On the far partition.... what Kael had called the death arena... even the air felt heavier.
Dust hung limply in rays of thin sunlight.
The silence was absolute, broken only by strained, ragged breaths.
Here there was no banter, no laughter, none of the practiced routine of sparring found in the central rings.
Upon the battered platform, two figures stood locked in a final contest—two cultivators who had given up all pretense of restraint and principle.
Ethan’s heart thudded, an uneasy rhythm pulsing as he watched the scene play out. The stakes here were different, and everyone present sensed it. This was not a test of skill nor a rehearsal; it was pure, desperate survival.
The first figure, his arm warped grotesquely from an earlier break, rushed his opponent in a wild, reckless charge.
He swung the ruined limb at the other’s exposed side—a blow thrown not with precision but with raw animal ferocity.
The sound that followed was sickening, the crunch of ribs breaking, so loud and clear that Ethan thought his own ribcage might’ve cracked in dread. The entire arena stilled as pain became real, palpable in the air, the pause so complete that even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Blood surged out of the second figure’s mouth, splattering in sticky arcs. Most landed across his attacker’s chest and face, streaking him in vivid red.
For an instant the man lingered upright—before collapsing with a heavy, wet thud onto his back, the blood still leaking from his lips, drenching the stone beneath.
Ethan’s nerves burned with dread as the fallen cultivator rolled to his stomach, limbs twitching in agony.
Despite broken bones and mutilated flesh, he began to crawl—not away from but toward the man who’d wrecked him, as if some last urge compelled him on. The audience watched, some whispering prayers, some refusing to watch, some unable to drag their eyes away.
As he made his gradual progress, every motion seemed to take a lifetime. The crawl was agonizing... body dragged, legs utterly unresponsive, hands barely able to clutch at crumbling stone.
His fingers moved stiffly, coated in sticky blood; the muscles had stopped listening. Every inch cost him, but still, he crawled forward.
The standing figure watched with predatory patience, his lips curled in a silent snarl.
Ethan felt his own pulse climbing... the hair standing on his neck. He realized this was no longer mere violence: it was punishment, ritual, spectacle. The audience kept their distance, frozen in anticipation; there was no referee, no rules—only the grim certainty that one would die here.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the broken cultivator reached the feet of his attacker. His eyes, bloodshot and barely open, turned upward, searching not for mercy but for closure. Then, with an awful inevitability, the standing figure drew back his leg and launched a crushing kick.
The impact was brutal and final. Ethan saw the crawling man twist reflexively, trying to protect the vulnerable back of his head with shattered arms—but it was hopeless.
Limbs hung limp, bones refusing to obey. The kick landed flat, driving the head into the dirt. The crunch was muted but unmistakable—skull meeting stone with unstoppable force.
For a split second, the dying man saw his killer’s face, the sky above, maybe even himself reflected in the dark of his own blood.
Regret surged in his chest, an acid drowning all other feeling, regret for missed chances, for betrayal and stupidity, for loving and hating too fiercely; regret for every moment squandered, every reckless word spoken, every rivalry unhealed.
In the instant before oblivion, he smiled, a genuine thing.... ragged and crooked but real. It was a smile that carried happiness, anger, guilt, envy, disappointment, bitterness, and above all—an unfathomable sadness.
His lips trembled, blood welling inside his mouth, choked by the final gasp of misery.
I could have lived a happy life. The thought flickered, then faded forever.
The standing figure pressed down with his foot, grinding the head deeper, refusing to let go until stillness reigned fully.
There were no screams. No dramatic curses. Only the sound of iron against stone, flesh failing, hope ending.
Gently, almost reverently, the victor bent over, grasped the limp corpse by its shattered wrist, and hoisted it from the ground.
The body hung loosely, no longer alive—just ruined meat, bones broken, face mangled into something barely human. The standing figure paused, staring into the bloodied, empty sockets that had once held dreams.
Without warning, he spat—a warm, scarlet glob—onto the corpse’s ruined face. It landed with soft finality, marking the end and the humiliation that came after.
Then, with one shake, he let the body fall. It tumbled unceremoniously onto the stone, limbs flopping in all directions, a heap of flesh and regret now beyond suffering.
The killer stood over his fallen foe, eyes wide with a wild, unhinged light. The tension grew heavy—surely he would move, speak, leave. Instead, he looked up at the sky, as if trying to decipher a message lost in the clouds.
And then he laughed.
It was a long, rising laugh—high and menacing, swollen with madness and raw, guttural release.
The sound filled the arena, bouncing off ruined stone and echoing back a thousandfold. It twisted through the crowd, dragging ice-cold chills across every neck and back, crawling down Ethan’s spine like a host of centipedes.
The laughter cut deeper than words.
It wasn’t just the jubilation of victory.
It was the exultation of survival, the celebration of power and cruelty, a storm of emotions too complex for names.
Madness, satisfaction, pride, relief, vengeance, naked rage, and complete nihilism all converged in that psychopathic cackle.
Around the platform, everything else stilled—time appeared to halt in obedience to something greater.
Cultivators froze mid-step, sparring matches paused, hands clenched in silence, eyes darted to the ground. The laughter rolled, unstoppable, unending.
Ethan watched the conqueror—the wild stare, the grin splitting his face, the splattered blood—while all the horror of the moment pressed around his soul.
Arms had been ripped, bones shattered, eyes gouged, whole bodies turned inside out by the brutality of the fight. Blood coated the arena in iron-stained rivers, the metallic stench overwhelming, mingling with sweat and gunpowder and the stink of desperation.
The air was thick with fear, sorrow, and the taste of defeat.
For Ethan—whose past life had been spent among quiet streets, mundane offices, distant from violence or crime... this scene was more than alien.
It was hell, or perhaps even something worse. He was not just a witness; he was utterly besieged by the pain and horror.
The blood itself seemed like a living enemy, mocking him, pressing in on his senses, boiling against his skin like acid.
His heart hammered in his chest, sweat drenching him from scalp to lower back, every muscle shivering with terror and awe.
He gripped the edge of his robe, knuckles white as bone.
This was the true world of cultivators.
A place where life and death were decided by violence, ambition, resentment, survival, and the will to endure.
A place where mercy was weakness, regret was a luxury, and hope was as fragile as the bones trampled on the death arena’s stone.
Ethan looked at the blood, the broken faces, the shouts and laughter and stillness, and understood. Beneath all power, beneath all glory, this was the price. The cost of surviving... of escaping exile, rising above fate—was measured in pain and blood.
So, this is the World of cultivators. Ethan thought.