Kill, Terrorize, A Menace

"That's Grand Elder Jolden's personal disciple, is she not?" One of the visiting Gods asked, interestingly looking at Fera, being brought to the Wrath Nihility Academy's VIP zone. Another God answered with a 'mn' before falling silent. The previous God thus asked again, feeling somewhat strange, "So, why is she going elsewhere? I know the Wrath Nihility Academy has great popularity and acceptance now that it's improving its strength. But they shouldn't dare steal members from other organizations away like this, right? It is usually through studying that they are convinced..."

“Don’t speak nonsense. This isn’t what you think. That little girl was with a boy. I’m sure they are good friends. Other than that, she seems really deep with him.” A Goddess spoke, her words invading the Gods and other Godly beings whose ears were on the matter. The God to first speak commented with a smirk on his face, “Ah? There was a male around her? Why didn’t I notice? Hey, did you notice that as well?” - “Nope, nothing.”

“To make a person like this little girl follow his every word, it’s not a simple boy. It’s that so-called little black monster,” the Goddess rolled her eyes before adding. She waved her wrist, and a screen formed before her, showing the others Heian Ciemnosc’s hugging of Fera. The Goddess then added before falling into an engrossed discussion, “His energy fluctuations don’t seem to be from a cultivator in the Broken Crystallization realm, even though he is in the 1st stage. Instead, they belong to the-”

“Neutrality realm!” - “But how?! He doesn’t even have a rigorous Power Energy…” - “Don’t the rumors say he had a weird energy? Could it be because of the new Supreme Art, or did that Supreme Art come to be because of that strange energy?” - “Now, he’s interesting, huh?” - “Ah… don’t put it like that. Look. We were all enemies 20 years ago. But now, some of us are even married. Don’t be like that…” - “Hm!”

… The participants started showing on the arenas. Black smoke torrents led them there, like tunnels with life of their own, delivering eggs or babies onto a huge cradle. The spectators gradually seemed to overlook the hundreds and hundreds of peak Godhood Step cultivators visiting them from the neighboring Existences.

The first thing Heian Ciemnosc did was look up when he arrived at his designated arena, where he found Heavenly Protector Diego looking down at him. Heian Ciemnosc’s eyebrows frowned for less than a second, quickly easing up as he lowered his head. He looked ahead of him, where a short, beautiful blonde with short, curly hair and emerald-blue eyes looked at him with narrowed, fierce, and indifferent eyes.

‘Interchanging Dust…’ Heian Ciemnosc’s darkest eyes narrow after looking at the girl’s emblem, not even 16 years old, and with a lance in her right hand. Heian Ciemnosc didn’t need a guide to tell him what was transpiring. He stood on his extreme of the arena, looking at his opponent at the peak of the Broken Crystallization realm 6th stage. His arms were to the sides, relaxed. Thus, the girl was the first to speak as she was almost 5 km from him.

“I am Lona, Genius of the Third Step organization, the Interchanging Dust Dynasty!!” Lona spoke, her right fist striking her chest with lance in hand, waving and cutting air threateningly. Heian Ciemnosc, on the other hand, calmly thought in his mind. ‘Oh, is she threatening me? And… aren’t they treating me too well? Sending such a weakling after me… I shouldn’t have been so low-key. It’s a bit unfair for her now. Mm- no, actually…’

Heian Ciemnosc looked up, again meeting with Diego’s eyes as he slowly floated towards his chair. Returning his darkest eyes to Lona, Heian Ciemnosc finished his thoughts. ‘He’s trying to embarrass me and find faults in me. To what? Disqualify me? Tarnish my image? Heng.’

Just as Heian Ciemnosc was thinking, and Sara looked on as if she was eating popcorn, about to enjoy the show, Lona yelled at him. Her left hand pointed at him as she touched Heian Ciemnosc’s one of his few banned actions. “Heian Ciemnosc! Are you a man or not? Will you accept if I turn this duel into a certain life and death?! Will you, Heian Ciemnosc, facing my steel, fight me… or be a coward?!”

“...” Heian Ciemnosc indifferently, and even somewhat disdainfully, stared at Lona. He didn’t even want to think anymore. He let her show her bravery as silence ensued for several seconds before taking a step and a half forward. He stepped on, lastly, with his right foot and lowered his face. When he raised it, he looked fucking smug but humble still. His left pale hand’s fingers rubbed his underchin as he slowly let out some words from his lips. “Cut the nonsense. Let’s do it already.”

