The Antarctic arena had turned into a warzone.
Inside the vast, expanded battlefield, the scale of everything felt distorted—like stepping into a world built for giants. Skyscrapers towered like monoliths, their upper floors vanishing into the clouds. Trees stretched dozens of meters high, their trunks thick as steel pillars. Even the grass reached up to a person's waist, swaying like a dense, living sea.
And within that oversized world, the competitors clashed.
In the superhuman division, every fighter moved with lethal intent. There were no second chances here—only survival.
A bearded man roared as he lunged forward, his body igniting with power.
"Let's see you take this!"
A blazing arc of energy slashed outward from his strike, carving through the air in a streak of fire. The heat alone warped the space around it as it tore into a distant building, slicing through reinforced walls like paper and surging toward his opponent.
Alex pushed forward, confidence burning just as fiercely as his attack.
He wasn't fighting alone.
Behind him stood an entire region's investment—resources, power, preparation. He had been built for this moment.
And his ability made him even more dangerous.
Three seconds into the future, he could see it.
Every incoming attack appeared in his mind before it happened. Not just once, but branching possibilities—different outcomes depending on how he reacted. It was like playing out dozens of scenarios in an instant, each one guiding him toward survival.
That power had already carried him through two brutal matches.
But now—
His expression froze.
In his mind, the future played out again.
And every version ended the same way.
Death.
His flaming strike struck his opponent head-on… and barely left a mark.
The man didn't dodge. Didn't block. He just walked through it.
Then, in less than a heartbeat, he crossed the distance between them—over a hundred meters—closing in with terrifying speed.
And then—
Impact.
Alex saw himself reduced to nothing more than shattered flesh under a pair of unstoppable fists.
His breath hitched.
No… that's not right.
He tried again.
Another possibility. Another choice.
Retreat?
He saw himself turning to run—only to be caught instantly, his chest crushed in from behind.
Surrender?
His knees didn't even touch the ground before his spine was torn apart.
Fight harder?
He lasted half a second longer before being obliterated.
Every path.
Every option.
Every outcome.
Death within three seconds.
Panic surged through him, cold and suffocating.
His mind raced, generating solution after solution, each collapsing into the same inevitable conclusion. It wasn't just that he couldn't win—
There was no escape.
Time stretched thin as he searched for something—anything—that led to survival.
Nothing came.
And then reality caught up.
To an outside observer, Alex hadn't moved at all. He stood frozen in place, eyes wide, as if his body had simply shut down.
A moment later, the giant of a man in front of him arrived.
And ended it with a single strike.
The impact was brutal.
"What, no fight?" the man muttered, staring down at what remained with a hint of disappointment. "That's it?"
He rolled his shoulders, clearly unsatisfied.
He hadn't realized that his opponent had already fought—and lost—a hundred battles in his own head before the first punch landed.
The victor's name was Mahivacha.
Broad-shouldered and towering, his physique alone made him look like a walking tank. But his true strength came from something else entirely.
Speed.
His ability let him break past normal physical limits, pushing his body to move at several times its natural maximum. Not just fast—impossibly fast.
Just days ago, he'd been an ordinary civilian with no criminal record.
Then he made a decision.
If entering the tournament required a death sentence… he'd earn one.
The authorities had uncovered an absurd quantity of illegal narcotics tied to him—enough to guarantee immediate execution. What they didn't know was that he hadn't built that operation.
He'd stolen it.
Specifically, from a government-controlled stockpile slated for destruction.
After arranging just enough evidence to make the charges stick, he turned himself in.
The sentence came swiftly.
So did the offer.
And once he accepted, everything changed.
Enhancements flooded in.
His body was reinforced, pushed far beyond its natural limits. His weight was reduced without sacrificing strength, making every movement faster and more efficient. His mind was sharpened, his will hardened until pain barely registered.
His stamina became effectively endless. Injuries healed almost as quickly as they were inflicted.
Even his capacity for energy storage was expanded, allowing him to sustain that speed far longer than anyone else could.
Then came the training.
Not in real time—but in accelerated mental simulations, where years of combat experience were compressed into days.
By the time he stepped onto the battlefield, he wasn't just prepared.
He was engineered.
And he wasn't alone.
Several others from his region had undergone similar enhancements, each one refined into a near-professional-level combatant.
Because this tournament wasn't just about criminals.
Not anymore.
With victory tied directly to future resources and influence, every match had become something else entirely.
A contest of nations.
The fighters in the arena might wear the label of "criminal," but behind each of them stood entire systems—governments, institutions, populations—pouring everything they had into a single representative.
And for smaller regions?
There was no catching up.
Not in a game like this.