Sign-In System: Starting With Invincible Physique

Chapter 288: Chapter 288: Fighting Skullcrusher - II

Chapter 288: Fighting Skullcrusher - II

Hidden within the darkness, fifty feet away, Rhain’s eyes narrowed sharply beneath his demonic Asura mask.

He immediately realized that he could not let those iron spikes hit him directly.

Skullcrusher’s raw physical strength and Domain Master essence were simply too overwhelmingly dense.

If he tried to block those spikes head-on like he had with Lyra, then he could be heavily injured.

Boundless Sky Wind!

Rhain’s figure moved from his spot.

His speed was extremely fast, dodging the iron spikes at impossible angles in the pitch black darkness, yet the sheer number of the spikes were so dense that Rhain simply could not dodge all of them.

SHRIIIK—!

A spike grazed his left thigh, and blood sprayed.

Rhain didn’t even have time to check on his wound as another iron spike was already moving in his direction.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

A massive iron blade sheared through the darkness, missing Rhain’s neck by less than a millimeter.

SLASH!

Another jagged spike grazed his shoulder, tearing effortlessly through his pitch-black protective essence and ripping a deep, bloody gash across his arm.

’If I had been a fraction of a second slower, my head would be rolling on the floor right now,’ Rhain calculated coldly, feeling the warm blood drip down his arm.

Abyssal Sovereign Physique immediately spun fiercely, frantically healing the deep cut, most of his injuries were healing within seconds, but it demanded a heavy toll on his essence.

He couldn’t just play defense against his opponent.

Rhain stopped his retreat, his dark grey eyes locking onto the blind, raging giant in the center of the iron storm.

He raised his right fist, gathering a highly compressed vortex of dark essence.

"Void Fist. Second Form."

Rhain punched the empty air.

The spatial transmission completely bypassed the physical distance of fifty feet.

It ignored the thousands of flying iron spikes.

It ignored Skullcrusher’s incredibly thick, spiked heavy armor.

BOOM—!!!

The punch detonated directly inside Skullcrusher’s ribcage.

"GAAAAH!"

Skullcrusher spat a mouthful of blood, his massive frame staggering backward.

But the horror of the attack was only just beginning.

Essence Devouring!

The dark essence acting like a ravenous parasite began to violently siphon the Domain Master’s foundational earth and iron essence, dragging it through the void directly back into Rhain’s body to fuel his rapid healing.

"YOU COWARD! WHAT DEMONIC IS THIS?" Skullcrusher bellowed, coughing up blood.

But as a veteran killer, he was not helpless.

The moment the Void Fist detonated, his battle instincts locked onto the microscopic spatial ripple generated by the attack’s origin.

"FOUND YOU!"

Skullcrusher spun around with impossible speed, hurling a massive, condensed storm of iron spears, hurling directly at the source of the spatial distortion.

It was a blow that could have flattened a hillside.

BANG!

Rhain was forced to twist his body, but the strom of iron spears still grazed his side, carving a trench three inches deep into his ribs.

Rhain gritted his teeth against the agonizing pain.

The opponent was far too experienced.

He was using the very ripples of Rhain’s attacks to track him in the darkness!

But Rhain didn’t stop.

He blended into the darkness once more, shifting his position rapidly while continuously launching his devastating, spatially-transmitted strikes.

He appeared ninety feet away, on the opposite side of the sphere, drawing his fist back again.

Void Fist. Second Form.

BANG!

Another detonation, this time against Skullcrusher’s spine.

"GRAAAH!"

BANG!

The shoulder.

BANG!

The gut.

BANG! BOOM! BANG!

Outside the arena, the hundred thousand spectators were on their feet, screaming themselves hoarse.

"TEAR HIM APART, SKULLCRUSHER!"

"CRUSH THAT ARROGANT SILVER RANK BUG!"

To the audience, the center of the colosseum was entirely obscured by a massive, rumbling sphere of pitch-black darkness.

They couldn’t see a single thing happening inside.

They could only hear the deafening, earth-shattering explosions.

They cheered wildly, fully expecting the darkness to shatter at any moment and reveal Skullcrusher standing over a pulverized, bloody corpse.

One minute passed.

Then two minutes.

Then five minutes.

The deafening cheers in the stands slowly began to die down.

"Why... why is it taking so long?" a masked spectator muttered, lowering his raised fist in confusion.

"Skullcrusher could kill a Core Formation within a few seconds! That Silver Rank 1 kid should be a smear of paste by now!"

As the battle raged on for several more minutes, an eerie silence crept over the entire colosseum.

The crowd watched the impenetrable sphere of darkness with growing unease.

The constant, earth-shaking booms from within weren’t the sounds of a one-sided slaughter.

They were the sounds of a grueling, life and death battle.

It was impossible to tell who was winning and who was losing.

The very fact that a first-level Core Formation youth was surviving this long inside a locked Domain battle against a veteran Domain Master was fundamentally shattering their comprehension of reality.

Could it really be another ninth seat?

--------------

Inside the darkness, the battle had reached its brutal climax.

Rhain’s dark robes were shredded and soaked in his own blood as of result of the brutal and crazy counterattacks by skullcrusher.

There were dozens of inches-deep lacerations across his legs, chest, and arms.

But Rhain’s relentless, hit-and-run tactics had done their job perfectly.

"ARGH... damn you...!"

