When I finally reached the base of the tree, my mind began to filter the options with tactical coldness.
*Where the hell would the organizer hide the elixir?* I thought, evaluating the massive circumference of the trunk.
*Buried? Hidden among the labyrinthine roots?*
I rested my hand on the ancestral wood, calculating the logic behind that theater. The tree was enormous and thick, its roots looking like entire cities.
*No. This entire tournament was designed from the beginning to be a spectacle of pure visual sadism. If the prize were in the roots, the final battle would happen hidden in the soil, limited by mud and full of blind spots. The gods wouldn't accept that. They want a clean stage. They want to see the last survivors fighting to the death under the absolute light of the sun, where every drop of blood can be broadcasted.*
I looked up, where the thinnest branches pierced the clouds.
*The ultimate prize can only be at the point of greatest exposure.*
*The top.*
The tree was colossal, a true leviathan of nature; its branches tore through the clouds like spears of living wood.
Without wasting a second, I began to climb.
I climbed fast, ignoring the latent pain throbbing through my still-bleeding left arm and the aches all over my body.
With every meter I climbed, a strange and comforting feeling grew inside me, as if every movement brought me one step closer to the end of that hell.
I was close. I could almost feel the exit to that nightmare.
But when I finally reached the immense flat platform at the top of the tree, I was surprised.
"Are you kidding me..." I muttered, confused.
"There's nothing here."
I carefully scanned the surroundings, holding my injured arm while keeping all my senses on high alert for any movement.
The silence up there was sharp.
Until a voice cut through it like an icy blade.
"You're late."
The voice scratched the thin air at the top of the tree.
Kimiko was there. About eleven meters to my right. She was leaning awkwardly against a thick vertical branch, panting.
Her face, which I had punched repeatedly myself down on the plain, was swollen, purple, with dried blood caking the tribal tattoos on her cheek.
But despite her deplorable physical state, she was smiling.
A torn, insane smile loaded with sadism.
In her thick, trembling fingers, she casually spun a small glass vial containing a shimmering liquid.
"If you want this..." she raised the vial against the unforgiving sunlight piercing through the trees.
The magical liquid glowed, reflecting in her sickly eyes. "...you'll have to pay in blood for what you did to Sallys. And to Kaichin."
I didn't turn around immediately. I kept my back to her, but my senses absorbed everything. The sound of the wind cutting the leaves, her heavy breathing.
I calculated the distance.
The arched and pained posture she tried to hide.
The weight of my sword in my right hand.
"So let me see if I understand," I said, my voice coming out cold and calculating, turning my face slowly to look at her out of the corner of my eye.
"After getting your face smashed in and thrown in the mud, you abandoned your ally to die alone and ran up here with your tail between your legs?"
I turned my body completely toward her, keeping the tip of my sword pointed at the ground.
Kaichin's blood still ran down the dark steel and dripped onto the wood at my feet.
"Thank you," I let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"I'm almost at my limit. I definitely wouldn't have survived if I fought all of you together again."
The silence that followed weighed violently, almost suffocating.
I took a slow step to the side, dripping with provocation:
"If you climbed this entire hell and took the elixir just to try and blackmail me... you picked the wrong target, girl."
The provocation hit exactly where it hurt: her pride.
I wanted to piss her off on purpose.
The muscles in Kimiko's neck instantly popped like tensioned cords. She gritted her teeth so hard that a trickle of fresh blood ran from her cracked lip.
"AS IF I GAVE A SHIT ABOUT THIS FUCKING LIQUID!" she roared, her voice tearing her throat.
Her gaze lost any trace of humanity, swallowed by pure hysteria.
"The real prize was never the elixir! The real reason everyone is in this arena... is your head, you human bastard!"
She raised the glass vial high, squeezing it as if she wanted to crush it, parading it like a macabre trophy.
"We are perfect! And you are a mistake that should have been erased!" Her screaming fury suddenly plummeted into a cold, low, absolute tone.
She gripped the handle of her gigantic axe with her free hand.
"Now that I have your passport out of here in my hands... Kneel. Beg. And I will make your death quick."
I took a few steps toward her, dragging my boots on the hard wood. Feigning hesitation, acting like despair had finally cornered me.
But my mind was running a thousand miles an hour, mapping the edges of the trunk, the direction of the wind, and the reaction time of my injured arm.
She wanted to humiliate me. Wanted to massage her own broken ego before attacking and tasting superiority.
And that was very clear to me.
But arrogant gods hate it when the insect doesn't follow the script.
I raised my sword toward her face, my eyes dead and fixed.
"I'd rather die standing."
Kimiko's thin thread of patience snapped.
Before another word could even be processed, she exploded forward at blinding speed, crushing the tree bark with every stride.
