Tragic Hero

In just a couple more minutes, Ciemnosc, who had already proved what he was made of and the battle strength he could explode with at any moment, continued on to startle crowd after crowd as his arena was swiftly becoming the attraction of the entire stadium. So much so that even others wanting to do some killing zones of even higher realms quit and opened panels to look at his arena and his murdering of opponents.

In the end, being true to his word given to the desperate ones for money, money, and fame or maybe even some bitches too; he fought 9 battles against 7th stage cultivators of the Spiritual Condensation Realm, and killed every single one of them.

The battles that were the most memorable however, were the last two. One consisted of one of those that came with the blondie who sat beside the young woman of that so-called ‘bet’ to know her name. In that battle, a teenager of almost 18 years old faced Ciemnosc, who wielded the 5th sword of the day ever since he stepped on the stadium and fought in the arena.

The young man instead wielded a long saber blade with a ‘handle’ that extended from one extreme of the blade to the other, but only from the side that wasn’t protruding out in a curve. This strange, large broadsword-like wielding saber weighed so much that every time the young man, who wore no shirt under his neat leather armor, made a step he created tiny fissures on the arena’s floor.

In the same way, the young man seemed to have trouble fully wielding the saber blade as he sometimes moved clumsily around. But he still stood up the very moment that the blondie pointed at himself and then at the arena, without questions being asked. And when he met Ciemnosc, he only smiled savagely, not speaking a single word as if he was a puppet, which he clearly was not.

For Ciemnosc, who had already experienced 37 battles and was about to start his 38th, despite the fact that the first 20 were very easy to deal with, he was by then naturally getting tired.

As he saw, back then, the young man with the heavy saber blade came into the arena, he grabbed his current blade’s handle and uncaringly looked at the young man’s body to come closer as if he wasn’t the one to deal with whatever may come. With many death wishes for his life among the crowds, Ciemnosc tilted his head to the right and saw the young man’s clumsiness while he walked.

When the time came to start the fight, the referee loudly announced it; and with the crowd creating a deafening cheer which went out of the stadium right away, mostly due to their floor being the highest, both blade-wielding cultivators rushed at each other at a medium pace right away!

The young man wore, at all times, faces full of being burdened - which was naturally because of the huge ass blade over his shoulders. But whenever it came down from them, Ciemnosc’s blade, or mostly swords would crack open and only last another 2 hits. None of them could use their Power Energy to empower their weapon or a tool, so it could only be a brawl between melee swordplay.

Ciemnosc retained a posture of observing, even as he sensed the horrible stench coming from the saber blade that was all about being steel-like and foul blood; it corroded all smell within the arena, and even the referee began to be visibly affected while the young man seemed used to it, even getting to become more agile the more that smell spread out and was enhanced.

But even if that was the case and the young man became more agile, stronger, accurate, and fast; he could want to go on forever, but he won’t be able to keep on going and going with his qualities. In just another 15 minutes, he was so tired that he could barely move anymore when he was on his feet, his body trembling and his feet appearing to want to dance.

In the end, Ciemnosc’s voice rang out at that moment, saying something that silenced all possible shouts and any thoughts: ‘Well, that fast? Did you get more tired than me in just a few minutes? Bah, send you off…’. And so, a promising young man that has retained his cultivation for each step within the Spiritual Condensation Realm was beheaded after a couple of hacks down from Ciemnosc’s blade; he didn’t want to show his raw strength that badly after all.

After the 38th battle was over and the young man’s neck was cut after the 12th or 13th hack of hacking down, Ciemnosc finally looked somewhat tired. As for the blondie whose minion had died just like that, in such a simple mission of killing a miserable kid whose stage was four stages lower - she could only grit her teeth.

However, she could only grit her teeth even more and harder when Ciemnosc ended up asking her if she could send those other 2 who had the cultivation of a 7th stage in the Spiritual Condensation Realm; at the same time.

At that time, Ciemnosc could clearly remember how he felt the entire goddamn stadium tremble at the crowd’s reaction. And being his first time in such a construct, he of course panicked the shit out of his sweet and innocent, cute mind. Though he hid that from the public and waited for the 2 little puppets of the beautiful ‘paled by the moonlight’-like skinned beauty to send those next pieces of flying meat into his cave.

The following opponents were a pretty simple couple. Both of them were a male, one bald and one of cocoon dreadlocks down to his earlobes; both of them wore gauntlets with a smallish but long and with a hooking end at their blade that ended way in front of the tips of their extended fingers. As well as a pair of shoes with 3 smaller, thinner blades coming from right below their soles…but not below their shoes.

In short, they seemed to have been modified arduously for the sake of optimal capability, and they were probably being trained for becoming the blondie’s assassins, guards, and toys, for that matter.

