Chapter 200: Looming Dread
The sprawling, skyline of Ufrifa was still shrouded in the quiet, bruised hues of early morning when Hide Volter finally returned to the tournament stadium.
He moved like a ghost through the empty, polished corridors. His physical body was exhausted, but his mind was racing at a terrifying velocity.
He had just left Risa and Enji back at the Sihue Clan’s temporary stronghold. The reunion had been a monumental relief, but the quiet, trembling words Risa had spoken to him still echoed in his mind. What she had seen with her newly awakened Oracle talent had sent literal chills down his spine.
Pushing the dark thoughts aside, Hide navigated the labyrinthine hallways of the stadium and went straight to the specialized hospital ward constructed specifically for the tournament combatants. It was his first time visiting this wing, and the silence of the pristine white halls was unnerving. Given the early hour, there were only three medical staff members present at the central desk.
Hide approached them and quietly asked for Claire’s room. A weary nurse pointed him down the right wing, and Hide walked until he found her designation on a biometric door.
The door hissed open. The room was sterile, filled with the soft, rhythmic hum of advanced life-support monitors. Claire V. Bronn, the newly ascended S-Rank Commander, was slumped on the elevated white bed, completely unconscious and unmoving. Her golden blonde hair, usually tied back was unbound, falling like spilled water across the crisp white pillows. Her face was deathly pale.
Hide walked over and sat on the small metallic stool beside her bed. For a long time, he just sat there, staring at the steady rise and fall of her chest, genuinely not knowing what to say.
After a few minutes of heavy quiet, Hide slowly raised his right hand. He placed his palm gently onto the center of her chest, directly over her heart. He closed his eyes, and activated his Abyssal Healing talent.
A brilliant, pulsing green light erupted from his hand, engulfing her motionless form in a soothing, ethereal glow. The light sank into her skin, effortlessly mending any lingering micro-tears in her muscle tissue, repairing the physical strain on her organs, and stabilizing her nervous system. But within seconds, the green light flickered and receded back into his palm.
Hide opened his eyes, letting out a soft, frustrated breath. Claire was still completely unconscious. Indeed, Hide thought bitterly, he could heal flesh and bone instantly, but he could not heal her Core.
Hide withdrew his hand, resting his elbows on his knees.
"I am sorry I can’t help much," Hide said, his voice a low, quiet whisper in the empty room. "But I have killed that bastard. He died pathetically, like the dog he was."
He stared at her pale face.
"Also, you remember Risa," Hide continued softly, a faint, melancholy shadow crossing his eyes. "My friend. She has woken up, and also she has awakened as an Oracle. She told me she saw you, without even knowing you. I wonder what you were doing in her dream."
Hide sighed. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He stood up, adjusted his jacket, and left the room without another word.
Making his way up to the luxurious Varisus VIP suites, he finally entered his own assigned bedroom. The moment the door locked behind him, he didn’t even bother taking off his boots. He just fell face-first onto the plush mattress, closing his eyes.
He desperately wanted to sleep. But he couldn’t drift off. There was this weird, suffocating feeling tightening in his chest. An oppressive, crawling anxiety that refused to let him rest. His mind kept reeling back to what Risa had said, and then to the deal he had struck with her father.
Ren Sihue had promised him a reward. He had sworn to give Hide one of the three most cherished, supreme artifacts of the legendary Sihue clan. Hide knew that Enji, despite everything, would be willing to keep the promise now that Risa was cured. But Hide didn’t want it from Enji. He wanted to ask for it from Ren himself.
With these turbulent thoughts spiraling relentlessly in his head, Hide’s consciousness finally slipped into a dark, restless sleep.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The next thing Hide knew was the aggressive sound of someone beating his door off its hinges.
Hide’s eyes snapped open. The room was bathed in the bright artificial light of the afternoon. He instantly swung his legs off the bed, he walked to the door and yanked it open.
Rol was standing in the hallway, his arms crossed over his vest, a deep scowl etched into his scarred face.
"Come on... you are late. I saw you come back last night," Rol told him, his voice tight with an urgency Hide rarely heard from the veteran assassin. "As for how late, you have missed the introduction to the second round and the first three matches already."
Hide didn’t say anything. He simply gave a sharp nod.
He turned around, quickly washing his face and changing into his proper clothes. He threw his jacket over his shoulders and stepped out, following Rol down the winding, carpeted corridors toward the main spectating area for their team.
As they walked, that weird feeling of fear—the cold, creeping dread that had been bugging him since last night—suddenly spiked. It hadn’t faded; he realized it had gotten exponentially much stronger. He hadn’t been able to sleep peacefully at all, his mind constantly dragged back to the horrific things he had tried to leave behind.