The gigantic axe came down with an insane roar.
The blade tore through the air in a monstrous arc, hitting the ground and making the entire top of the colossal tree tremble.
Splinters of ancient wood exploded in all directions.
*VWUUUUUM!*
"That was close..." I muttered, exhausted, feeling the air displacement against my face.
Kimiko's eyes had been completely consumed by rage.
White.
Empty.
Devoured by pure hatred.
She twisted her waist and attacked again with a brutal reverse swing, trying to split me in half using nothing but raw brute strength.
The blade scraped lethally close to my ribs.
She shredded the wood beneath our feet, opening deep gouges in the top of the tree.
Kimiko roared, pouring all her fury into the battle axe. The blade descended upon me like a silver cyclone.
I raised my sword with both hands, using maximum strength to deflect the trajectory of that guillotine.
But its kinetic force was colossal.
My blade couldn't withstand the entire weight; the axe slid violently down the steel of my sword in a shower of sparks and bit into my right thigh.
The pain was indescribable.
The thick metal opened a crater in my flesh, tearing the muscle almost to the bone. Blood gushed instantly, soaking my pants and dripping down the tree's wood.
"ARGH!" I growled through clenched teeth, feeling my leg threaten to give out.
Kimiko yanked the axe with a sadistic pull to set up the next strike. I started limping instantly, dragging my wounded leg.
*I have no mobility left. It has to be now,* I thought.
I used the weight of my wounded leg as a pivot. When she raised the weapon again, leaving her chest completely exposed, I ignored the blinding pain and dove forward, invading her guard.
With a scream of pure hatred, I thrust my sword forward with everything I had.
The black blade pierced Kimiko's flesh.
The steel ran through her chest, coming out bloodied on the other side of her back.
But my eyes widened.
The angle was wrong.
I missed her heart by mere centimeters; the sword had only pierced her lung.
Kimiko froze for a second.
Her mouth opened, and a torrent of dark blood ran down her lips.
But she didn't fall.
Those white, insane eyes locked onto mine.
She spat a mouthful of boiling blood straight into my face, blinding my left eye. And, before I could pull my sword back, she launched her body forward and delivered a brutal headbutt against my forehead.
*CRACK!*
My vision flashed white. The world spun. I let go of the sword's hilt, staggering backward, completely dizzy.
In the next second, feeling the blade stuck in her own chest, Kimiko swung the axe without using the cutting edge.
She used the thick, solid steel shaft like a bat and swung with all her might against my left side.
The shaft slammed into my ribs like a battering ram.
The impact cracked my bones. I was ejected backward, slipping on blood and splintered wood, until I stopped dangerously close to the edge of the tree's colossal trunk.
I tried to get up, but my torn leg failed. I rested on one knee, pulling in ragged breaths as my vision returned to focus.
A few meters away, Kimiko was roaring, blood spraying from her lips. My sword was still driven through her body. Even drowning in her own blood, sheer hatred kept her standing.
"I'LL TAKE YOU WITH ME!!" she howled.
She charged in a final, blind lunge. Like a wounded, out-of-control bull rushing to the slaughter.
The axe raised above her head.
I stood still at the edge of the tree.
I waited until she was inches away.
Until the axe began to descend.
And then, in the exact, tiny millisecond of impact, I threw my body forward, sliding across the floor and slipping right between her legs.
Putting all my effort into my torn leg, I pushed off to jump. The moment I reached the other side, using my good leg, I aimed at the girl's center of balance and unleashed a devastating upward kick straight into Kimiko's unprotected back.
I used the speed and the uncontrolled inertia of her giant body against her.
The force of my kick acted as a perfect lever.
Kimiko's colossal body was catapulted and ejected beyond the edge of the treetop like a human projectile.
Her scream of fury turned into a howl of panic as she lost her footing.
And plummeted to the surface below.
Her body hit the earth with a dull, horrifying thud, rolling violently and tearing up the stone ground.
But incredibly, even shattered, she still tried to move. Grunting in agony, she began to drag herself desperately toward the elixir, which had slipped from her hand and fallen a few meters away. My sword had dislodged from her body and was lost somewhere down there.
"Don't you dare," I growled.
I leaped from the top of the tree, diving through the air, and landed violently right on her back.
The impact crushed Kimiko against the earth.
The ground gave way and cracked deeply around us, forming a small crater.
But even destroyed and pinned beneath my boots, Kimiko released a monstrous aura, trying to rise and crawl forward. I felt the energy around her burning the soles of my boots, forcing me to jump away from her.
There was nothing human or divine left in Kimiko's eyes. What crawled on the earth was a creature consumed by pure bestiality.
