The words had barely left his mouth when Cheng Shi vanished and reappeared directly in front of Gongyang Jiao. Before the Screaming Earl could fully raise his guard, a straight punch detonated against his skull.
The blow was massive, yet it didn't budge the man an inch.
Seeing Cheng Shi's shocking power, Gongyang Jiao was mildly surprised but utterly fearless. He licked the blood from his lips, teeth bared in a manic grin:
"Wonderful. Wonderful!
"Worthy of the Fate Weaver who's been tangling with Zhen Yi. You've exceeded my expectations. Only by devouring soone like you can I feel true pleasure..."
Even as he spoke, his expression twisted increasingly savage. He gave Cheng Shi no ti to press the attack. The instant his voice dropped, a Fear Scream blasted Cheng Shi into a montary freeze. Then Gongyang Jiao flickered behind him and drove both steel-claw hands into Cheng Shi's shoulder blades.
This was one of his thods for subduing prey. Runners get their legs torn. Fighters get their wings clipped. This was also why Poison's back had been covered in so many wounds.
The Screaming Earl loved attacking from behind.
The [Corruption] warrior's screech carried a dense payload of fear that scrambled the target's mind. Cheng Shi had clearly been hit — his reaction lagged just enough for Gongyang Jiao's iron-cutting claws to punch into his back.
But his recovery was fast. The instant his mind cleared, he blinked away via a die.
Seeing his quarry flee after a single exchange, Gongyang Jiao's excitent only intensified.
"Run! Flee! I don't enjoy resistance — only fear. The more terrified you look as you run, the more thrilling my pursuit becos! Ha, hahaha! Not running anymore?
"Since you won't run — here I co!"
Before he finished, a hurricane of fear roared toward Cheng Shi. But Cheng Shi showed no sign of fatigue after his tactical retreat. Facing the incoming onslaught, his lips slowly curved upward.
'What a coincidence — I like fear too!'
He hadn't actually been hit by the scream. A maxed-out Hero of Today carried extrely high [Fate]-blessed resistance. He couldn't fully nullify the Fear Scream's effects, but it certainly wouldn't impair him enough to let the attack land.
Cheng Shi could have dodged. He chose not to.
Not because he was searching for openings. Not to feign weakness. It was because...
The Fun Ring's charges were depleted.
The only fear he'd collected since the trial began was a single unknown charge at the start, already spent during his tussle with Poison.
So right now Cheng Shi lacked any heavy, fast-execution thod. Taking the Fear Scream and Gongyang Jiao's assault head-on had been him harvesting his own fear!
The opponent specialized in manufacturing fear. Whether that fear stemd from [Corruption] talents didn't matter — the Fun Ring wasn't picky. Whatever the source, fear beca fuel for the Thundering divinity within the ring.
And so, in the instant Cheng Shi blinked away, the Fun Ring gained one charge. Only one — but enough.
So when Gongyang Jiao barreled in for another frontal assault, Cheng Shi finally unleashed the Hero of Today's full splendor. He charged headlong without the slightest hesitation.
BOOM!
Two warriors collided like rams locking horns. Under [Fate]'s blessing, Cheng Shi's strength was terrifyingly amplified. He made no effort to evade the claws sinking into his chest, instead hamring a fist into Gongyang Jiao's throat while his other hand spun a scalpel like a blossoming steel flower — gutting the Screaming Earl wide open.
In a single instant, the carnage went maximum.
Gongyang Jiao was stunned, but the savagery on his face didn't waver. Seemingly indifferent to his own wounds, he launched a counteroffensive, trading blow for blow with the scalpel-wielding Cheng Shi in a frenzy of mutual destruction.
Hissing, roaring, crashing, tearing...
The aty impacts nearly drowned out the wind's howl. Horrifying streaks of blood decorated an entire alleyway, stretching from a palace entrance to the base of a high wall.
Hundreds of ters of blood trails in the all-white world — vivid as arrows, guiding the "snowflake audience" cheering for this gladiatorial bout toward their front-row seats.
Wounds ripping open, blood coughing from nose and mouth, flesh flying...
Both fighters had gone mad. Neither cared whether he lived or died. Each only wanted the other dead.
Their death-defying fury drove them to the breaking point. A hunt had been bludgeoned into a deathmatch.
The reckless mutual pumling never stopped. The ground that had been rely blood-splattered now began catching chunks of flying flesh. No one could explain how the combatants had reduced each other to barely recognizable forms in re seconds. All they knew was that so long as the prey hadn't fallen, the hunter couldn't rest!
Cheng Shi wore the Puppet Grip. Every punch he landed slowed his opponent fractionally more. Gongyang Jiao had his screams for crowd control, but as the battle intensified, the screaming stopped — because his windpipe was now exposed to the open air. Every head shake flung fresh droplets of crimson onto the white ground below.
