CHAPTER 63: STONE VS. STEEL

"What do we do with an extra fighter?

The original one-on-one gladiator setup won’t work anymore, but the arenas are already built."

"Then let’s go with lottery byes. The rest can stick to the original format."

"Byes? Isn’t that a bit unfair?"

"I’m all for byes. Luck’s part of the game too!"

"I’m also on board with byes. It tests more angles!"

"Seconded!"

"Makes no difference to me."

"Done deal. Tomorrow there’ll be a fair lottery drawing. Each round will have one person sitting out until the final showdown!"

The leadership wrapped up their pow-wow. Tomorrow’s finals would throw in the bye rule...

...

The next day, in the sweltering colosseum, the crowd was still buzzing with excitement.

"Did you hear? There was a last-minute announcement that someone can get a free pass."

"Right. In theory, if someone’s lucky as all get-out, a contestant could get two byes and cruise straight to the finals!"

"There’s no way someone could actually pull two byes, right?"

"Look, they’re about to pick the lucky duck who gets to sit this one out!"

"..."

Right then in the colosseum, the Crimson Maze had vanished, replaced by three knockout gladiator arenas.

Two smaller silver arenas and the biggest, fanciest golden arena smack dab in the middle.

The upcoming Ember Gladiatorial Combat would go down on these platforms.

In the prep area, five contestants stood in front of a black box sitting on a high platform.

"From left to right, start drawing!"

Iris, decked out in silver-white armor and serving as referee for the Ember Gladiatorial Combat to keep things from going sideways, spoke up.

Her face was stone-cold serious, acting like she treated everyone the same.

Little Giant Leo, Little Violent Flame Buck, Little Green Bone Atrice, and Little Statue Galahel stepped up one by one, reaching in to grab a black stick.

Carlos was last in line. His heart stayed steady—he was dead set on winning the championship, and whether he got a bye wouldn’t make or break him.

Walking up to the black box, he reached in and snagged the last black stick.

With that, all five had finished their picks.

Iris’s no-nonsense voice rang out:

"Now, show your black sticks all at once!"

All five held theirs up at the same time, eyeing each other.

"Those with wolf patterns head to the left silver arena! Those with silver eagle patterns take the right arena!

The one and only golden tiger pattern gets a bye!"

Little Statue Galahel and Little Green Bone Atrice had silver wolf patterns.

Little Giant Leo and Little Violent Flame Buck had silver eagle patterns.

Carlos looked at the golden tiger black stick in his hand, thinking his luck was really something else—he’d drawn the bye.

In the crowd, the birth of the lucky bye winner caught everyone’s attention:

"Well, I’ll be! Little Carlos got the bye!"

"Oh! Just like Young Master Carlos—even his luck’s through the roof!"

"What incredible luck! Could this be the legendary good fortune of the Valois family?!"

"...Is there really such a legend?"

"..."

The other four climbed onto the silver arenas and got ready to duke it out!

"So lucky! Why wasn’t I the one who got the free pass!"

Little Green Bone Atrice shot a look at her opponent Little Giant Leo, her mouth twitching.

This was a brutish, muscle-bound, rough-around-the-edges guy—she couldn’t stand this type of enemy.

This fight was going to be a real pain. She couldn’t help gripping her bone staff tighter.

Little Giant Leo flashed his trademark dazzling smile, showing pearly white teeth.

Then, under everyone’s stare, his shirt exploded off his upper body, showing off muscles hard as granite, putting all his ’tough guy’ appeal on full display!

"Oh brother. He’s a show-off too?"

Little Green Bone Atrice’s eye started twitching. She’d had enough.

With a thought, tons of monster corpses appeared on the arena.

"Clatter! Clatter! Clatter!"

At the same time, four skeleton soldiers got summoned.

Before Little Giant Leo could blink, her bone staff shot out streams of gray light:

"Skeleton Enhancement!"

The four skeleton soldiers’ bones instantly bulked up, and their busted bone blades became way more solid.

The second they showed up, they surrounded and jumped Little Giant Leo!

"Pests!"

Little Giant Leo sneered with contempt.

"Beastly Frenzy!"

Blood energy immediately wrapped around his body. Eyes full of mockery, his right fist slammed toward the left skeleton soldier’s skull.

"Boom!"

The hard gauntlet punched straight through the skull. The skeleton soldier’s head exploded and its soul fire went out.

Little Green Bone Atrice had seen this coming and immediately shot gray light at a monster corpse on the ground.

"Skeleton Revival!"

A fresh skeleton soldier was born!

Then another gray light:

"Skeleton Enhancement!"

The beefed-up skeleton soldier immediately joined the dogpile.

This wasn’t the end of it. She quickly backed up as spiritual energy surged through her:

"Slowing Mist!"

"Coma Toxin!"

"Neural Weakness!"

"Passion Drain!"

"..."

Gray fog mixed with nasty auras started spreading everywhere.

Little Giant Leo accidentally breathed some in, his face immediately turning green, with poison racing through him—in just seconds, his neck was green too.

He roared:

"Humanity Doubling!"

His body ballooned to 10 feet tall with blood energy pumping. The green faded quite a bit, but nasty toxins still ate away at his flesh.

He knew he had to wrap this up fast. Ignoring the skeleton soldiers getting in his way, he charged toward Little Green Bone Atrice with huge strides...

...

On the other arena, Little Violent Flame Buck raised his eyebrows, about to drop some smooth opening lines:

"Seeing such a handsome devil like me, you should..."

Then Little Statue Galahel roared impatiently:

"Statue Transformation!"

She instantly turned into a terrifying 16-foot stone statue, thundering forward full steam toward Little Violent Flame Buck.

"Hey!"

Little Violent Flame Buck hastily shot flames from his feet, using the explosive kickback to dodge this attack.

Just barely missing, Little Statue Galahel made a curious noise and casually swatted with her massive hand.

"Smack!"

It nailed Little Violent Flame Buck’s pretty boy face.

"Bang!"

Little Violent Flame Buck went flying backward, slamming hard into the silver arena’s wall.

Ignoring the pain shooting through his body, he immediately scrambled up like a cat. Touching his throbbing face, he cursed up a storm:

"Ow! My face! You dare..."

Before he could finish, his expression went white as a sheet!

Little Statue Galahel hugged her legs with both arms, becoming a massive rock ball, rolling forward with scary momentum to flatten him again.

No time to keep cussing, he rapid-fired explosive flame balls from both hands, trying to stop her...

...

On the prep platform, Carlos sipped red tea, thinking to himself:

"Not too shabby. They’ve all developed spirit skills that suit them like a glove.

With smooth sailing ahead, there’s a real good chance they’ll break through to high-tier, and hitting the Controller level isn’t out of the question."

To break through from mid-tier to high-tier, you absolutely needed sublimation skills.

Only powerful sublimation skill runes deep in the soul could handle the pressure of keeping spirituality growing.

Just then, Iris next to him couldn’t take it anymore:

"Contestant, watch your behavior!

Your turn’s coming up soon!"

Getting a bye was already enough to make folks green with envy, and here you are sipping tea down below! Don’t forget you’re also a contestant! Show some class!

Getting Iris’s drift from her expression, Carlos immediately put away the red tea:

"You got it! Referee!"

Straightening up, he almost forgot that in public, his sister was a real stickler for the rules.

...