In the chilly winter air, Hyperion held Talia's hand, as if wanting to share some warmth.

"Tata, why don't you go back first? I'll have Lan Qi take me back to Cat Boss Restaurant later."

Hyperion gazed at Talia, speaking gently and considerately.

She could sense that Talia didn't really want to watch the match anymore.

Although she didn't know the reason, Hyperion wouldn't pry when someone might be troubled.

"Okay, I'll wait for you at home for dinner."

Talia nodded, released Hyperion's hand, stood up, and quickly left along the aisle.

Watching Talia's figure disappear, Hyperion exhaled, a mixture of relief and sigh.

"I wish I had a mother like that when I was little..."

Hyperion murmured silently, her eyelashes lowered.

Then Hyperion shook her head and looked again at the battle stage.

In the cold battle square, the iron armor of the Demon King's Slaughter Squad clanked. A thin, wiry fighter suddenly burst out with astonishing speed, his figure instantly transforming into a bolt of lightning. Every muscle in his body generated tremendous force as he moved, seemingly about to fly forward with a powerful kick to bury his enemy.

But the Demon King's jagged broadsword was already meeting it. He didn't intend to block with the weapon, but rather to take the kick head-on. At the same time, the fighter's chest was torn open by the jagged edges, and the warmth of his bright red flesh was instantly carried away by the cold wind.

On the other side of the square, two members of the Demon King's army were besieging a lone fighter who was retreating. He tried to dodge in terror, but the heavy battle-axe and the scythe of the Grim Reaper, impossible to avoid, slashed at his waist from left and right. Blood splattered, and his internal organs were almost separated from his body. The powerful impact made him wonder if his lumbar spine had been directly shattered.

As blood mist filled the air, the audience could clearly see that each attack by the Demon King's army was sculpting an art of terror. They weren't just fighting for victory, but also enjoying the process of slaughter, as if only in this way could they heat up their chaotic eyes and fill their already empty hearts.

The five Ikeryte fighters, modified by Lan Qi, felt no pain; they had only the battle commands of slaughter left.

Their jagged broadswords and battle-axes drew arcs of bright red in the air. Each time they fell, a fighter would scream miserably or be sent flying.

The white battle square had already been dyed a crimson red, and the scarlet bloodstains were constantly being rubbed and spread across the marble floor tiles.

"No, don't come over here!"

A fighter with a twisted calf, tears of terror in his eyes, sat on the ground retreating, using all his strength to strike at the Demon King's army in front of him. However, it was like an ant trying to shake a tree. The butcher, getting closer and closer, had only contempt for life and a morbid obsession with slaughter in his eyes.

Next, the chilling sound of ruptured organs echoed.

In the battle that lasted more than ten minutes, the fighters of the Yaroran Kingdom fell one after another, the bloodstained weapons emitting a cold luster in the dim natural light.

At this moment, the entire arena had become silent, except for the four fighters who had already fainted, there was only Kuse left, being approached by five demons.

Even though each member of the Ikeryte Academy Fighter Team was already seriously injured, their smiles were even more satisfied.

"Finally, it's just you left..."

The deputy团长 (deputy leader) let out a deep, abyss-like bass.

As for the other members, their purpose in coming here seemed to be to kill Kuse from the very beginning, even if killing him a thousand times or ten thousand times wouldn't be enough.

This hatred seemed to have almost turned into love. They only wanted to see him, to get close to him, and only from him could they find the answer that would satisfy them.

"Why aren't you guys falling down yet?!"

Kuse began to retreat for the first time, howling in bewilderment.

These were instinctive muscle movements.

In the previous battle, it wasn't as if he hadn't knocked these guys down.

But even if their bones were broken, they would still stand up again!

He had never seen such terrifying creatures.

Although, at present, Kuse, with his face covered in blood, still seemed to have the strength to fight, facing the desperate siege of five crazy demon-like creatures, he finally felt terror.

Under this momentum, he didn't want to fight these mad dogs head-on anymore.

But in front of tens of thousands of people, if he surrendered to a few weaklings he despised the most, it would be more painful than killing him!

"Do you know how many times I've been killed by you..."

"Today, you must die here..."

"I will never let you hurt Zirvini again..."

