Kaichin and Kimiko advanced together: he moved with murderous speed, wielding his dual daggers ready to shred; she carried her gigantic axe, ready to crush anything in her path.
Kaichin flashed a feral smile.
"Let's see how long you can keep up that pose."
"I'M GOING TO CRUSH THIS TRASH!!!" Kimiko bellowed, her eyes gleaming with pure insanity.
I didn't respond.
I just kept staring at the two of them. The crooked smile on my face now looked like that of a predator consumed by frenzy.
Kaichin initiated the attack with an agile leap and a double spin. His daggers whirled like blades of wind, aiming straight for my ribs.
Kimiko came right behind him, raising her axe for a devastating vertical strike.
I twisted my body at extreme speed, dodging Kaichin's cross attack by mere millimeters. The edge of his daggers passed inches from my skin, tearing fabric from my clothes.
With a firm step on the ground, I blocked the descent of Kimiko's axe using the flat side of my longsword.
The impact of the collision shattered the ground around us like glass.
"You two... together... are a problem," I said, my voice low and drenched in dark fury.
Without losing his momentum, Kaichin attempted a quick spinning slash aimed behind my legs. But I jumped beforehand and delivered a reverse kick straight into his shoulder, breaking his balance backward.
Kimiko roared, pulled back her axe, and charged again.
"GRRRAAAAHHHH!!!"
The colossal blade tore through the air at an absurd speed. Still suspended in the air, I twisted my body and used the sword's hilt as a pivot, sliding beneath the arc of the axe with an almost animal-like flexibility.
The heavy steel grazed past my face.
The instant my boots touched the ground, I advanced against both Kimiko and Kaichin at the same time.
I was a storm of fury and blades, my brain frying.
Kimiko wasn't far behind; her axe moved at a speed that defied physics, a silver blur cutting the air with the sound of thunder.
Meanwhile, Kaichin orbited the periphery, his daggers seeking my flanks every time I opened my guard to deflect one of Kimiko's blows.
I was cornered by him, taking several strikes.
That was when Kimiko missed.
Her heavy axe came down with such force that it sank into the earth, opening a crater in the ground. Before she could pull it back, I leaped and stomped hard on the head of the axe, driving it even deeper into the dirt, locking the weapon into the solid rock.
I used her own desperation as an opening. I spun my sword and slashed diagonally, aiming for her neck.
"DIE!"
But Kimiko planted her feet and dodged by millimeters.
Without her axe, she stopped trying to fight at a distance and engaged in close combat, turning the fight into a slaughter.
Her tattooed arm fired a straight punch that busted my cheek.
I retaliated in the same instant with my blade, a vertical slash that ripped a deep gash in her forearm.
She didn't even blink. The pain seemed to act only as fuel. She continued to unleash blows—a punch to my stomach that made me cough up blood; I responded with a quick horizontal slash that laid open the skin over her knee.
Until, in an act of absolute desperation, she grabbed my right hand. Her nails, like claws, dug into the wrist holding my sword. I felt the blood run down it.
The pain exploded in my mind. The wound gave way.
Kaichin was somewhere behind me. I felt him approaching.
At the peak of the pain, I didn't tremble. I pulled in the air with the strength of a demon and rotated my left shoulder. Using my nearly useless left arm, soaked in blood, I spun and delivered a straight punch right into the middle of Kimiko's face.
The impact was monstrous. The sound of breaking bone echoed through the arena. Her colossal body swayed, her tattooed face deformed by the pain and the shock.
I didn't give her time. I kept hitting. One punch. Two punches. Three punches. Her blood exploded with each impact, staining my face, my clothes, the arena floor.
I was crushing her face with my pain and my hatred.
"THIS IS INSANE!!! SUKI IS CRUSHING KIMIKO WITH ONLY ONE ARM!" the Narrator screamed. "THIS IS AN EXECUTION, GENTLEMEN!!"
She staggered, her gaze vacant, falling into the mud.
I was about to end the fight when a sudden impact hit my back, along with an X-shaped cut.
*BOOOOM!*
A flying kick from Kaichin hit me dead on, pushing me backward for several meters.
He positioned himself in front of me, his daggers ready, a sadistic smile on his face.
