Sign-In System: Starting With Invincible Physique

Chapter 286: Chapter 286: Colosseum of Despair

Chapter 286: Colosseum of Despair

The dawn arrived, and the morning sunlight spilled into the grand colosseum of the Crucible Arena.

Having successfully registered his cultivation and obtained his fighter’s token at the Registration Hall under the alias "Asura," Rhain stepped into the spectator stands of the colossal structure.

Rhain’s gaze swept across the massive arena.

It was an unimaginably grand architecture, easily large enough to host more than ten thousand spectators at once.

However, currently, the tiered seating was filled with a little over a thousand people.

It wasn’t a sign of a declining establishment.

In a lawless, underground territory where the total population did not exceed one million, gathering a thousand spectators on a random morning was actually quite substantial.

Death matches here were not a grand, once-a-year spectacle like the Inner Palace Contest.

They were a mundane, daily occurrence.

For the residents of the Crucible Arena, watching two cultivators tear each other to pieces was no different than eating breakfast.

Rhain took a seat in the middle rows, blending perfectly into the crowd of similarly masked and cloaked figures.

Down in the massive pit, the first match of the morning was already underway.

The announcer’s voice, magically amplified to echo across the stands, was completely devoid of any emotions.

"Next match! The newcomer, Shadowblade Vs Gorehound."

Two figures stepped into the ring.

Both of them radiated the dense auras of late-stage Core Formation Realm experts.

Following the rule of the Crucible Arena, both men wore heavy masks to conceal their true identities, relying entirely on their registered aliases.

One of them was visibly trembling. His posture was rigid, clearly a newbie who had just stepped into the slaughterhouse for the very first time.

The other fighter, however, carried himself with a relaxed, chilling swagger.

His alias was "Gorehound," a popular regular known throughout the arena for his extreme ruthlessness.

"The wager is ten Blood-Iron Tokens!" the referee announced mechanically, before stepping back and dropping his hand. "Begin!"

The moment the command was given, the two late-stage Core Formation experts collided with an earth-shattering boom.

BANG! CLANG! BOOM!

From his seat in the stands, Rhain watched the exchange, his dark grey eyes narrowing slightly behind his demonic mask.

"Interesting,’ Rhain murmured inwardly.

He could clearly see that both of these fighters were significantly stronger than the average late-stage Core Formation Realm experts he had encountered in Stormveil City.

The constant, ruthless struggle for survival in this underground hell had tempered their foundations and sharpened their killing instincts to a terrifying degree.

Down in the arena, the fight was simply a bloodbath.

Every strike was aimed at a vital organ.

Every movement was designed to kill.

Blood sprayed across the sands as Shadowblade managed to land a shallow cut across Gorehound’s ribs.

But Gorehound completely ignored the wound, using the opening to drive a heavily armored knee directly into the newcomer’s stomach.

CRACK!

"Gah!" the newcomer spat a mouthful of blood.

Up in the stands, the crowd of a thousand spectators erupted.

"Tear his arms off, Gorehound!"

"Bleed him out! Make him scream!"

"BLOOD!" "BLOOD!" "BLOOD!"

They cheered like madmen, their eyes red with adrenaline.

There was no sportsmanship here, only a ravenous hunger for the life-and-death struggle unfolding below.

Gorehound capitalized on the staggering newcomer.

With a brutal, sweeping kick, he shattered Shadowblade’s knee, forcing the man to the ground.

But Gorehound didn’t finish it quickly.

A cruel, sadistic sneer appeared on his face behind the mask.

He systematically began to break the newcomer’s limbs, one by one.

"AARRRGGGHHH!" Shadowblade shrieked in agony as his right arm was cleanly snapped backward.

"Please! I surrender! Spare me!" the newcomer begged, coughing up blood as he crawled backward in the dirt.

The crowd in the stands roared with laughter, thoroughly enjoying the pathetic display.

"Surrender? In a death match?" Gorehound mocked, raising a heavy, essence-coated sword. "Die!"

CRUNCH.

Gorehound brought his sword down with overwhelming force, completely severing the newcomer’s head off the man’s body.

The screaming abruptly stopped.

"YEAAAHHH!"

"GOREHOUND!" "GOREHOUND!" "GOREHOUND!" "GOREHOUND!"

The crowd cheered the name excitedly, not a single person in the thousands-strong audience caring that a human life had just been snuffed out in front of them.

To them, the dead fighter was nothing more than a piece of trash that failed to entertain them longer.

