Wordsmith 5

The mercenary leader along with the 6 other leaders were behind Brutus with their swords drawn. It was a serious offence to be a live wordsmith. Being able to control humans was just the beginning to controlling the world and plunging it into chaos like the last living live wordsmith emperor. For this reason, in the eyes of the mercenaries who were employed by the current government and believed wholeheartedly in their obligation to eradicate threats to the peace. They did what they had to do. They had seen what monstrous strength the man had, and in combination to being a live wordsmith, his head was the only thing they could take to make things right. The body of Brutus fell on the ground as the head rolled away and into a tent. Someone from inside the tent came out and looked at the headless body on the ground, and their leaders with their swords drawn. The leaders yelled at the people in the camp to gather round, and told them that Brutus was a live wordsmith who had been secretly hiding his identity, but the slaves they saved had known him from before when he did not hide and they relieved the truth. As he was talking, a growth of black worms were coming out from the head on the ground. Mercenaries slowly turned their gaze at the head and watched the black worms wiggle around and slowly form new skin. Soon everyone was looking at it. The worms were getting bigger and making skin faster. Shoulders had already been made below the neck of the head. The mercenaries looked from the body on the ground to the head and shoulders. They were a copy of each other. An hour passed and the upper body was made. Now just the legs needed to be made, and the worms were larger and more numerous than before. It would only be a few minutes now until they completed. Someone walked over to the new body and pushed a sword into it. More people came up to the body and pushed their swords into it and then backed off. The legs were almost done and now 30 swords were stuck into the back. Someone used a big axe to cut the head off again, but once they moved the axe away black worms came from the head and pulled it back onto the body. The legs finished and the body stood up. Brutus told them that even though it grew back, It still hurt, so they shouldn't do it again. Brutus then looked at the swords stuck inside him and pulled them out and placed them on the ground. Brutus walked away without looking back. He did not think his friends would betray him so quick, but they were just mercenaries after all. Even the people of his home town could only watch as a new body formed. Suddenly Brutus remembered that he wasn't wearing any clothes so he created some for him, then went back. Brutus said he just needed to do one more thing. Incinerate. The previous body of Brutus instantly caught on fire and was in a huge blaze. Brutus walked away after that.

Brutus was alone again and in a foreign nation. This nation was once covered with large trees, but during the live wordsmith emperor's reign he had most of them cut down and sent to construct his palace. Brutus traveled through fields to find a new town. The distance between towns was much larger than the center nation, but they were larger. Because of the lack of trees, fields could be used for food and so the population was higher. With the denser populations, manufactured goods were worth more in this nation and thus secret factories that used wordsmith slaves from the center nation were built. Spawn Bicycle. Brutus had seen these in his past, but never in this world. With the bicycle, he was not able to go as fast as a horse, but it was faster than walking. It took a few weeks to get to the next town. At this point, Brutus was starving. He tried to use as little wordsmithing as possible, he was already so powerful so he wouldn't need more practice, and he didn't like to rely on a world's magic system too much. Brutus had no money because he had left everything he had with the mercenaries, but even if he took it, it would only be a few thousand coins. Brutus asked someone were a man could find work in the town. Brutus was told they always needed people in the fields and he should check there. Brutus walked out and went to the fields. Brutus asked asked about work and handed a basket. He would get 30 coins for every basket he could fill with apples. 30 coins was not very much. It was just enough to buy a few apples, and each basket would hold dozens. Brutus took 3 baskets and strapped one to his back and held the other two in his hands. Brutus walked off into the distance to find some apple trees that the observer would not see. Brutus found a section far enough away and looked at the tree. Apples began to fall off it and pile into two of the baskets. Brutus then set two down and pulled the one off his back. Brutus counted as he picked the apples by hand and placed them into the basket and then waited for twice as long as that. Then he went back to deliver the apples. Brutus received his 90 coins and walked away. It was far from a large amount of coins, and it was far less than what he got from wordsmith work in the center nation. Brutus should find a fighting tournament. He used to do those kinds of things for money when a world did not have monsters to fight, but it was dangerous because he naturally never lost. Brutus went to a food vendor and bought something to eat and asked about any fighting tournaments. The food vendor told him about the Colosseum. The Colosseum was a large building in the east nation's capital that was once used to train soldiers for the fight against the live wordsmith emperor, but now was being used to host fights against people from all over. The fights could be settled with the opponent admitting defeat, but rules could be settled on for the match to only end with death of one of the fighters. Brutus used up the rest of the money he had on food and he left the town. He only had food for a day or two at most, so he would have to hunt a bit. Brutus had not hunted for food for a while, and when the children were with him he tried to keep it to a minimum.

