CHAPTER 189: KAI VS GRIM - PART ONE

Kai breathed deeply, steadying himself as the anticipation thickened in his chest like stormclouds gathering. Every nerve buzzed beneath his skin, alive with tension. Every muscle coiled like a drawn bow.

Then Grim moved.

It wasn’t a step. It wasn’t a surge. It was an eruption.

An invisible tremor rippled through the coliseum as Grim unleashed his mana, not with grace or subtlety, but with the raw force of an explosion. The very air around him shattered into waves of pressure, a shockwave of pure energy that would’ve flattened any lesser opponent.

Kai’s sigils held. Barely.

The weave of mana drawn from the protective inscriptions on his shirt, cloak, and boots shimmered under the strain, absorbing just enough of the wave to keep him standing. Still, his breath caught. His balance wavered.

"This would’ve flattened Cyrus if he hadn’t blocked with pure mana..."

Kai blinked, and realised he couldn’t see.

His mana sight, overwhelmed by the output, showed only a dense cloud of saturated blue. Like drowning in colour. The outline of the arena vanished. Even his opponent was gone. There were no details. Just the thick, all-consuming haze of Grim’s compressed aura.

He cursed under his breath and killed his mana sight, just in time.

Because when his natural vision returned, Grim’s face was inches away from his own.

Kai didn’t even think. He threw his arms up in a tight X-guard just before the blow landed. Grim’s fist connected with both of his forearms, a hammer strike powerful enough to pulverize boulders, and Kai felt the bones beneath his skin strain. Bruises bloomed immediately. If he hadn’t flooded his arms with strengthening magic, they might’ve shattered entirely.

Even so, the impact was like being hit by a runaway cart. Kai skidded back across the stone tiles, boots leaving jagged furrows in the floor, until he caught himself just shy of the arena wall.

Dust billowed.

The crowd held its breath.

Kai exhaled. Fast. Controlled.

Time to respond. Time to strike.

"Go now. Don’t let him follow up."

He roared, pushing every ounce of strengthening magic into his upper body, shoulders, chest, arms, and let his sigil flare. The one carved over his sternum. It drank ambient mana from the battlefield, then pulsed like a second heartbeat.

And then Kai did something unexpected.

He clapped.

A single, thunderous clap.

The sound split the air like a whip crack laced with divine fury. The shockwave broke the sound barrier, rippling through the arena like an invisible blade.

Grim reeled. Not from pain, but volume. He staggered back, clenching his ears. His composure cracked, but it wasn’t from injury.

It was dark. sheer sensory overload.

The noise would have felt like an explosion went off in his ears.

Even the crowd cried out, some clutching their heads, others staring in awe. The announcer ducked behind his podium, his voice momentarily silenced.

Kai didn’t wait.

He dashed forward, a blur of motion.

With each stride, he drew his shadow blades from the air, condensed extensions of his own mana, and unleashed a flurry of slashes. Wild, fast, precise. His strikes came from every angle. Shoulder. Rib. Neck. Side. Thigh. Kai’s blade danced like a serpent in a storm, weaving destruction into every motion.

But something was wrong.

Every blade passed through Grim.

There was no slice. No resistance. No spray of blood. It was as though his blades passed through smoke.

"What?"

And then Kai saw it.

There was no glint of steel meeting flesh.

There was no shift of footing. No grunt of effort. No eye contact.

Because there was no Grim.

Just a faint, fading silhouette. A ghost made of afterimage and instinct. Not magic, at least, none that Kai could sense. Not while his mana sight was off.

"I didn’t miss... He was never there."

A chill ran down his spine.

Then something changed.

He felt the pressure again.

Not like before.

Not an explosion, but a draw.

Like the eye of a storm pulling inward.

And from behind him, he heard the crunch of a boot against stone.

Grim was behind him.

"Shit..."

The word barely left Kai’s mouth before Grim’s fist collided with his spine, a savage, brutal punch that didn’t aim to knock him down, but break him.

Crack.

The sound was sickening. The pain that followed was worse.

Fire raced down Kai’s legs. His knees buckled, strength momentarily cut off as his nervous system screamed. His strengthening magic had caught the blow just in time, but only partially. It absorbed just enough to keep his vertebrae from shattering, but the shock still sent agony tearing through his back like splintered glass.

He hit the ground hard. Palms skidded across stone. His vision swam. Something in his chest rattled.

I can’t move... not yet. Not fully. Think. Fast.

Grim didn’t speak. He didn’t gloat. He didn’t finish the job. He just stood there, waiting, like a wolf watching its prey twitch before the next strike.

But that was his mistake.

Kai gritted his teeth.

He couldn’t stand yet. But he could cast.

With one hand trembling against the ground, he carved a sigil into the arena floor using raw shadow magic—a quick, jagged mark burned into the stone with intent alone. A pulse of mana fed into it, and suddenly, a dome of shadow erupted outward like a flower blooming in reverse, swallowing both him and Grim in a sphere of black.

From the outside, anyone outside the some could see everything. From the inside, though, it was different.

"Can’t see? Neither can I."

But Kai didn’t need to.

This was his domain.

Within shadow, he didn’t see. He felt.

He kicked himself up from the ground in a twist, pushing through the pain, and used the lingering momentum to launch a spinning elbow blindly to where he sensed Grim’s heat.

It connected.

Barely.

A grunt escaped from Grim, the first sound he’d made during the entire exchange.

But Kai wasn’t done.

He surged again, pouring mana into his body, strengthening his muscles beyond their usual limits, even if just for ten seconds. He burst upward from a crouch and jumped off the wall of his own shadow dome, twisting in mid-air to deliver a brutal drop-kick to Grim’s sternum.

This time, the sound of impact echoed like a drum across the enclosed dome. The dome cracked. Grim was launched backwards into the dome’s edge, causing the barrier to burst outward in jagged fragments of dissipating shadow.

The crowd saw them both again, Kai landing hard on one knee, panting, and Grim picking himself up, dust coating his cloak.

The momentum had shifted.

But the pain hadn’t left.

Kai could still feel the numbness in his back, the molten ache in his bones.

He stood slowly.

One hand crackled with strengthening magic. The other danced with shadow.

"I’m not done." Kai said.

Grim smiled.

And then he charged.