He cracked his neck, the loud pop echoing softly over the sandy arena floor. He let his golden eyes wander over the sea of heavily armed competitors surrounding him.
He looked at the towering man with the massive iron shield. He looked at the two rogues twirling their daggers by the wall. He even looked right past Klauss, the silver-haired man standing casually in the center.
Lexel furrowed his brows. The smirk slowly faded into a look of mild annoyance.
Wait... which one of these guys is the Champion?
He hadn't bothered reading the tournament pamphlet. He hadn't asked Anthierin about the roster. To Lexel, the fifty men standing in the arena all just looked like a generic batch of hard-stuck Level 19s. None of them had a glowing neon sign over their head.
BWOOOOOOOOOOM!
The massive iron war horn mounted on the coliseum wall blew, its deep, earth-shaking vibration rattling the teeth of everyone in the stands.
"LET THE EINJAAR BATTLE ROYAL... BEGIN!" the announcer roared from the high podium.
The crowd erupted into a deafening frenzy of cheers and stomping feet.
Down on the sand, the tension snapped. But instead of an immediate, chaotic clash of steel, a strange, unified movement occurred near the edges of the arena.
Five fighters—three swordsmen, a man with a heavy mace, and a spear-wielder—exchanged quick glances. In a free-for-all tournament, the unspoken rule of the Fourth World was always the same: eliminate the weakest links first so you don't get stabbed in the back while fighting the real threats.
And the weakest link had a giant, invisible "Level 15" painted on his back.
"Nothing personal, kid!" the spear-wielder shouted, kicking up sand as the group of five charged directly at Lexel.
Up in the stands, Anthierin gasped, her hands gripping the stone railing. "They're targeting him immediately!"
Lexel didn't reach for a weapon. He just let out a heavy, exaggerated sigh, his shoulders slumping.
I guess I'll just have to beat all of them until the system tells me I got the right one.
The spear-wielder reached him first, lunging forward with a brutal thrust aimed directly at Lexel's chest. It was a fast, practiced strike from a Level 19 veteran, carrying enough force to punch right through standard iron armor.
Lexel didn't dodge. He didn't even shift his stance.
He simply raised his left hand and caught the razor-sharp spearhead with his bare palm.
CLANG!
The sound of steel striking flesh echoed sharply, but not a single drop of blood fell. The spear stopped dead in its tracks. The sheer kinetic force of the charge dispersed instantly, sending a shockwave of displaced sand rippling out around Lexel's boots.
The spear-wielder's eyes went wide. He tried to pull his weapon back, but Lexel's grip was like a vice clamped onto a mountain.
"Is this it?" Lexel asked, his voice deadpan. "Are you the Champion?"
"W-What?!" the man stammered, pulling frantically at the wooden shaft.
"I'll take that as a no," Lexel muttered.
Lexel squeezed his hand. The steel spearhead crumpled like wet paper, snapping cleanly off the wooden shaft. Before the terrified fighter could react, Lexel stepped inside his guard and casually flicked his finger against the man's chest plate.
BANG!
It sounded like a cannon firing. The solid steel chest plate caved inward under the sheer force of the finger flick. The spear-wielder was launched off his feet, flying backward through the air for twenty feet before crashing into the arena wall, unconscious before he even hit the ground.
The remaining four attackers skidded to a violent halt in the sand.
The man with the mace swallowed hard, his hands suddenly trembling. The three swordsmen looked at the crumpled spearhead falling from Lexel's hand, and then up at the bored expression on his face.
Up in the VIP box, the arrogant atmosphere instantly plummeted.
Kain gripped the velvet railing, his knuckles turning white. His blue eyes widened as he stared at the young man standing casually in the sand.
That's him. The realization hit Kain like a physical blow. That's the lunatic who ran across the rooftops.
Beside him, his fiancée, the Baron's daughter, gasped, covering her mouth with her silk fan. She recognized the disrespectful smirk immediately.
Behind them, the Baron of Einjaar furrowed his thick brows.
He had leaned forward in his oversized chair, a goblet of fine wine resting on his protruding belly, fully expecting to enjoy a good laugh as the foolish Level 15 was butchered in the opening seconds.
Instead, he had just watched a man cave in a solid steel chest plate with a single flick of his finger.
The Baron swallowed hard, his thick throat bobbing. Little beads of cold sweat began to form on his greasy forehead. He had sponsored Kain's rise to power years ago. He had seen the peak of what a Level 19 fighter was capable of.
Not even Kain could do something like that back then, the Baron thought, his heart suddenly hammering against his ribs.
Panic began to claw at the edges of the Baron's mind. It wasn't just about the spectacle of the tournament. It was about the gold. As the overseer of Einjaar, he backed the arena's massive betting pool.
