A few cuts this time. When a DWI Corporate Liason and Security Official Executive fell without his head, it didn’t land on the ground. It was a pile. The blood flowed through the grates like rivers. More importantly the pathways out of the gates became difficult and it was decided a five minute break was in order. The pathways needed to be cleared so the combatants could have a clear field of view and movement. Fairness!
Alternating teams and singles followed. As four in the morning rolled she started to feel the effects of her combats. A few of the cuts bled well though not in any truly dangerous fashion. Punches, kicks, chokes and other strikes had landed in bits and pieces over time. Her body was pushing over seventy years of age and she had not slept. The disease was ravaging her stamina. Still, she fought. It wasn’t until five in the morning that her thread was nearly cut the first time.
It was, well enough, a Cultist Berserker, his tongue cut to prevent his blasphemic memetic contagion from spreading. Normally they would have been killed on sight but he had been discovered in some backwater by the Inquisition just as she was looking for proper opponents and he was immediately siphoned off. Berserkers were in many ways the Cultist Holy Warrior. They were bred in their blasphemic fashion by the Ceremonies of the Cult to provide for that filthy, unholy series of heresies a soldier for whom pain was unknown, dog-like obedience was expected, and whose very flesh was a weapon. She had killed a few in her youth and she had made sure to include one tonight.
But she was not that young woman and it was after five hours of combat that they engaged. He was a battering ram with a gator roll, a mountain gorilla with a poisonous surface. The fight with him lasted nearly fifteen minutes. Blow after blow rained down on her. She found herself on the defensive, taking whatever small chunks she could off of him. She could not decapitate him or indeed cripple him to any great extent. Chip, chip, chip while avoiding his thundering blows. She couldn’t do so forever, of course. He crushed her against the side of a wall. She felt her entire jawline fracture underneath a punch. Her rib cage snapped to a stomp. He finally died, his hands around her neck and nearly shattering her trachea even as the life left his vile body.
She was given a few seconds to regain herself before the next pair was sent in. From that moment on for the next hour or so she acted purely on instinct. More cuts. More bruises. A knife wound to her leg. A deep slashing cut on her cheek. Around six-thirty there was brief excitement when someone was thought to have cut her throat, but it was indeed false. As the seven o’clock hour rolled around, she engaged someone well beneath her abilities in a lengthy duel. For many reasons- wounds, the increasing inability of her body to keep up, lack of sleep, many other negative ones as well- but also to regain some of her energy. It was clear that she had little left to give, but give it she would.
It ended when she twirled out of her opponent’s arc and her kukri found purchase in his skull, his own strike having barely missed the top of her head. She pulled it out with some effort and he fell to the ground, dead. Once more the arena had become a hellhole of flesh to navigate. So was she. Lainika could feel everything draining from her. Every breath was sent crystalline, shocking extensions of pain throughout her body. Her chest radiated pain- lungs, shattered ribs, and a heart that was certainly trying to murder her. Her jaw was furiously disconnected from the rest of her structure. It moved separate of her head, held together by fleshy bits. Her skull was fractured. Her brain screamed for release- for death, for sleep, for rest, for anything- not knowing whether a strike was occurring or whether her fractured consciousness was simply that scattered. Multiple organs were bleeding internally. Her cuts streamed blood and painted her crimson on top of crimson, dried blood caking her and allowing the new coat of blood settle ever higher.
Most who saw the combat expected her to fall within the hour, and that bet seemed like a good one to Lainika herself. She would not have her life for long. Sadly for her opponents, she would continue to sell it off in installments and reap from them payment in excess, in blood, in death, and would die having paid her share of the blood debt of all mankind.
The gates opened.
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Mount Mar’si
First Cathedral Tunnel System
Mar’si, Holy Marsh
Cerisa Alahana, Cardinal of the Female Shrine and frontrunner for the position of Arch-Bishop, watched one of the several dozen televisions that had been installed in decades previous. As the next competitor charged across the crimson field of the arena towards the Lainika, broken and deadly as she was, Cerisa couldn’t help but feel an immense sense of joy. How lucky was Lainika to find her end having brutalized so many Slavers and Heretics in the immediacy of her life’s extermination? That was a gift from the Holy Marsh Herself, blessed be Her Name and Ways, no doubt.
It was a nice return for the gift Lainika had given her flock. The announcement had given the Conclave time to form and debate before her death, meaning that the time drew near when Cerisa would be declared the Arch-Bishop. The Cardinal Council would be in charge of the affairs of the Theocracy for only a few hours, or maybe a day or two. Many times had it been that the Arch-Bishop’s death had been sudden, and the Cardinal Council forced to rule while the Conclave made its decision. Luckily for her, that meant she could ably project her power into the Conclave as one of the few Cardinals in attendance.
It had worked in her favor and she was easily the most likely candidate to become Arch-Bishop. She had a great many allies to bolster her strong position but that did not come without challenge. Indeed, she had been greatly wearied by a vigorous and intense debate between herself and the First Claw of the Non-Human Shrine. After fifteen hours she had been forced from her attempt to call for a vote in her favor. It had been great work by the First Claw. Sebastian, the Second Claw, was another likely candidate and a worthy intellect. They had done well to increase his influence and she considered him a very potent foe, the worthiest of all.
He was not alone, though she had come prepared. Her large room of stone and cement was in use by two dozen other attendants who had come along with her. They were all experts in various fields, primarily theological and language, diplomacy and organization. Their primary job was to work over the theological arguments being presented and formulate deconstructive attack strategies as well as supportive angles and theologically potent arguments for her candidacy. Others would meet with potential allies and form alliances with other Shrines, hoping to earn their support over time. Everyone had done well, but there was a lot of ground left to cover.
Sebastian and the Non-Human Shrine were her primary concern, but Ochasta and the Warrior Shrine would always present her with problems. Sasha and the Commune Shrine...she didn’t think they had the fortitude to win. Then again, she had said that about them getting this far. Prala and the Engineering Shrine proved to be competent but Cerisa was confident she could fold them in time. She didn’t think much of the Artist’s Shrine and their chances but she could at last acknowledge the audacity of their existence so far into the Conclave. The Meritocratic Shrine had been as tough as expected but she was confident that their candidate’s unusual nature would see to its defeat. Same for the Draconic Shrine- tough foe? Perhaps, but she believed that her arguments were infinitely stronger than theirs.
The light next to their large metal door changed, signalling the Conclave was back in session. Cerisa rose from her seat just as Lainika killed her next opponent to the pleasing chant and prayers of the crowd.
The door opened for Cerisa. The gate opened for Lainika’s next opponent.