A few unbothered, masked guards casually walked out onto the sands, dragging the headless corpse away by its ankles, leaving a long trail of fresh blood behind.

"Winner: Gorehound!" the announcer boomed. "The wager is settled!"

Gorehound raised his blood-soaked fists in triumph as a guard tossed a small leather pouch toward him.

The initial wager had been ten tokens from each fighter, totaling twenty.

But the winner only received eighteen.

The remaining two were automatically kept as the mandatory fee for the Nine Seats of the Crucible Throne.

Rhain watched the transaction with a placid gaze.

He turned his head slightly toward a masked man sitting in the seat beside him.

"Can you bet Aetherium Crystals in these matches?" Rhain asked casually.

The masked man turned his head, looking Rhain up and down. He let out a harsh, mocking scoff.

"Aetherium Crystals?" the man snorted, looking at Rhain as if he were an idiot. "Are you blind, or just stupid? In the Crucible Arena, the only currency that holds any true value is Blood-Iron Tokens. You can’t even buy a cup of dirty water here with Aetherium Crystals."

Rhain didn’t take offense to the insult.

"I am new here," Rhain admitted. "I don’t have any Blood-Iron Tokens yet. But I do have Aetherium Crystals."

The scarred man’s eyes instantly lit up with a greedy, calculating glimmer.

Newcomers were the best targets to fleece.

"Oh? You have crystals, huh?" The man leaned in closer, a sly grin appearing beneath his mask. "How many Blood-Iron Tokens are you looking to buy?"

"I will buy as much as you have," Rhain replied flatly.

The man’s eyes widened in sheer greed.

"Well, lucky for you, I’ve got a decent stash on me," the man whispered, lowering his voice as if offering a monumental favor. "I can give you exactly thirty Blood-Iron Tokens. But it will cost you... five hundred million Aetherium Crystals."

Beneath his demonic mask, Rhain’s lips curled into an amused smirk.

The standard, universally accepted value of one Blood-Iron Token was exactly ten million Aetherium Crystals.

Thirty tokens should only cost three hundred million.

The man was deliberately trying to rob him, charging nearly double the market price simply because he thought Rhain was a clueless newbie.

"Three hundred and fifty million," Rhain countered plainly, entirely unbothered by the blatant scam.

The man’s face hardened, feigning deep offense. "Are you joking? Three hundred and fifty? Do you know how much blood I had to spill to earn these thirty tokens? Four hundred million Aetherium Crystals! Not a single crystal less, or you can go fight in the pits empty-handed!"

Rhain thought for a brief second, and then nodded.

As the true backer of the Celestial Elixir Pavilion, an establishment that generated billions of crystals weekly, four hundred million was nothing more than pocket change to him.

He genuinely did not care about Aetherium Crystals.

"Fine," Rhain agreed without a shred of hesitation.

With a flick of his wrist, a spatial ring materialized in his palm.

He tossed it casually to the masked man.

The man scrambled to catch it, hastily sweeping his Spiritual Sense into the ring.

When he confirmed the mountain of sparkling Aetherium Crystals inside, his hands practically shook with euphoric excitement.

He had just made a hundred million crystals in pure profit!

"Here you go, friend!" the man laughed heartily, hastily shoving a small, heavy leather pouch into Rhain’s hands. "Thirty Blood-Iron Tokens. Pleasure doing business with you!"

Rhain accepted the pouch, counting it with a look before he returned his attention to the arena.

For the next few hours, the bloody spectacle in the colosseum continued without pause.

Match after match, cultivators tore each other apart.

Limbs were severed, heads were chopped off, and bodies were dragged away like discarded trash.

People died continuously, yet the spectators only laughed and cheered louder, reveling in the gruesome entertainment as if watching a theatrical play.

Finally, the sun began to reach its peak.

The referee stepped into the center of the blood-drenched ring, his voice amplified by the essence.

"The next match is a cross-rank challenge!" the referee boomed, instantly drawing the full, undivided attention of every single spectator in the stands.

"Defending the challenge is a crowd favorite! He is a Gold Rank 1 fighter, sitting at the first level of the Domain Master Realm! Give it up for... SKULLCRUSHER!"

The crowd erupted into a deafening, fanatical roar.

A towering figure clad in heavy iron spikes leaped into the arena, the terrifying pressure of an early-stage Domain Master crashing down upon the stone floor.

The referee waited for the cheers to slightly recede before announcing again.

"And stepping up to challenge him... is a newcomer!" the referee shouted, "A Silver Rank 1 fighter, sitting at the first level of the Core Formation Realm....ASURA!"

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