Chapter 316: The Abomination Steps Forward

Chapter 316: Chapter 316: The Abomination Steps Forward

The Crimson Eclipse Sect rose from their seats like a wound opening.

Seven figures in black and crimson robes stepped onto the arena floor, their movements synchronized, their eyes empty.

They moved like puppets on strings, each step precise, mechanical, wrong.

The air temperature dropped.

Then rose again.

A putrid, rotting heat washed across the coliseum, carrying the stench of old blood and necrotic flesh. The crowd shifted, uncomfortable, their cheers dying in their throats.

Kai Reventon led them.

He walked to the center of the arena and stopped.

The other six Crimson Eclipse disciples fell back to the boundary line, leaving him alone on the stage.

Kai raised his head.

His neck cracked as it tilted, the joints popping with an audible snap-crack that echoed through the sudden silence. His shoulders rolled, and beneath his robes, something shifted. Something that wasn’t bone. Something that scraped against itself like rusted metal grinding against rusted metal.

His eyes glowed.

An obscene, oily purple-red.

Not the warm gold of the Solaris bloodline. Not the clean blue of spiritual energy.

This was rot given form. Corruption made manifest.

Damon watched from the Azure Dragon dugout, his Incubus Celestial Eyes active, recording every detail.

What did they do to you?

The answer was written in Kai’s very structure.

His spine had been reinforced with demonic bone grafts, the vertebrae fused with black iron spikes that protruded just beneath the skin.

His ribs had been replaced, each one carved from the femurs of slain beasts and fused with his own skeleton through necromantic surgery.

His arms had been lengthened, the joints reversed, the tendons replaced with sinew harvested from something that had never been human.

He wasn’t a cultivator anymore.

He was an abomination.

A patchwork monster stitched together by demonic arts and Alistair Reventon’s obsession.

The Earth Fang Sect stepped forward.

Their vanguard was a mountain of a man, his shoulders broad as a doorframe, his arms thick as tree trunks.

He wore heavy plate armor etched with earth-vein patterns, and in each hand, he carried a war-axe that gleamed with the weight of crushed mountains.

He planted his feet and the ground trembled.

"I am Garrick Stonebreaker, vanguard of the Earth Fang Sect!"

His voice boomed across the arena, deep and proud, carrying the confidence of a man who had never known defeat.

"I have crushed seventeen opponents in formal combat. I have broken the shields of three sect champions. I have—"

Kai vanished. Not teleportation. Not speed.

He simply ceased to exist in one spot and appeared in another, as if reality itself had blinked.

A blur of black and crimson, streaked with purple-red light, hung in the air like a wound in space.

The crowd gasped. No one could track him. He was already gone before their eyes could register the change.

And then he was standing in front of Garrick Stonebreaker, his face inches from the vanguard’s, his breath carrying the stench of rotting meat.

Garrick’s eyes went wide.

His training kicked in. His war-axes came up, the blades whistling through the air as he brought them down in a crushing cross-slash aimed at Kai’s neck.

The axes hit.

And stopped.

Kai’s hands were raised, his palms open, the blades resting against his flesh like they were striking solid steel.

No. That was impossible.

The axes should have carved through flesh, not rebounded like they were striking something harder than steel.

The crowd gasped, a collective intake of breath hanging in the air.

Garrick’s eyes bulged, disbelief flooding his features. He pulled back for another desperate strike. But Kai was already moving.

His right hand shot forward, fingers extended, the nails elongating as they moved, blackening, sharpening, transforming into jagged, obsidian bone claws that gleamed with an unnatural sheen.

The sound that followed was wet.

A sickening crunch-crack-squelch that echoed through the silent coliseum.

Kai’s hand punched through Garrick’s chest plate like it was paper.

The reinforced armor shattered, fragments of metal and leather spraying across the stone floor. His claws tore through flesh, through muscle, through bone, and closed around something warm and pulsing.

Garrick’s cultivation core.

Kai’s fingers tightened.

And ripped.

The core tore free from Garrick’s chest cavity, trailing blood and spiritual energy that evaporated into the air like steam.

Garrick’s body convulsed, his eyes rolling back, his mouth opening in a silent scream that never came.

He collapsed in a crumpled heap, dead before his body struck the stone with a wet thud.

The arena erupted not in cheers, but in raw, primal screems—*screams of pure horror.

The crowd recoiled, mothers covering their children’s eyes, grown men turning away from the horror on the stage.

The other sects rose from their seats, their faces pale, their hands reaching for weapons.

Grand Marshal Vane stepped forward.

His blood-platinum armor gleamed as he descended from his floating platform, his boots touching the stone with a heavy clank.

His eyes burned with cold fire.

"Kill confirmed within combat bounds."

His voice carried across the silent coliseum, absolute and final.

"Earth Fang disciple deceased."

He turned to the Earth Fang dugout, where the remaining six fighters sat frozen, their faces masks of terror and rage.

"Next fighter."

The Earth Fang captain stood, his hands trembling, his voice cracking as he tried to speak.

"But—but that was—he didn’t even—" The disciple’s voice cracked, face ashen.

"Next fighter." Vane’s command cut through.

Vane’s voice didn’t change. It remained flat.

It didn’t need to. His reputation spoke.

The threat was implicit. One more word, and the next corpse would be theirs.

Earth Fang’s second fighter stepped forward, his legs shaking, his spear wobbling in his grip.

He didn’t make it three steps before Kai was on him.

The abomination moved like a plague given form, his claws tearing through flesh and steel alike, his demonic grafts pulsing with purple-red light.

The crowd watched in horror.

Damon watched in silence.

And in the royal box, King Aurelius Solaris’s eyes narrowed, his hand tightening on the armrest of his throne.

The tournament had just begun.

And already, the monster had been unleashed.