Chapter 794: The Clamor of the Vanquished
The silence in the Golden Sun Grand Colosseum shattered in an instant, devolving into utter chaos. The spiritual projection screen displayed the plain as completely pristine, devoid of any trace of the slaughter, as though the three thousand soldiers of the Rising Sun Kingdom and the Iron Shadow Kingdom had never existed at all.
In the royal box of the Rising Sun Kingdom, the King stood up abruptly, knocking his jade wine goblet to the floor where it shattered into pieces. His face was entirely contorted, pale as spent ash, his hands trembling with suppressed rage and horror.
"This is an atrocity! I demand justice!" roared the King of the Rising Sun, shouting toward the box of the Grand Arbiter and the Emperor. "That demon exterminated them without mercy! He didn’t even leave their corpses to be buried! I demand an immediate halt to the tournament!"
"Yes! Stop the trial!" shouted the King of the Iron Shadow, joining the cries with a cracking voice. "Those troops were the brightest young talents of our kingdoms! This is an unjustified slaughter!"
The protests quickly spread like wildfire through the boxes of the smaller and weaker kingdoms. The arrogance and numerical superiority they had flaunted earlier vanished in a matter of minutes. Now, the eyes of all the kings were dominated by a primal terror.
Their descendants, the heirs and young geniuses who represented the future of their kingdoms and bloodlines, were inside that dimensional plane. If Ethan decided to unleash that nightmare horde upon the remaining zones, the future of dozens of kingdoms would be wiped off the map in a single day.
"Your Majesty, please order a suspension!" pleaded the king of a minor vassal realm, dropping to his knees in his box. "That young man is not a participant, he is a walking catastrophe! Our descendants stand no chance against such an abomination!"
In the Soaring Dragon Kingdom box, King Alaric observed the scene with a straight back and an expression of cold composure. Beside him, Great General Vaelen let out a snort of supreme disdain, looking at the pleading monarchs with eyes full of contempt.
"Look at them...", whispered Great General Vaelen in a deep voice. "They changed the rules to corner a single man with armies, and now that the army belongs to him, they squeal like pigs at the slaughterhouse. How pathetic."
The tension mounted until the Emperor’s voice echoed across the entire colosseum, enforcing an absolute silence that froze the blood of everyone present. The sovereign didn’t even bother to rise from his throne, looking down at the pleading kings with profound coldness.
"Silence," declared the Emperor in a tone that made the stands tremble. "You yourselves demanded changing the rules to permit armies and guarantee fairness. Now that you have failed miserably to corner a single man, you come to weep before my throne? How pathetic you are. The tournament shall continue exactly as planned."
Back on the plain, the air felt clean following the necrotic vortex’s absorption. Isabella walked up to Ethan, sheathing her jade sword into its scabbard with a soft click that broke the wasteland’s silence.
"What do we do now?" asked Isabella, crossing her arms and gazing toward the domain’s boundaries. "Do we stay here and wait for the rest of the rats to gather enough courage to come, or do we go hunt them down in their own fortresses?"
Ethan looked up at the dimensional plane’s sky, where clouds swirled in a sluggish eddy of runic energy.
"How long is this phase supposed to last?" asked Ethan.
"Seven days," answered Isabella, letting out a huff of annoyance. "Seven days of protecting the banner or hunting down the other kingdoms’ flags until only one remains standing."
"Seven days...", repeated Ethan, forming an icy, merciless smirk as he stroked the dark orb in his hand. "Too many days..."
Isabella raised an eyebrow, intrigued by his tone.
"What are you thinking, my love?" asked Isabella, stepping closer to him.
"What do you think happens if they destroy this place but I murder every single one of them?" asked Ethan, locking eyes directly with the princess as a violet flare burned within his pupils. "If no kingdom is left alive to claim victory, it doesn’t matter if ten banners fall or ours does. The sole survivor takes it all."
Isabella stared at him in silence for a second before letting out a soft, fascinated chuckle, stepping forward until she was inches from his face.
"That there would be no one left to object to the outcome," answered Isabella with a fierce glare. "I like how you think."
Ethan raised his right hand with deliberate composure. High above, the Orb of Death emitted a dull, distorted hum that vibrated the very fabric of space. In response, the undead horde waiting in silence turned their heads in unison toward their master, their eyes blazed with violet flames fixed upon his figure.
"Search and assassinate," said Ethan in a whisper heavy with killing intent.
The command acted as a catalyst. A sea of shadows and dark silver armor surged in every direction at a terrifying speed. Like an unstoppable black tide, the necrotic creatures branched across the plain, driving deep into the lush forest, scaling the rocky passes of the mountain range, and hugging the coastline toward the sea.
Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, intertwining his consciousness with the vision of his spectral servants. Through thousands of dead gazes, the full landscape of the Ten Thousand Abysses Realm began to reveal itself within his mind like a map drawn in real time.
Several kilometers away, at the mouth of a dense rocky gorge, the main forces of the Rising Sun Kingdom and the Iron Shadow Kingdom were celebrating prematurely. Their troops were finishing setting up base camps and pitching runic banners upon the ground.
"It was an excellent investment of gold and resources," commented the camp commander through laughs, pouring himself a goblet of spiritual wine. "Paying off the imperial committee officers to place our main army right at the edge of the plain was worth every coin."
"Those Soaring Dragon bastards thought they could humiliate us in the exhibition without paying the price," added the second-in-command with a confident smirk. "By now, the three-thousand-man vanguard must have already reduced that brat and the princess to ash. We’re just waiting for confirmation to march and claim their territory."
The soldiers around them laughed and cheered, completely oblivious to the fate that had befallen their vanguard. They had no idea that the forward force they so eagerly awaited had been erased to the last man without leaving a single drop of blood on the dirt.
Suddenly, the wind blowing from the plain turned bone-chillingly cold. The green grass outside the camp began to wither and turn black at a terrifying pace.
The commander furrowed his brow, dropping his wine goblet to the ground as the earth began to shake.
"What is that sound...?" whispered a guard in the outer trench, looking up toward the horizon.
From the crest of the hill, the mass of shadows surged forward like a nightmare tsunami, blotting out both sky and earth in its wake.