Gideon fell from the sky like a dying star. The Avatar of War had wrapped himself in his golden aura. The density of his descent ignited the oxygen around him, creating a burning meteor of martial fury. He gripped his massive, jagged greatsword, the World-Breaker, with both hands, aiming the blade at the crown of Ren Hanshin's head.
"DIE!" Gideon's roar tore through the remaining iron walls of the Colosseum, a sound fueled by decades of unbroken conquest and desperation.
Ren simply exhaled, letting the Flow dictate his movement, and raised the Severance of Destiny in a casual, one handed horizontal guard.
CLANG!!
The impact was apocalyptic. When the SSS-Rank greatsword struck the crimson handle of the Mythic scythe, the shockwave shattered the space around them. The obsidian floor of the colosseum cratered, disintegrating into fine black dust for a hundred yards in every direction. The remaining avatars cowering on the balconies were thrown backward by the blast, their eardrums bursting.
A massive cloud of ash and golden sparks engulfed the center of the arena. High above, in the celestial viewing galleries, the God of War leaned forward on his throne of iron, waiting to see his champion crush the anomaly into paste. The dust slowly began to clear.
Gideon was suspended in the air, his massive muscles bulging, veins popping on his forehead as he pushed down on his greatsword with every ounce of his strength. Beneath the blade, Ren Hanshin stood still.
Ren's posture was relaxed. He was holding off the velocity strike of a Legendary Warlord with one hand. His Divine Strength of 10 negated the payload of the meteor strike.
"Is this all the God of War could teach you?" Ren asked. His voice was quiet, unaffected by the deafening ringing in the air, yet it pierced straight through Gideon's skull. "Just drop something and hope it breaks?"
Gideon's eyes widened in incomprehensible horror. "H-How...?"
Ren flicked his wrist. He just applied a fraction of leverage to the scythe's handle. The energy Gideon had poured into the strike was redirected back into the giant. Gideon's massive greatsword was thrown upward with bone shattering force. The recoil ripped the Warlord's grip apart, tearing the muscles in his forearms. Gideon was launched backward, tumbling through the air like a ragdoll before crashing into the obsidian dust.
[The God of Fate is laughing so hard the heavens are shaking!]
[God of Fate]: Look at the heavy pig roll! Look at him squirm in the dirt!
[God of Fate]: Step on his chest, Ren! Break his ribs! Show his pathetic Constellation what real power looks like!
Gideon scrambled to his feet, ignoring the agonizing pain in his arms. Panic, cold and primal, gripped his heart. He had fought dragons. He had fought abyssal horrors, but standing before him was something different. Ren Hanshin's crimson eyes glowed with the detached emptiness of a being that existed on a different plane of reality.
"I am Vanguard!" Gideon screamed, trying to force his courage back into his chest. "I have conquered fifty Dungeons! I will not be humiliated by a rat!"
Gideon lunged forward. He abandoned his greatsword, his fists igniting with pure golden mana. He moved with incredible speed, throwing a devastating flurry of punches that broke the sound barrier with extension. Ren met the Avatar of War in pure physical combat. It was a masterclass in brutality.
Gideon's golden fists blurred, aiming to pulverize Ren's skull, chest, and ribs. But Ren wasn't there. Jubei's training had perfected Ren's footwork, Ren was always half an inch outside of Gideon's striking range.
Swoosh!!
A golden fist grazed Ren's cheek, before Gideon could take back the arm, Ren stepped inside the giant's guard. Ren's left hand shot out like a viper, his fingers digging into the pressure point on Gideon's bicep.
Gideon's right arm went numb.
"Ah!" Gideon grunted, swinging a left hook to compensate.
Ren ducked fluidly, pivoted on his heel, and drove his knee into the side of Gideon's knee joint.
CRACK!!
The sound of the Warlord's knee shattering echoed across the silent colosseum. Gideon roared in agony, his body buckling as he fell forward. Ren grabbed the collar of Gideon's platinum armor and hurled the 400-pound giant over his shoulder. Gideon slammed. his face into the obsidian floor, and armor denting inward.
The remaining Avatars on the balconies watched in silence. This was a destruction. The undisputed king of melee combat was being treated like a clumsy child holding a stick.
"Get up," Ren commanded, looking down at the broken giant.
Gideon spat a mouthful of blood and shattered teeth onto the dark glass floor. He pushed himself up on his one good leg, his golden aura flickering erratically. He was terrified. For the first time in his life, the concept of defeat was a certainty staring him in the face.
But he was the Avatar of War. Surrender was impossible for his soul.
"Lord of Iron!" Gideon screamed at the sky, tears of pain and humiliation streaming down his scarred face. "GRANT ME THE DOMAIN! LET ME BURN IT ALL!"
The massive bone standard, The Standard of the Conqueror, embedded at the edge of the arena vehemently shimmered. A wave of suffocating golden light erupted from Gideon's body.
[System Warning: Legendary Avatar 'Gideon' is forcing a Domain Manifestation!]
[Hostile Domain Detected: 'The Endless Battlefield'.]
[Conceptual Law Enforced: Infinite Bloodlust.]
The obsidian floor of the Colosseum transformed into a muddy trench. Millions of ghostly, broken weapons rose from the earth. The sky turned the color of dried iron.
