Chapter 17: The Danek Arena (3)
Night's eyes widened in shock. A split second later, a searing pain struck him like a bolt of lightning, piercing every cell in his body. The venom was spreading through his arm with terrifying speed.
Leeward observed the scene, shouting a quick piece of advice: "Use your Stenmai to reverse your blood flow! It will slow the spread!"
Night shot him a single glance, and in that instant, Leeward understood what those eyes were saying: *He didn't know how to use Stenmai.*
Without hesitation, Night raised his sword and struck.
He severed his own arm at the shoulder. Blood erupted like a fountain from an inexhaustible spring. His face flushed a deep crimson, and a violent tremor seized his body as he let out a guttural scream of agony that vibrated from head to toe.
The moment the severed arm hit the ground, it began to rot before their eyes. It transformed into something resembling a dead tree branch: black, cracked, dry, and utterly revolting.
"Did he stop it?" Ellen asked immediately, his eyes fixed on the grim scene with evident sorrow. "Night, are you okay? Don't worry, the venom surely hadn't reached your core yet." He tried to offer comfort.
However, Leeward saw something that silenced him completely: thick green veins were already crawling over Night's shoulder, snaking up his neck with a merciless, slow crawl.
"No... he didn't make it," Leeward realized. Night no longer had a chance; the venom had tightened its grip. "Resist with your spiritual energy. Try to keep your cells alive as long as possible. It will buy you time—at least enough to say your final words."
This was the only harsh reality left, and Night recognized it instantly. He collapsed onto his back, writhing on the ground, his jaw clenched so hard the sound of his teeth grinding echoed painfully—a testament to the torment within.
*I haven't given my all yet... and I don't care about that as much as I care about my son. There is no one else to provide for him now.* Night looked up toward the sky, preparing for death with a profound stillness, like a man making peace with the inevitable.
At that very moment, the announcer's voice boomed through the air. The Kalvin Beast's tentacles trembled and retracted in sudden panic, as if something invisible had pierced its body, making it shudder from within.
Ellen noticed this. Despite the grief weighing on him for Night, his focus shifted immediately to finding a weakness in the cursed beast. "Fighter Number One! Did you see that? It seems the Kalvin Beast is distressed by loud noises!"
Leeward grasped the implication at once. "Yes, I saw it. Go and get the Ether Piece the announcer is using. We'll need it to fight this damn monster."
Leeward understood the plan, but he chose to stand by Night for one last moment. Not out of friendship, but because he anticipated a dying request—and he was right.
"Fighter Number One... I won't bother with unnecessary details like your name... but you are the strongest here. I want to entrust you with something precious to me." With his remaining hand, Night pulled a yellow Ether Piece from his pocket. He held it up even as death crept toward him. "I want you to give this to my son. It will be the last memento he has of me. His name is Phil Nord. I suppose I owe you at least this much."
Leeward remained entirely unmoved by the heart-wrenching dialogue. Meanwhile, Ellen had already bolted toward the announcer's platform to seize the sound-amplifying Ether Piece.
"Of course," Leeward replied, his features as cold and motionless as stone, showing no interest in anything but the yellow artifact. "But first, I will use it to kill this beast, and then I'll deliver it to your son. Please, tell me its ability." He was asking for the instruction manual from a dying man without a hint of hesitation.
"I don't mind," Night whispered. "It's an **'Arrows' Ether Piece**. Truth be told, I was a fool not to use it sooner to move in time."
Night closed his eyes as his body began to decay progressively. Leeward took the Ether Piece from Night's hand, and as he did, the hand went limp and hit the ground with the finality of total surrender.
Night was dead.
He died regretting that he hadn't cared for his son enough, failing to push him and raise him higher than he himself could reach. A moment later, his entire body rotted away, turning into something like a charred tree trunk: black, scorched, and silent, as if he had never existed.
Meanwhile, Ellen reached the announcer sitting atop the wooden platform. The announcer's strange eyes followed him with a gaze full of suspicion.
"I need this," Ellen said, before delivering a direct punch to the announcer's face without preamble. He snatched the megaphone Ether Piece—it was shaped like a human ear, but crafted entirely from gray diamond, reflecting light from every facet. He leaped down and raced back.
In the stands, the crowd was divided. Some were moved to silence by Night's death; others were thrilled enough to keep watching without blinking. Above all, the screams filled the air as if Night's agonizing end had no weight or value in the middle of this non-stop, thrilling show.
Ellen stood beside Leeward, the scorched, rotting corpse of Night lying behind them.
"He is dead, unfortunately. Such is his fate. We must focus; winning and surviving are all that matter now."
"Agreed," Leeward replied.
He stripped off his iron chestplate, standing bare-chested. His physique was lean and honed, devoid of any excess fat. His skin was marked by numerous distinct scars—a visible history of countless battles, granting him an aura of authority earned through pain.
"This armor was only hindering me. You, use the megaphone Ether Piece to destabilize the Kalvin Beast. I will attack using this piece and my sword, utilizing a full detonation of spiritual energy."
"Good plan. Let's begin."
The two surged forward in unison. Ellen leaped, evading the beast's stretching tentacles with blurred movements, before activating the Ether Piece and bolstering it with his spiritual field. The device began to consume his energy greedily. It floated before his face, surrounded by gray sparks flying like embers, and then he screamed into it with everything he had.