“Lona! The Dynasty didn’t ask you to throw your life away for no reason! What do you think you’re doing?!” Suddenly, from the skies, a roar shook the arenas and bleachers. Those few about to start the fight without the official commence of the duels stopped and cringed before looking towards Heian Ciemnosc’s arena direction. Lona looked up, feeling scared, but she regained her composure rapidly and determinedly kept her goals despite Diego’s rebuttal.

“My lord, I am willing to sacrifice myself even if I knew I could die. But if it’s with this worm, whose new friends aren’t protecting him anymore, and he can no longer run from danger… then I must not let this chance go! I can’t let him go! I won’t let my friends’ lives be wasted!” Lona cupped her hands as she looked up, her face straight up, and spoke her heart out. She also believed the Heavenly Protector would understand her. They did all those things for the Dynasty!

“Fool! What trash are you spouting?! Nobody will ask a nobody to do something like this! Immediately stand back down, or you will face an outcome the Dynasty cannot afford!” Diego berated Lona again, the scene becoming quite heaty and emotive in the eyes of anyone. But all Lona did was look at Diego one last time, with disappointment flashing through her eyes before lowering her head.

Looking into Heian Ciemnosc’s darkest eyes, Lona placed her lance on her right shoulder and lowered her eyebrows, feeling fierce and annoyed. Up in the sky, Diego looked with a red face as he stood up but immediately sat back down without the other hosts’ need to glare at him or say something. Everything turned silent. Even those in the Middle Godly Spatial Station’s residences quietly looked on.

“I challenge you to death! Heian Ciemnosc!!” Lona suddenly screamed. As she did, a ‘pssshhft’ sound went off as a yellow, watery screen appeared before Lona, and Heian Ciemnosc inclined a little, so they had to look a bit into the sky. The words written on Lona were simple, ‘you have challenged your opponent to death’ and those on Heian Ciemnosc’s screen even more, ‘do you accept?’.

“Alright,” Heian Ciemnosc casually spoke out with the world’s calmness. He lifted his right hand to swipe the yellow screen to the right as the words disappeared, and a barrier slowly formed around them, caging them in the arena until one of them died. It was a protective array formation, but it was ‘changed’ to look yellow for congruence’s sake. And just as the yellow dissipated how he wanted it to, Lona was already charging towards him, her lance filled with rigorous Power Energy and her face hatefully scrunched.

A cultivator in the Third Step appeared above them, preceding over this arena. The same happened to the others, but so far, Heian Ciemnosc’s was the first one to have a deathly duel started. A few more followed, but they were partially ignored by the crowd as their eyes were taken hostage by Heian Ciemnosc’s back facing the mighty Lona!

Piuuw- plop! Swiiish, pshiiiiiiiiiift~ cra cra cra cra…

Lona wasn’t just facing him with her Mortal Lance and rigorous Power Energy. She immediately threw a few long, cylindrical tools with her left hand to the left and right. They slowly dismantled in the air, turning into several snake-like knives traveling with a string attaching each to a device on her lower back, run by Spirit Sense and some Soul energy. A few devices went up and started rushing towards him, impulsed by a tiny engine, good enough for a Broken Crystallization realm’s peak speed.

They looked like dangerous, murderous weapons to thrust into someone’s body and either tackle them, entrapping them, or directly smash their bodies. But that wasn’t all! A transparent-bluish array formation began spreading from behind her, directly from a sphere-shaped device with a pre-inscribed array formation, covering Heian Ciemnosc’s front from the air and slowly his sides. Lona was basically trying to trap him with several moves at once.

“...” Heian Ciemnosc watched everything as his Spirit Sense caught onto everything that happened. She wasn’t scheming against him. She wasn’t delaying to complete her actions under his nose. Lona started acting after the deathly duel was confirmed, wasting no time to keep talking or gain an advantage. Because of that, she could have survived, but facing Heian Ciemnosc and being from the Interchanging Dust Dynasty changed that.

Pshiiiiiiiift- waaaang-. Heian Ciemnosc watched as Lona moved to her right, sidestepping, just as he lifted his right hand with his palm facing her. Her body was like a sudden mirage, disappearing from the eyes of civilians without the help of technology, but like a blurred painting, smearing itself towards the side. Her body elongated to the sides without losing its original shape. However, the blurriness became more emphatic, as if too much filth had entered one’s eyes and covered the painting.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

In slow motion, it looked as if Lona was dispersing her body out of reality and entering the end of everything, accidentally killing herself. However, she was merely effectuating the Interchanging Dust Dynasty’s iconic movement-based Supreme Arts, the Consequential 3-Eye!