Inside this Domain, Gideon's injuries were temporarily ignored, and his stats were multiplied by his sheer rage. He couldn't feel pain or exhaustion. He was the pure embodiment of endless slaughter.
Gideon picked up a spectral, jagged halberd from the bloody mud. He looked at Ren, his eyes white and devoid of sanity.
"I will fight you until the stars burn out!" Gideon's voice was distorted, echoing with the screams of a million dying soldiers. "In this space, War never ends!"
The crimson chat box manifested, unbothered by the new domain.
[God of Fate]: He is so noisy. I am getting a headache.
[God of Fate]: End this, my King. Cut the puppet's strings.
Ren looked around the muddy, blood-soaked trench. He could feel the law pressing against his skin, trying to force him into a state of mindless rage. It wanted him to swing his weapon wildly, to engage in an eternal, brutal slugfest.
"War never ends?" Ren repeated, gripping the scythe with both hands. "Everything ends. You just haven't met the Executioner yet."
Ren didn't expand his own Domain to create a Paradox Zone. He just needed to kill the thing fueling it.
Ren concentrated his Divine Mana into the massive crimson scythe. The crystallized blood blade screamed, the sound tearing the fabric of the dimension apart.
"Fourth Form," Ren whispered, his crimson eyes darting onto the massive, lunging Avatar of War.
Ren activated his Divine Perception, looking past the flesh, past the golden aura, directly into the core of Gideon's soul. He saw it, a thick, glimmering chain of iron connecting Gideon to the God of War. It was the tether of his identity, his bloodlust, and his concept as a warrior.
"The Sovereign's Eclipse." Ren swung the scythe.
He didn't release a wave of energy. The blade simply evaded space and time entirely. The crimson blade passed through the golden aura, and cleanly through the iron chain connecting Gideon to his Constellation.
SNAP!!
The sound was purely mental, but it deafened every single avatar in the Colosseum. Gideon froze, petrified. The halberd slipped from his fingers, splashing into the bloody mud. The golden aura surrounding his body evaporated. The Endless Battlefield Domain shattered like fragile glass, returning them to the scorched obsidian floor of the iron colosseum.
Gideon stood still. The madness and bloodlust in his eyes vanished, replaced by an agonizing emptiness.
"What... what did you do?" Gideon whispered, his voice was small, weak, and it sounded like a frightened old man.
Ren walked slowly toward him. "I didn't cut your body, Gideon. I severed your connection to War. I severed your courage. I severed your desire to fight."
Gideon looked down at his trembling hands. He tried to summon his mana. He tried to summon his rage, but there was nothing. The primal fire that had fueled him for forty years was permanently extinguished. When he looked up at Ren Hanshin, he saw an incomprehensible monster.
For the first time in his life, Gideon, the Vanguard, the greatest warrior on Earth, felt the crushing, paralyzing weight of cowardice. Gideon's legs gave out. He collapsed onto his knees, shivering vehemently. He wrapped his arms around his own chest, tears streaming down his face.
"Please..." Gideon sobbed, curling into a ball on the obsidian floor. "I don't want to fight... Please don't hurt me... I just want to go home..."
The remaining Avatars on the balconies gasped in absolute horror. They could accept Gideon dying in glorious combat, but seeing the greatest warlord in history reduced to a weeping, broken shell, stripped of his warrior's spirit. It was a psychological violation that shattered the sanity of everyone watching.
ROARR!!
High above, the God of War let out a roar of cosmic grief. His Champion had been conceptualized into a coward. It was a brutal insult.
[The God of Fate is smiling with psychotic devotion.]
[God of Fate]: You broke his soul without even scratching his armor. You are a masterpiece of cruelty, my love.
[God of Fate]: Now, take out the trash. He is staining your floor.
Ren stood over the weeping, broken giant. He felt no triumph. Only the cold necessity of the draft.
"The war is over," Ren said.
He raised the scythe and brought the blade down, cleanly severing Gideon's head from his shoulders.
[Target Eliminated: Legendary Avatar 'Gideon'.]
[A connection of God of War's to the Mortal Realm has been severed!]
The moment Gideon died, the SSS-Rank Standard of the Conqueror embedded in the rock exploded into bone dust. The dimensional lock broke. The tall iron walls of the colosseum groaned and collapsed outward, shattering into a million pieces of light, returning the Savage Lands to their normal jungle state.
Ren stood alone in the center of the massive clearing, the golden sky of the draft burning above him. The remaining Avatars, the few hundred who had survived the Weaver's Loom, didn't try to attack. They didn't even draw their weapons. They turned and fled into the jungle, running with the desperate panic of prey fleeing a natural disaster.
They knew the truth now. This was a cosmic execution block, and Ren Hanshin was the only Executioner.
[Global Announcement: The Avatar of War has fallen!]
[Hostile Domain Clear. Returning to standard Savage Lands parameters.]
Ren dismissed his scythe. He looked up at the golden sky. The sun was beginning to set over the Savage Lands, casting long shadows across the jungle. He killed the avatar of death. He severed the avatar of war.
"Two down," Ren whispered to the heavens, knowing who was listening. "Who's next?"