A thick, dark foam, mixed with blood from her punctured lung, oozed between her gritted teeth and dripped into the mud with every hoarse breath.
Her colossal, torn muscles trembled violently, and the tribal tattoos glowed like live embers, burning her own skin as she sucked up the last drop of her life force for a suicidal attack with her axe.
That was when the reality around me flickered.
The image of the ruined arena vanished for a second, replaced by a sickly purple sky. The cold air of the plain gave way to a suffocating heat smelling of sulfur.
The crushing gravity of that damned training planet weighed instantly on my shoulders, as if reminding my bones where I had come from.
In my memory, I was on my knees on cracked, volcanic earth, coughing up blood clots.
Less than ten meters from me, a colossal beast with scales resembling glowing magma was rearing back.
The monster opened its molten jaw, sucking in all the oxygen and energy from the environment, concentrating every drop of its own life force in the back of its throat for a single, catastrophic blast of energy.
Kneeling and exhausted, my eyes swept the desert. I searched desperately for a rock, a crater, any escape route.
I was about to run.
"Stop."
The voice cut through the beast's deafening sound. Calm. Cold. Absolute.
Silver was sitting on a black rock right next to me, his legs crossed, his chin resting on his hand, watching my near-death with an expression of profound boredom.
"If you turn your back to try and run now, that energy will catch you and you will die like a coward," he said.
The glow in the monster's throat illuminated the desert in a blood-red hue.
"Pay attention, boy," Silver continued, his voice perfectly clear even over the creature's roar.
"If your enemy pours all their power into a single attack, it means they want to end the fight right then and there. They are betting their own life against yours."
I gripped my sword, my hands shaking, while the ground around the monster began to melt from the pressure.
"If they are weak, just kill them effortlessly," Silver said, his green eyes narrowing slightly.
"But if they are strong enough to truly threaten you..."
The beast launched its body forward, unleashing the beam of pure destruction.
Silver cracked a half-smile.
"...THEN FIGHT WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE. AND LET THE STRONGEST WIN!"
The memory shattered like glass.
The purple sky vanished, and the arena's air filled my lungs once again.
Down below, crawling in the mud with a bleeding chest, Kimiko howled and released a monstrous aura, focusing all the power she had left to try and crush me along with what remained of the area.
I knew exactly what to do.
We both began gathering the energy remaining in our bodies simultaneously.
My aura began to exude over my body, and I concentrated all my energy and strength into my right arm.
The air around us stopped moving, subjected to a suffocating pressure coming from below.
Our auras didn't just explode; they became autonomous gravitational masses, colliding with each other like two violent, unstable electromagnetic fields.
Sparks of distorted black energy and blinding white light crackled at the point of contact, a few meters away from me.
The tension in the arena was unbearable, a morbid silence broken only by the deafening hum of our conflicting powers.
High up in the stands, Hesiod, the Narrator, was nearly choking on his own microphone.
"THIS ISN'T A FIGHT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! IT'S A HUMAN PARTICLE COLLIDER! THEY ARE BETTING EVERY INCH OF THEIR LIVES ON THIS FINAL CHARGE! WHO WILL FALL FIRST?! THE DIVINE REALM WATCHES IN SHOCKED SILENCE!"
Up there, the flawless posture of Silver's disciple and wife went straight into the trash.
Laura grabbed the collar of her own clothes, pulling the fabric as if she were going to tear it, her wide red eyes reflecting the flash of the energies below.
"SUKI! YOU CAN DO IT!" she screamed, her voice breaking the sound barrier and the magic glass parapet, mingling with the chaos of the battle.
Beside her, Kânia, always serene, stood at the edge of the section, her hands covering her mouth, but her eyes screamed in terror.
She couldn't articulate words, only the ancestral fear of losing the boy Silver had forced her to look after.
I didn't hear the screams. I didn't hear the narrator.
I only heard my own heart beating slowly and the sound of the world being torn apart.
Kimiko roared one last time, her voice hoarse with blood, fury, and pure insanity.
She concentrated all the strength of her Family into the blade of her battle axe and charged in a suicidal attack.
I didn't have my sword; it was stuck somewhere nearby.
I only had my nearly useless left arm, my torn leg, and all the training Silver had forced me to survive.
I focused all my black, corrosive, distorted aura into my fingertips.
And I attacked.
The colossal steel of the axe clashed against the flesh and power of my fist.
*BOOOOOOOOOOM!*
The collision of two absolute and opposing powers created an energetic singularity. A funnel of distorted black and white light, so dense it seemed solid, erupted from the point of contact—a true pillar of pure energy—and shot vertically into the air, tearing through the stadium's sky and slicing the clouds as if they were thin paper.
The air displacement around us was lethal.