Pshiiift! BHGG-SPLASH! Bugsh, bugsh, bugsh, bugsh…

However, Heian Ciemnosc pulsated, thrusting a dark Power Energy palm into the air before him. It flew from his pale skin towards Lona. Just as she seemed to evade Heian Ciemnosc’s attack in slow motion, the dark energy palm flew forward, catching Lona’s front even as it was already sidestepping, escaping from Heian Ciemnosc’s front. The dark palm was like a rapid object following after an even quicker thing with utmost nimbleness.

When the dark palm reached a corner of the blurred image, suddenly, everything exploded! Lona’s blood splashed everywhere. The knife tools were blasted by the explosive wave to the sides, mangled and crooked against the array formation’s forming barrier, together with her blood and some flesh. The devices thrusting towards Heian Ciemnosc evaporated, turning into ashes when the dark palm passed them, not even mattering for an additional second.

On the other hand, only the transparent-bluish array formation, a temporary shield type, continued to form itself up. Meanwhile, the dark palm dissipated as Lona’s body exploded, creating a circle in the middle of the arena with an array formation rapidly setting itself up. In just one second, everything happened, stealing away the tension and, even more so, the satisfaction from seeing the outcome after so little drama.

The fight they expected to see with Heian Ciemnosc bitterly making his way through the stages and winning against Lona. Or Lona putting the egotistical, shrewd, and cruel murderer of hundreds of Geniuses just by himself from each mini-stadium before. They were all gone before they could even see it. In short, none of that happened.

“Heian Ciemnosc’s victory!!” The referee announced, looking down, astounded and without delay. He was startled, feeling somewhat paralyzed, but he still managed to speak the outcome. Nobody, not even the other peak Gods and Goddesses, noticed Diego’s finger moving after Lona’s body formed a bloody, fleshy ring in a tiny spot within the transparent-bluish array formation. Otherwise, the outcome might’ve been confirmed much later on.

“WOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” Instantly, without a doubt, the crowd madly soared from their feet and rushed their voices into the air. Heian Ciemnosc felt akin to thunder going on his head as everything, everyone, and all, were focused on him. Just in front of many, directly in the eyes of those doubtful and believing spectators, he instantly destroyed an opponent 5 stages above his cultivation base!!! Wasn’t that insane?! Hundred of trillions of people watched such a damned thing occur! It was everywhere!

“Hm,” Heian Ciemnosc grinned a little. He wasn’t haughty, but he did feel like he was about to make a mess. The prospect of too many pairs of eyes looking at oneself is barely consequential anymore, at least for a cultivator from the First and up to the Third Step. Only when something that was shocking happened would the realization strike. Such was the case with Heian Ciemnosc, who had never seen more than a few million people in the same place or territory.

Scanning with his Spirit Sense and using his eyes to watch tens of millions of people move around in one place, like a City, were fundamentally different. He could feel Elena’s hot, proud eyes on him and the respect from his COs’ eyes. Even Fera’s girly, stupid screams were muffled by the crowd’s incessant cheering. Still, when Heian Ciemnosc concentrated, he could still hear her.

“SIIIILEEEEEEENCE!!!” A solemn voice thundered louder than the heavens. The crowd fell paralyzed. After looking up into the sky, most needed to rotate their eyeballs. They saw Grand Elder Jolden standing up with his arms to the sides, looking in a direction without expression. Slowly, the crowd sat back to their seats, returning to the calm that was before, as if Heian Ciemnosc had never existed.

“... I understand your emotions, I do, truly. And I know something as… new as this… is complicated to take without making a ruckus. But if we, hosts, maintain our calm, you might want to cooperate.” Jolden didn’t speak. It was Bajo who talked as he also stood up while the other 2 remained seated. Seeing this and noticing Bai Yue’er and Diego keeping calm with the other peak Gods and Goddesses, the crowd felt a tad guilty. Just a little, though.

“Now, the other arenas might resume your duels!” Grand Elder Jolden exclaimed, flinging his thick robes’ right sleeve and returning to his chair.

Pshift~~. Heian Ciemnosc looked around and felt the arena had become too empty. He saw Elena fighting a much weaker cultivator from the Phosphorescent Flower Sect. The latter brought many pillars from the ground and tried attacking Elena with them, but she simply moved her body at the last moment, dodging them negligibly while charging towards him. In the end, the cultivator didn’t know what to do when Elena came close enough to her and easily broke through his defenses. His Art was helpless against each of her strikes.

Feeling almost bored, Heian Ciemnosc started playing with his hands in the air. Dark Power Energy, Spirit Sense, and Soul energy worked together as the temporary shield array transformation rapidly regressed. As this happened, many spectators felt attracted to this entertaining sight after calming down with the ‘ordinary’ duels everywhere.

