Chapter 160: A Lesson in Overwhelming Force
The four combatants moved as one, a symphony of destruction aimed at a single man in a pristine black coat. The air itself seemed to scream in protest.
Ignis, the Phoenix, became a living comet, his body dissolving into a roaring, orange-hot inferno that shot towards Sam's right flank. The heat was so intense it warped the very light around him.
Vrik, the Gandharva, was a blur of motion on Sam's left. His four hands moved in a complex pattern, compressing air and sound into a shimmering, invisible spear of concussive force, amplified to the point of destabilizing reality itself.
From behind, AX-7, the Mecha, locked on. Its entire chassis hummed as power conduits glowed bright blue, channeling raw energy into its mounted cannon. With a deafening CRACK, a beam of pure, destructive essence lanced out, aimed directly at the center of Sam's back.
And in front, Grokk the Titan led the charge, his 20-meter frame a moving mountain of green muscle and rage. He roared, the sound a physical pressure wave, and threw a punch meant to pulverize a fortress wall. The fist, larger than Sam's entire body, cut through the air with a sonic boom.
Four attacks, from four directions, perfectly timed to leave no room for escape. It was a flawless execution of overwhelming force.
Sam Lee didn't try to escape.
His eyes, cold and analytical, didn't even flicker towards the Phoenix, the Gandharva, or the Mecha. They remained locked on the Titan. The primary threat, the unsubtle hammer. And Sam believed in breaking the biggest tool first.
As Grokk's continent-shattering fist descended, Sam didn't brace. He didn't dodge. He simply cocked his own right arm back, a motion so casual it was insulting, and met the Titan's punch with his own.
It was a sight that defied all logic—a human-sized fist meeting one that could crush a battleship.
CRUUUNCH-CH-CH.
The sound wasn't of an impact, but of a catastrophic, structural failure. It was the sound of bedrock shattering, of mountains collapsing in on themselves. From the point of contact, Grokk's fist didn't just stop; it disintegrated. The bones of his knuckles, wrist, and forearm splintered into a million pieces, exploding backward in a grisly shower of green shards and dust. The shockwave traveled up his arm, spider-webbing cracks across his elbow and bicep before the force lifted the colossal Titan off his feet and sent him hurtling backward.
In that same nanosecond, the other three attacks landed.
The amplified sound-spear, the Phoenix's fiery comet, and the Mecha's essence beam all converged on the spot where Sam had been standing—a spot now occupied by the stumbling, massive form of the Titan.
BOOOOOOM!
The resulting explosion was cataclysmic. The very foundations of the Shattered Spire arena heaved. The floating hexagonal plates shattered into dust. A fireball of incinerating heat, psychic disruption, and pure energy bloomed outwards, swallowing everything in a blinding, deafening fury. The shockwave hurled debris for miles and kicked up a colossal cloud of dust and smoke that obscured the entire battlefield.
The crowd fell into a stunned, breathless silence. The three attackers landed gracefully, their senses straining against the dust cloud. They had felt their attacks connect with something. A sense of grim satisfaction filled them. No one, not even that arrogant human, could survive a point-blank convergence of their ultimate techniques.
Slowly, the dust began to settle. The scene of devastation was absolute. At the center of the crater lay a massive, broken form. It was Grokk the Titan. His body was a charred, smoking ruin, his one remaining arm twisted at a grotesque angle, his chestplate melted by the Phoenix fire and scarred by the essence beam. He was unconscious, defeated by his own allies.
A confused dread began to creep into the hearts of the three victors. Why was the Titan here? Where was...
Their eyes, as one, drifted upwards.
There, perched atop a newly formed spire of jagged rock, sat Sam Lee. His black coat was immaculate, without a single speck of dust. He sat comfortably, as if on a throne, one leg crossed over the other.
2 minutes later
Beneath him, piled unceremoniously like a sack of discarded toys, were the unconscious bodies of the Phoenix, the Gandharva, and the Mecha.
None of them had even seen him move.
Sam reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a cigarette and a simple, silver lighter. He placed the cigarette between his lips, the click of the lighter echoing unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. He took a long, deep drag, the ember glowing brightly, then exhaled a slow, contemptuous stream of smoke into the air.
His gaze, devoid of any triumph or effort, swept over the annihilated arena and the defeated Titan. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the still-burning cigarette. It tumbled through the air in a lazy arc before landing on the pile of unconscious bodies at his feet.