The moment that the referee hoarsely declared the start of the fight after both people paid up a 3,000 Inferior Powerful Stones fee, ready to give them to this little boy whom he already began slightly rooting for and cheered on mentally. Clearly a bad referee. In any case, both baldie and cocoon dude sprinted at Ciemnosc’s sides, forming a kind of mini-pincer attack/movement.

Not only did they not seem to be affected by their hands and wrists or soles of their feet, they even ran faster, efficiently and seemed to be able to somehow avoid the wind despite doing the exact opposite movements to run through it.

Still with only one sword in his right hand, Ciemnosc’s body remained rooted on his spot, always 25 meters away from the entrance of the arena. His right hand wielded the new sword and, with his left hand feeling so itchy, his left palm twitched, and his fingers contracted from time to time; time after time.

Finally, both the baldie and cocoon hair dude arrived at his sides. Ciemnosc reacted by quickly moving his right sword in a flower, smooth demeanor from grasping it with his right hand to first block the incoming right kick from his right with the tip facing the floor, then moving it across the air for the tip to face skywards and hack down at the at a left kick from his left!

Without the baldie and cocoon hair dude wasting another second after being blocked and even forced to back off a bit, recognizing the sword’s top notch quality, they hurriedly worked together to allow the baldie to impulse himself off of cocoon hair’s back after failing several attempts to make Ciemnosc step backwards with several, fast feinted attacks.

In the end, Ciemnosc covered his chest with his sword, which then cracked enormously at the force that baldie ended up kicking at his sternum with the soles of his feet leaving obvious marks of its embedded blades on his uniform’s clothes and almost breaking the sword right away.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

When Ciemnosc was kicked, his body was impulsed almost 3 meters into the air, and in a balloon trajectory which he spent flying for about 13 meters away before finally coming close to landing on the ground. However, though it sounded simple, throughout all that time falling from midair, Ciemnosc had to defend himself from all the incoming attacks of the baldie and cocoon hair which were like raging cats with their limbs coming at him from all angles!

From any angle, a spark went off as the sword was either wasted yet again or broken off a piece of its body in return for blocking the attacks. At that time, they were even using each other’s bodies in midair to maintain each other in the air for more time than previewed, by basically shutting the other all the way down to the floor in a heavy fall.

But due to their modification, special and torturous training, or whatever the fuck else they were doped with, whoever was sent banging towards the floor, they would immediately jump back up to keep the fighting with a margin of barely a .2 seconds of rest given to Ciemnosc who had ended up wasting another 4 swords in the entire ordeal.

When Ciemnosc came down from the air, with all the force put on his body by baldie and cocoon, he slid for a couple meters more with his back close to the arena’s energy barrier, almost directing an actual blow against his body with such powerful, stacked up and sharp attacks creating a collateral blow against him.

However, the ‘cats’ were by then on the floor as well, breathing so heavily that they seemed to grow 3 times in the volume of their bodies, looking at Ciemnosc’s clothes that were with obvious cuts and holes here and there…but from which his hands were fine despite the current handle in his hands being entirely crushed.

For them, at that time, it was a seriously startling, scary sight; the blades they were so proud of since they were ‘birthed’ in their bodies were literally useless against a single person, even when working together. Not a scratch- no, not even a hair broken!

But it was at that time that Ciemnosc made his move and got on the nerves of the baldie and the cocoon hair. As they tried to cope with their exhaustion as much as they could, they received a rushing Ciemnosc who had adopted his once again low stance to rush at them in the last several steps, which he used to traverse more than 2 meters!

Their eyes shrunk, ooh~, they did. And when they moved their bodies as twistedly and agilely as possible, they barely avoided a cut that broke the air so much. Their ears bled since their heads were just a few inches away from such a cut, yet their cocoon hair and eyebrow hair were cut through despite being so far away from the cutting blade!

Landing on their feet, Ciemnosc even ceremoniously waited for them to take a pose, which they did, and then looked with grievance and humiliation at the irony and shock from seeing Ciemnosc wait at them before smirking hungrily!

Time and time again, with each time they were becoming slower and slower; Ciemnosc stepped forth and cut the air with his blade slower and slower close to each of their heads, sometimes even twice for each person to stun them and paralyze them through sound.

Within just a few moves, the ‘cats’ were already breathing in abruptly from time to time, sipping in their own blood and some organs while also coughing and coughing time after time from the blood bathing within their lungs and throat, which came from below to upwards.

However, they were still moving as flawlessly as before. Just that, unlike before, they were nowhere near as fast as even a 5th stage cultivator anymore, let alone at the 7th stage of their realm.

In the end, Ciemnosc got bored. Hence, he politely rushed forth without even bothering to grasp his blade as he let it hang on his back with his Creature-made strap, but the baldie and cocoon hair didn’t know that. So, as they slowly moved through the air, sluggishly and ready to plant their faces against it yet again on their landing. Cocoon hair was surprised with his wrists being gripped ferociously strongly by Ciemnosc’s slender hands and thrown into the air.

