Chapter 121 – The Razor’s Edge.

The second match of the Conquerors' Bracket began under the suffocating heat of three in the afternoon.

The reddish sand of the Red Cauldron Arena was stained with pools of dried blood and scorch marks from previous bouts. The stone stands were packed even tighter, with twelve thousand spectators shouting wagers and stamping their feet against the wooden planks.

Diana and Zarek stepped onto the arena through the east gate.

This time, the crowd's mockery had completely vanished. The spectators had already witnessed the speed with which the black-horned girl had melted the minotaurs' iron shields in the opening round.

However, when the gates on the west side rose, the pair entering the sandy pit shifted the murmur of the stands into a tense hum of anticipation:

In stepped Varek and Gorgoroth (Level 58 and Level 59).

Varek was a slender demon with skin as black as coal, wearing no heavy armor, surrounded by four floating mirrored crystal blades orbiting his body.

Beside him, Gorgoroth was a colossal three-meter berserker, with slabs of incandescent volcanic rock sprouting directly from the flesh of his shoulders, wielding a massive stone club dripping molten lava.

Diana activated [Command Eye] with 80 Perception points.

She saw the mana lines before the gong even sounded: Varek was a specialist in mirrored illusion distortion, while Gorgoroth was a fire-damage engine with 62 Strength.

The iron gong rang out.

***

The combat did not follow the Commander's customary rotation.

Before Zarek could leap to deploy his steel silk web, Varek slammed both hands onto the sandy floor.

Field of Black Reflections!

A hundred mirrored copies of Varek and Gorgoroth manifested across the arena in concentric circles. The floating crystal blades began spinning, reflecting footfalls and warping the true positions of both fighters in every direction.

Zarek fired silk cables from his four secondary arms, but the threads snagged only false mirror reflections. The tension of the lines yanked the swordsman's own frame sideways, entangling two of his chitin hands in a web of reflecting blades.

Gorgoroth seized the opening that very millisecond.

The Level 59 berserker ignored Zarek entirely and charged straight across the red sand, lava club raised high in both hands, bearing down on Diana's unprotected chest.

Diana raised her left hand to fire an [Arcane Ice Lance].

Yet the instant the ice spike left her fingertips, two of Varek's mirrored blades crossed the spell's trajectory, reflecting half the ice's kinetic impact back down at the ground right by Diana's boots.

The blast of gravel and ice destabilized the Commander's footing.

Gorgoroth closed the gap.

The three-ton club of stone and lava crashed down in a devastating vertical arc.

Diana triggered [Arcane Teleportation] at the final possible split second.

Even so, the thermal and kinetic shockwave kicked up by the club's impact expanded in a five-meter radius. The fringe of the blast caught Diana mid-leap, slamming the girl's frame against the arena's granite rampart with brutal violence.

The Dragon Chestplate creaked under the pressure of the blow, and Diana's ribs flared with agonizing heat.

Diana's health bar plummeted into a critical red warning: from 550 to 120 HP.

Diana dropped to her knees on the red sand, coughing blood into the dust, her peripheral vision flickering in black and white as the wind was ripped completely from her lungs.

***

On the other side of the arena, two of Varek's crystal blades slashed Zarek's right flank to keep him pinned within the cables.

The swordsman's gray blood splattered across the gravel.

Zarek's health bar dipped below twenty percent.

And that was when the trait of the Sin of Wrath awakened with full force.

DEATH DENIAL!

All six of Zarek's eyes blanked out into pitch black, his pupils burning with violent crimson. His pain receptors shut down completely.

Zarek's physical Strength surged to 85 STRENGTH.

With a guttural roar of blind fury, the arachnid demon shattered Varek's crystal blades with his bare chitin hands, snapping the steel through raw finger strength alone.

Gorgoroth was already raising the lava club to crush Diana slumped at the base of the wall.

Diana did not close her eyes. She did not panic.

With 120 health points remaining, she drew in all the air her battered chest could bear and triggered her supreme skill:

GREED COMMAND - WILL OF THE SOVEREIGN!

Golden light from the vault erupted from Diana's chest, propelling her Intelligence to 241 POINTS.

With Perception pushed to its absolute threshold, her dark eyes ringed in gold spotted the genuine micro-vibration behind the third mirror to the right: the true Varek was lurking behind the berserker's leg.

Diana focused two hundred points of mana into her obsidian horns.

OBSIDIAN HORNS' IGNEOUS FOCUS!

PZZZZT!

The needle-thin beam of white fire lanced from the circlet with the force of a concentrated heat spear, boring through the false mirror and piercing the true Varek's shoulder, obliterating the illusionist's mana focus.

All one hundred mirrored duplicates vanished into thin air that very second.

Zarek closed in like a bolt of blood and steel.

ASCENDANT FURY — TEN STACKS!

With Level 60 Agility and 85 Strength fueled by Death Denial, Zarek intercepted Gorgoroth's club with both moon swords and unloaded a flurry of eight slashes from his secondary arms straight into the Level 59 berserker's abdomen and legs.

The final concussive drive from Zarek's four chitin hands struck the three-meter giant's chest, hurling Gorgoroth's three-hundred-kilogram bulk clean over the safety barrier, outside the arena perimeter.

Varek, wounded in the shoulder by Diana's thermal beam and lacking his berserker to hold the line, dropped to his knees on the red sand and raised an open left hand in immediate surrender.

The referee dashed to the center, striking down his banner:

“MATCH OVER! VICTORY TO PAIR SEVENTEEN BY AREA KNOCKOUT!”

***

Silence held across the stands only long enough for the dust to settle.

Diana sat on the red sand propped against the stone wall, holding her bruised ribs with her right hand, panting heavily as she wiped blood from her chin.

Beside her, Zarek dropped to his knees on the ground as the effects of Death Denial wore off, struggling for breath under the brutal muscular toll, his gray skin mapped with shallow cuts.

They had won by a razor's edge.

The arena attendant ran up to them and handed over the pouch containing 15 pure Silver Coins for the semifinal victory.

In the honor box high in the stands, Inquisitor Vaelor (Level 65) rose slowly from his iron throne.

The border commander struck his two steel gauntlets together in slow, heavy claps that reverberated through the entire arena, fixing Diana and Zarek with a piercing stare from beneath his scarlet cowl.

The grand final would take place tomorrow.

Diana placed a hand against the granite wall and pushed herself up slowly, feeling every muscle in her body ache, yet the golden rings in her pupils burned with the absolute certainty of someone who refused to fall at the final turn.