Just an hour ago, he had read the morning betting reports. He had almost laughed himself to tears when he saw that an anonymous backer had placed a staggering 50,000G bet on the Level 15 nobody.
But now, looking at the crumpled spearhead in the sand, the math suddenly hit the Baron like a runaway carriage. At one-to-ten odds, if Lexel actually won the Battle Royal, the arena would have to pay out half a million gold coins.
The Baron would be utterly bankrupted. He would lose his estate, his title, everything.
The Baron's breathing grew shallow. No. It's impossible. A Level 15 cannot win.
Desperate for reassurance, he forcefully tore his gaze away from Lexel and shifted it toward the center of the arena. His beady eyes landed on the tall, silver-haired figure of Klauss. The Champion.
Seeing Klauss standing there, radiating a heavy, suffocating aura of power, the Baron finally let out a long, shaky breath. He settled back into his heavily cushioned chair, wiping the sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief.
Yes. It's fine, the Baron reassured himself, taking a deep gulp of his wine to calm his nerves. The boy might have some freakish brute strength, but he is no match for a true Champion. Klauss will butcher him, and I will keep all their gold.
Lexel looked down at his hands.
Fine, web-like cracks were spreading across the knuckles of his iron gauntlets. The cheap metal groaned as he flexed his fingers, a few tiny shards of iron flaking off and falling into the sand.
Double the power, double the cost of usage, Lexel thought, analyzing the deteriorating gear.
Channeling his monstrous base stats through standard Fourth World equipment was like trying to funnel a raging waterfall through a straw. The gauntlets were on the verge of shattering completely.
But Lexel wasn't running out of options. In fact, he had never felt more at home.
He glanced around the massive, sandy ring. To the other competitors, the arena was a terrifying cage. To Lexel, it was a buffet practically littered with toys.
A wicked smirk curled on his lips as his mind brushed against the dormant power deep within his status window.
[Class Passive: WarGod Scion - Arsenal] [Effect: Doubles the base stats of any equipped weapon. Doubles the rate of durability degradation.]
Lexel rolled his shoulders, his lazy, bored posture vanishing entirely. The relaxed kid from the registration booth was gone.
He bent down and casually scooped up a discarded iron shortsword from the sand—dropped by one of the three terrified swordsmen who were currently backing away from him in horror.
The moment Lexel's fingers wrapped around the hilt, the cheap iron blade hummed. It vibrated violently, a lethal, suffocating pressure radiating from the steel as [Arsenal] forcibly hijacked the weapon's limits.
Lexel raised his head, his glowing golden irises sweeping across the arena.
He started his hunt.
And immediately, the noticeables felt it.
Across the ring, Vance's grip tightened so violently on his massive tower shield that the thick leather straps groaned in protest. The hulking defender took a subconscious half-step backward, the hairs on his arms standing straight up.
By the arena wall, the Twin Blades stopped twirling their daggers. Their breath hitched in their throats. Every single survival instinct they had honed in the underworld was suddenly screaming at them to hide, to run, to do anything but look at the boy with the glowing sword.
Even Klauss, the silver-haired Champion standing dead center in the ring, shifted his stance. The Champion's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, the smug confidence finally bleeding out of his posture.
The suffocating pressure radiating from the Level 15 wasn't just raw, freakish strength anymore.
It was the refined, overwhelming bloodlust of a god of war.
Lexel didn't announce his attack. He simply kicked off the sand, moving so fast the sound of his footsteps lagged a fraction of a second behind him.
The three swordsmen standing in front of him didn't even have time to blink.
The three swordsmen standing in front of him didn't even have time to blink.
SWISH.
Lexel moved like a blur of sheer violence. He didn't use a grand technique or shout a skill name. He just swung the cheap iron shortsword. Amplified to double its stats by [Arsenal], the rusted blade cleaved straight through the first swordsman's steel guard like it was cutting through wet parchment. The sheer kinetic force behind the blow sent the man spinning through the air, unconscious before he hit the sand.
Before the second man could even raise his shield, Lexel stepped perfectly into his blind spot. He drove the pommel of the sword directly into the center of the man's breastplate.
CRUNCH.
The steel caved in. The man's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
The third swordsman dropped his weapon and tried to run. Lexel didn't chase him. He simply tossed his cracking shortsword like a throwing knife. It buried itself to the hilt in the sand right between the fleeing man's boots, tripping him so hard he face-planted into the dirt and didn't get back up.
Lexel didn't stop to admire his work. He flowed directly into the chaotic melee of the Battle Royal like a wolf stepping into a pen of blind sheep.
It was a display of ruthless, breathtaking efficiency.
He fought with the precision of a master assassin and the overwhelming force of a siege engine. He grabbed a heavy mace dropped by a fallen fighter.
