A wave of the King's hand. A deep, grinding groan echoed through the ballroom as a twenty-foot wide section of the polished marble floor slid away, retracting into the walls. Beneath lay a circle of dark, volcanic rock, veined with pulsating gold, a stark, brutal arena born in the heart of opulence.
The nobles gasped, then their shock melted into something darker, more primal. Polite smiles twisted into eager, bloodthirsty grins. Silks and jewels were forgotten; they were now a colosseum crowd.
Zero stood at the pit's edge, a statue of silver and storm-gray. His eyes, missing nothing, tracked the guards, the King's rapt face, and Lady Anya's languid, fascinated pose in the shadows, her crimson lips curved in a smirk.
Then, the ground trembled. A hidden gate beneath the dais ground open, and he emerged.
Gorath the Unbroken was a monument of flesh and stone. Eight feet of corded muscle and granite-like skin, covered in a tapestry of thick, white scars. One eye was a ruined, milky orb. He wore only leather breeches and iron bracers, and in his hands was a double-headed axe so massive it seemed to dent the very air around it. He didn't walk; he lumbered, each footfall a promise of annihilation. His single good eye, a dull, brutish brown, fixed on Jade with the flat regard of a landslide regarding a pebble.
"A test of pure, unadorned might!" the King's voice boomed, rich with psychotic glee. "No weapons! No tricks! Flesh against flesh! Let the dance begin!"
Jade didn't hesitate. He shrugged off his obsidian jacket, letting it fall to the pristine marble. The contrast was terrifying—Gorath, a walking mountain of destruction, and Jade, a lean, pale specter in a black undershirt, his white hair a banner of defiance.
The fight began without a signal.
Gorath moved. It wasn't the slow, predictable charge of a brute, but an explosive, terrifying lunge. His fist, the size of a boulder, cannoned toward Jade's head with force enough to vaporize it.
Jade's body, honed by a thousand hours of drills and an agility of 28, reacted. He didn't leap back; he dropped, the wind of the blow roaring past his ear, ruffling his hair. He flowed inside Gorath's reach like water, his own fist, tightened to a diamond point, slamming into the Titan's lower ribs.
THUD.
The sound was like a hammer striking an anvil. Jade felt the impact shudder up his arm. Gorath grunted, a low, annoyed sound, and swatted downward with his other hand as if batting a fly.
Jade was already gone, pivoting on the ball of his foot, his leg sweeping out to kick the back of Gorath's knee. It was a perfect, foundational sweep that would have shattered the leg of any other being.
Gorath's leg didn't buckle. It didn't even tremble. It was like kicking a fortress wall.
A roar of laughter from the crowd. Gorath backhanded the air where Jade had been, the force of the miss creating a visible shockwave that tore the velvet from a nearby chair.
This was the reality. Jade's precision was useless. His speed was his only shield. He became a phantom, a blur of white hair and black cloth, dancing on the razor's edge of death. He ducked under a swing that could have decapitated a horse, weaved around a grab that would have crushed his spine, his mind a cold engine calculating angles and trajectories his body could barely execute.
He targeted the weak points—the blind side, the joints, the throat. A knife-hand strike to the throat was met with skin like ironwood. A finger-stab toward the good eye was deflected by a forearm that felt like moving stone.
He was a surgeon with a butter knife trying to operate on a tank.
Then, it happened. A feint that Gorath didn't fall for. The Titan predicted Jade's flow, and his massive fist clipped Jade's shoulder.
The impact was not direct, but it was catastrophic.
Jade was hurled backwards, skidding across the dark stone, his left arm hanging numb and useless at his side. Fireworks of pain, instantly registered and dismissed by Numbed Existence, lit up his nervous system. He knew, with absolute certainty, that a direct hit would not just break his bones—it would pulp them.
Gorath saw his opening. With a ground-shaking roar that rattled the crystal chandeliers, he lowered his head and charged. It was a final, annihilating tackle, a living battering ram aimed to drive Jade through the arena wall and into paste.
The crowd screamed in ecstasy. The King leaned forward, his eyes wide. Zero's hand clenched into a fist.
Jade, clutching his numb arm, looked up. He saw the mountain of death thundering toward him. Dodging was impossible; the charge covered the entire arena.