Cheng Shi was no better off. His chest cavity was nearly demolished. If not for one hand clamping over his heart, he'd have long since dropped out of the fight, a corpse on the roadside.
Yet even so, his combat power still exceeded Gongyang Jiao's. Not because of [Fate] — but entirely because of [Prosperity].
Under [Vitality]'s protection, he recovered far faster than his opponent and maintained a combat state far less affected by wounds. It was [Endless Life]'s effect alone that kept him standing.
Gongyang Jiao, by contrast, was reaching his limit. His flesh had virtually fused with Cheng Shi's arm. His gaze was beginning to lose focus.
That unfocused look wasn't a harbinger of death. It was a harbinger of... fear.
He was afraid.
A Screaming Earl who specialized in manufacturing fear and feeding on it — after barely ten seconds of mutual destruction with a "Fate Weaver" — was afraid.
His own fear could theoretically amplify his power. But it devastated his ntality.
Facing a Cheng Shi who didn't fear death and seemingly couldn't die, Gongyang Jiao's mind birthed one enormous question:
'How!?'
Yes, he knew there were plenty of dual-class players in the peak circle. And the Cheng Shi before him clearly wasn't just a Fate Weaver — he had to be a Hero of Today as well.
But what he couldn't understand was why this Hero of Today had rolled a perfect score at the exact mont they clashed!
'The state he was in was definitely max roll. Otherwise how could he be this durable?'
At the highest echelons, the Hero of Today class was extrely rare. Relying on dice — an inherently uncertain factor — to boost yourself might carry you far, but it would never carry you to the front of the pack.
Because its greatest flaw was instability.
Even if the Hero of Today had other tools to compensate during dry spells, at equal talent counts, others simply had more options. Yet Cheng Shi's performance right now convinced Gongyang Jiao beyond doubt: this was a max-rolled warrior.
He wasn't incapable of tanking a peak warrior. It was just that the man's regeneration seed to far exceed anything he'd ever known about peak warriors.
'This [Fate] follower couldn't possibly be healing himself while fighting. Setting aside that Gongyang had never heard of a dual-class talent that let both work simultaneously — even if one existed, how could his ntal stamina sustain it?'
Buried under all these unanswerable questions, and with his body deteriorating by the second, Gongyang Jiao was afraid.
He was only still standing not because his fighting spirit was stronger — but because he was waiting for backup. Waiting for the Chaleon to track his way here.
When his partner arrived, that would be this [Fate] follower's deathbed!
But could Gongyang Jiao last that long?
No. Because the Fun Ring had reached two charges.
Feeling his enemy's fear convert to fuel and flow into the ring, Cheng Shi smiled. The mangled flesh on his cheek twitched involuntarily. His mouth — gum nearly exposed — suddenly spoke:
"Mr. Ram. Do you think
brave?"
When one combatant suddenly breaks the silence mid-brawl, any experienced warrior imdiately heightens alert and prepares to disengage.
But Gongyang Jiao was a step too slow. His combat state couldn't keep up anymore. And more critically — Cheng Shi's right hand was still buried inside his chest, never withdrawn.
BOOM — BOOM!
Thunder roared. Lightning erupted.
Cheng Shi didn't wait for an answer. He detonated two Lightning Punishnts directly inside his opponent's chest.
Terrifying lightning howled and raged, blasting through the surrounding blizzard, illuminating the entire Court.
And right then, the Chaleon finally arrived.
The [Silence] hunter was fast. The mont his quarry's aura stopped moving, he'd sprinted toward the location. From redirection to touchdown: less than one minute. But who could have imagined that in that single minute, a hunter had already died at his prey's hands!
The Chaleon stood atop the high wall, pupils contracted, face stark with horror. He watched Gongyang Jiao's charred corpse slide off Cheng Shi's equally charred arm — and without a sound, without a mont's hesitation, turned and ran.
Cheng Shi had no intention of pursuing. The deterrent had achieved its purpose. Kill or don't kill — it was only a matter of ti. Besides, while his stats still hovered at peak, the hardware was failing.
[Vitality] locked health, but not bodily integrity. The authority's regeneration wasn't that fast either.
Looking at his blood-pulped legs, the exposed-bone dangling-flesh ruin of his chest, and a charcoal arm that would crumble at a squeeze, Cheng Shi clicked his tongue:
"Still a mortal shell, after all. A bit too fragile."
He spat a key out from under his tongue, crouched, and jamd it into the charred corpse's eye socket.
Before long, shattered bones extracted themselves from the corpse, launched skyward, spiraled down, and coalesced before Cheng Shi — fusing into a bone-patterned door of eldritch horror.
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