Novalyst.
Spoiler-aware compendium Sign in
Library/ A Parade of Horribles
Reading position Whole book
Whole book
← The Compendium
Generic location illustration for The Arena
location

The Arena

the 11th-floor arena · the boss arena

The parade's terminal battleground — a dozen-football-field killing floor under a towering white tree, where the crawl's first floor boss awaits.

Story so far

The Arena, long teased as the eleventh floor's mysterious destination, is finally revealed as the parade's endpoint: a vast open killing floor the size of a dozen football fields, ringed by bleachers of silent Horrible avatars, its packed dirt already running red. Behind a Godzilla-sized white door, thousands of monsters teleport in one by one — many already fighting each other — while masked stand-ins are hunted down a hundred to one. At its center rises the towering white white tree with the boss Krakaren Prime roosting at its crown.

Its rules: the twelfth-floor entrances open only when the floor boss dies, and each crawler makes two 'choices' over their stand-ins. Carl drives in on the sluggalo-crewed chicken truck to launch his revolution, realizing the whole place is a stage of aggregate-intelligence Primals — mobs and gods alike, all victims. With 45 minutes to Level Collapse, he names his first stand-in, Scolopendra.

Appearance

A vast open dirt arena the size of a dozen football fields, a towering white tree at its center, bleachers of masked avatars in smoky shadow, the ground churned red with slaughter.

Role

The eleventh floor's terminal boss arena, where Carl launches his revolution and summons his stand-ins.

Relationships

Krakaren Prime — The floor boss roosting atop the arena's central white tree.
Carl — Who drives in to open his revolution and choose his stand-ins.
Stand-In — The masked captives slaughtered on its floor and summoned by Carl's choices.
All-TreeBk 7 — The towering white tree at the arena's center.

Earlier in this series

Also appears in books you've already read — spoiler-safe to their endings:

Sources — 2 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 16
  • A mysterious eleventh-floor arena to which killed mobs (or chosen 'stand-ins') are sent by audience vote.
Chapter 97
  • The parade's terminal battleground — a dozen-football-field killing floor under a towering white tree, where the crawl's first floor boss awaits.
Character portrait