On the other hand, literally, as Ciemnosc used his left hand to grab baldie by the neck just as he was fearfully shocked to see cocoon hair flying upside down in the air and somewhat stagnant in midair with the force of Ciemnosc’s raw strength that to all outsider spectators looked more like the result of their bodies weakening - as he then abruptly felt his entire neck almost closing and breaking alike in just one moment.

Ciemnosc, with his right hand, quickly drew the blade from his back and threw it to the body of the cocoon haired young man, impaling him in midair and sending him flying all the way up to the corner where the blondie and a smiling other young woman were seated; the barrier barely made a cracking sound as the sword went through it and a lifeless corpse was left hanging at the in-between the wall and ceiling.

Then there were two…

All the crowd could remember hearing was the crushing sounds of someone’s neck, whole vertebral column, and even where a pee pee is; before a wholly gory image of a person’s body is used like a cow’s udders being milked, red juice came down Ciemnosc’s tightened fists who made a nice, sweet looking pain on the floor with his feet being covered just as sweet.

… From then, several minutes have passed. And the Ciemnosc, who had been undefeated against 39 opponents was standing in the arena, in the same spot as ever and with a yet another blade in his right hand which he wielded at a 90 degree angle, and with his left hand supporting his waist, which was a bit painful and he was breathing somewhat heavily.

“...” The blondie beside the young woman painted with brown was fuming silently, ‘cordially’ and beside the latter, looking at Ciemnosc like a well trained dog that has been trained so well she couldn’t wait for an order to do anything. Meanwhile, the young woman with black eyes looked at Ciemnosc with ease, she wasn’t a nanny to tell him what to do, and just patiently sat to see what he’d do next, he was already quite the great cultivator image in her mind.

“Okay,” a bit breathless, Ciemnosc began. Immediately and in response to such, the crowd around his arena which were not willing to live even after 10 minutes of him simply standing there, nothing like before and with them numbering already in the 10,000 or so; while the total spectators were naturally many more.

“Now, I’d like to ask, if anyone is willing to fight me…this is for anyone who is in the - 8th stage of the Spiritual Condensation Realm!” Ciemnosc announced with his sweet little voice, and the crowd reacted.

“WUHOAAAA!” - “Stop yelling, fucking idiots, I’m already sore myself…” - “There, see?! He only wants attention! Fuckin’ pretty boy! I could do better.” - “You can’t even fight those in your same stage…” - “...” - “Come on, who dares?! I would do it myself if it wasn’t because I want to bully no one! Come on!!”

Slowly, for over a minute long, Ciemnosc could only hear many people talk shit on and on without anybody daring to come to face him. As such, sincere only got a little more than 15 minutes left until he was kicked out. He went over to the referee to take out a few larger small stones from his Covert Space bag.

“Hmm? Oh, right. Since you’ve raised the limit of the cultivation, it is normal for you to…rai…se…it? WHAT THE FUCK!” Suddenly, the slowly growing muddle headed referee became unable to hold it within him and directly screamed, attracting those even outside of the stadium.

At once, everyone looked back at the arena with not a single pair of eyes missing it, and soon, Ciemnosc heard a notice come from his Identification Token as he presented to the referee…17 Supreme grade Powerful Stones to use for the betting…

“Eh? What is this thing about live streaming? It sounds weirdly enticing. Should I accept it? Aaahh, I’ll just accept it.” Before anyone could say anything to Ciemnosc, including the referee who was naturally the nearest by. Ciemnosc made everyone appear before the eyes of tens of millions of people in just a few seconds…

There were too many cheers coming from all sides, not just the floor that Ciemnosc’s arena was, but the whole floor at that. But also from the entire stadium and its other floors, which were seemingly still somewhat not even half full but with quite some tens of thousands filling the entire stadium’s seats as a whole.

Ciemnosc instantly became the center of attention of…the whole sect without his knowledge, thinking that he just did some things that made others excited - and hoping it wasn’t anything sexual. But the worst was to come, as he was just planning to put these there and then leave with them, but if someone rich was around and he could get that many Supreme grade Powerful Stones…if not, that would be a fat fail but he wouldn’t lose anything at the very least.

Like attending to his deepest wet dreams, a beautiful and overly breathtaking voice shouted at not himself, Ciemnosc, but the entire arena and even the floor, as her voice then reached farther to the entire stadium, revealing a powerful cultivation level that only some strongest in the sect could attain…and even somewhat higher than the young woman beside her.

“Is there anyone who is willing to fight this man, and kill him for me?! I am willing to pay the fee of 17 Supreme Powerful Stones for the one who dares, you’ll keep all of it after you’ve killed him! I only want this vile vermin dead!!” She shouted, and beside her, the young woman with bronze creamy skin looked at Ciemnosc with a light smile while supporting her under chin with her left elbow supported by her thighs.

…