The destruction was instantaneous.
The ground beneath our feet, the ancient wood of the great tree beside us creaked.
And the top of the colossal tree began to tilt heavily to the side, threatening to collapse under the suffocating pressure of our energetic climax.
Minor gods up above gripped their chairs, terrified.
For a second, the force seemed balanced. But Kimiko's fury was blind and desperate; my power was focused and destructive.
I overpowered her.
I began to feel the black energy corroding her pillar of white light. I wasn't just pushing; I was destroying the very existence of her attack.
The solid steel handle of her axe, which was already bending, began to crack under the insane pressure of my concentrated fist.
*CRACK!*
And then, it gave way. The gigantic weapon snapped in two, the blades and shrapnel flying harmlessly away from the vertical impact.
My fist continued its trajectory, relentless, imbued with all the pain, training, and hatred I carried.
I overpowered her.
My punch drove straight into the center of Kimiko's chest, in the exact spot where my sword had pierced her ribcage earlier.
The distorted black energy exploded inside her body.
I heard every remaining bone in her body shatter under the impact. Her colossal frame couldn't withstand the pressure.
The black power erupted through her chest and exploded out her back, obliterating what was left of Kimiko's humanity.
Bursting her from the inside out in a wave of flesh, bone, blood, and corrupt energy.
Her blind, white aura vanished instantly, leaving only the void and the black smoke floating over the wreckage of the battlefield and the toppled top of the colossal tree nearby.
When the thick smoke finally began to dissipate, the world plunged into absolute silence.
Only the distant echoes of a place completely in ruins.
Waterfalls in the distance cascaded crookedly over shattered rocks. The torn clouds in the sky raced by quickly, as if fleeing the shockwave.
Exhausted, I struggled to pull in air as I stared at the obliterated ground.
And then I saw it.
Wedged in a crack between the destroyed stones...
The elixir.
"It's still intact..." I muttered, my voice weak with pure relief.
My hands trembled violently when I reached for the small glass vial.
I was about to pull the cork when—
A sharp hum sliced the heavens. Two figures descended from the clouds and struck the ground like meteors.
Two gods.
The divine pressure that crashed down upon the arena was crushing. The air became thick as molten lead.
The very laws of physics seemed to waver and bend before their presence.
Breathing became an agonizing task.
And among them... was Riku.
Kaichin's father.
The God of Pride.
My mind went into slow motion.
*After all this... They are still going to kill me? So that was it... It was all planned from the beginning!!?*
But before the two gods could even raise a hand to attack...
A third presence manifested.
It simply happened before my simple eyes could process reality.
Silver was standing in front of them.
The monstrous and suffocating pressure of the two gods vanished instantly, as if the entire world had bowed its head in submission.
Silver's aura didn't feel aggressive.
It simply existed *above* everything, like an absolute order, a judge in a courtroom.
A silent explosion of energy swept across the arena from Silver's body.
The gods' attacks were repelled in the blink of an eye. Waves of invisible destruction spread across the battlefield, erasing from existence the little that still stood in the arena.
Space-time itself seemed to groan.
The air twisted.
At that moment, I couldn't even breathe anymore, making me fall to my knees.
"He... merely raised a finger..." I murmured.
Silver broke the silence.
His voice was paralyzingly cold:
"You really don't want to continue this."
He tilted his head slightly.
"Do you?"
Riku gritted his teeth aggressively, trying to hide the panic overflowing in his own eyes.
"Don't get carried away, Silver!" Riku bellowed, his voice failing his divine posture.
"You know very well what this child could turn into! We do not want another one like that bastard in this universe! Think carefully!"
Elfhing, the Elf Queen and mother of Sallys, stepped forward, desperate:
"That cursed creation will bring the end of us all!"
I didn't wait to see the end of the argument; I used the divine distraction in my favor.
With trembling, bloodied hands, I pulled the cork from the elixir.
And drank every last drop without hesitating.
Silver turned his face to me and smiled faintly.
"Good boy."
When I swallowed it all, I threw the empty vial toward the gods. The glass rolled slowly across the destroyed floor.
Until one of their boots crushed it against the stone.
Silver placed his heavy hand on my shoulder and began to guide me away from the center of the disaster.
I could barely walk.
I dragged my body forward using the last pathetic scraps of strength I still possessed.
That was when something changed.
A dense, hot, and absurdly heavy sensation began to spread through my veins.
My vision failed, darkening at the edges.
My fingertips began to go numb, the ground simply seemed to disappear beneath my boots.
"What... is this?..." I babbled, my mind clouding over, nearly unconscious. "Something... inside me... is changing..."
There was no time to understand; my body gave out completely.
And I collapsed, unconscious, in Silver's arms.