A fountain of blinding, superheated orange blood sprayed across the arena as Kai's sword cleanly sliced through the hardened obsidian skin and deep into the thick muscle of Prince Zhao Long's right pectoral.
The superheated blood hit the Colosseum floor, instantly flash-melting the Qi-absorbing sand into patches of smooth, smoking glass.
The Prince stumbled backward, his striking violet eyes wide as he looked down at the deep, glowing fissure across his chest. His "invulnerable" Rank 10 foundation had been breached by a First-Year commoner.
The Colosseum held its collective breath. The silence was absolute, heavier than the gravity cuffs on Kai's wrists. Up in the Faculty Balcony, Vice-Dean Kael actually gripped the marble railing, his data-stream spectacles flashing with rapid, incredulous calculations. The nobles in the upper tiers braced themselves, fully expecting the Imperial Heir to erupt into a fit of humiliated, blinding rage. They expected him to scream about his pedigree, summon the Imperial Guard, and order Kai's immediate execution for striking royal blood.
Instead, Prince Zhao Long did the exact opposite.
He touched the superheated magma-blood leaking from his chest, rubbed the viscous, glowing fluid between his fingers, and then looked back up at Kai.
The Prince began to laugh.
It started as a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrated through the molten sand, quickly escalating into a booming, manic roar of pure, unadulterated ecstasy. The aristocratic elegance he had been forced to portray his entire life vanished completely, replaced by the terrifying, bloodthirsty grin of a true battle maniac.
"Yes!" Zhao Long roared, his voice trembling with a massive surge of adrenaline. "Finally! I've spent a year sparring with pampered cowards who are too afraid of my title to actually swing their blades with killing intent! But you... you really tried to cut me in half, didn't you, commoner?"
Kai didn't lower his sword. His molten-gold eyes tracked the Prince's erratic, excited movements, the Sovereign's Edge still humming with high-frequency resonance. "I aim for the center of mass. Your title doesn't deflect steel."
"Good!" Zhao Long spat, his aura flaring violently, burning away the top half of his ruined silk uniform to reveal a torso carved from living, obsidian-like stone.
With a flick of his wrist, the Prince pulled a glowing, crimson pill from his spatial ring and tossed it into his mouth.
It wasn't a standard coagulation pill; it was a Royal-Grade Phoenix-Marrow Pill, forged from the spinal fluid of a Tier-6 volcanic avian. The moment he swallowed it, the dense, tectonic Qi in his body surged to catastrophic levels. The deep cut across his chest hissed violently, expelling a cloud of thick white steam. The superheated muscle fibers rapidly knitted back together in a matter of seconds, the flesh hardening like molten rock cooling in freezing water, leaving only a jagged, glowing orange scar.
"You've proven your vessel, Hart," Zhao Long grinned, cracking his thick, obsidian-hardened knuckles. "You are a worthy opponent. I acknowledge you. And because you are worthy, I am no longer going to insult you by holding back!"
Zhao Long swiped his hand over his spatial ring again.
A heavy, metallic CLANG echoed across the arena as a pair of massive, terrifying weapons materialized over the Prince's hands and forearms. They were heavy, segmented gauntlets forged from black star-iron. The knuckles were heavily spiked, and the joints glowed with a dull, subterranean heat that matched his Earthly Fiend foundation perfectly.
Kai's Transmigrator System instantly analyzed the threat.
[Appraisal Active]
[Item: Abyssal-Core Gauntlets]
[Grade: Tier 2 (Peak)]
[Origin: Forged in the deep-sea volcanic vents of Sector 4.]
[Resonance: Perfectly aligned with the 'Earthly Fiend' foundation. Generates kinetic shockwaves upon impact.]
"The sword I threw away was a ceremonial toy given to me by my father to look regal," Zhao Long declared, slamming the heavy gauntlets together.
The impact sent a visible, rippling shockwave through the air, momentarily snuffing out the magical torches on the Colosseum walls and kicking up a localized sandstorm.
"These are my real weapons," the Prince growled, lowering his center of gravity until the sand began to crater beneath him. "Let's see if your vibrating blade can cut a localized earthquake!"
While the two monsters faced off in the center, the rest of the arena had devolved into a massive, highly destructive 4v4 brawl. Kai didn't need to look back; he could feel his squad holding the line through the chaotic shifts in the ambient Qi.
Maya was currently acting as a literal breakwater against two Second-Year Strikers. One veteran brought a heavy, Qi-infused halberd down on her, while the other tried to sweep her legs with a bladed chain.
Maya didn't even blink. Anchored by the Earth Dragon density of her Basilisk, Crag, she angled her Tier-2 Deep-Earth Shale shield perfectly. The halberd bounced off the stone with a deafening CRACK, the recoil shattering the veteran's grip. Maya instantly lunged forward, using the heavy edge of her shield to violently bash the second attacker in the jaw, sending him spinning into the dirt.
Fifty feet to her right, Robert was proving exactly why the Void-affinity was feared. A Second-Year Mage unleashed a massive, Tier-1 (Peak) torrent of localized acid-rain designed to melt Squad 7's armor.
