Regression of the Tower's Final Survivor-Chapter 87: Astrid’s Fight

The Pit smelled like blood and sweat, which made it feel almost like home.

Astrid descended the stairs into Umbral’s underground fighting arena, her axe left at the door because apparently even criminals had rules about acceptable weapon sizes. The space opened up below street level, a natural cavern converted into an amphitheater of violence where the city’s less respectable citizens came to watch people hurt each other for money and entertainment.

She loved it immediately.

"First time?" The doorman was a scarred Noctis with patterns deliberately mutilated, probably as punishment for some past transgression. "Surface types usually don’t know about this place."

"I heard there was fighting. I wanted to fight." She kept her answer simple. Complicated lies required complicated maintenance.

"Registration is at the bar. Standard rules: no killing unless both parties agree, no magic above C-rank, and no weapons larger than your forearm." He looked her over, noting the calluses on her hands and the way she carried herself. "You’re not here to watch, are you?"

"Never."

The arena floor was packed with spectators surrounding a central pit where two fighters were already engaged in what looked like a submission grappling match. The crowd roared appreciation as one combatant locked in a chokehold and the other tapped out immediately, suggesting the match was more about show than actual competition.

Astrid pushed through to the bar, where a heavyset woman with the kind of smile that suggested she’d seen everything twice looked her over with professional assessment.

"Fresh meat. You come from the upper floors?"

"Came down with the Lightbreakers. Looking for something to do while the leader handles politics."

The bartender’s smile widened at the team name. "Lightbreakers? As in Dante Graves? The one who’s been burning through Umbral like a forest fire?"

"That’s the one."

"Well, well." She reached under the bar and produced a registration crystal. "Name for the books?"

"Astrid. Just Astrid."

"Path?"

"Berserker. Iron Edge variant." No point hiding it. Anyone who watched her fight would figure it out fast enough.

"Fighting style?"

Astrid smiled with too many teeth. "Overwhelming violence until the other person stops getting up."

The bartender laughed and slid a token across the bar. "Tournament starts in an hour. Singles bracket, no elimination for first-round losses, finals are best of three. Prize pool is five thousand credits and a favor from the Pit Master."

"Who’s the Pit Master?"

"Someone you don’t want to owe favors to." The smile turned knowing. "But someone who’s very useful to know."

Ten minutes later, she was standing in the prep room, the smell of stale sweat and old blood thick in the air.

The first round turned out to be disappointing.

Her opponent was a Noctis with enhanced reflexes and what he probably thought was an intimidating fighting stance. Astrid hit him once, felt bone crunch beneath her fist, and watched him collapse with the particular expression of someone who’d just realized they were outclassed in every way that mattered.

The crowd’s reaction was mixed: some cheered the brutality while others muttered about foreigners showing up and making their local champions look bad.

Astrid didn’t care about either opinion. She was here to fight, not to make friends.

The second round was better. Her opponent was a human woman with muscle density that suggested serious conditioning and a fighting style that actually responded to Astrid’s aggression with counters instead of panic. They traded blows for almost three minutes before Astrid caught her with a combination that dropped her to one knee, then followed up with a kick that ended the match decisively.

"You’re good." The woman accepted a hand up, her respect genuine despite the bruises already forming across her face. "Most surface types come down here thinking they’re special and end up on their backs in thirty seconds."

"I’ve been fighting my whole life." Astrid helped her to the bench at the arena’s edge. "This is just a different venue."

"Keep moving like that and you’ll make finals. Word of advice though?" The woman leaned closer. "The current champion has won seventeen straight matches. He’s not just skilled, he’s connected. Pit Master’s personal enforcer."

"Good." Astrid’s smile was all teeth. "I like a challenge."

The fight itself was disappointing. Her opponent was fast, but predictable.

The semifinal, however, almost made her rage.

Her opponent wasn’t a fighter in any traditional sense. He was a kid, maybe sixteen, with bruises that were too old and fear in his eyes that had nothing to do with the upcoming match. Someone had pushed him into the ring, someone had bet on him to lose, and someone planned to collect on both ends of that transaction.

Astrid had seen arrangements like this before. Debt fighting. You owed someone money you couldn’t pay, so they put you in the ring and took your losses as entertainment for their paying customers.

The crowd wanted blood. The kid expected pain. The handlers at ringside counted their profits.

Astrid looked at the boy across the pit and made a decision.

"Forfeit," she told him.

His eyes went wide. "What?"

"Tell them you forfeit. I withdraw from the match."

"I can’t, they’ll—"

"Who’s holding your debt?"

He hesitated, fear warring with hope in his expression. "Morek. The big one near the entrance."

Astrid turned toward the crowd, spotted the debt-holder, and committed his face to memory. Then she faced the ring official.

"This match doesn’t happen. The kid forfeits and walks out of here free. Anyone has a problem with that arrangement, they can take it up with me in the finals."

The official hesitated, clearly unused to competitors making demands.

"You can’t just—"

"I can. I am." Astrid stepped out of the ring and walked directly toward Morek, the crowd parting in front of her like water around a stone. The debt-holder was large, confident in the way that came from never being challenged, and surrounded by associates who looked like they knew which end of a blade went where.

"You own that kid’s debt."

