The instant the red gem is swallowed by my opponent, his eyes begin to glow the same crimson shade.

Next, the static yellow energy that surrounds his body shifts to the same shade of red.

It looks extremely disturbing, and even intimidating, but the odd thing is that I can't sense any extra mana coming off of it.

However, with Ember's warning fresh in my ear, now isn't the time to question whether it's dangerous or not to continue fighting him.

I jump back and avoid the red arcs of electricity that start to grow and pulse out of Trax.

A devious grin comes across his face, and when his mouth opens up all that can be heard is a mind bending shriek.

It doesn't even sound human. His body still holds the same form, but the red light coursing through it makes his skin ripple and vibrate.

I yell out while putting my hands in the air, continuing with my original plan while listening to Embers warning.

"That's it. I surrender! Match over! Get me out of here—"

I'm cut off by an extremely large red thunderbolt that travels up Trax's blade and comes shooting toward me with the speed of a level 1400 hunter.

With enough time to see it, I decide to spin out of the way, narrowly avoiding the attack, but the outer bits of the crimson charge nearly hits my left side.

As the red energy whizzes past, I hear a very familiar faint ringing of a bell, and a vibration ripples all around my body as, for a fraction of a second, a small portion of my true mana control leaks out from my divine limiter.

My heart skips a beat at this realization. However, it's unlikely anyone noticed it, considering the main attraction right now is the massive red lightning bolt that narrowly missed me is now piercing through the blue dome at the top of the ring.

I still can't sense a drop of mana within his attack, but it's tearing through the blue barrier around us like butter and surging up high into the air.

Another bolt flies out from his blade at the same speed, hitting the velocity of a 1500 or even 1600 hunter now. His attacks are getting even faster.

I begin to look back and forth for a way to dodge again that seems to be within the realm of possibilities for the level 600 hunter Ray Anderson, but all feasible escape routes from this close-range blast do not seem likely without releasing a noticeable portion of my full power.

Right as I'm about to cause another scene and release enough mana control to dodge this attack, I feel the sensation of two sharp golden eyes staring down on me from above.

I stop what I'm doing as the bottom of the black box with the Apex Region's members inside of it opens up and two beings float out.

The bottom of the box shuts fractions of a second later, and the overwhelming aura that was watching me vanishes. The golden eyes disappear from my senses.

However, there is still a massive red lightning bolt surging my way.

The two figures that float down from the box above catch my attention, and their levels read [Lv. 2759] and [Lv. 2840].

They're both well built middle aged men, and stare down into the ring with bored emotionless expressions. The lower-leveled one wields wind magic along with countless blood-bonded A-Class items, while the higher-level one is a fire user with many enchanted pieces of gear too, rivaling some of the 500-600% enchantments of my own unique items.

Their necks are covered in golden soul energy, and in the blink of an eye, two massive golden orbs are formed around both myself and Trax by each of the men who emerged from the black box.

The soul energy surrounding me is so dense that it feels almost on par with the shielding around the Crimson City.

If I were to release my full power and use my greater form, I could break out of it, but it wouldn't be easy.

Both of them use soul energy from the Sun God that surpasses anything I felt from Rodrigo in our brawl.

It feels very similar to that of the level 3000+ mountain king I battled in the Vice City Labyrinth weeks back.

Despite this surprise, I know that I'm not the threat they're attempting to contain right now.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The shrieks that echo out of Trax become muffled by the orbs of soul energy, but his erratic releases of energy only increase in volume and frequency. The red light in his eyes overtakes him, and it gets so bright that I can't even see his body's outline anymore.

The red lightning bolts collide with the golden soul energy surrounding him, and some even break through the first hunter's orb and scatter in many directions throughout the arena, but the second A-Class hunter contains the weaker releases with large amounts of his golden light.

Many of the arcs of red electricity that break through the first orb collide with the orb that I'm inside, but none of it is strong enough to break through a second time.

Hundreds of violent charges of red energy pour out of Trax, but none of it can be sensed with my perception skills. It just looks like a harmless pretty light show, but I'm positive that these looks are very deceiving.

About 60 full seconds go by as these red charges erupt out of the fighter, and the two A-Class hunters continuously pulse with golden soul energy to contain this blast.

Meanwhile, many B-class Association workers start to mend the blue dome-like barrier around the ring while discussion erupts from the Regional Directors and guest hunters by their sides.