It took a year and a half to reach the capital. Brutus was now 20 years old, so he had most of his strength unlocked. The capital was a huge city. The first floor of buildings were made from stone, but then the upper floors were made from wood. The glass was also clear, which was unusual for even the center nation. The Colosseum was just as described, huge. The floor of the Colosseum had 7 fights happening at the same time. The outer fights could be any level, but the center was restricted to the most powerful warriors. Brutus found an employee and asked them where they could register for fights. The worker directed Brutus to another worker who took them to a place under the Colosseum. In this place, there were many people suiting up and stretching. Brutus asked someone at a desk about registering for fights. Brutus was given #184 and was told to wait for his number to be called. At any moment he could go to the counter and hand in his number and he would be removed from the queue. Brutus waited a few minutes and heard his number called. He was going to stage 6. Brutus went out to the floor of the Colosseum and was directed to stage 6. The cage was huge when he entered it, and on the other side was his opponent. Brutus was naturally large looking and had his sword. There was a ref as they decided on the rules. No weapons, armor allowed, no killing. Brutus did not have armor, but he had a sword. It looked like the match was stacked against him. The opponent threw their sword down to the edge of the stage and out of the cage and Brutus did the same. They slowly approached. Brutus held back his strength quite a bit as he exchanged blows with the opponent. Brutus ended the match with a relatively weak punch that sent the opponent flying back. Even though Brutus hit his armor, the opponent clearly suffered heavy injuries. He was coughing up blood and could not continue. Brutus won his first match, as expected. Brutus received 100 coins for winning the fight. Brutus remembered when he picked the apples and only got 90 coins. Brutus waited for another match and was called. There were probably over 200 people in the underground part of the Colosseum. Brutus did a little math, if the number was 240 people and they fought for 15 minutes before finding a winner, there would be a little over 4 hours of fighting per day. Fighting lasted all day though, and most people fought several battles. Brutus went to the second match and after taking a few blows he knocked them out in one punch. Brutus fought one more time that day and was given a total of 300 coins for his efforts. It was not a large sum of money, and he would not be able to live like he had in the past, but it was enough. Brutus was able to find somewhere to sleep for 100 coins and ate with 70 coins. This left him with only 130 coins left, which was not enough to get armor which he wanted, and he didn't want to create it himself. The next day, Brutus went back to the stadium and found how he could get more money. The Colosseum had a ranking system, and it was based on the number of wins someone had. Brutus had 3 wins, so he was a 3 star warrior. People who fought in the center stage must be a 100 star warrior or more though, which meant 100 wins. An opponent was selected from anyone within 5 stars of the other person. The base pay was 100 coins, but each star would give another 10 coins starting at 5 stars. When someone lost a battle though, they gained something called shadow stars. A loss would mean losing one star, but gaining a shadow stars. Each shadow star would reduce the pay by 10 coins, and they would never be removed. This meant winning increased the pay by 10 coins but losing decreased it by 20 coins, and losers were not paid, so it would not become effective until they won again. Brutus walked away after requesting for more frequent fights. Brutus was at 4 stars and would soon be getting paid more money. He knew he would not lose.

