Chapter 679: Fireworks
Chaos began again.
The runes on the ground had barely stopped vibrating when the first roar echoed through the underground galleries of the arena. The sound came from far away—explosions, screams, the crackle of energy against stone and steel. The people, still stunned from the last fight, barely had time to comprehend what was happening before the ground shook again.
Strax stood still in the center of the field, the dust swirling around him like a golden veil. His gaze searched for something beyond what the eye could see. He was trying to hear. To feel.
“Samira…”
The bond between them vibrated—a thin line of spiritual energy stretching for miles, more alive than any spell. But this time, there was no response.
No sound. No words.
His heart, which rarely beat out of rhythm, clenched in his chest.
For a moment, he thought something had broken the bond. But then he realized otherwise.
The link was still there, pulsing strongly—only boiling. Samira wasn’t silent. She was busy.
And then he felt it.
The flow of mana around the room seemed to bend, as if a rift had been torn in the fabric of the world. An immense energy, cold and silent, cut through the air like razors of glass.
It was her.
The woman with the slanted eyes.
And Samira was fighting her.
Strax closed his eyes briefly, controlling his breathing. Whatever was happening had started fast—too fast even for him.
An explosion shook the arena. The stones around the circle rose with the impact, and a wave of energy swept through the stands. The screams multiplied. Fire. Shadow. Streams of dark mana ripping through the ground.
Strax turned toward the vibrations.
And then he felt them—dozens of energy sources surging at once. Some small, others intense enough to vibrate the air.
Explosions. Multiple. Scattered throughout the underground complex.
He growled low, his golden eyes narrowing.
“She turned the puppets into bombs…”
The body of the man he had killed wasn’t the only one. There were others.
Hundreds, perhaps.
But there was something more.
Amidst the growing chaos, Strax began to discern new pockets of energy—potent, bright, pulsing in living rhythms.
They weren’t demonic. They weren’t negative.
They were… opposite.
Pure auras.
Life energy, refined and powerful mana, the kind only great cultivators possessed.
Strax clenched his fist and, without hesitation, leaped.
The ground exploded beneath his feet, and he spiraled upward, breaking through the layers of smoke and dust. The air vibrated around him, and within seconds, he was above the arena, hovering dozens of meters in the air.
From above, his vision opened.
And what he saw made him laugh—a short, incredulous, humorless laugh.
The entire field had become a battlefield.
The corridors leading to the waiting areas were now ablaze. The secondary arenas—where the competitors awaited the next rounds—were filled with figures in combat.
Men and women dressed in black, with demonic symbols engraved on their shoulders, advanced in organized groups. Shadows writhed around them like living creatures, and each blow they struck left trails of black energy that ran along the walls like veins.
But before them, another group emerged.
An entire squadron of cultivators, dressed in white robes with blue accents, moved in perfect synchrony. Their swords channeled pure light, and each strike was accompanied by runic chants that echoed through the air, tearing apart the shadows and dissolving the demonic miasma.
“So… the guard has come too.”
Strax watched, his golden eyes glowing as he analyzed the chaos below.
He could sense the differences between the forces—the vibrations, the mana control, the technique. The men in black wielded raw, savage power, like demons in human flesh. Those in white and blue, on the other hand, fought with discipline, channeling the flow of spiritual energy like rivers contained within their banks.
Explosions echoed in all directions. Shards of stone and metal rose in columns of smoke. The smell of blood and burning mana filled the air.
Strax slowly spun in the air, scanning the field with his heightened perception.
“Samira…”
Finally, he found her.
Across the complex, on one of the highest platforms, a flaming aura loomed. It was alive, pulsating, intense—the kind of energy that made even demonic forces cower.
Her aura burned in hues of gold and scarlet, snaking like a phoenix that refused to fall.
And before her… the woman.
Even from a distance, Strax could feel the clash. The two forces collided in waves, one made of heat and light, the other of cold and darkness. The air between them distorted, and each jolt of energy shook the ground.
“Of course she’d go after you first…” Strax murmured, a brief smile crossing his face.
