Millions of people surged to their feet simultaneously, and the noise was beyond description. A pure cacophonic chaos as every single person tried to express shock and disbelief and awe all at once. People were grabbing strangers, pointing at the stage, screaming questions that nobody could possibly answer over the general pandemonium.
The holographic displays throughout the arena switched to replay mode, showing the assault from multiple camera angles simultaneously, and even in slow motion Jade's hands moved so fast they blurred. The impacts came in rapid-fire succession—left rib, right shoulder, left elbow, right knee, sternum, right rib, left hip—each strike landing perfectly while the alpha's body was still jerking from the previous hit.
"LOOK AT THE CONTROL!" Marcus was still shouting with barely contained hysteria. "EVERY SINGLE STRIKE IS CALCULATED! HE'S NOT THROWING WILD PUNCHES—HE'S TARGETING SPECIFIC BONES AND JOINTS! THAT LEVEL OF PRECISION AT THAT SPEED SHOULDN'T BE PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE!"
"THE SOUND!" Adira's voice was climbing toward something approaching religious fervor. "DID YOU HEAR THAT SOUND?! IT WAS LIKE A GATLING GUN! SEVENTEEN IMPACTS IN TWO SECONDS BLENDING TOGETHER INTO ONE CONTINUOUS ROAR! I'VE BEEN COMMENTATING TOURNAMENTS FOR FIFTEEN YEARS AND I'VE NEVER—AND I MEAN NEVER—SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS!"
The replay looped again, this time with enhanced audio that isolated the sound of impacts. THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD. The way each strike landed at almost perfectly equal intervals, made it sound less like a fight and more like some kind of industrial machinery processing materials at inhuman speeds.
"We need to talk about what this means," Marcus said, and his voice was shaking slightly as excitement mixed with genuine awe. "Participant 847,392 has been ending matches with single strikes or simple catches for his entire tournament run. He had never attacked throughout, only dodged or knocked out his opponent. But this was him actually attacking!. This was him deciding that a single strike wasn't enough and demonstrating what happens when he commits to a real assault!"
"And he STILL wasn't going all out!" Adira cut in, pulling up statistical analysis on her displays. "Look at his breathing on the post-match footage! Completely unchanged! No signs of exertion whatsoever! He delivered seventeen bone-breaking strikes in two seconds and his breathing didn't even quicken!"
The crowd's noise somehow found another level to climb toward as that information spread through the arena. The mysterious hooded fighter hadn't just demonstrated unprecedented speed—he'd done it so casually that it apparently didn't even count as exertion.
In the fighter seating sections, the reaction was electric and immediate.
Darius Kane was on his feet with both hands gripping the railing in front of him, and his knuckles had gone white from the pressure. His aura was crackling wildly around his body in response to witnessing genuine power, energy arcing across his skin as his instincts screamed at him. His eyes were locked on Jade's hooded form with an intensity that bordered on obsessive, and his grin was sharp enough to cut.
"Yes," he breathed, voice low but carrying to every fighter within three rows. "YES. Finally someone worth fighting. Finally someone who can make me TRY."
Around him, other top-ranked fighters were having similar reactions. Some leaned forward with calculating expressions, already trying to figure out counters or strategies. Others looked genuinely worried, recognizing that the mysterious fighter they'd been dismissing as merely strong was actually operating on a completely different level. And a few—the truly powerful ones who'd been coasting through their own matches with bored efficiency—were smiling with the same battle-hungry intensity Darius radiated.
The hostile woman had gone completely silent, and her earlier aggressive glare had transformed into something closer to caution. Whatever plans she'd been making for their eventual confrontation had apparently required significant revision.
The sneering nobles scattered through the premium sections looked like they'd swallowed something sour. Their earlier dismissive confidence had evaporated entirely, replaced by the kind of uncomfortable wariness that came from realizing you'd been mocking something genuinely dangerous.
And Rivan—the enthusiastic youth who'd been bouncing with excitement through all of Jade's previous matches—looked like he might actually pass out. His eyes were huge and his mouth was hanging open and he was making small squeaking sounds that might have been attempts at words but came out as incoherent noise.
