Champion Theater—a place where battles never ended—from dawn to dawn and from summer to summer, there's no such thing called as rest.
The people here were heinous criminals from all races, touching absolutely forbidden things even in this relatively lax law system.
The battling system was simple. You followed from the bottom rank—which here meant rank 3 and battled your way to the top. Your strength would constantly determine your position and future battles.
If you lost, you'd be left in serious injuries that would take years to recover and would have to battle lower ranks while still bearing those injuries. Even if you get so injured you can't even lift a finger, as long as you retain consciousness, you'd have to fight.
Of course, the management wasn't dumb. If a rank 4 tried to downplay his strength and appear as rank 3, he'd still be played against rank 4s.
This didn't happen much, however. As common sense dictates, there's almost no one who could fight across an entire rank.
So, as long as you're at the peak of your rank, you'd be safe—unless it's the Champion Festival where everyone of the same rank fought a messy crowd war.
There's no reward for victory. Only a dreadful and likely irreversible punishment for a loss.
It worked.
— — — —
"Ironically, it's almost impossible to get into Champion Prison without a capital punishment. I can't kill anyone is safe zone. There's no way I could've become eligible without bringing up the princess."
Varian wore clothes made of special clothes woven out of purple metal threads. They looked normal but acted as excellent armor.
He spun the spear in his hand, balanced it on his foot and played around as he waited for the brown-metallic gate in front of him to open.
After an unholy amount of time later, the darkness receded and Varian sprinted into the huge arena that would easily rival a city in its area.
There were invisible formations all over the place, dividing the arena into smaller fields, regulating the shockwaves of one battle from disturbing another.
As expected, there was a bloodthirsty crowd sitting across the huge structure, cheering and enjoying hundreds of battles happening simultaneously.
"The battle of low rank 4s: Baldur vs Yan—"
Varian threw the spear up, jumped into the air, spun around, and kicked it like it was a soccer ball.
"Wha—" The ten-foot lava humanoid that came to fight couldn't even react when the spear pierced him from head to toe.
"Victory."
Most of the crowd didn't notice the battle but the ones that did cheer wildly.
Varian chose to start the next match without any rest despite being given an option due to his victory.
"The mid rank 4s: Thorne vs Baldur."
Varian twirled the spear in his palm and shot it like with full strength. Space cracked apart and matter burned up, leaving only void.
Thorne, a species of humanoid plants, famous for her wild vitality and poison was shredded to pieces with that one spear.
Thanks to the tower rules, the pieces came together and formed a rudimentary living being, but that's about it.
This time, however, a lot more gazes turned to Varian.
'Not enough. This much of an opponent isn't enough.'
Varian pursed his lips. If he had to kill Reaper, even with Toy Sun, he'd need at least the strength of a low rank 6 to use the explosive properly.
"High rank 4s…"
"Peak rank 4s…"
"Low rank 5s…"
"Mid rank 5s…"
"High rank 5s…"
"Peak rank 5s…"
Varian panted heavily as the gashes on his arms bled heavily, painting the yellow sand under him red.
His opponent, an undead mummy, raised its hands and shot two impossibly long bandages flaring with assimilator energy.
The blood on the sand was absorbed and the blood flowing inside his wound was pulled out.
"Fuck off!" Varian grabbed the bandages and the space ring activated. The bandages were ripped apart by the space cracks and swallowed.
The zombie was now half-naked with a lot of bandages gone. It looked at Varian with a perplexed gaze. 'Can I walk out of this battle with a piece of cloth?'
A spear glowed with the brilliance of a star and streaked across the sky, reaching the zombie in a blink.
— — —
"This civilization is too weak. Even my dogs won't come here." Princess Azalea frowned in disgust as she observed the Human Empire in stealth.
Sure, there were a couple of celestial ranks. They'd make a good Province. Perhaps one of the strongest in the kingdom. But that's it?
A province couldn't ever help her or Baldur in achievements.
"The small words they call secret realms, they're fine. But what are the ruins?" Azalea assumed a disguise with ease, and faked her identity to enter the ruins.
But to her surprise, the ruins were recently shifted to 'Hortus'—another special world.
"What's so special about this Hortus though? What makes it different from other special worlds?"
In the downtown of the city Varian grew up in, Azalea sat in the corner of a bar and asked the man in front of her with a charming smile.
She could've just tortured him. But it gave her more satisfaction to use her charms on her opponents.
