Chapter 678: Energy Pumps
The air inside the arena was thicker than usual.
The spectators, accustomed to watching Strax destroy opponents as if crushing empty shells, now watched him with a mixture of fascination and silent fear. With each round, the “Golden Dragon” became less human and more legend.
The blue runes on the floor lit up again, outlining the circle for the next fight. The light danced over the dried blood of previous fights.
Strax entered, his common sword strapped to his back—a blade that seemed far too modest in the hands of someone like him.
His golden gaze roamed the stands, mapping presences, sensing pulses of mana, trails of negative energy. The silent hunt he conducted between rounds kept him more alert than tired.
And then, the scribe announced:
“Next duel! Victor, the Golden Dragon… versus—”
But he didn’t have time to finish.
The man was already inside the circle.
He had entered without permission, without ceremony, and without even glancing at the scribe.
His gait was unsteady, but his muscular body and hunched posture exuded strength. He looked like an ordinary fighter—tanned skin, short hair, dark eyes—until Strax took a closer look.
Something was wrong.
The aura around him was uneven, broken, like cracked glass. The air around him distorted slightly, and the protective runes on the ground wavered, trying to understand what kind of energy they were detecting.
The scribe raised his staff, confused.
“Wait, the fight still—”
A punch slashed through the air.
Strax sidestepped, his fist passing inches from his face. The impact created a crater in the ground, cracking the central rune.
The audience screamed in alarm.
The scribe stumbled away, unsure whether to interrupt or not.
Strax looked calmly at his opponent, his lips curling into a barely perceptible smile.
“No introduction, no permission… and no soul,” he murmured. “What an interesting mess.”
The man didn’t respond. He simply turned to face him with a dry, almost mechanical movement. His eyes… weren’t normal. The pupils were too dilated, and the whites of his eyes trembled in gray veins. It was as if his body were alive, but his mind was absent.
Strax dodged another blow. And another.
Each attack came with enough force to crush stone, but without technique, without fluidity. It was just raw instinct, fueled by something that didn’t belong in that body.
The Golden Dragon moved as if it were dancing.
It slid sideways, twisted its torso, backed away elegantly, and each movement seemed like a provocation. The crowd, though stunned, was beginning to react—screams, nervous applause, the morbid pleasure of watching the predator toy with its prey.
But Strax wasn’t truly entertained.
As he dodged, his eyes narrowed, studying every detail. The energy emanating from this man wasn’t just negative. It was deeper, structured… and rooted.
“This isn’t spontaneous corruption,” he thought. “He’s being controlled.”
His opponent roared, and a dark wave coursed across the ground, staining the runes. Strax leaped back, avoiding the flow. The shadow moved like tentacles, trying to envelop him.
He extended his left hand, slowly clenching his fist.
Golden mana shimmered around him, and the ground seemed to tremble.
In an instant, he expanded his perception—an ancient, instinctive technique.
The world around him became transparent. The flow of mana, previously invisible, now revealed itself as rivers of light and darkness dancing in the air.
And then he saw it.
From the man’s body, small dark threads emerged from his chest, snaking through the air, crossing the barrier field, and extending… to one of the distant platforms, where the boxes reserved for the elite were located.
Strax followed the trail with his eyes, and there, among the nobles, among the robes and the disguised smiles, he saw her.
The woman.
The same as before.
Tall, pale skin, slanted eyes—cold and perfect as obsidian blades.
Her black hair fell to her shoulders in straight strands, held in place by a golden feather-shaped adornment.
She didn’t move. She simply watched, her face serene, her hands clasped in front of her. But the threads of mana—black, subtle—flowed from his fingers, dancing like the strings of an invisible puppet.
Strax sighed.
“So it’s you…” he said softly, looking up at the box. “The woman with the predator’s eyes.”
His opponent attacked again, shouting something inarticulate.
Strax didn’t even move.
His hand went to the common sword strapped to his back. The sound of steel being drawn was low, but it silenced the entire arena.
“I’ve seen puppets before,” he murmured. “But you, my dear, are just a walking corpse.”
The blow came from above, fast and heavy. Strax flicked his wrist.
The blade sliced through the air—and the man.
For a second, time seemed to stand still. The golden glow of his mana mingled with the spreading blood.
The man’s body split in two with a sharp sound. The dark energy dissipated like smoke being blown away, and the severed strands of mana writhed before disappearing.