Morek looked down at her with the contempt of someone who’d never learned that size wasn’t everything. "What’s it to you?"

"His debt is cleared. We’re done here."

"We’re done when I say we’re done." He reached for something under his coat.

Astrid hit him before his hand got halfway there.

The blow wasn’t full berserker strength, she wasn’t trying to kill him, but it was enough to fold him in half and send him staggering into his associates. They scrambled for weapons, but Astrid was already moving, a whirlwind of controlled violence that left three of them on the ground before the rest figured out that fighting her wasn’t worth whatever they were being paid.

"The kid’s debt is cleared," she repeated, standing over Morek’s groaning form. "Anyone else want to discuss it?"

Nobody did.

The Pit Master was waiting in his office, a space that looked more like a bank vault than a fighting arena’s administrative center.

The finals were everything she’d hoped for.

The champion was a Noctis named Kaleth, built like he’d been designed for fighting and carrying himself with the confidence of someone who’d never lost. His patterns pulsed with each heartbeat, and his eyes tracked her movements with the hyper-awareness of a true predator.

"The surface berserker." His voice carried across the pit. "I heard you disrupted one of Morek’s arrangements."

"Morek was running a child as a debt fighter. He deserved worse."

"Perhaps." Kaleth smiled, and there was nothing friendly in it. "But the Pit has rules, and you broke several of them. The Pit Master wants a word."

"After we fight."

"Oh, we’re definitely fighting." He dropped into a stance that spoke of years of training. "I just wanted you to know what’s waiting for you when I’m done breaking your arms."

The bell rang.

Astrid let the rage come, and the fight that followed was the best she’d experienced in months.

Kaleth was fast, strong, and skilled in ways that forced her to actually think instead of just overwhelming opponents with raw aggression. He countered her berserker charges with precision strikes, read her patterns with frightening accuracy, and punished every mistake with hits that would have dropped lesser fighters.

But Astrid wasn’t a lesser fighter.

The rage built with each exchange, each hit she took and gave, each moment of violence that fed the fire burning in her blood. She stopped thinking tactically and started fighting on pure instinct, her body moving faster than conscious thought could direct.

Kaleth’s confidence flickered when he realized she wasn’t slowing down.

She hit him with a combination that she didn’t remember planning, three strikes that folded him around her fist and sent him staggering back with actual fear in his eyes. He recovered quickly, countered with a kick that would have broken ribs if it landed clean, but she took it on her arm and used the momentum to close distance.

They crashed together in the center of the pit, grappling and striking in a tangle of limbs that the crowd couldn’t follow. Astrid felt something crack in her side, ignored it, and slammed her forehead into his nose with a sound like breaking wood.

As Kaleth’s grip loosened, she threw him.

He hit the ground hard enough to shake dust from the cavern ceiling, and before he could recover, she was on him, one hand around his throat and the other raised for a finishing blow.

The rage screamed at her to end it. To feel his windpipe collapse. To watch the light leave his eyes.

She didn’t listen.

"Yield," she said, her voice rough with suppressed fury.

Kaleth stared at her, at the fist that could have killed him and didn’t, and something shifted in his expression.

"I yield."

The crowd erupted in cheers.

---

The Pit Master found her afterward, while she was getting the damage to her ribs wrapped by a healer who asked no questions and charged double for the privilege.

"Astrid of the Lightbreakers." The voice was female, refined in ways that didn’t match the surroundings. "You’ve made quite the impression tonight."

She turned to find a Noctis woman in expensive clothing, her patterns arranged in deliberate designs that marked her as someone of status. Not a fighter, not a criminal, but something else entirely.

"You run this place."

"I own this place. There’s a difference." The Pit Master settled onto a bench nearby, studying Astrid with interest that felt clinical rather than threatening. "You broke my rules, embarrassed one of my associates, and then won my tournament with a display of controlled violence that has everyone talking."

"Are you mad about it?"

"I’m intrigued." A slight smile. "Morek was becoming a liability. His debt-fighting arrangements attracted attention that threatened the Pit’s discretion. You eliminated the problem in a way that I couldn’t do directly without appearing weak to my other associates."

"So I did you a favor."

"You did. Which is why I’m here instead of my enforcers." The Pit Master leaned forward slightly. "I have connections to House Morveth. Not the corrupted leadership that your leader is apparently investigating, but the lower ranks, the practical operators who handle enforcement without caring about politics. They’re scared of what’s happening to their House and looking for alternatives."

"And you’re offering to connect us."

"For a price."

Astrid waited.

"The Lightbreakers are going to shake Umbral before you leave. When you do, when you expose whatever rot is eating at Morveth’s foundation, I want protection. Guarantee that the Pit continues to operate without interference, and I’ll give you access to people who can help you tear down the corruption from inside."

It was exactly the kind of deal Dante would want. Inside contacts, leverage against House Morveth, all for the cost of looking the other way at an underground fighting ring.

"I’ll talk to him," Astrid said.

"That’s all I ask." The Pit Master stood to leave. "Oh, and Astrid? That boy you saved? He works for me now. Legitimate security, not debt fighting. Thought you’d want to know."

She disappeared into the crowd, and Astrid sat alone with her wrapped ribs and her fading rage and the satisfied warmth of a night well spent.

She’d come looking for a fight, but she’d found something more useful instead.