As he watched her, something inside him stirred—a mixture of pride and fury. Samira stood. Wounded, perhaps, but firm. Her aura wavered, but did not yield.
Around them, chaos expanded.
The infiltrated demons, sensing their enemies’ desperation, began to unleash their corruptions fully. Shadows engulfed the alleys, and successive explosions shook the ground like a giant heart about to stop.
Strax looked once more at the blue-and-white troops. They were surrounded, but they held. Even the competitors—those young geniuses of the tournament, talented cultivators—now joined the fight, each unleashing their strength without hesitation.
What had once been a tournament of glory now became a field of purification.
Strax took a deep breath, expanding his mana once more. The golden energy spread across the sky like a flaming dawn, pushing back the black clouds formed by the miasma.
And from above, he saw it all.
The contrast between light and shadow.
The men in black, moving like swarms.
The cultivators in white, forming defensive lines and counterattacking with lethal precision.
And in the center—Samira and the woman, dueling like entities from ancient times.
The air burned around him—a mixture of heat, blood, and burning mana.
Strax hovered above the chaos, observing everything like a bored god facing an ant war. The distant roar of explosions echoed, but his eyes were fixed on the battle between Samira and the slant-eyed woman.
It was at that moment, between silence and observation, that something struck him.
Without warning, a purple flash slashed across the sky like a spear.
The impact struck him square in the chest.
The sound was deafening.
Energy exploded, scattering sparks and a wave of power that vibrated the air. The ground below cracked from the indirect impact.
But Strax… didn’t move.
He remained suspended, enveloped in golden light, his body intact. The smoke slowly dissipated, revealing him exactly as he had been before—his clothes slightly singed, his gaze unchanged.
“…Tsk.” A sigh. “What a waste of mana.”
He turned his head slowly, the golden glow in his eyes glinting with disdain.
There, about fifty meters away, hovered a man shrouded in pulsating darkness.
His black robe rippled as if it had a life of its own, and his eyes emanated an intense purple glow—a feverish, sickly light, like the possession of something ancient.
The man’s teeth bared in a distorted smile.
“You…” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “You’re a risk!”
Strax watched him silently for a few seconds, like someone assessing an insect that dared to fly too close.
“How cute,” he finally replied, his voice calm, almost bored. “My first firework.”
The man laughed—a dissonant, mad sound. His aura suddenly surged, releasing a tide of purple energy that tinted the surrounding sky. Demonic runes began to form beneath his feet, and a serpent-like shadow appeared behind him, opening its mouth in a silent roar.
He raised his hands, concentrating a sphere of purple energy the size of a mountain.
“DIE!”
Strax didn’t even blink.
The sphere shot out, slicing through the air with a force capable of obliterating an entire army. The pressure distorted space, and for an instant, the world seemed silent.
But before the energy reached him, the air around Strax simply… warped.
The golden power in his body expanded like a living aurora, and the entire sphere dissolved into particles before it even touched him. The energy from the attack was disintegrated, reduced to nothing.
The man blinked in confusion—and then realized.
Strax was no longer there.
“Huh?”
His voice barely came out. A golden shadow crossed the space between them in less than a second.
The Golden Dragon appeared right in front of him—so close that the man could see the reflection of his own terror in its fiery irises.
“I told you,” Strax murmured, his hand already raised, a circle of pure light swirling in his palm. “…it’s going to be a blast.”
A flash of light split the air.
The explosion that followed wasn’t loud. It was silent—too intense for sound. The man’s body disintegrated before he could even be thrown backward, the demonic energy trying to escape and being devoured by Strax’s golden force.
The sky split open in a wave of white and golden light that swept across part of the arena, extinguishing the flames and silencing the screams for a brief moment.
When it all subsided, there was nothing left.
No ash. No smoke.
Only emptiness—and the distant sound of other battles.
Strax slowly lowered his hand, letting out a soft sigh.
“Try again, cold-eyed woman…” he murmured, looking in the direction of Samira’s confrontation. “…but send something better next time.”