“He can’t disarray this fast? How high is his Craftsmaking talent? Don’t tell me he also has stupid, monstrous achievements about that besides having a perverted battle prowess?” - “That’s a little black monster for you!” - “Ugh, that made me cringe.” - “Hey! He’s done! Look! Bwahahaha, so basically, nothing that chick did was worthy?” - “Hey… have some respect for the dead…”

Heian Ciemnosc melted the transparent-bluish array formation. He didn’t even need 2 minutes for the 5 km long, 20 meters wide array formation to cease existing. Heian Ciemnosc simply dusted his hands and looked down while cracking his neck. He didn’t bother about anything else and sat on the floor, his hands against it as he looked at the sky and started trying to see if he could find something…

Elena’s fight concluded in under 3 minutes. After she arrived before her opponent and the latter was helpless and could only defend himself, he faltered with an exquisite, deathly, and terrifyingly mighty halberd blade against his neck. Only to realize there were another 2 blades like that and other smallish ‘knives’ and pikes around it with equal fearsomeness. After surrendering, he wasn’t taken as a coward and was brought away by a black smoke strand.

Unlike Lona’s rests, those who lost the duel and didn’t die were sent out of the platform and back to the free zones, where they either defeatedly walked to their vip zones or were picked up by their superiors. Heian Ciemnosc watched his COs fight. Aleksander ended his the faster. In under 50 seconds, his enemy was clawed and stabbed everywhere. Heian Ciemnosc’s Colorful Claw was perfect for assassins. Especially when in a tough spot and needing to act swifter and riskier.

Gloria was a crazy fangirl for this dude, but she was his crazy fangirl. On the other hand, Violet, the frightening three, and Oleg ended their fight after 4 minutes. They weren’t injured, but the other opponents they faced had ample experience in dueling and blocked and deviated as many simple attacks as energy moves.

Victor took a little less, as he was put with someone on a stage under him, but there was no one to blame. This was just how random an event could be like this. Elena faced someone in the 2nd stage, even though she had just broken through and her foundation wasn’t solid, unlike her opponent at the peak. On the other hand, Violet was the calmest. Violet was composed, and even emotionless, at the beginning of her duel against an Interchanging Dust Dynasty member.

During the duel, she slowly took the hits and resisted them. Her opponent was a male Demon with a bodily strength slightly above hers. However, during the last 12 seconds, Violet danced, turning, lowering her stance, jolting right up, and unnecessarily sidestepping to the point her opponent was forced to follow in dodging, taking a passive-aggressive stance against her. However, he was always within Violet’s little palm.

As Violet’s fuscia medium and long hair fluttered, the Demon was stabbed and cut into 4 parts in the last 3 seconds. The most humiliating thing during those few seconds was that she used a door-shied in her right hand to keep the man mostly incapable of retaliating while her left-handed Colorful Claw did the mangling and murdering. It was a feat for the eyes, one the spectators thanked after being blue-balled by Heian Ciemnosc’s instantaneous strike.

Although they were just in the Second Step and power levels weren’t defined by a mere fraction of an instant of an error or weakness. That one’s opponent holds a bit more power than oneself in a direct confrontation, to at least defeat the other party, meant a high advantage. Still, Violet remained composed from the beginning of the fight, ignoring the Demon's sexually abusive words and death threats, simply ignoring the life and death duel request, still killing the Demon at the end… and up to now that she was sitting on her arena, meditating and appearing at ease.

‘Sigh, born to be a leader.’ Heian Ciemnosc thought as he played with someone’s lump of flesh in his hands like a ball thrown from pale palm to pale palm while resting on the floor. Not many kept looking at him because of these acts, but he still had over a million people watching his camera angles even as he suddenly closed that lump of flesh, with some slimy blood flapping from its insides, rolled up towards his mouth.

At the same time, a black smoke went to 1 in 2 arenas, opting to entangle around a participant. The spectators quickly noticed that those being picked up were those whose fights resulted in the most boring yet easiest struggles. Thus, among every participant, the COs, Wrath Nihility Academy students, and their allies were not picked by the black smoke… mostly. On the other hand, Heian Ciemnosc was already watching before him, on another extreme where Lona had appeared, as a black smoke torrent suddenly appeared.

“The tournament’s second round of elimination… starts now!” Jolden shouted, his voice’s vibrations making every arena tremble. Those without a person there, brought away by the black smoke, crumbled and fell to the ground, creating sonorous tremors as if anyone within them would’ve doubtlessly died even at the First Step’s peak.

BAM!! THUD!! TAA TAAAM!! POOOOMMM!!...

…

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Let It Rain's note: The biggest fishes' cultivation bases will be revealed when the time is right -___- .