I wiped the blood from my mouth and glared at him.
Hesiod's voice rang out completely unhinged through the arena's speakers:
"THIS IS INSANE!!! THERE ARE THREE MONSTERS TEARING EACH OTHER APART ON THE DIVINE SURFACE!!!"
I saw Kimiko rise from the mud, spitting out a thick mixture of blood and dirt.
Her tattooed face was deformed from my punches, but the thick veins popping on her neck showed that the pain had transformed into blind fury.
She marched with heavy steps to the trapped axe, grabbed the steel handle with both hands, and ripped it from the stone floor with a jerk so brutal it made the earth crack around her.
An animalistic roar tore from her throat.
She charged like a stampeding bull, destroying the plain with every footstep.
At the same time, Kaichin used her colossal body as a visual shield, sliding along the flank, low and silent like a viper ready to deliver a lethal strike to my heels.
*This synchronization of theirs is going to kill me. I need to break this duo right now,* I thought.
I focused every ounce of energy I had left into my legs.
When Kimiko twisted her torso, swinging that titanic axe with a force designed to split me exactly in half, I didn't block.
Instead, I let my body weight drop, bending my knees, and slid in a fast, fluid step to the diagonal left, lowering my sword.
The giant blade cut the wind with a deafening whistle, missing my shoulder.
The lack of impact against my defense was fatal for her. Without my body to stop the blow, Kimiko completely lost control of her own inertia.
The absurd weight and centrifugal force of the weapon dragged her violently forward.
The axe followed its unstoppable curved trajectory and found the target that was hidden right behind her.
Kaichin's two daggers were absolutely useless against that inhuman weight.
The thick blade of the axe collided dead center into the boy's exposed chest.
*BOOOOM!*
The nauseating sound of shattering ribs was swallowed by the shockwave.
Kaichin's body was hurled backward like a projectile of flesh and bone.
He flew across the plain and exploded against one of the massive rock formations in the arena, opening a spiderweb-shaped crater in the solid stone.
He plummeted to the ground like a broken doll, his mouth gaping as he vomited a thick puddle of dark blood onto the floor.
"UGH...!!"
Kimiko's eyes widened in absolute shock.
"WHAT THE—?!"
I wasted no time. I blasted forward in the next millisecond and sank a brutal punch straight into the girl's unprotected abdomen.
The impact created a shockwave that swept away the dust.
"Get out of here!!!!" I growled.
The crushing force launched Kimiko in the opposite direction, and her giant body disappeared into the thick cloud of dust covering the battlefield.
Hesiod roared in ecstasy:
"A DOUBLE HIT!!! SUKI HAS TURNED THIS ARENA INTO A TRUE HUNT!!! AND NOW... HE IS CHOOSING HIS OWN PREY!!!"
I cracked my neck slowly, my breathing heavy, my lungs burning. Then, I turned my dark gaze to Kaichin, who was struggling to stand amid the stone rubble with his chest ripped open by the axe.
"Let's start with you..." I whispered.
I began walking toward him.
Slowly. I didn't run; I didn't need to.
I walked like a predator approaching a prey that was already mutilated.
Kaichin, feeling the pressure of death and gasping for air, wiped the thick blood from his mouth.
"Hah... hah..."
And then, to uphold his father's pride, he roared:
"DON'T THINK I'M GOING TO FALL THAT EASILY, YOU BASTARD!!!"
My distorted aura pulsed and expanded with even greater force, warping the hot air around me.
"I hope you don't fall so easily..."
Kaichin stumbled, forcing his own body to stand while blood ran down his chin.
"Hah... hah... do you think... you've already won...?" He raised his trembling daggers once more.
"I STILL HAVE STRENGTH!!!"
With a desperate, animalistic scream, he launched himself forward.
The two daggers gleamed in the sunlight like serpent fangs ready for a suicidal strike.
But I was already waiting for him.
Even with my left shoulder screaming in agony and fresh blood running down my forearm, my eyes didn't waver for a single second. My mind was pure ice. My breathing was steady.
*Pain is just a detail...* intensely remembering Silver's training and his words.
The blades collided again in a deafening frenzy.