Their heads shook from side to side, and the muscles on their faces twisted as they muttered to themselves, their scarlet eyes fixed solely on Kuse.

These creatures, as if brainwashed by malice, were mumbling inexplicable words.

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

Watching all this, Kuse finally shouted in terror.

He had never done anything to Zirvini!

At this time, even Lu Weixi Er, the commentator in the commentary booth, didn't know what to say.

Hyperion immediately flipped over and jumped off the audience stand, running to the Lan Qi beside the coach's bench and sitting down.

The problem was much more serious than she had imagined!!

Originally, the staff noticed that an audience member had jumped down and was preparing to come over and stop her, but when they saw Lan Qi raise his hand to indicate that this was someone from their coaching staff, the staff nodded and stopped.

"Hyperion, I guarantee that I will make you feel better today."

Lan Qi noticed Hyperion's arrival, looked at her, and said with a triumphant smile.

"Lan Qi, what exactly have you been making them do these past two days?"

Hyperion asked, staring at Lan Qi anxiously.

Although she was a little surprised that Lan Qi would admit that he was fighting this battle to protect her, rather than finding other high-sounding reasons, she was now extremely worried that Lan Qi had done something too outrageous.

Hyperion felt that Lan Qi, who now understood the desire to win, had become even more abnormal.

It was as if, as long as you met his emerald green eyes, no one could escape his hypnosis. He would make humans fall into a bottomless fanaticism, willingly handing everything over to him...

"I had Professor Bora Ao魔改 (magically modify) a horror-themed single-player version of the artificial shadow world for me, changing the setting of forced exit upon death to—when they die, they will be resurrected at a certain point in time to continue repeating the story until they clear it."

Lan Qi leaned against the bench, looking at the battle square, his hands crossed and resting leisurely on his legs, answering.

"And then?"

"Then I set the images of Kuse and the others from the Yaroran Royal Academy as the villains, and set the heroine to look exactly like Zirvini, sending the five members of the Fighter's Soul into the single-player shadow world separately, and designing the most unacceptable tragic plots for them based on their personalities."

"..."

Hyperion only dared to listen and not speak.

"In that illusory yet real world, these fighters witnessed Zirvini being brutally murdered time and time again. They also endlessly cycled between death and resurrection. Whenever they were most desperate and on the verge of collapse, the Great Love Poet would appear as a goddess, gently recounting the mistakes and sins they had committed in this loop, sending them back to start over."

Lan Qi continued to tell Hyperion.

"You let the Great Love Poet...be the goddess?"

Hyperion swallowed.

"Yes, I let her let go and do her best at talking therapy."

"No..."

Hyperion covered her head.

She couldn't describe what kind of soul torture game this was, filled with sin.

But this was the Pandora's Box that she had personally opened.

"It's not over yet."

Lan Qi shook his head.

What the members of the Fighter's Soul team didn't realize was that Lan Qi, as the administrator of the control center, would sometimes go down and play a certain role, artificially creating some tragedies that made them feel extremely terrified or extremely angry in order to guide them.

Although the ending of the story was that the challenger won, the companions they had formed bonds with would definitely die, including Zirvini, who would inevitably die because of the challenger.

Whenever there was a chance for one of the challenger's companions to survive to the finale, Lan Qi would personally manipulate the game to make sure they were gone for good.

"I mainly wanted to highlight a sense of fate. Whenever I showed them a little bit of hope, I would extinguish it at the moment they thought things were about to get better, making them understand the fact that fate is difficult to change. When they return to the real world, they will have a feeling of waking up from a dream, but they will also find that the gears of fate have begun to turn forcibly again, and they have only one last chance left."

Lan Qi finished telling Hyperion about his training arrangements for the past two days.

In the end, after more than thirty hours of training, five fighters successfully walked out of this artificial shadow world controlled by Lan Qi.

Their mental outlook had also undergone earth-shattering changes.

"You..."

Hyperion's eyelids twitched wildly, and she quickly looked back at the battle square.

These five fighters had such a deeply immersive experience in the shadow world for so long that they probably couldn't tell what was real and what was fake anymore. At the very least, they had witnessed Kuse killing Zirvini hundreds of times. Now, the only thing in their minds was probably the desire to kill Kuse.

She couldn't imagine what these five fighters were going to do to Kuse next!

(End of chapter)