CRACK. He swung it once, sending a heavily armored knight flying over the arena wall and into the spectator stands. The mace shattered in his hands from the doubled degradation. He immediately dropped the splintered handle, sidestepped a spear thrust aimed at his ribs, yanked the attacker forward by the shaft, and clotheslined him into the dirt.
He didn't need to block. He didn't need to evade. He just kept moving forward, picking up whatever weapon was closest, pushing it past its breaking point with his passive, and discarding it the moment it shattered.
Within three minutes, the deafening, bloodthirsty roar of the coliseum had devolved into a stunned, breathless silence.
The dust slowly began to settle.
Half of the arena's competitors were gone.
Some were buried in fresh craters in the sand. Others were groaning in heaps of dented armor. A good dozen had literally thrown themselves out of bounds, choosing the humiliation of disqualification over facing the monster another second.
A clear, physical boundary had formed on the arena floor.
On one side stood the surviving twenty-odd fighters. They were panting, bleeding, and trembling uncontrollably. Without a single word spoken between them, the veterans had completely abandoned the free-for-all format. They were huddled together in a defensive semicircle, their weapons raised in sheer panic.
On the other side stood Lexel.
He casually kicked a broken halberd out of his way and cracked his neck, a fresh, stolen broadsword resting lazily on his shoulder. He wasn't even breathing heavily.
The Level 19 veterans exchanged terrified glances.
They had spent weeks preparing strategies for this day. They had formed secret alliances. They had carefully planned exactly how they were going to gang up on Klauss, fully believing that the silver-haired Champion was the undisputed apex predator of the Einjaar arena.
They were so, so wrong.
There is no underdog in this tournament, Vance thought, his thick arms violently shaking behind his massive tower shield. He's not a Level 15. He's a calamity.
Even Klauss had stopped moving. The Champion stood frozen near the edge of the survivor's circle, his jagged broadsword lowered, his silver eyes locked onto Lexel in absolute disbelief.
Lexel looked at the terrified mob huddled together across the sand. He let out a disappointed sigh.
"Come on," Lexel complained, pointing the tip of his stolen broadsword at the group. "Don't clump up like that. You're making this boring."
Up in the lower stands, the half-eaten meat skewer in Uncle Daren's hand slipped from his fingers, tumbling into the dirt below.
He didn't even notice. His eyes were wide, completely glued to the absolute carnage on the arena floor. He had been a weapon merchant for decades. He knew how much force it took to shatter an iron mace in a single swing.
Daren gulped, a thick lump stuck in his throat. He slowly turned his head. "A-Anthierin..." he asked, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "Who is he?"
Anthierin didn't look away from the sand. Her eyes were fixated on the man who had effortlessly forced the entire surviving competition to team up against him in pure desperation.
"Sometimes, Unc..." Anthierin whispered, her breath hitching slightly. "I ask that question myself."
The rest of the coliseum shared Daren's horror. The bloodthirsty roars of thousands of spectators had completely died in their throats. There were no cheers. No chants. Just a heavy, suffocating silence as they watched a Level 15 systematically dismantle the absolute laws of the Fourth World.
But nowhere was the shock more palpable than in the grand VIP box hanging high above the arena.
Crash.
The Baron's jewel-encrusted goblet slipped from his sweaty, trembling fingers, shattering against the marble floor. The fine red wine pooled around his expensive leather boots like blood.
He was pale. Ghostly, sickly pale. His massive chest heaved as he gripped the armrests of his oversized chair, his beady eyes bulging out of his skull.
He's going to win, the Baron's mind screamed, completely consumed by terror. The Level 15 is actually going to win. Half a million gold... I'm ruined. I'm completely ruined!
Beside him, his daughter had dropped her silk fan. She was pressing herself against the back of her cushioned chair, trembling as if Lexel's suffocating aura could reach all the way up into their private box. She stared at the man she had mocked on the street just yesterday, realizing how close she had been to a walking natural disaster.
And Kain...
The previous winner of the Einjaar Battle Royal was no longer lounging in his seat. He had unconsciously pushed himself up, standing rigidly with his hands gripping the stone railing so hard his knuckles were bruised white.
Kain's perfect, arrogant composure was shattered into pieces. His blue eyes were blown wide, tracking Lexel's relaxed, bored posture down on the sand.
Kain had unlocked the Champion class. He knew what it meant to be strong. He knew the absolute physical limits of a Level 19 fighter better than anyone in the city.
But the sheer, casual violence he had just witnessed didn't belong to a Champion. It didn't belong to this world at all.
Who... what is that thing? Kain thought, a cold bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. He isn't even using a combat skill. He's just... swinging.
Down on the sand, completely oblivious to the existential dread he was causing the nobles above, Lexel rested the stolen broadsword on his shoulder.
"Well?" Lexel called out, his voice echoing clearly in the dead-silent coliseum. He pointed the tip of the blade toward the huddled group of survivors.