"That was—he just—did we just see—" He gave up on language entirely and just gestured wildly at the stage while making more squeaking sounds.
The alpha next to him had stopped trying to maintain proper dignity and was just staring at Jade with an expression mixing respect, fear, and absolute certainty that he never wanted to be matched against that particular opponent.
Throughout the fighter sections, similar reactions rippled outward. The casual dismissiveness from earlier had been completely obliterated, replaced by the kind of respect that came from witnessing power that defied normal understanding. Even the most arrogant alphas had gone quiet, their pride temporarily overridden by survival instincts screaming that challenging this particular fighter would be a catastrophically bad idea.
The betting odds didn't shift—they collapsed entirely. Within seconds of the replay finishing its third loop, every bookmaker in the empire was frantically recalculating. Top thousand advancement went from 2-to-1 to automatic certainty. Top hundred dropped from 8-to-1 to even odds. And championship odds plummeted from 350-to-1 to 25-to-1 and were still falling as professional gamblers scrambled to place aggressive bets before the numbers shifted further.
In gambling halls across fifteen galaxies, people were throwing money at interfaces with desperate speed, trying to capitalize on odds that everyone suddenly recognized as catastrophically undervalued. The smart gamblers who'd been watching cautiously were now going all-in, and the conservative ones who'd been hedging their bets were frantically repositioning their portfolios.
Across the empire, in homes and public spaces and viewing parties scattered through countless star systems, people were rewatching the replay over and over and over. Slowing it down frame by frame. Counting impacts. Trying to comprehend how someone could move that fast while maintaining perfect precision at that age. Local commentators were losing their minds trying to analyze it, theories flying about what talent could possibly produce those results.
"Has to be speed-based!" someone announced on a minor commentary feed. "Nothing else explains that kind of acceleration!"
"Or physical enhancement taken to an absolute extreme!" another countered. "Maybe his entire talent is just making him impossibly fast and strong!"
"Could be a combination talent! Multiple abilities stacking together!"
The speculation spread like wildfire, everyone trying to categorize what they'd witnessed into something that made sense within their understanding of awakener capabilities. And through it all, nobody—not one person across fifteen galaxies—suggested that what they'd seen might be purely physical statistics without any talent involvement at all.
The commentary teams were having similar debates, but with more professional analysis backing their theories.
"We need to consider the possibility," Marcus said once his initial excitement had faded enough to allow actual analysis, "that Participant 847,392's talent is specifically designed for burst-speed combat. The way he can go from complete stillness to that level of acceleration suggests either time manipulation or some form of kinetic enhancement that multiplies normal movement speeds."
But Adira argued. "Time manipulation wouldn't give you that kind of targeting accuracy at those speeds! You'd need enhanced perception to even see where you're striking, let alone hit specific bones with that kind of consistency!"
"So maybe it's a dual-aspect talent? Speed enhancement combined with perception boost?"
"That would be incredibly rare. Most dual-aspect talents require compromise—you get both abilities but neither reaches full potential. This looked like both speed AND strength were at maximum capability."
The debate continued, theories building on theories, and through it all the one constant was that everyone agreed: Participant 847,392 had just revealed capabilities that put him firmly in the conversation for championship contention.
On stage, medical personnel had finally stabilized the unconscious alpha enough to transport him to the facility's main healing center. The man would recover fully—all seventeen fractures were clean breaks positioned to disable without permanent damage—but he'd probably be traumatized enough that he'd think twice before challenging mysterious hooded fighters in the future.
And through all of this—through the chaos and speculation and frantic analysis and empire-wide uproar—Jade sat calmly in his seat with his eyes closed and his breathing steady, completely unbothered by the storm his two-second demonstration had created.
Around him, other fighters maintained careful distance. The sneering dismissiveness from earlier rounds had been completely obliterated, replaced by wariness mixed with respect and, in some cases, genuine fear. Even the most confident fighters were reassessing their bracket positions and quietly hoping they wouldn't get matched against Participant 847,392 until much later rounds when they'd had time to develop actual strategies.
The pattern had fundamentally shifted. The mysterious hooded fighter from Nexarion wasn't just another strong competitor working through the bracket anymore. He was a legitimate threat to the established order, and every single person who mattered had just realized it simultaneously.
