As the bloodbath raged on, bets flooded in from every corner of the underground arena. Screens flickered, holograms updated, and gamblers shouted as the numbers rose and fell in real time.
But suddenly, someone froze.
"Wait… what?" a man muttered, staring at the live feed."How the hell is he still alive? The 100k drakon guy, white monkey, he hasn't even moved!"
Dozens of heads turned toward the lower section of the arena. There he was.
Kurogami. Standing still. Hands in his pockets.Unbothered by the carnage erupting around him.
The crowd began to laugh.
"Hah! Maybe he pissed himself!, Or he's too scared to die!, Somebody put the poor kid out of his misery!"
Even the Dwarf announcer leaned forward with a toothy grin."Ohhh, look at that! The 100k statue finally got some attention, folks! Maybe he's meditating on how to die!"
The camera zoomed in on him. Kurogami didn't flinch. His green eyes were half-lidded, calm, almost bored.
The arena's mood shifted from curiosity to excitement.
Among the chaos, the five-man unit of the Ripper Gang noticed the commotion. They turned in unison, their glowing prosthetic eyes locking onto him.
The one in front, tall, with jagged cybernetic lines running down his face, snorted."Hmph. The lowest-ranked ant's still breathing? Guess I'll squash him myself."
He stepped forward, spinning a dagger between his fingers. Behind him, his teammates adjusted their weapons:– one with a coiled elastic laser line dancing around his wrist, another shouldering a long sniper rifle, a heavy bruiser cracking his iron prosthetic fists, and the last a quiet one with a twin-edged blade humming with red energy.
"Don't waste time," the heavy one said. "End it fast."
"Relax," the dagger wielder smirked. "This'll be over before you blink."
He strolled toward Kurogami, five steps, four steps, then his form blurred. Vzzzztt!
He vanished.
The Dagger wielder swung for his neck from behind, and in that instant
SHHK!
Kurogami's body flickered. His shadow blurred for half a heartbeat, then vanished. It wasn't teleportation. He had simply moved.
So fast that the afterimage still lingered in the air.
Before anyone could react, he twisted sharply, bringing his arm backward and slamming a backhand fist directly into the Dagger wielder's face.
The metallic clang of bone meeting flesh echoed like thunder.
The blade shattered on impact. The man's neck snapped sideways with a brutal crack! and the shockwave from Kurogami's punch erupted in a sonic blast, flinging the body through the air.
He crashed into the wall almost a hundred steps away, leaving a deep crater. The screen above flickered. His life tag blinked once, then flatlined.
[Participant 43: Eliminated.]
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Smoke and dust rose in the distance.
Even the announcer froze before letting out a low, stunned laugh."Hah! The 100k ghost finally moved and turned a Ripper into paste!"
Every spotlight in the arena suddenly turned toward Kurogami. The calm boy standing amidst the chaos, hands still slightly lifted, expression unreadable.
Immediately, Kurogami's hundred thousand became three million drakons. Daichi, who was watching from the VIP spot, smiled.
The Reaper Gang overseer's expression became serious.
Kurogami lowered his hand, exhaling softly. He muttered under his breath, almost as if to himself:
"I wasn't planning to fight now, well, this is still fine…"
He lifted his gaze toward the remaining four Rippers, who now stared back in disbelief and anger."…but if you're all coming," he said, his voice calm and cold, "then come together."
As the chaos roared on in the arena, Kurogami's mind drifted back to Dachi's words.
"When the number drops to fifty, that's when you move. Don't waste your energy early on; let the others fight. The real game begins when the green zone appears, and that's only when twenty remain. Before that, just keep your name quiet."
Kurogami had remembered it word for word.
"Another thing," Dachi had added, tapping his wristband."The more heads you take, the more money shows above your tag, and the brighter you glow on the betting boards. If people start seeing your number rise too fast, you'll draw every hungry vulture in the arena. So stay low. Stay quiet. And when the time's right, strike hard."
Then Dachi's voice had lowered, almost like a whisper:
"I've placed 100k drakons on you already. Just a start. The real sponsor will come in later; the reward isn't from these trash fights, it's from him. The one inside the cage.When the odds change and your rating hits five points, that's five times the stake. Thirty million on a five-point rating? Adding with the money you accumulate, do the number yourself, also don't go all one shorting them all, the gang gets wind of you and feels you are a threat, they will reduce the odds 0.5 ot even lower, so you must try to struggle a little."