He didn't wait for an announcement. He simply stood up, turned, and walked away, the teleporter already activating to take him to his next business meeting.
Sam Lee had won. And he hadn't even broken a sweat.
The air in the desert arena still shimmered with residual heat, the very grains of sand underfoot having been fused into a sheet of glass around Ruby's feet. The transformation was absolute. Her hair was a stark, flowing white, and her body was encased in the sleek, obsidian-and-gold armor that seemed to drink the light. But it was her presence that was the most terrifying change.
It wasn't just power. It was authority.
The three remaining combatants—the Hydrozoan, the Gandharva, and the Jinn—stood frozen in a wide semi-circle around her. They had surrounded her with the intent to fight, but now, that plan felt like a child's fantasy. An invisible, oppressive force radiated from Ruby, a wave of pure thermal dominance that made the air thick and heavy.
The Hydrozoan, a master of liquid, felt the moisture on his silver-black scales begin to sizzle and evaporate. A searing, dry pain, unlike any he had ever known, lanced across his skin. It wasn't like normal fire; it was as if his very molecular bonds were being threatened with dissolution.
The Gandharva, whose speed relied on perfect control of the air, found the atmosphere around Ruby had become a viscous, burning syrup. Taking a single step forward felt like wading through molten lead, his four arms trembling with the strain just to hold his stance.
The faceless Jinn, whose strength was of the soul, felt his form flicker. The Primordial Fire's aura didn't just burn the physical; it threatened to scorch the ethereal, to erase the very concept of a spirit. The void of his face seemed to recoil from the blinding white light of her eyes.
They all shared the same horrifying thought, communicated through a single, terrified glance: If we get any closer, we will cease to exist. Our bodies, our souls... everything will just... melt away.
It was the Hydrozoan who broke first, his survival instinct screaming at him to retreat. He took a single, stumbling step backward.
It was the only step any of them managed to take.
They never saw her move. There was no blur, no tell-tale shift in the air. One moment, Ruby was standing in the center, a statue of obsidian and wrath. The next, she was simply there, directly in front of the Hydrozoan.
Her armored fist, moving with a speed that defied perception, connected with his chest. There was a dull, sickening THUD, the sound of immense force being delivered with surgical precision. The Hydrozoan's eyes bulged, a strangled gasp escaping his lips before he crumpled to the ground, utterly still.
In the same infinitesimal fraction of a second, she was before the Gandharva. His four arms, raised in a futile guard, might as well have been smoke. Her punch landed in the exact center of his torso. The impact didn't send him flying; it simply short-circuited his entire nervous system, dropping him like a marionette with its strings cut.
Finally, she appeared before the Jinn. The pale, spectral being had no time to phase, to dematerialize, to defend. Her fist, wreathed in a nimbus of silent white flame that she consciously held back, struck his core. The concussive physical force was enough. A crack like shattering ice echoed as his form destabilized, and he collapsed into an unconscious heap.
Three opponents. Three precise, non-lethal strikes to the chest. All in less time than it took to draw a single breath.
Ruby had chosen not to use her flames. The Insectoid's fate was a grim warning. This was still a tournament; these were opponents, not enemies to be unmade from reality. Her control, even in this state of immense power, was absolute.
As the last body hit the glassy ground, the transformation began to reverse. The terrifying aura vanished. The obsidian armor dissolved into motes of black ash that swirled around her before fading into nothingness. Her stark white hair darkened at the roots, flowing back to its natural, deep black in seconds.
She was left standing in her normal clothes: a red ¾-sleeve turtleneck and blue jeans. The sudden return to normalcy was as jarring as the transformation itself.
The immense energy that had flooded her system receded, leaving a vast, hollow emptiness in its wake. The adrenaline vanished, and the true, crushing cost of wielding such power hit her all at once. Her legs buckled.
Thud.
Ruby collapsed to her knees, her hands splayed on the warm, glassy ground. She panted, her body trembling with a bone-deep exhaustion. Every muscle screamed in protest, every nerve felt frayed and raw. She was 100% conscious, her mind lucid, but her body felt like it had been run through a cosmic forge and hammered back into shape.
She had won. She had been unstoppable.
But as she knelt there, utterly spent, the victory felt less like a triumph and more like a warning of the immense burden she now carried.
To be continued…