Robert merely raised his wrist. Null, the tiny Shadow-Viper, hissed.
"Grade 2 Array: Devouring Canopy," Robert whispered. A massive, umbrella-shaped tear in reality ripped open above their heads. The acid rain poured into the black void, completely vanishing from existence, while Robert casually stood underneath it, entirely untouched.
And weaving through it all was Princess Yan. With Aurelius, the Sphinx cub, passively stabilizing the chaotic energy of the battlefield, Yan wasn't just throwing potions. She was aggressively deploying complex, highly volatile alchemical traps directly into the veterans' path. She shattered a vial of Frost-Bane dust at the feet of a charging Second-Year, instantly flash-freezing his boots to the sand and leaving him completely vulnerable.
The First-Years weren't just surviving the veterans. They were actively dismantling them.
Kai tuned out the background explosions. His entire focus narrowed onto the magma-veined Prince charging at him.
Zhao Long didn't wait. The Earthly Fiend foundation erupted.
He moved faster than he had before, the sheer, impossible weight of the gauntlets somehow pulling him forward like magnetic anchors. The sand beneath him didn't just melt; it violently exploded outward in a v-shaped wake.
Kai narrowed his eyes. The Prince wasn't dodging. He was coming straight in, relying purely on the overwhelming kinetic mass of his bloodline.
"Sovereign's Breath: Five-Element Cycle... Ignite!" Kai commanded silently, pouring his Tier 1 (Peak) Liquid Core into the Sovereign's Edge.
Kai stepped directly into the charge. His Stage 2 Titan-Pulse muscles coiled tight like heavy industrial springs. He swung the vibrating, high-frequency O-Katana in a devastating, fully committed horizontal arc aimed directly at the Prince's neck.
Zhao Long let out a manic laugh and threw a straight right punch, aiming his spiked, Tier-2 gauntlet directly at the razor edge of Kai's sword.
KRAK-OOOM!
The collision between the Tier-2 weapons generated a concussive blast that physically knocked the breath out of the initiates sitting in the front rows of the Colosseum.
Kai's boots skidded backward through the sand, trenching the ground for ten feet. The physical impact was unbelievable. The high-frequency Resonance Edge sawed violently against the black star-iron of the gauntlet, shedding a blinding shower of white-hot and orange sparks, but it couldn't instantly cut through the incredibly dense, magically reinforced Tier-2 metal.
"Heavy!" Zhao Long roared in delight, his face inches from the sparking blade, the heat of his breath singeing Kai's hair. "Your Qi is so heavy! I love it!"
The Prince violently twisted his gauntlet, catching Kai's blade between two of the thick spikes, and threw a massive left hook aimed at Kai's temple.
Kai released his left hand from the sword's long hilt, his [Agility: 30] reacting purely on Transmigrator instinct. He didn't try to dodge; the tectonic gravity pulling at him was too strong. Instead, he channeled the Wood Node of his core, making his bones momentarily flexible to absorb impact, and brought his forearm up to block.
CRACK.
The spiked gauntlet slammed into Kai's forearm. The 2x gravity cuffs absorbed a fraction of the blow, and the iron-weave musculature of his Stage 2 vessel absorbed the rest. The Wood Qi allowed his arm to bend slightly without snapping, but the sheer tectonic force of the Prince's punch still sent a bone-jarring rattle through Kai's entire skeleton.
Kai didn't retreat. He absorbed the agonizing pain, his molten-gold eyes flashing with answering battle lust.
He used the Prince's forward momentum against him. Kai grabbed the Prince's left wrist with his free hand, planted his heavy boot squarely into Zhao Long's stomach, and used his [Strength: 32] to physically throw the heavier boy over his head.
Zhao Long flipped gracefully in the air, landing on his feet with a heavy thud fifty yards away. He was panting, his magma-veins glowing brilliantly, a wild, euphoric smile plastered across his face.
Kai rolled his shoulder, the pain in his blocking arm already fading as his dense Cultivation healed the deep-tissue bruising. Anvil barked sharply from the sidelines, the Qilin-pup sensing the rising tension and ready to feed Kai more energy through the golden Soul-Link tether on his chest.
"You're a monster, Hart!" Zhao Long yelled across the cratered sand, slamming his gauntlets together again, thoroughly addicted to the adrenaline of a real fight. "I haven't felt my blood pump like this since I hunted a Tier-7 beast in the dead zones!"
Kai gripped the Sovereign's Edge with both hands, lowering his center of gravity. The charcoal-grey steel hummed, thirsty for another clash.
"You talk too much, Zhao Long," Kai's metallic voice echoed calmly. He wasn't smiling, but the predatory intensity in his eyes matched the Prince's perfectly. "If you want to feel your blood pump, come back over here. I'll gladly let some more of it out."
Zhao Long let out a booming laugh that shook the arena. The Prince crouched low, his magma-blood flaring to absolute maximum output, entirely abandoning his defense for pure, unadulterated offense.
Kai mirrored the stance, his Five-Element core roaring inside his chest, the heavy sword aligning perfectly with the air.
The battle maniac and the transmigrator charged.