All Across Tartarus and Earth

Everywhere across both planets, every last human and demon can be seen looking up at the screen hovering hundreds of meters above the ground, stretching for hundreds of meters in the sky. And on that screen, they all see the sight of a young woman seemingly at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two years old rushing across a completely devastated land of blood, ash, and black flames at an enormous dragon. Meanwhile the dragon rushes straight at her in return.

Both the dragon and the woman are covered from head to toe in wounds, with the girl loosing glowing red blood that leaks out of her deep crimson and tattered cloak, and the dragon missing every last one of its scales and entire chunks of its arms with one wing completely torn off of its body.

All of the viewers, whether human or demon, hold their breath as the two immensely powerful beings clash, sending a shockwave out from their contacting claws despite how weakened both of them are. But, to the horror of everyone watching, the clash ends up sending powerful tremors throughout both of their bodies, tearing them apart.

Blood spews forth from both dragon and girl, spraying everything around them as they repeatedly clash back and forth, ignoring any and all injuries they’re sustaining.

Soon the woman ends up losing her left arm. Then the dragon loses its own arm.

The woman’s shoulder is completely ripped out by the dragon’s jaws that manage to lock around it, with the woman returning it by ripping off the dragon’s remaining arm by the loose strands remaining of it.

And one attack after another, both dragon and Warden tear each other apart.

All the way till they both collapse on the ground.

But even then, the two continue their barrage of attacks.

And after the viewers watch this horrifying show for several more minutes, watching the hellflames burn away at the Warden’s reality while the Red Plague devours the dragons own, they all show shock at the sight of the dragon finally letting out a roar and sending one last wave of hellflames at the Warden. At the same time as she uses up the last of the Red Plague in her body to pierce into its head to destroy its brain.

But not before the hellflames cover her already broken body, blocking it from the sight of the viewers.

The dragon collapses, its mouth hinged open as if trying to let out a silent roar but being unable to. Then the black light finally fades from its eyes.

No one cheers though.

Because the black flames finally begin to fade, revealing nothing in their place but black ashes.

The remains of the Warden of the Red Plague.

Silence fills both planets and the stadium watching the fight for several seconds until screams begin to rage across both planets from the people. All of whom know very well that death by hellflames is not revivable even through the anti-death clause.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

But some people still manage to cling onto hope. Just waiting for the Warden to reappear above the arena like all the other slain competitors with the anti-death clause enabled.

Their hopes are crushed when even after an entire three minutes pass, no one appears.

Horror fills even the King of the Fae’s face as the Demon King simply stares at the arena with a blank look on his face. Meanwhile the Prince of the Demons immediately transforms into his beast form and tries to break out of the arena to attack the Fae King, who he believes to be behind all of this.

And he’s not the only one as many of the demons in the audience and even the competitors, along with some of the Knights of Humanity begin to attempt to rush towards the Fae King.

However, unbeknownst to anyone, a few tiny drops of blood begin to slowly – ever so slowly – move towards the center of the arena.

None of the competitors notice this, neither do the viewers.

The only one to notice this is the Demon King, who raises a fist and sends his Blood Domain throughout the entire area and takes control of the blood within everyone’s body to stop them in their tracks. Then he continues to watch the three tiny drops of blood moving towards the center of the battlefield.

Everyone goes silent, just watching the Demon King. Only for them all to turn their attention to the arena again as people begin to realize something.

There is only one competitor left in the arena, the White Knight of Humanity, yet, the competition hasn’t ended yet.

So everyone tries to search through the arena for another, but only a rare few manage to spot the three tiny droplets of blood beginning to near each other at the center of the arena.

But what everyone notices is the sight of the dragon’s corpse beginning to shift and make crunching sounds.

The viewers all hold their breath before a large red and black core bursts out of the dragon’s corpse and begins to move in the direction of the three gathering droplets of blood.

Many of the viewers in the stadium try to begin speaking, only to find themselves unable to thanks to the Demon King still controlling their bodies. So they just watch in silence.

The silence stretches on for nearly three entire minutes until it happens.

All three droplets of blood finally merge. And after merging, they begin to duplicate themselves. First once, then twice.

Then they repeatedly duplicate until everyone now notices the droplets of glowing red blood.

After a tense five minutes, the blood duplicates enough to make a small pool of it, following which the pool begins to merge into what appears to be a humanoid body made out of nothing but glowing red blood. And soon after that, the ‘body’ starts solidifying into an actual human body.

Tears begin to flow down the face of many of the viewers, both in the stadium and out of it, at the sight of the Warden of the Red Plague, Scarlet Art Asger de Archeron, lying down on her front without a shred of clothes on her body while submerged almost entirely in Red Plague. To the point that no one can see the majority of her body beyond her shoulders and up.

Finally, the large dragon’s core stops moving right above her as she slowly struggles to raise her head and look at it, her black and red hair flowing in the blood around her in the process.

Then the core turns into a crimson light before shooting straight into the woman.

And with one last quirk of the girl’s lips, her head drops to the ground, unconscious, and the smoke around the arena clears up completely, the System recognizing her as having been defeated now that she’s unconscious.

Before anyone can so much as react, the Demon King vanishes from his spot and reappears right next to her before carefully wrapping her in his own cloak made out of his own blood metal, and picking her up. Then he vanishes again, leaving the viewers all stunned.

The shock doesn’t last for long though as everyone immediately begins cheering, filling Earth, Tartarus, and the stadium all with a roaring cheer so loud that some people within the stadium swear days later that they went deaf from it.