Echoes of steel ricocheted through the stands. Every strike was meant to kill. Kaichin's daggers sought quick, fatal cuts at my throat.
My sword blocked, deflected, and counterattacked with the precision of a monster.
"WHAT AN INSANE FIGHT!!!" Hesiod narrated.
"EVEN BLEEDING AND WOUNDED, SUKI CONTROLS EVERY EXCHANGE OF BLOWS!!! HE GIVES NO OPENINGS!!!"
Kaichin attempted a blind cross cut aiming for my ribs. I twisted my hips and dodged by centimeters.
In the same flow of motion, I retaliated with a direct upward thrust into the opponent's shoulder.
The black tip of my blade pierced the muscle and severed the bone joint.
Kaichin screamed in ragged agony.
"AAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
Even with his arm hanging useless, he made one last desperate attempt at survival. He spun his body low, trying to slice my knees.
But my eyes had already mapped out that pathetic movement.
"Now."
With a clean motion, I lowered my stance and slashed horizontally with my sword near the ground.
The blade sliced through flesh and surgically severed both of Kaichin's Achilles tendons at once.
The hollow, wet sound of snapping tendons echoed across the battlefield.
The white-haired boy collapsed instantly.
"AAAARRRGHHH!!!" he howled, his eyes popping out of their sockets.
"NO!!! MY GOD!! MY GOOOOOD!!!"
His legs gave out completely, unable to support the weight of his own body.
He writhed on the ground, agonizing like a run-over animal while blood poured endlessly from his severed heels.
Desperate tears mixed with the blood on his once-arrogant face.
"NO!! NO!!" He began dragging himself across the dirt.
"PLEASE... PLEASE, DON'T KILL ME!! I WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS!! I JUST WANTED TO LIVE!!!"
I approached him with slow steps.
Panting. My body covered in mud and blood.
But my eyes remained dead. Without the slightest trace of compassion.
I stood over him and pointed the sharp, red blade of my longsword directly at Kaichin's panicked face.
"Then let's play their game until the end..."
I spoke with a voice so icy it made the dust settle. I tilted my head slightly to the side.
"Tell me... Where is he? Where is your father?"
Kaichin sobbed in absolute terror.
With his trembling hand that still worked, he slowly pointed his finger upward.
Toward the VIP Sections of the divine audience.
My eyes followed the direction of the bloodied finger.
And then I saw him.
Riku. The God of Pride.
Imposing. Majestic. Sitting comfortably in his divine tribune, protected by magic glass.
The cold, arrogant gaze of the deity clashed directly with mine across the hundreds of meters of distance. His enormous, smooth white hair fluttered like a flag of peace, but his black armor with red details spoke of war.
No words were spoken.
Only silence. Contempt.
And an overwhelming hatred and sense of superiority emanating from that god.
For a brief moment, the entire world seemed to freeze around the two of us. The man high up there, and me, bathed in his son's blood down below.
I held his gaze without blinking for long seconds.
Then, slowly, I lowered my eyes back to the useless boy still crying at my feet.
My voice came out cold. Empty.
"You've gone far enough."
Without hesitating a single millisecond, I sank my sword with both hands straight into the middle of Kaichin's chest.
The blade pierced through his heart and drove into the earth beneath his body.
The sickening sound of flesh and bones being pierced spread through the silence.
Kaichin let out one last, choked, bloody sigh.
"Agh..."
The light of despair in his gray eyes slowly faded, turning glassy, as the puddle of blood spread across the ground beneath his freshly dead corpse.
Hesiod spoke in a shocked and almost reverent tone:
"EXECUTION... COMPLETE."
A deathly silence devoured the entire arena, with the narrator's voice echoing.
*It was him or me.*
The second star had fallen.
The mortal gods watched in deep shock. A few smiled with a sick pleasure for having won bets, but the vast majority swallowed hard, beginning to seriously fear the demon that was rising from the mud.
High above, Riku maintained his faint, cold smile.
But, if you looked deep into those immortal irises...
There was discomfort.
I dragged the sword stuck in the corpse's ribs out.
I left the body behind and started walking forward again, turning to the horizon as I headed toward the great tree.
*Let's end this once and for all.*