Chapter 133: The Combat Event 2
"BRAZIL... VERSUS... GERMANY!"
The colosseum detonated.
The entire western stand turned into an ocean of green and yellow, flags whipping, drums pounding out a samba rhythm that shook the stone tiers. Across from them, the German section answered with a single, unified chant, low and rhythmic, like the march of a war machine.
"Both nations have made their choice!" Julie’s voice rang out over the chaos. "Representing BRAZIL... the Storm of a Thousand Hands... RAOI!"
From the Brazilian alcove, a lean, dark-skinned man vaulted over the rail and dropped straight into the trench-side platform, riding a gust of wind down to the stage like it was an elevator built just for him. He landed light on his feet, rolling his shoulders, a relaxed grin spread across his face as he waved to the crowd.
"And representing GERMANY... the Reaper of Berlin... STAHLKLAUE!"
The German fighter did not jump.
He walked.
Down the stone steps, through the connecting bridge, across the stage — each step unhurried, measured, precise. He was tall and wiry, wrapped in a slate-grey combat suit, his forearms encased in segmented metal gauntlets that ended in folded blades pressed flat along his arms. His face was hidden behind a smooth, angular helm with two narrow slits glowing pale green.
He stopped at his mark, and stood perfectly still.
He didn’t wave. He didn’t pose. He didn’t acknowledge the sixty thousand people screaming around him at all.
[Blntz_2: bro walked in like he’s here to collect rent]
[Marypaz13: why is the german guy so QUIET, im scared]
[Demiurge666: Raoi is cooked. Germany doesn’t send fighters, they send verdicts]
[Will_1631: RAOOOOI!! Show them the storm!!!]
In the American alcove, Selena leaned on the rail, eyes narrowed. "Germany’s opening with Stahlklaue? He’s their ace. They’re not playing safe."
"They can’t afford to," Nectron said. "They’re bottom of the standings. They need points, fast."
Nicholas said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the still figure in grey.
’No wasted motion. Doesn’t look at the crowd. Doesn’t look at the sky. His head hasn’t moved an inch off his opponent since he stepped onto the bridge.’
He’d known men like that, in his old life.
They were always the ones you charged double for.
"FIGHTERS, READY!" Julie’s voice climbed as the giant screens began to pulse. "The first battle of the Combat Event begins in—"
"FIVE!"
The samba drums stopped.
"FOUR!"
The German chant cut off.
"THREE!"
Sixty thousand people inhaled at once.
"TWO!"
Raoi’s grin sharpened. Stahlklaue’s folded blades gave a single, soft click.
"ONE—"
"FIGHT!!"
Raoi did not wait.
He didn’t test the waters. He didn’t circle. He didn’t even take a step.
The instant the word left Julie’s mouth, he slammed his palms together, and his body split.
It was as though reality had been struck like a struck mirror. One Raoi became two. Two became four. Four became seven — each copy peeling out of the original in a burst of light, landing in a wide crescent across the stage.
And each one changed.
The first ignited, flames wreathing his arms and crawling up his neck like a living crown. The second darkened, skin turning to rough stone, the stage cracking beneath his sudden weight. The third crackled, blue-white lightning snapping between his fingers. The fourth exhaled mist, frost spiderwebbing out from under his feet. The fifth blurred at the edges, wind screaming around him in a tight cyclone. The sixth rippled, his entire body turning to churning water.
And in the center stood the seventh. The original. Untouched by any element, arms folded, grinning.
"SEVEN?!" Julie shrieked into the microphone. "RAOI OPENS WITH ALL SEVEN AT ONCE! WE’VE NEVER SEEN HIM SUMMON THE FULL STORM THIS EARLY!"
The Brazilian stands went insane.
[GodOfDegenerates: SEVEN OF HIM???]
[Kamzy_1234: one element per clone... that’s actually broken???]
[Phantomswife: bro is a whole party by himself]
[IamTruck_kun: germany looking at a 7v1 in the first 3 seconds LMAO]
In the American alcove, Nicholas’ brow rose a fraction.
’An elemental split. Each body an independent fighter with its own element. That’s not a clone technique — that’s an army.’
His eyes flicked across the crescent of elemental copies, already mapping firing angles, overlap zones, kill lanes.
’Interesting.’
Then Stahlklaue moved — and Nicholas’ thoughts stopped.
The German’s arms snapped outward. The folded blades along his forearms unlocked, extended, and swept forward into two enormous curved edges — scythe-blades, each nearly the length of his body, glinting cold under the morning sun. His back arched, his knees bent low, his silhouette narrowing into something that no longer looked entirely human.
A mantis, cast in steel.