His mind went silent. The cold logic, the calculations—they faded. All that remained was the hunger. The deep, primal void at the center of his Obsidian Core. He couldn't use Obliterate. But the principle… the concept of unmaking… the World-Eater's desire to consume…
He stood his ground.
As Gorath closed the final few feet, the air screaming around his massive form, Jade did not raise his hands to block.
He raised his right hand, palm open, as if to greet the annihilation. As if to accept it.
His Obsidian Core flared within him, a black sun going supernova. His crimson eyes bled away, replaced by a violent, psychotic purple.
A single, whispered word escaped his lips, a command not to the System, but to the void within himself.
"Consume."
The storm of Nether-Flame exploded outwards in a silent, chilling detonation. The ballroom plunged into an arctic freeze. Gorath's charge was halted, a massive, blackened and frozen crater scoured into his chest. He screamed, a sound of pure, uncomprehending agony.
And then, a sharp, violating chime echoed in Jade's mind. A System prompt, edged in flashing red, overrode his vision.
WARNING: FLOOR PROTOCOL BREACH DETECTED.
UNAUTHORIZED ELEMENTAL MANIFESTATION: [NETHER-FLAME].
CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
SKILL DURATION LIMITED TO: 00:01:00.
COUNTDOWN INITIATED...
A timer appeared in the corner of Jade's vision: 00:00:59... 58... 57...
One minute. That was all he had.
The pain from his numb arm, the hollow feeling from the flame's eruption—it all vanished under a wave of pure, predatory instinct. The Nether-Flame wasn't a tool he commanded; it was a wild beast he had unleashed, and it was hungry.
Gorath, stunned and in agony, stumbled back. Jade didn't give him a moment.
He lunged forward, his good fist wreathed in the chaotic, black-and-purple fire. He wasn't aiming to punch. He was aiming to obliterate.
"CONSUME!" he roared, his voice layered with the flame's silent scream.
His fist didn't just impact Gorath's frozen wound; it sank into it. The Nether-Flame eagerly devoured the Titan's flesh, the black fire spreading from the point of impact like a voracious infection. The sizzle wasn't of cooking meat, but of matter being unmade into nothingness and frost.
Gorath bellowed, swinging a wild, desperate backhand. Jade ducked under it, the wind of the blow extinguishing a nearby wall sconce. In the same motion, he came up inside Gorath's guard, his flaming hand seizing the Titan's massive bicep.
The result was horrific. The black fire clung and spread, eating through leather and iron and then into the stony skin beneath. Gorath roared, trying to shake him off, but Jade held on like a terrier, a specter of white hair and annihilating darkness.
00:00:45...
Seeing his chance, Jade released the arm and launched himself upwards, using Gorath's own body as a springboard. He scrambled onto the Titan's broad back, his boots finding purchase on the rocky hide. Gorath thrashed wildly, trying to reach him.
Jade wrapped his legs around the Titan's thick neck, locking them tight. Then, with a final, guttural snarl, he brought both his fists, wreathed in the dying embers of the Nether-Flame, down onto the crown of Gorath's head.
It was not a clean strike. It was a brutal, repeated pounding.
CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
The sound of fist meeting skull was sickening, each impact a wet crackle of bone. The black fire, sputtering with its last vestiges of power, flared with each blow, searing the wounds shut even as it created them. Jade wasn't just beating him; he was pulverizing him, a primal, bloody execution under the guise of combat.
00:00:03... 02... 01...
With a final, concussive BOOM of fading power, the Nether-Flame winked out completely. The timer hit zero.
The sudden silence was deafening.
Jade, breathing in ragged, smoky gasps, unclamped his legs and dropped to the ground, landing in a crouch. Gorath the Unbroken remained standing for a moment longer, swaying, his head a ruined, bloody mess of caved-in bone and frozen, blackened flesh. Then, like a great tree falling, he toppled forward, hitting the dark stone with a final, ground-shaking THUD that seemed to seal the silence.
Jade stood over the colossal corpse, his knuckles raw and bleeding, his clothes smoldering, his chest heaving. He looked up, his crimson eyes meeting the King's.
The ballroom was a tomb.
Then, Jade spoke, his voice hoarse but cutting cleanly through the silence.
"The dance," he said, the words a statement of bloody fact. "Is it mine?"