Chapter 98: Testing the Flame
Night fell over the Prime Zone.
Holden sat on his bed, rolling his right wrist. His body had been recalibrated by the 10,000x multiplier hours ago, and now it was practically begging him to use the new skill sitting in his menu.
Hellfire Cleave.
Beginner rank. Zero point one percent mastery. A Rank 2 Origin Skill with the potential to melt through almost anything.
He had read the System’s description three times. Hyper-concentrated thermal energy. Explosive crimson fire. Armor-melting damage. It sounded good on paper.
But paper didn’t mean anything in a real fight.
He needed to test it. Not in the villa’s backyard where Renna would scream and Maeve would log every detail into her tablet. He needed a target that could fight back. A target that would force him to commit to a real swing.
His burner phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Holden picked it up. The screen showed a single text from an unknown number.
[Asura, we’ve got a major fight tonight. A rogue alchemist named Vex has called you out for a Death Match. He’s a specialist in black-market poisons. The payout is three times the standard rate. Are you in?]
Holden stared at the message.
A poison specialist. Someone who fought with chemicals and acid instead of swords and fists. That was a different kind of challenge. If his Hellfire Cleave could burn through poison fog, it could burn through anything.
He typed one word back.
[Yes.]
Fifteen minutes later, Holden dropped from Villa Seven’s balcony and landed silently in the garden. The black cloak settled around him. The gold mask clicked into place.
Asura was back.
The Blood Colosseum was louder than usual tonight.
The underground arena was packed wall to wall with gamblers, smugglers, and fight fans. Torches lined the walls, casting flickering orange light across the massive central cage.
But the cage looked different tonight.
Someone had lined the inside of the iron bars with a clear, shimmering coating. A chemical seal. Whatever was about to happen inside that ring, the promoter didn’t want it leaking out.
The bookmaker met Holden at the entrance.
"Asura, I need to tell you something before you go in there," he said quickly. "Vex isn’t a normal fighter. He’s a rogue alchemist. Ex-military chemist who went off the grid and started selling poison weapons to cartels. He’s killed fourteen people in the last three months. All of them dissolved."
Holden said nothing.
"He’s demanding a Death Match. No surrendering and no mercy." The bookmaker swallowed hard. "The odds are in your favor because of your record, but honestly? I have no idea how you can punch a cloud of poison."
Holden walked past him.
The cage door was open. Inside, a thin man in a ragged leather coat was dancing.
He spun in circles, with his arms outstretched, laughing like a madman. His coat was covered in pockets, and every pocket bulged with glowing green vials. His fingers were stained bright green to the knuckles.
Vex stopped spinning when he saw the black cloak.
"Oh! Oh oh oh!" He clapped his hands together rapidly, his voice high and fast. "The masked man! The silent killer! The legend himself! I’ve been waiting SO long for this! Do you know how hard it is to get a Death Match around here? Nobody wants to sign the waiver! Everyone’s so scared of dying! But not me! I LOVE dying! Well, not love it, but I’m not afraid of it because my formula is PERFECT and YOU are going to be my BEST test subject yet!"
He spread his arms wide, his coat flapping open to reveal rows and rows of glowing green glass.
"Physical strength means NOTHING against chemistry, masked man! You can punch as hard as you want! You can kick and grapple and do all your little martial arts tricks! But you can’t punch AIR! You can’t choke SMOKE! My acid will melt that ugly mask right off your face and then it will melt the face underneath and then it will melt the BONES under that and there won’t be ENOUGH of you left to scrape off the floor!"
The bookmaker closed the cage door.
Clang!
Vex was still giggling, pulling vials from his pockets and lining them up on the ground like a kid arranging toys.
The bell rang.
Ding!
Vex didn’t charge. He stomped on the line of vials with both feet.
Crash!
Forty-seven glass vials shattered at once. The green liquid inside instantly turned into vapor, creating a massive cloud of glowing green fog that filled the cage before anyone could react.
The crowd gasped. People in the front rows leaned back, covering their noses despite the chemical seal on the bars.
The fog was everywhere.
Vex’s cackling echoed through the mist. "Breathe it in! Go ahead! Just one breath and your lungs become soup!"
Holden didn’t hold his breath.
With a thought, He summoned his Star-Forged Sword from his inventory.
The stance came naturally, his body remembering the old Iron-Cleaver forms that had been rewritten into something new.
Hellfire Cleave.
He activated the skill.
The blade erupted.
WHOOSH!
A column of crimson fire exploded from the Star-Forged Sword.
The 10,000x multiplier kicked in.
Holden’s mind accelerated. He could see the poison fog not as a cloud but as individual particles, each one a tiny droplet of acid floating in the air. His body calculated the exact angle, the exact speed, the exact amount of thermal energy needed to neutralize every single droplet in his swing radius.
He swung.
One stroke. Horizontal. Clean.
The crimson flame tore through the fog easily. The heat was so intense that the acid droplets didn’t evaporate. They combusted. Every single drop of poison in the cage was burned up at the same time, turning the green cloud into a pile of harmless ash that was swallowed by the heat.
The cage went from green to red to clear in seconds.
And the slash kept going.
Vex stood still ten feet away, his manic grin collapsing into an expression of pure horror. He had just watched his ultimate weapon turn to dust in a single swing.
The Hellfire Cleave hit him.
BOOM!
The crimson fire caught Vex dead center. His leather coat disintegrated. The shockwave from the blast sent him flying backward, launching him across the arena.
He hit the iron bars on the far side with a sickening crunch.
Thud!
His body slid down the bars and crumpled to the floor. Smoke rose from his clothes. His vials were gone, his coat was gone, and his eyes were rolled back in his head.
The crowd went absolutely silent.
Then they erupted.
The screaming was so loud it shook the walls. Gamblers tore up their tickets. Fighters backed away from the cage door.
[Ding!]
[Death Match Victory: Vex the Rogue Alchemist (Rank 2, 3-Star) Defeated!]
[Base Reward: 1,000 KP]
[Specialized Boss Bonus: +500 KP]
[Death Match Hazard Pay: +500 KP]
[2x KP Booster Applied!]
[Total: +4,000 KP!]
[Current Balance: 39,390 KP]
[Hellfire Cleave: Beginner (0.1%) -> Master (100%)!]
[Note: 10,000x Multiplier processed 1,000 combat swings worth of experience in a single technique activation. Skill mastery maxed.]
Master.
In one swing.
Holden looked down at the Star-Forged Sword. A faint red glow pulsed along the edge and then faded.
With a thought, the sword vanished back into his system inventory.
The bookmaker fumbled with the lock, hands shaking. The door swung open.
Holden stepped out into the roaring crowd, collected his winnings without a word, and disappeared into the night.