Chapter 285: Chapter 285: Asura
Chapter 285: Asura
The spatial distortion faded.
When Rhain’s boots finally touched solid ground, the nauseating feeling of spatial distortion vanished.
He slowly opened his eyes.
Beneath the pitch-black, demonic Asura mask he wore, his dark grey eyes swept over his new surroundings.
It was night, yet the subterranean expanse before him was anything but asleep.
Contrary to what Rhain had expected, the Crucible Arena was not just a single, massive sand pit where gladiators fought to the death.
It was an entire metropolis.
Wide stone avenues stretched out before him, lined with merchant stalls selling blood-stained weapons, herbs, and questionable artifacts.
Taverns built from rough-hewn stone overflowed with masked men and women, the sharp scent of cheap spiritual liquor wafting off them.
Everyone walking these streets wore a mask.
The auras moving through this city were staggering.
He sensed numerous Spirit Manifestation cultivators skulking in the alleys, but sprinkled among the crowds were auras that were overwhelmingly dense.
True Domain Masters.
They walked the streets with their killing intent entirely unsuppressed.
As Rhain navigated the chaotic stone avenues, a chilling sight caught his attention in a narrow back alley.
Two young children, neither of them looking older than twelve, were viciously sparring.
But this was no friendly practice.
One child lunged forward with a rusted dagger, aiming a lethal strike directly at the other’s throat.
The second child evaded with the instinct of a cornered beast, countering by driving a sharp stone straight toward his opponent’s eye.
There was no hesitation. No mercy.
’They must have been born here,’ Rhain thought, his eyes narrowing slightly beneath the Asura mask.
To breed children who fought with such murderous intent before they even hit puberty... this place was a literal hellhole of monsters.
Just as he stepped out of the alleyway and onto the main thoroughfare, a sudden commotion erupted right in front of him.
Swoosh—!
A blinding streak of blade light flashed through the crowded street.
"ACK—!"
A burly man wearing a boar mask let out a gargled choke.
His head was cleanly severed from his shoulders, a fountain of crimson blood spraying wildly into the air.
His headless corpse slumped heavily onto the cobblestones, dropping a small, faintly glowing pill bottle from his hands.
The killer, a lean figure in a black cloak, snatched the pill bottle from the dirt without breaking stride and instantly vanished into the bustling crowd.
Rhain watched the scene in silence.
What truly struck him wasn’t the murder. It was the reaction of the crowd.
Or rather, the complete lack of it.
There were no screams.
No one even bothered to look twice.
A passing cultivator simply stepped right over the twitching, headless corpse, his boots casually splashing through the pooling blood as if he had merely stepped over a puddle.
Raw, pure law of the jungle.
The weak were slaughtered, and the strong took what they pleased.
Rhain didn’t linger.
He continued his walk, heading directly toward the most prominent structure in the entire dimension.
Situated at the very center of the metropolis was a colossal, towering Colosseum.
Rhain stepped through the massive iron gates and entered the registration hall.
The hall was gloomy, illuminated by flickering torches, and filled with a few dozen dangerous, masked individuals exuding dense killing intent.
Rhain walked up to an empty registration desk.
Seated behind the counter was a old clerk.
He looked bored, leaning his head on one hand as he twirled a quill with the other.
The aura leaking from him was surprisingly at the late stages of the Core Formation Realm.
The clerk barely glanced up as Rhain approached.
"New meat," the old man muttered in a raspy voice. "I’ll make this quick. In the Crucible Arena, matches are divided into three tiers based on cultivation."
"Bronze matches are for Spirit Manifestation fighters. Silver matches are for the Core Formation Realm. Gold matches are for Domain Masters. Each tier is further divided into Rank 1, Rank 2, and Rank 3, corresponding to the early, mid, and late stages of that realm."
The clerk finally looked up, his one good eye locking onto Rhain’s demonic Asura mask.
