Chapter 116: Awakened Tournament Crisis (22)

For a fraction of a second, he believed the battle was over.

Then he felt something.

A strange energy stirred beneath the purple Essence surrounding Elio.

It was faint at first, almost imperceptible beneath the crushing pressure of Malicious Spirit.

But as Eden focused on it, the sensation grew stronger.

Something about it made his instincts recoil.

It wasn’t simply dangerous.

It was wrong.

An ancient, predatory presence seemed to stir somewhere deep within Elio, its attention turning toward Eden as though it had finally noticed the person attempting to force its host to submit.

Eden’s expression changed.

’What is that?’

The purple Essence began to writhe.

Not like an ordinary skill responding to its user’s commands.

Rather, it felt like something awakening.

A strange sensation crawled across Eden’s skin, and for the first time in the battle, his instincts delivered a warning so forceful that he almost acted on it without thinking.

’Run.’

The word surfaced in his mind, sudden and absolute.

Eden had fought monsters capable of destroying cities, creatures whose Essence had been so overwhelming that merely standing near them could make weaker Awakened collapse.

He had faced S-Rank entities.

He had survived encounters that should have ended his life.

But this feeling was different.

It wasn’t the raw pressure of an overwhelmingly powerful opponent.

It was the instinctive fear of a predator recognizing something far older and more dangerous than itself.

Then the System flickered.

For an instant, the familiar translucent interface appeared in Eden’s vision.

Its text distorted.

Characters shifted, overlapped, and dissolved into unreadable symbols. The interface seemed to stutter, as though something had interfered with the System itself.

Then a notification appeared.

[ERROR...]

The text vanished.

Another message followed, its letters trembling across the display.

[The Serpent God refuses to succumb.]

Eden’s eyes widened.

’The Serpent God?’

Before he could process the notification, the purple Essence erupted.

The pressure of Malicious Spirit shattered.

The purple serpent rose behind Elio, its enormous head emerging from a violent storm of Essence. Its glowing eyes burned with an intensity that made the creature’s earlier manifestation seem almost harmless.

Elio lifted his head.

Blood still stained his lips, but the pain in his expression had changed.

His purple eyes were sharper now.

Colder.

And beneath their surface, something seemed to be looking out through them.

The next instant, Elio moved.

Eden’s instincts screamed.

He crossed his Aura Blade in front of his chest just as the whipblade struck.

The impact blasted him backward.

His boots carved two deep trenches through the ground as he struggled to absorb the force. The crimson Essence coating his sword shuddered, and the protective barrier behind him flashed as the shockwave struck it.

Eden barely managed to stabilize himself before Elio was upon him again.

The whipblade lashed forward, its purple serpent following every movement. Eden dodged the first strike, blocked the second, and used Burst-Step to avoid the third.

But Elio didn’t give him time to recover.

He attacked relentlessly.

Each swing carried more power than before, and the purple Essence surrounding him seemed to grow denser with every exchange. The serpent’s jaws snapped at Eden from unexpected angles, forcing him to divide his attention between the whipblade and the enormous creature coiling around it.

Eden’s earlier advantage had vanished.

Now he was the one being forced to retreat.

’What the hell just happened?’

He blocked another strike, feeling the impact travel through his arms.

’Did he just break through Malicious Spirit?’

That shouldn’t have been possible.

Malicious Spirit wasn’t an ordinary debuff that could be shrugged off through physical strength alone. It crushed the opponent’s spirit beneath an overwhelming force of will and Essence.

Even if Elio possessed extraordinary mental resistance, he shouldn’t have been able to escape that easily.

’In rhat case...’

’Does he have a skill that negates debuffs?’

It was the only explanation Eden could think of.

If Elio possessed an ability that allowed him to resist or nullify debuffs, it would explain why he could overcome Malicious Spirit. It might even explain how he had managed to keep fighting after sustaining injuries that should have incapacitated him.

But that notification...

’The Serpent God refuses to succumb.’

Eden’s jaw tightened.

’That didn’t sound like a normal skill description.’

’It sounded like the System had acknowledged something beyond the ability itself.’

’Something that didn’t want to be restrained.’

Another collision sent sparks scattering between them.

Eden twisted his blade, redirecting Elio’s attack with the Recoilless Technique before launching a counterstrike toward his opponent’s shoulder.

Elio turned his weapon and blocked.

The impact shook the arena.

Neither man retreated.

For several seconds, they remained locked together, their weapons grinding against one another as crimson and purple Essence surged around them.

Eden stared into Elio’s eyes.

Elio stared back.

The strange intensity remained, but his expression had returned to its usual calm.

Whatever had awakened within him, he wasn’t allowing it to interfere with his control over the battle.

Then Elio spoke quietly.

"You’re even more troublesome than I expected."

Eden gave him a faint smile.

"Funny. I was about to say the same thing."

He pushed away from the clash, creating a few meters of distance.

Elio allowed him to retreat.

The purple serpent coiled around the whipblade, its head hovering above Elio’s shoulder.

Eden’s crimson aura continued to churn.

Both fighters were breathing harder now.

The audience erupted.

"THEY’RE STILL GOING?!"

"WHAT KIND OF FIGHT IS THIS?!"

"ARE WE SURE THESE TWO ARE ONLY A-RANK?!"

The protective barrier flashed repeatedly as the battlefield shook beneath their feet. Every clash threatened to tear apart another section of the arena, and the restoration systems struggled to keep pace with the destruction.

Even the announcer had stopped trying to commentate on every exchange.

There was simply too much happening too quickly.

He could only stare as the two young men moved across the arena, their weapons flashing through the dust.

Eden’s mind continued racing.

He needed to understand Elio’s purple Essence.

He needed to understand the strange force that had broken through Malicious Spirit.

And above all, he needed to know what the System meant by the Serpent God.

But he wouldn’t get those answers by standing still.

Eden tightened his grip on his Aura Blade.

Across from him, Elio raised his whipblade, the purple serpent opening its jaws.

The two fighters moved at the same time.

Crimson and violet collided once more, and the arena shook beneath the force of their next exchange.