Silence fell over the arena like a veil.
No applause. No screams.
The scribe, pale, dropped his staff. The runes still glowed, trying to understand what had happened.
The audience simply watched—some with their mouths open, others trembling.
Because, until that moment, no one had died.
The rune enchantments prevented deaths, but Strax’s blow… had ignored that. The seal recognized his golden energy, but could not intervene. This was no ordinary magic. It was life force.
The severed body fell to the ground with a wet thud.
Strax stared at the corpse for a few seconds, his expression impassive. Then he slowly raised his eyes toward the box.
His golden eyes met hers.
The woman with the slanted eyes didn’t look away. She remained motionless, observing him with absolute serenity. Then, something curious happened.
She smiled.
Not a mocking or teasing smile. It was a small, elegant, almost polite smile. As if recognizing an equal.
Strax felt a twinge of interest—and irritation.
“She’s not surprised,” he thought. “I expected I’d see right through her.”
The guards began to run, the scribes screamed, trying to restore the barriers, while healers futilely approached the broken body.
The silence in the arena that had followed the cut was broken by a strange, wet sound.
A crack.
Then another.
The body, split in half—which should have been inert by now—began to move.
The muscles contracted in violent spasms, as if invisible threads were still pulling the corpse. The flesh vibrated, the hands clenched on the ground, and a thick, black liquid began to ooze from the open eyes, boiling like hot oil.
Strax frowned.
The crowd, still processing the horror of death, now began to scream.
The scribe tried to run toward the field to end the fight, but Strax raised an arm, his voice cutting through the chaos:
“Stay still.”
His golden aura expanded in a sudden pulse. The air crackled—and everyone nearby was thrown back, driven back by the impact of his mana. The healers and guards were thrown a safe distance, the runes vibrated as they tried to contain his force, and the ground cracked into thin lines.
Strax’s attention never wavered from the corpse.
The body convulsed faster now. Black veins spread across the skin like burning roots, and the oozing blood turned to thick smoke, swirling upward.
The negative energy, which had previously seemed dispersed, was now concentrated—compressing into a point between the two halves of the body.
Strax took a step forward.
His gaze was cold, clinical, predatory.
“So that’s what you were trying to hide…” he murmured.
He raised his right hand, fingers spread. Streams of golden mana shot from his palm and intertwined in the air, forming a circle of pure runes—but not the ones from the tournament. They were older, heavier.
The ground vibrated.
In an instant, the barrier appeared—a translucent, golden dome that encompassed the convulsing body. The sound was muffled, as if the air had been knocked out of it.
Within the shield, the corpse writhed impossibly, bones snapping and rearranging beneath the flesh.
The screams of the audience became distant echoes.
Strax simply watched, intent, as the containment runes tightened, each engraved with surgical precision.
But then—the smell.
An acrid, nauseating odor began to escape from the fissures. The body within the barrier began to swell, the skin stretching to its limit, pulsing with the energy building within.
Strax understood what was coming next.
The woman watching him from the box did too.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, the first trace of expression she’d shown—and for an instant, the thread of mana connecting her hand to the corpse glowed brightly.
Strax clenched his fist.
The barrier contracted, reinforced.
And then the world exploded.
A white flash, followed by a wave of black energy, tore through the dome from the inside out. The sound was deafening—a deep roar, like thunder trapped within the earth.
The impact struck the walls of the arena, causing the columns to vibrate and the ceiling to shake. Dust fell from the stands, and the torches danced violently.
Even with restraint, the force was immense.
Strax stood firm in the center, his arm outstretched, his golden aura resisting the impact. Every fiber of his body seemed to struggle against the barrier’s collapse, and the ground beneath his feet melted into fiery fissures.
When the light finally dissipated, only smoke remained—and silence.
The arena was destroyed in the center. The fighting circle had been scratched from the ground, the runes erased. At the epicenter, the corpse had disappeared, leaving only a deep scar, smoking with residual energy.
Strax breathed slowly, his gaze fixed on the void that remained.
He knew what it was. Not just any explosion. It was a seal of destruction—a sacrifice.
In the box, the woman with slanted eyes watched silently. The flames of the flash reflected in her dark irises, and even from a distance, Strax could feel the faintest smile tugging at his lips.
“Interesting…” he murmured, wiping the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. —Really, very interesting…
He then connected with Samira again… “Samira, kill everyone using negative energy and seal them with mana. They’re bombs.”