"The rule of the Crucible Arena is this: You can only challenge opponents of an equal or higher rank. Never lower. We run a slaughterhouse, not a playground for bullies looking to massacre the weak. If you want Blood-Iron Tokens, you earn them by bleeding."
Rhain processed the straightforward rules instantly.
"State your true cultivation," the clerk demanded, picking up a glowing runic pen. "Do not lie. If you try to obscure your realm to fight in a lower tier, you will be executed on the spot."
"Silver Rank 1," Rhain stated flatly, his voice artificially deepened and chilled by the mask.
First level of the Core Formation Realm.
The clerk nodded, jotting it down. "Silver Rank 1. Alright, I’ll put you in the queue for a Silver Rank 1 death match. Name or alias?"
"Asura."
"Fine, Asura," the clerk sighed, reaching for a silver token.
"I am not fighting in Silver Rank 1," Rhain interrupted, his voice as placid as a still lake.
The clerk paused, his runic pen hovering over the paper. He looked up, his scarred brow furrowing. "You want to fight a Silver Rank 2 or 3? Fine. Suicidal, but fine. Which one?"
"Neither."
Rhain’s dark grey eyes gleamed through the crimson slits of his demonic mask.
"I want to challenge Gold Rank 1."
Snap.
The runic pen in the clerk’s hand snapped cleanly in two with a sudden force from the clerk.
Gold Rank 1.
Early-stage Domain Master.
The old man froze entirely, staring at the dark-robed youth as if he were looking at a lunatic.
The utter stupefaction on his face was almost comical.
"What the actual fuck did you just say?" the clerk blurted out, completely losing his bored demeanor.
Rhain just stared at the clerk. He was clear enough in his words.
The clerk stared at him for a long moment, then let out a harsh, mocking scoff.
"Are you deaf, or just stupid?" the clerk asked, leaning over the desk with a look of pure exasperation. "There are better ways to commit suicide, you know. Swallowing a poisonous pill will give you an easy, painless death."
The clerk leaned forward, his lone eye boring into Rhain.
"But if you walk out there into a Gold Rank match as a Silver Rank 1, you won’t get the privilege to an easy death. You will have to beg for it."
The clerk shook his head, looking at Rhain with unconcealed pity and disdain. "You will have to scream for mercy, and you won’t receive that mercy until the winner gets utterly bored of peeling your skin off, and hearing your screams. Change your mind before I ink this contract."
Rhain’s dark grey eyes stared right through the old clerk.
"Gold Rank 1," Rhain coldly repeated his words.
The clerk’s eyebrows twitched furiously.
Seeing that the lunatic before him was so serious, the old man let out a mocking chuckle.
"Fine. Your funeral," the clerk spat venomously, pulling out a fresh registration slab. "To register for a gold rank 1 death match, you must leave ten Blood-Iron Tokens as a fee."
He glared at Rhain. "Each Blood-Iron Token costs ten million Aetherium Crystals. That’s a hundred million in total. Pay up."
Rhain didn’t have a single Blood-Iron Token to his name.
But Aetherium Crystals? He had enough to drown the entire registration hall.
Swoosh!
A heavy spatial pouch landed squarely on the wooden desk with a dull thud.
The clerk’s sneer vanished. He snatched the pouch, sweeping his spiritual sense inside.
Exactly one hundred million Aetherium Crystals sat glittering within the spatial dimension.
The old man swallowed hard, looking back up at the imposing, demonic Asura mask with a solemn look.
This man was really dead serious.
Without another word, he finalized the runic contract and slid a heavy, blood-stained golden token across the desk.
"Your match is scheduled for tomorrow morning," the clerk stated grimly.
Then his face showed a pious expression as he continued, "May the gods give peace to your soul, Asura."
Rhain calmly picked up the golden token.
He didn’t bother to reply.
With a swirl of his dark robes, he turned his back and walked leisurely out of the registration hall, stepping back into the blood-soaked night of the Crucible Arena.
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