Kurogami remembered the grin Daichi had given him. And now, standing in the middle of the blood-soaked arena, those words echoed in his head.
He had used one of his own hidden techniques, Jujutsu's Technique: Silence, to conceal his energy, reducing his presence until he was practically invisible. It didn't make him vanish completely, but it erased him from the senses of others, his aura, his Chaos signature, everything. Only the betting system's tracking mark forced his existence to remain visible on the scoreboard.
For nearly the entire first half of the match, he hadn't moved, and nobody noticed him. Until now.
The four remaining Ripper Gang members exchanged glances. Their scanners locked onto him instantly.
They moved.
In perfect sync, their cybernetic limbs hissed and extended as they formed a four-net formation, circling him from every direction, front, back, left, and right. Each of them is activating their own Chaos cores, energy burning hot and fast.
The announcer's grin widened."Ooooh, this just got interesting! Four elite Rippers against one silent kid! Let's see if that calm face can survive a crossfire!"
Kurogami sighed lightly, lowering his stance. His expression didn't change, but his right hand slowly opened up. The faint hum of Chaos energy began to fill the air around him.
The crowd roared, and the lights focused on the four from the Ripper Gang. They weren't known by names, only by their specialties.
Sword. dagger. Net. Sniper. Fist.
Five killing machines. Five specialists forged in the black pits of the underworld, even though the dagger is gone, no doubt they were still strong. People started betting instantly, the majority went for the Reaper Gang, and only an old man bet his money on Kurogami.
The Sniper was the first to move, his massive rifle humming as a blue laser gathered at the tip. The others, Sword, Net, and Fist, dashed forward in a perfect offensive formation, splitting apart to close Kurogami in from every side.
The air cracked. Bullets screamed through it.
Before any of their attacks could connect, Kurogami leaped. His body shot upward like a cannon, soaring nearly a hundred meters high, the shockwave from his jump ripping dust and debris off the arena floor.
The Sword looked up, angry, his metallic jaw tightening. "You can't run that high, brat," he growled, rage burning in his eyes. The one Kurogami had killed earlier, the Dagger, had been his brother-in-arms. A comrade forged through years of blood and loyalty under the Ripper Gang.
He turned to the Fist. "Fist!" sword barked, "Yeah, I got you," Fist said, his metal limbs adjusting with hydraulic force.
Fist twisted his body, anchoring his legs deep into the ground like a catapult. The Sword ran forward, jumped, and planted both feet onto Fist's open palms.
"Launch!"
BOOM!
The Fist exploded upward with all his might, hurling the Sword through the air like a human missile. The Sword's body blurred into a streak of red and steel, chaos energy building around his blade.
In a heartbeat, he closed the distance. The Sword swung, a vertical arc of blue light cutting straight toward Kurogami.
Kurogami twisted midair, dodging, his leg snapping down on the sword below, using him as a stepping stone to change direction. The air split apart as he shifted position, dodging the sniper bullet attack with terrifying precision.
The Net dashed forward, raising both hands as thin crimson lasers webbed between his palms. He unleashed them in a flash, the web-like beams cutting through the air.
On the ground, the Fist began his charge. Each step thundered bam, bam, bam! His weight was shaking the entire arena floor.
An unlucky fighter, caught in his path, barely turned before Fist's arm shifted into a rotating piston. The strike landed like an explosion. The man's body disintegrated into pieces of flesh and metal, scattering like paper.
The crowd erupted."Fist just hit ten million!" someone screamed.
The Sword was next, twelve million. The Net and Sniper both had six. The Sniper remained, perched far above the chaos, scanning for Kurogami.
"Target locked."
SHHK! SHHK! SHHK!
Blue tracer rounds streaked through the air like falling stars, aimed at Kurogami. But he moved differently. Each bullet missed by a hair's breadth. He wasn't just fast; his timing was perfect.
For the Sniper, it was impossible for Kurogami to dodge those rounds, not from that distance, not at that speed.
Below, the others closed in again, a four-way assault closing from every side. First from the front, Sword from the left, Gun and Net from behind.
Kurogami's face remained calm, almost detached. He watched, measured, and memorized their rhythm. The swing of the Sword, the delay of the Gun's reload, the lag between the Net's charge intervals, every detail entered his mind like data.
He wasn't panicking or fighting back yet.
Instead, Kurogami moved within their flow, weaving through their attacks like smoke, using their formation as a shield. As long as the Ripper Gang focused on him, the others in the arena dared not interfere.
They thought they were hunting him. But in truth, he was playing with them.