Still, Hide maintained his stoic composure, making his way to the spectating area.
But the moment he reached the open doorway of the suite, he froze. His glowing blue eyes widened to a fraction of their normal size.
The room was completely dead silent. Evelyn, Gideon and even Sora were all standing rigidly by the panoramic glass window. None of them were speaking. None of them were moving. They were completely glued to the mirror, utterly lost in horror at what was happening in front of them.
Hide rushed to their side, his breath catching painfully in his throat as he looked down at the sprawling arena.
The massive stadium floor was completely unrecognizable. The artificial biome had been wiped out. In the very center of the arena, a colossal, swirling, pitch-black gate formation had violently torn through the reinforced concrete.
Lying on the ground just beneath the towering gate were two dead bodies. They were wearing the pristine white coats of the International Tournament Judges. Their skulls had been brutally, effortlessly crushed into the dirt.
But it was the entities standing above them that made Hide’s blood run entirely cold.
Looming near the gate was a colossal, skeletal abomination—a terrifying Lich. It was missing one of its arms, the rotting flesh and bone completely vaporized from the shoulder down, but its aura was undeniably apocalyptic. The creature’s horrific, maggot-infested jaw immediately reminded Hide of his very first brush with death—the Spot Dungeon master. But this thing was infinitely more powerful.
Floating in the air a few yards away was a little girl. She looked hauntingly frail, wearing a tattered white dress, but she had no eyes. Only dark, empty, eyeless sockets stared out at the crowd. With a casual flick of her wrist, she was currently holding a third, terrified tournament judge suspended high in the air, slowly crushing his limbs using something terrifyingly close to telekinesis.
And standing directly between them was another figure.
The Joker.
Hide’s heart hammered against his ribs like a war drum. The bastard was here. His clothes were shredded and coated in dust. He was wearing his porcelain mask, but the right side of it was completely shattered, exposing the pale skin beneath. And falling through the broken porcelain, cascading over his shoulders, was his real hair.
It was pure, striking white.
"So... the main person is here," the Joker suddenly said. His melodic voice ringing in the ears of three hundred thousand paralyzed spectators.
Slowly, the Joker tilted his head up. His eyes bypassed the thousands of screaming fans. His gaze locked with terrifying precision directly onto Hide.
The Joker smiled, a twisted, bloody grin visible through the shattered mask.
"How have you been, Little Brother?" the Joker declared, his voice dripping with sinister affection.
Hide stopped breathing. The entire world tilted on its axis. He took two staggering steps back, his boots slipping against the carpet as if the very foundation of his reality had just been crushed. Little brother? The white hair. The impossible knowledge of his mother.
It hit Hide like a physical blow.
Around him, the reaction was instantaneous. Rol’s jaw literally dropped. Gideon stumbled backward, crashing into the sofa. Evelyn turned to look at Hide, their eyes wide with unadulterated shock, completely unable to process or believe what they were hearing.
"But I will keep this reunion for later," the Joker continued, his voice echoing coldly.
The Joker reached behind his torn coat. With a bored motion, he brought out a spherical object dripping with fresh blood and threw it across the arena floor.
The heavy object bounced off the concrete. It rolled a few times, leaving a thick, dark crimson trail, before finally coming to a stop directly in front of the main broadcast camera.
The colossal digital monitors wrapping the top of the stadium zoomed in on it.
It was a severed head.
The eyes were small and lifeless. The face was just a husk of bones. Pale and exhausted, but still there was a smile on it.
"This... is a little gift from me," the Joker declared, his voice echoing with apocalyptic finality. "The head of Commander James Maddox."
The entire stadium went utterly silent. Three hundred thousand people stopped breathing. A profound, suffocating terror creeping slowly through the veins of every man, woman, and Exterminator present.
In the VIP box, Sora’s knees buckled. She collapsed onto the floor, clutching her stomach as she violently puked onto the carpet. Tears streamed down her face like a flood, her voice breaking into a hysterical, shattered sob. "No... no, no, it can’t be... Uncle... no!"
Hide didn’t look at her or his horrified teammates. He was lost... in his own world, that it seemed was trying to squeeze him.
The Joker stood amidst the corpses, spreading his arms wide as the dark, corrupted mana of the Calamity Lords violently expanded to swallow the stadium.
"I am here," the Joker started, his melodic voice completely devoid of mercy, "to declare a final War against you Humans."
[End of Volume 3]
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Hello guys, Author here. Volume 3 is over and the Final war is looming ahead of us. Thanks for reading and supporting the work till now. I hope you have enjoyed it so far and would enjoy in future as well.