The tournament would continue its relentless progression, but now everyone was watching with new intensity. Not just to see if Jade would win, but to understand what he actually was and how far his capabilities extended.
And somewhere in the midst of that building anticipation and empire-wide speculation about speed talents and physical enhancement and unprecedented burst combat, the mysterious fighter had become the story that everyone wanted to follow.
...
The pattern continued through the rest of the day and into the second day of round three. Jade's sixth match was against someone who tried to buy him off, offering to split future prize winnings if Jade would just forfeit this one match. Jade tapped him unconscious mid-negotiation. His seventh opponent was a terrified beta who spent the entire match trying to run away and eventually surrendered while begging Jade not to hurt him. Jade hadn't even moved from his starting position for that one.
Match eight brought another spoiled noble—this time from House Vexian, who apparently thought her family connections made her invincible. She spent fifteen seconds threatening legal action and political consequences before the match even started, and then lasted three seconds after the referee's call before Jade's finger-flick to her forehead sent her crumpling. The crowd's laughter was even louder than it had been for the Corvalen heir.
But match nine was different, and everyone in the arena felt it the moment both fighters materialized on stage.
Jade's opponent was a woman ranked 472, with sharp features and eyes that tracked his movements with predatory focus. Her pheromones were carefully controlled— she was an alpha, but disciplined in ways the earlier arrogant male hadn't been—and she moved with the fluid confidence that came from genuine capability rather than inherited arrogance.
The moment the referee called the fight, she attacked with a technique that was actually impressive. Some form of kinetic manipulation that let her redirect force and momentum, turning Jade's intended strike into a glancing blow that she converted into a launching point for her own counterattack. She was fast, skilled, and clearly had studied his previous matches carefully enough to develop actual strategy.
She lasted nine seconds before Jade adapted and ended it, and when she surrendered, her expression held respect mixed with frustration. As walked off stage, she turned back to look at Jade one final time, and her eyes held a promise—if they met again in later rounds, she'd be ready with better counters.
Jade acknowledged her with a slight nod. That one had actually made him think for a moment, which put her leagues above everyone else he'd faced so far.
And then match ten brought him face-to-face with someone who clearly hadn't learned any lessons from watching previous defeats.
The moment both fighters appeared on stage, Jade's opponent—another alpha, this one with lightning crackling around his hands—fixed him with a hostile glare and let his pheromones flood the area with aggressive challenge. "You think you're special?" he snarled, voice carrying across the arena with deliberate volume. "You think beating a bunch of weaklings makes you worthy of the attention you've been getting? I've been crushing opponents just as easily, and when I'm done with you, everyone will see that—"
Jade didn't wait for the referee's call. He simply appeared behind the hostile alpha and tapped two fingers against the base of his skull in a strike that disrupted his nervous system before his threat could finish. The man's eyes rolled back and he toppled forward like a baseless candle.
The referee blinked, realized what had happened, and called the match with a resigned sigh. "Match! Winner: Participant 847,392!"
Three seconds, and Jade hadn't even waited for official start this time. The crowd found it hilarious, especially since the alpha had been mid-threat when consciousness left him.
But what Jade noticed was the reaction from the hostile woman he'd spotted earlier—the one ranked in the hundreds who'd been glaring at him. She was on her feet now, staring at the stage with an expression that promised violence when they eventually met. And scattered through the fighter sections, he could see others with similar expressions. Some calculating, some hostile, some merely interested in testing themselves against the mysterious hooded fighter who kept making everyone else look inadequate.
The tournament was establishing its hierarchy now. The weak were being eliminated rapidly. The mediocre were lasting slightly longer but still falling. And the genuinely strong were starting to take notice of each other, mentally marking opponents they wanted to face and challenges they needed to overcome.
Jade returned to his seat and closed his eyes, letting the tournament noise fade into background static. Ten matches across two days. Ten victories. And finally starting to see hints that the competition might eventually become interesting.
So he settled into meditation and waited for his next call, patient and unhurried and entirely confident that when genuinely challenging opponents finally appeared, he'd be ready to show them exactly how far the gap between their capabilities actually extended.
....
To be continued....