For the next few months, Brutus was a frequent visitor of the Colosseum. He was a crowd favorite and was at over 700 stars. People were coming from all around to see the endless strength as he took on back to back opponents for hours. Almost all of his fights were unarmed, but some of them would be with weapons and his 8 foot long sword would astonish people. Most of his fighter were done without armor too. Brutus was not like he was 5 years ago. Brutus had lived in the same body for many hundreds and even thousands of years, so as he grew closer to 28 he was better able to use his strength and agility. Though he could not move at the speed of sound, he was already able to dodge anything in sight. Not even an arrow would be able to hit him if fired at his front side. Brutus was getting a large sum of coins for each fight now. It made sense though, people from all over the nation came to watch him and it cost 500 coins just to enter the Colosseum. On this day, Brutus would be fighting a group of 100 bandits who had been captured. Brutus was going to fight them all at the same time while they could use weapons and armor but he could only use armor. This was a favorite thing for the stadium, to put Brutus in an impossible situation and watch him come out with minor injuries. There were already 30,000 people in the stands as the Colosseum oppened. Brutus would begin the battle at 9 AM and continue for the rest of the day. There were no other battles happening that day. Brutus came out to the stadium which the cages were removed from to give use of the entire Colosseum. The raised platforms were still there though, but they only went up a foot and a half. Brutus went into the center stage and waited as 16 bandits were taken to the other stages. The bandits had basic armor and swords, most likely something they were captured with. A huge dong was heard to signal the start of the match and the bandits ran at Brutus. They were promised a full pardon if they were able to kill Brutus, and they all wanted to earn it for their fellow bandits. Brutus fought for the first hour mostly on the defensive. Brutus was dodging hundreds of attacks every minute from the bandits as he moved through them like water. Every so often a clink could be heard, but it was a bandit hitting another bandit on accident. 10 AM and Brutus went on the offensive. Brutus started kicking the bandits he moved through their numbers. Most bandits were on the ground in under 2 hours. The bandits were not injured so that they could not fight though, so they charged at Brutus again. The last 4 hours, Brutus slowly accumulated injuries on the bandits. He was making sure everyone got their money worth that day. The Colosseum had a share from all merchandise and food sold inside the Colosseum, so if Brutus made everyone stay longer, it would make the Colosseum owner's happy and make less chance of an assassination of Brutus. It was 4 PM and Brutus started to kill the bandits. One after the other they were taken down. Before 5 PM they were all dead. Brutus had not gotten a single hit on his body. After over 6 hours of constant fighting, the crowd had gone down to about 20,000 people, but once Brutus started hitting the bandits with enough force to send them 50 feet away, the crowd went back up. Brutus stood up in the center stage and held his hands up. He had not fought so many people in a long time, and it reminded him of when he single handedly fought armies of over 100,000. Brutus was given a huge amount of coins for this day, 1 million. It would be enough to fund his return to the center nation and his continued search for his childhood friends. Brutus turned in his number and left the stadium. Brutus thought that because his final fight had earned the Colosseum a huge amount of money he would have no enemies in the east nation' capital, but he was wrong. As Brutus tried to leave the city, he was stopped by a large amount of guards. The recognized Brutus as a threat to the serenity of the nation and he had to die. The 100 bandit fight was just a trap to try and get him killed, and even if he didn't die, he would be too tired to fight the 200,000 man army. The army was, of course, wrong. Brutus pulled the sword from his back. Everyone knew how heavy that sword was. 8 feet long and 400 down. It was made from titanium at a huge cost. Titanium was a rare metal all over, but it was stronger and lighter than steel, which made it highly sought after, unfortunately the price was just too high. Brutus though did not hesitate to drop 100,000 coins on the blade made from titanium. It took a huge amount of titanium though, so he cheated and used wordsmithing to give himself a little extra. Brutus had his armor and on his left side was a sack with over 1,000,000 coins in it, and in his right hand was his huge sword. Brutus pulled the backpack up to a better position on his back and told the soldiers he was going to leave without any problem. They were not going to let him leave though. They saw how he was able to take on 100 bandits using nothing but his fist. He would be invaluable to a foreign army. Brutus started to move forward and with a single swing of his sword a dozen soldiers fell. Brutus was a little tired from his 6 hour fight, but his sword arm was as good as ever. It was coming near morning when Brutus settled down. Behind him were the bodies of about 180,000 soldiers, but 20,000 had escaped and ran. The capital was not a war zone, so the majority of the army was not there, but in a few days they might start to mobilize on Brutus's position. Brutus left the capital again without any major injuries. He had been hit a few times, but his regeneration took care of it, and anyone that was close enough to see it was killed. Brutus went back to the center country.

Brutus's sword was well known throughout the east nation. He was constantly attacked by guards and soldiers thinking that Brutus had provoked and killed the entire capital army without warning. Brutus was getting tired of their lies and eventually he settled on spawning food for himself to eat. Brutus had managed to keep his regeneration and wordsmithing abilities a secret in the foreign nation, and now he was back in the center nation. Brutus could not go back to the east nation, and if he was going to find his friends who had been taken and made into slaves, he would have to enter secretly. Brutus waited 2 months and went back to the east nation as an exploring wordsmith. In those two month though, Brutus took on enough jobs to last him a few years. It was not hard when the people of the center nation accepted Brutus as a hero for fighting against their enemy the east nation.