Nicholas’ eyes narrowed.
’...Kamacura.’
For an instant, the colosseum faded, and he was back in that ruined street — facing down a screeching mantis-type impure, its scythe arms carving lamp posts like paper, his body too slow, too weak, his only salvation the brittle joints in its shell that shattered when struck right.
He had barely survived that thing.
’Same frame. Same blade geometry. Same forward-hinged stance.’ His gaze crawled over Stahlklaue’s plated limbs. ’But nothing about him is brittle. The joints are reinforced. The blades are alloy, not chitin. And his stance is lower — he’s built for lateral movement, not just lunges. He’s what the Kamacura would be if someone fixed every flaw it had.’
If this man had stood in that street instead of the Kamacura, back then—
’I would have died. No contest.’
Nicholas leaned back against the rail, and the tension left his shoulders.
’Back then.’
The thought that followed was calm, quiet, and cold as a ledger entry:
’Now? He wouldn’t be worth a contract.’
BOOM!
The stage erupted.
The fire clone swung both arms, and a wall of flame taller than the arena gates roared across the stone. The lightning clone moved inside it, bolts lancing through the blaze so the fire hid the light until the last possible instant. The stone clone hammered the ground, and jagged pillars burst upward through the inferno like the teeth of a closing jaw.
Fire to blind. Lightning to kill. Stone to trap.
It was a flawless combination.
Stahlklaue went through it.
He dropped so low his chest nearly kissed the stone, scythes trailing flat behind him, and cut across the stage in a grey blur. The flame wall passed over his back close enough to scorch the plating. The first lightning bolt struck where he’d been. The second struck where he should have been. The stone teeth closed on empty air.
"HE’S THROUGH THE FIRST WAVE!" Julie screamed. "STAHLKLAUE IS THROUGH— HE’S— WAIT— WHERE—"
The wind clone dove at him from the left. Stahlklaue’s right scythe flashed once. The clone split diagonally from shoulder to hip and burst apart into a dying gust.
The water clone surged up beneath his feet as a churning pillar. He rode it — rode it — letting the pillar throw him skyward, flipping over its crest, and on the way down his left scythe carved through its liquid core. The pillar collapsed into harmless rain.
Two down.
He hit the stone, and the ice clone’s frost raced toward his landing point, flash-freezing the stage into a mirror of white. His scythes reversed, stabbed down, and became anchors — he swung between them like a pendulum, momentum unbroken, skating across his enemy’s ice faster than he had moved on stone.
The crowd’s roar collapsed into a single stunned sound, half gasp, half scream.
[Zorgus: HE USED THE ICE AGAINST HIM]
[Don_Radjin: julie has stopped forming words]
[Boddlly: I can’t follow this. I genuinely cannot follow this]
[AuraNova: the replay editors are earning their salary today]
And Julie truly had stopped forming words. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again — her commentary reduced to fragments as the grey blur tore through the storm.
He did not slow.
He did not stop.
He did not once look at the clones he had already killed.
Fire fell on him and found only afterimage. Stone rose against him and met only edge. Lightning chased him and arrived, always, an instant late — as though the bolts themselves were beginning to tire of being embarrassed.
Because Stahlklaue was not fighting seven men.
He was fighting one.
’He figured it out immediately,’ Nicholas noted, eyes tracking the grey streak as it bent around a crashing wave of magma-hot stone. ’The elements regenerate. Cutting them wastes time. But every split divides the original’s attention six ways. Kill the core, and the storm dies with it.’
Across the stage, behind his crumbling crescent of elements, the real Raoi’s grin had vanished. Sweat rolled down his temple. His remaining clones were pulling inward, tightening around him — a fortress of fire, stone, ice and lightning with a single man at its heart.
A fortress with one door.
And Stahlklaue had spent the entire fight herding him toward building it.
The ice clone lunged. The scythe took its head.
The stone clone swung. The scythe took its arm, then its core.
Fire and lightning converged on the breach, a combined blast with enough force to crater the stage—
—and found nothing but the ruined floor, because Stahlklaue was already inside the fortress, inside the crescent, inside the last three meters of space that mattered, his body coiled low, both scythes drawn back, the pale green slits of his helm reflected in Raoi’s widening eyes.
The colosseum rose to its feet in a single wave.
Julie found her voice in a ragged scream. "HE’S THROUGH!! STAHLKLAUE HAS REACHED THE MAIN BODY—"
The right scythe came slashing down, a silver arc aimed clean through Raoi’s collar — the finishing stroke, the fight-ender, the verdict of Berlin delivered in steel.
And then, mid-swing—
Stahlklaue’s eyes widened behind his helm.
Something was wrong.