Ellen's voice exploded through the Ether Piece, a blast that deafened the surrounding air. Every one of the beast's tentacles shuddered simultaneously, recoiling as if struck by an invisible hammer. The Kalvin Beast let out a hollow shriek of agony. Because of the venom saturated in its body, the majority of its biology was hypersensitive to high-frequency sounds—every vibration pierced it like a searing needle, causing its rage to multiply and flare.
Meanwhile, Leeward gripped the **Arrows Ether Piece** and pressed his spiritual field into it. He felt it begin to absorb him with a quiet, hungry intensity. He held it firm, then unleashed its power.
Black arrows materialized instantly in the air.
At first, Leeward assumed they were offensive in nature and directed them toward the beast via spiritual control. However, the arrows did nothing. They didn't pierce its hide or cut its flesh; instead, they drifted through its body like wisps of smoke—strange, weightless spiritual manifestations.
*Damn it... then what is their true function?*
He quickly searched his memory, catching what Night had said before his death: *that he hadn't used it to move in time.*
*So that's it... I understand.*
One arrow was floating directly behind the Kalvin Beast's back. Leeward focused his spiritual emission toward it—and suddenly, he was there. In the blink of an eye, he occupied the exact space where the arrow had been, positioned perfectly behind the beast.
He flashed a smile of excitement that surprised even himself, and delivered a vertical strike toward the beast's neck. But one of the tentacles lashed out with a sudden snap, its sharp spikes gleaming like nails. He parried it with his sword, then released the Ether Piece to float above his head. Golden sparks showered in every direction as the arrows began to multiply, surrounding the beast in a ring with no escape.
Leeward focused his spiritual emission on an arrow directly in front of the beast. He blinked to it in a flash, thrusting his sword deep into Kalvin's abdomen. He immediately shifted to the beast's flank, evading the writhing limbs with masterful, rapid movements, and unleashed a powerful vertical swing at the base of one tentacle, severing it completely. It hit the ground with a heavy thud.
*One down.*
Leeward blinked back using the arrows to create distance. Ellen shouted with uncontrollable joy: "Hahaha! It's actually working! Keep it up, Fighter Number One!"
*I can't believe this is only a Second-Rank Ether Piece... its power is truly immense.* However, Leeward felt the density of his spiritual field dropping faster than expected. *But it's draining me at a dangerous rate.*
The Kalvin Beast let out a high-pitched screech from its depths, directing its remaining tentacles toward Leeward with savage focus. But Ellen screamed into the Ether Piece again; the beast's limbs and torso shuddered in unison. In that fraction of a second, Leeward blinked behind it and pierced its waist with a deep strike.
But the beast was tougher than it looked. It turned with unexpected speed, directing all five of its remaining limbs despite the tremors racking its frame. Leeward leaped quickly—this time he didn't just blink; he used the arrows to maneuver through the air with absolute freedom, severing another limb.
Then another.
And another.
The tentacles began to fall one after the other in a relentless sequence, until nothing remained of that monstrous body but a single limb, desperately clinging to existence.
The coordination between Leeward and Ellen was pinpoint accurate, moving as swiftly as if they fought with a single mind.
At that moment, Leeward noticed his sword had begun to visibly corrode; the venomous blood of the Kalvin Beast was eating it from within, rendering it brittle and cracked until it was likely unable to withstand a single additional blow. Simultaneously, his spiritual field density had plummeted to exactly half.
Before he could decide on his next move, the Kalvin Beast thrust a long, strangely shaped tongue from the vertical mouth in its chest. At its tip was a long black needle, dripping with an indescribably concentrated venom. It lunged directly toward Leeward.
Ellen screamed into the Ether Piece, but the sound had no discernible effect on the tongue. Leeward tracked its movement, realizing it was terrifyingly fast and adhesive. He activated the Ether Piece and blinked, yet the tongue followed him with the same velocity, as if programmed to track him alone.
He began to blink from one spot to another at his maximum limit, but the tongue pursued him relentlessly, never losing his trail. As he drew closer to Kalvin's torso, Leeward noticed something: the range of his arrows decreased the tighter the distance became between him and the beast.
There, at that pivotal point, Leeward gathered every remaining drop of his unconsumed energy into his sword. He blinked near the beast's mouth and delivered a decisive vertical strike, severing the tongue in half.
He caught the severed part with his hands, feeling the disgusting, slimy texture of its saliva.
*"This is exactly what I wanted,"* Leeward whispered, a cold, unreadable smile in his eyes. He took the tongue with him and blinked away just as his sword shattered into pieces behind him, crumbling from the accumulated corrosion. He cast the hilt aside and lifted the tongue, gazing at the deep black needle hidden at its tip.
*"I will need this venom later,"* he said quietly to himself.
But before he could take a single breath, the Kalvin Beast's body let out one final, agonizing shriek.
Massive spikes erupted across its entire frame, as if they had been hidden all along, waiting for this exact moment. With the final note of that scream, the spikes launched with incredible force and speed, targeting Leeward and Ellen simultaneously.
Leeward activated the Ether Piece instantly, blinking from spot to spot without pause, evading every spike with perfect timing until the barrage ended. Not a single one touched him; the distance he had maintained from the beast's core provided him with just enough margin to escape.
Then, he looked toward Ellen.
Ellen's body was riddled with spikes from every side, even his face. He was pinned in place, frozen in a silent, macabre posture.
Leeward hadn't expected this.
*"It seems I am the only one left here."*
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