The entire room fills with questions, laughter, streams of excitement, and many hunters leaning in to get a closer look at the action. The talk is not that they're scared of the results; they all want to know what the powers they're seeing in front of them are and many want to try whatever that red gem was for themselves.

It's hard to make out exactly what they're saying, as the dense golden soul energy around me acts as a noise and energy suppressor.

All I can do is wait and watch the red energy bursting out of Trax wear down and stop after about 90 seconds pass.

Once it does, he collapses onto the arena floor, and the two A-Class hunters glide upward while taking away the golden soul energy barriers.

They float back up and out of the large hole in the top of the blue dome, then the opening in the black box allows them to go back inside.

The dangerous golden eyes I felt before aren't there. Whatever was watching the match with such intensity before has lost interest.

The doors shut, and Rodrigo yells out like nothing out of the ordinary happened.

"The winner by verbal submission of this match is Trax, from the Apex Region! Congratulations, you will be moving on to fight Mack the battle healer in the next semi-final round! However, we will have a quick intermission while our shielding dome is repaired."

I watch Trax cough and shake while he pushes himself up off the ground slowly.

There are small wisps of red light coming from his mouth and eyes, but it dissipates quickly, and it's clear that all the power from that display has left his body. His movements and mana control aura feel human again.

Then, I feel the respawn item around my neck begin to rattle and pulse with energy.

Moments later, after a flash of white light, I find myself in a white room with 15 other people.

There's clear mana reinforced glass in front of me, and about 200 meters away, looking down from above the makeshift stadium, I see exactly where I was just fighting.

On the other side of the ring, I see another box similar to this one with about 40 other applicants in it; they all look down on the match too with similar looks of awe.

Dane's voice hits my ear as I watch Trax walk back to his room in the ring.

"I thought you had him there. I've never seen a fight like that!"

The wind user from the Silca Region walks up next to me with his arms crossed, and I turn around to see all of the other applicants in the top 20 ranking that were eliminated out of the tournament in earlier rounds behind him.

Marcie's eyes meet mine, and we both give each other a nod, but I turn back to the fight ring and reply to Dane.

"Yeah... You're right. I haven't seen anything like that either..."

The violent display of red lightning repeats in my mind over and over, and the feeling I felt when one of the attacks nearly collided with me continues to eat away at the back of my mind...

Somehow, the attacks that came out of that gem reacted with my divine limiter. I'm not sure how or why... but one thing is for sure, I want to figure out what that red gem was that Trax ate to give him all this power.

I even witnessed the red lightning bolts pierce through soul energy barriers dozens of times more powerful than any mana attacks he was throwing during that match.

The A-Class hunters that came to control the situation didn't look bothered by the display at all either.

Whatever this power is, it isn't foreign to the higher-ups of the Apex Region.

The only conclusion I come to while staring down at the arena as the dome is completely mended is that somehow, that crystal allowed Trax to tap into some kind of Divine Energy.

It was hardly controllable, and from the state I still see him in, shivering and curled up in a ball on the floor of his private room; it was definitely not safe for him to consume.

After the second lightning bolt he threw, the hunter turned into a ball of incoherent rage. The A-Class hunters that glided down to stop the match didn't even attempt to talk with him, they just let him use up all of the red substance that coursed through his body.

So many things still don't make sense about all of this, but Rodrigo's voice echoes through the ring to make me concentrate on the immediate task at hand again.

"Thank you all for waiting! As you know, all cursed items and hidden powers are permitted in these fights. We only intervene to provide safety when an applicant surrenders his right to fight back."

The ring is silent.

Many other Regional Directors and their subordinates are in awe of the display that was just shown.

Not only the mana-less lightning, but I'm sure many of them are impressed by the golden orbs of light the A-Class hunters used. Soul energy isn't a well-known resource either, so there are most likely too many oddities for the average B-Class hunter to comprehend in this ring.

Rodrigo reads the room and continues with a smile.

"The show must go on! Our first semi-final match of the night is about to begin. A fight between Natalie Sterling, the follower of the Flame Emperor from the Apex Region, and Emrie Carter, the extreme flame summoner from the Bedrock Region. One applicant has gained their flames tonight, while the other has had them all his life. Who will come out on top?"

At these words, the fighters step out into the arena.

I open up two telepathy links, sending messages into Ember and Natalie's minds, then the fight clock above the arena begins counting down.