Skullcrusher dropped to one knee, his massive iron halberd slipping from his trembling grasp.

He was gasping for air like a dying fish.

Dozens of Void Fist strikes had detonated inside his body over the last ten minutes.

His internal organs were completely ruptured, but far worse... his vast Domain Master essence had been thoroughly sucked dry by Rhain’s devouring power.

He had nothing left. Not even the strength to lift his own arms.

SHATTER—!!!

Without the essence to sustain it, Skullcrusher’s Domain of Iron collapsed into a shower of dissipating metallic light.

Sensing the collapse of his opponent’s power, Rhain slowly lowered his own hand.

WHOOSH.

The Origin Domain of Darkness rapidly receded, drawing back into the mark on Rhain’s forehead.

The sunlight of the morning spilled back into the blood-drenched arena.

The hundred thousand spectators leaned forward, holding their breath as the dust and dark mist finally cleared.

What they saw made their souls practically leave their bodies.

The undefeated thirty-win fighter, the towering, spike-armored giant known as Skullcrusher, was not standing triumphant as they all had imagined.

He was dangling in the air.

His heavy, massive body had been effortlessly lifted entirely off the arena floor.

Holding him up by the throat was the slender, dark-robed youth wearing the demonic Asura mask.

Skullcrusher’s eyes rolled back into his head.

He looked totally and utterly exhausted, drained of every single drop of energy in his body.

His heavy armor was cracked, and blood poured freely from massive, internal hemorrhages and inches-deep wounds.

A thousand masked killers sat frozen in their seats, and not one of them made a sound.

Skullcrusher dangled helplessly in the air, his massive, blood-stained hands weakly clutching the vice-like grip locked around his throat.

His vision was rapidly darkening at the edges.

’How?’ Skullcrusher thought, his mind trapped in a chaotic whirlwind of despair and denial. ’How could my end be like this?’

He was a veteran of the blood pits.

He had survived thirty consecutive death matches.

And now, he was being choked to death like a helpless chicken by a man at the first level of the Core Formation Realm.

It was a nightmare.

He closed his eyes, awaiting the final moments of his life.

But that moment never came.

Instead, the chilling, deep voice echoed in his ears.

"Do you want to live?"

Skullcrusher’s eyes snapped open.

He stared at Rhain with dumbfounded disbelief.

Live?

In the Crucible Arena, death matches meant exactly opposite of that—death.

Pleading for mercy usually only earned the loser a slower, far more agonizing torture for the crowd’s entertainment.

No one offered mercy here.

But looking into those placid, unbothered dark grey eyes visible behind the crimson slits of the mask, Skullcrusher realized this man wasn’t joking.

He weakly, desperately nodded his head.

Thud.

Rhain simply opened his hand, casually throwing the massive giant onto the blood-soaked sand like a sack of discarded garbage.

"Cough! Cough! HAAH!" Skullcrusher violently gasped for air, clutching his bruised throat as he scrambled onto his hands and knees.

According to the ironclad laws of the Crucible Arena, the victor of a death match claimed authority over the loser.

The winner had the right to do anything: execute them brutally, spare their pathetic life, or just enslave them.

However, in the history of this underground hell, enslavement was incredibly rare.

Cultivators were treacherous.

Who could ever guarantee that a spared enemy turned slave wouldn’t find a way to slit their master’s throat in their sleep?

For the bloodthirsty killers of the arena, simply chopping off the loser’s head was the safest, most logical choice.

But Rhain did not care about such risks.

He looked down at the kneeling giant.

"Take a Heavenly Vow," Rhain commanded with authority. "Become my slave, and I will let you keep your life."

The thousands of spectators in the stands were stupified.

A Silver Rank 1 was demanding a Gold Rank 1 fighter to become his slave!

A Core Formation youth enslaving a true Domain Master!

Down in the sand, Skullcrusher froze.

His heavy, spike-armored shoulders trembled.

He was a proud warrior.

To throw away his dignity and become a chained dog to a Core Formation man... the sheer humiliation made his blood boil with indignation.

Rhain’s dark grey eyes narrowed slightly.

Buzz—!

A terrifying vortex of pitch-black essence instantly gathered around Rhain’s right fist.

The aura of destruction radiated from his knuckles, pressing down on Skullcrusher’s neck like a guillotine.

"Make a swift choice," Rhain stated, his tone chillingly indifferent. "I am not very patient."

Skullcrusher felt the aura of death instantly enveloping him again.

The terror shattered his hesitation within a second.

Pride? Dignity?

What use was pride if he was just another headless corpse rotting in the dirt?

He had personally slaughtered dozens of proud men in this very ring.

He knew perfectly well that in the Crucible Arena, survival was the only truth that mattered.

He swallowed a mouthful of blood and forced his broken body to remain kneeling.

"I... I yield!" Skullcrusher shouted hoarsely, raising three trembling fingers toward the sky.

"I, Skullcrusher, swear by the Heavens! From this day forth, I submit my life, my soul, and my absolute loyalty to the man standing before me! Should I ever harbor the intent to betray him, may the Heavenly Tribulation shatter my soul into dust!"

BOOM!

A faint rumble of thunder echoed in the clear sky above the underground metropolis, and a glowing, invisible shackle descended, binding itself indelibly into the depths of Skullcrusher’s spiritual sea.

The Heavenly Vow was complete.

A Domain Master had accepted to be the slave of a Core Formation Realm.

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