"H-Heuk! Are you one of those who fell into a coma?" The drunken man grinned and chugged another drink. "B-But I don't blame you, everything changed so fast, in more months, even I feel it's all absurd."
The drunken man then began to ramble about the drastic changes in his life.
Azalea browsed through the recent history of <Human Empire> with a disbelieving expression.
'No matter how I think about it, this is all bullshit. How can a non-celestial kill a celestial?'
As royalty, she knew that rulers often exaggerated their feats and 'rewrote' history to suit their needs.
So, she assumed that the so-called Human Emperor was stronger than shown and the Abyssal Emperor was weaker.
It's funny though, that these weaklings called themselves Emperors when even Azalea's father only called himself King.
'Frogs in a well,' Azalea's lips curled up in disdain. 'But who are these abyssals? One of those rogue tribes like Havocs?'
They must be so.
There's a lot of information omitted from the records, so Azalea didn't know that they were a race from the Jai Empire and were a very strong Duchy once nonetheless.
"…And the ruins are the remnants of devas, the gods of earth that lived long ago. You hear that, we are descendants of gods! Those elves and non-human crap? They can't hold a candle to our greatness."
Azalea narrowed her eyes.
She could dismiss everything. But the eight 'races' that appeared out of nowhere interested her a bit.
Except for a few powerhouses, no one knew where these species came from. They knew that these races were just 'connected' to human civilization and were willing to integrate.
"…And Hortus, that's our ancestral land. The Deva legacy. After the emperor opened it, the youngsters all want to get in. Even if you aren't as talented, the time dilation gives you an insane edge over your peers. So, why not?"
"Time dilation?" Azalea jumped onto her feet and slammed the table with her palms.
"Oh? Shocked? I was too," The drunk man chuckled and motioned her to sit back down.
"H-How do I get into Hortus?"
"How else? Pass through strict screening, either as a student or as a warrior. Hey! Where are you going?"
'Looks like I can't use the soft methods anymore.' Azalea walked out of the bar with a curious smile and headed to the entrance of Hortus.
A few seconds later, the 10,000 soldiers including three Sovereigns and one rank 1 celestial were killed.
The news was blocked from leaking. A few seconds later, Baldur sneaked into the heavily guarded portal like it was nothing.
The Prince and Princess sucked in a breath of cold air as they realized the true nature of Hortus.
It wasn't an average small world used for dungeons and the like. It's a complete synthetic world. Better than any Synthetic World they'd ever seen.
"Yes, this is it! Brother, my dear brother, you're really aiming for the sky!" Princess Azalea raised her hand and the sky of Hortus turned purple.
A heavy scent of death filled the world.
All the awakeners, be it students, soldiers or the powerhouses at the top of the food chain opened their eyes and stared at the sky.
Irene, Bali, and Kevin shot through the space and appeared in front of Azalea. "Stop! Who are you?"
Azalea snorted and a terrifying aura storm imprisoned them before they could speak another word.
"A-Azalea? What are you doing here?" Baldur who just entered Hortus was dumbfounded.
"Stop playing dumb, brother~"
"No, this could be dangerous!"
"Danger, what danger can these ants pose to me?" Azalea sneered and clenched her fists.
Irene started to bleed from her eyes and the brimming vitality in her body began to leak out. Her hair started to turn white and her beautiful skin began to wrinkle.
"Isn't this Synthetic World what you came for? But the treasures should belong to the strong, right?"
"No. I didn't come for this! I came for—"
A deep sigh sounded from the sky and a pair of wings manifested in front of Azalea and Baldur. "I wasn't supposed to do this but Queen of Radians, I'm sorry. Either everyone survives or no one does."
The space around Baldur and Azalea distorted. As they weren't expecting a move of this level, they couldn't stop the teleportation.
They saw a woman sleeping sitting cross-legged in a formation circle glowing with a myriad colors. She had no aura but gave off a powerful feeling.
"I'm sorry, Queen of Shadows, I hope you can hold on." Oob apologized and turned off the formation.
"W-What are you talking about?"
"You think you can scare me with this aura-less bitc—"
Azalea froze as a chilling force swept through her body and pierced the sky.
Stiffly turning her neck, because that's the most she could move, Azalea saw a woman covered in a pitch-black aura, even the brightest light of the sun entering the hall was devoured into that darkness, never to be seen again.
The only thing that wasn't black was the smile of her beautiful white teeth.
