Read Novel Full Chapter 554: First Battle, The Cursed Vegabond
Chapter 554: First Battle, The Cursed Vegabond
Many Grimlords were watching this monthly Grim Student competition held by Grimverse itself in the form of a mission.
The benefits were that all Grim Students, new and old, would meet and compete with each other and strive to improve after seeing others stronger than themselves.
The rewards were also tempting, but only the top 10 could get the reward.
With the second round over, only 10 clubs with the fastest time of racecourse completion remained in the game.
However, their final ranking was yet to be determined.
After a five-hour break in the food island, the third round began.
The island dissolved, and the Regalons found themselves standing once more upon a vast obsidian platform. Above them, the void had changed. Where Round 2’s space had been flowing and vast, this one was compressed, layered, heavy with intent.
Below the platform lay a colossal colosseum.
It was circular, impossibly large, its walls rising like broken mountains made of black stone and molten sigils. Runes crawled across the surface like living veins, pulsing in slow, measured rhythms. The arena floor itself was segmented, floating plates of stone separated by bottomless gaps, some stable, some shifting, some slowly rotating.
In the center burned a pale star-shaped sigil, smaller than the Fallen Star before, but sharper, more hostile.
This was a killing ground.
The remaining ten clubs appeared on separate elevated platforms surrounding the arena, each one radiating pressure thick enough to make the air feel viscous.
The manifestation of Grimverse descended again, its voice echoing directly into consciousness rather than air.
[ Round 3—Last One Standing ]
[ Each club will send one member per battle for an all-out combat in the battleground. ]
[ The last one standing in this all-out brawl earns one point for their club. ]
[ Ten battles total. ]
[ Top five clubs by points will proceed to determine the top 5 ranking. The five that lose will do a club vs club war to decide their ranking. ]
[ You have 10 seconds to choose your first member. Member selection will be determined by the assigned club leader. After 10 seconds, the selected member of each club will be transported into the battleground. ]
[00:09]
[00:08]
...
Almond closed his eyes briefly.
Then opened them.
Everyone was looking at him. He was the leader, so he had to choose.
"Don’t resist," Almond calmly spoke, and everyone understood.
He scanned everyone.
His Eyes of Truth were the strongest, and after upgrading his Oblivion by actualizing the aspect of Eyes of Truth within it and forming Oblivion Ark, he could see things beyond their own perception.
After scanning everyone, his eyes landed on Kexell.
Something inside him was about to bloom the fastest.
"We have trained with utter focus in the past five hours, even ignoring the food of the island. All of us are on the verge of acquiring a new True Concept. Some of you are still doubtful about your own concepts, and that’s fine. Do it when you are fully confident and aware of what you are actualizing."
"But for now, the first round will go to Kexell." Almond looked at Kexell and smiled. "You are the only one who has one True Concept, while others have two. And now, you are ready for your second one. Go and bring us victory."
Kexell grinned and opened his mouth to speak.
"I—"
[00:00]
"Well, let’s see what he cooked," Admiral Rudra chuckled. "I am looking forward to it."
"I hope it’s something that will synergize with his crazy first True Concept," Natalia said. "Then he can become way stronger."
"Deathless Hex is terrifying. It makes him nearly immortal, very hard to kill, and rebounds damage to enemies. But his overall combat power, the offense mainly, falls off," Arjun caressed his beard. "Let’s see if he filled that gap."
"I think it will be interesting," Almond grinned. "One thing is that the potential I saw in his blooming concept is very volatile. Sometimes, it surpasses all of our True Concepts’ potential, and sometimes, it is rock bottom."
"Sounds exactly like Kexell," Lily wryly smiled.
...
[ Begin ]
All ten in the arena didn’t move first. They observed in a suffocating clash of their wills against each other.
Their domains could be seen in intense clashes against one another.
Kexell’s eyes were trembling, dancing with thrill.
"Hey, shitheads!"
He shouted loudly.
The arena became quiet. The clashes calmed, and all nine pairs of eyes landed on Kexell.
A lightning-clad brute cracked his neck.
A pale woman wrapped in void silk smiled thinly.
A four-armed giant flexed stone limbs.
A bunny swordsman traced a burning glyph along his blade.
These ones seemed the strongest, even stronger than Kexell, while the others were roughly equal.
Kexell grinned as he swept his gaze across them. "I have an idea. How about you all come at me together?"
’How should I provoke them strongly?’ Kexell thought for a moment, then added, "Of course, if you are scared, then I can give you my poop. It has a mind-strengthening effect. Perfect for shitheads like you all."
A lance of gravity slammed into Kexell’s chest, folding him in half and driving him into the stone hard enough to crater it. Before he could rise, lightning spears stitched across his back, exploding outward in sprays of blood and scale. A blade took his left arm clean off at the shoulder.
’Deathless Hex. Pain Increment!’ Kexell cursed himself.
Pain exploded through him like a supernova.
Kexell screamed.
And then he laughed harder, his eyes utterly sparkling with madness.
"Oi, oi, is that all?! My fart does more damage than this!"
Dark runes flared across his body as Deathless Hex forced his arm back into existence, bone grinding into place, nerves reconnecting raw and screaming. The regeneration hurt more than the injury due to the Hex.
’More! I need more!’
"You pieces of trash. Y’all didn’t drink your mother’s mi—"
BOOM!
A low voice resounded. "This trash of Club Regalon thinks he’s tough. Let’s have a truce for a moment to give him a brutal death for insulting us."
Another attack hit. Then another.
A hammer crushed his ribs inward, splitting him in two.
Void needles pierced both body parts.
Nanoflies spread through him and detonated inside.
But all of his scattered body parts converged as he regenerated.
Kexell staggered, dropped to one knee, and coughed blood onto the stone.
"Alright," he spat, blood bubbling at his lips. "That was better than my fart."
"But not better than my ultimate fart!"
Kexell burst out laughing and placed a hex that magnified his fart as he loudly farted, spreading tons of smelly gas across the arena.
Everyone’s faces twisted in disgust as the smell instantly penetrated them.
And then they got mad.
"Kill him!"
Suppressive sigils slammed down from above, locking his regeneration. A curse anchor impaled his chest and nailed his life force in place. His hex flickered, stuttered.
A blade slid across his throat.
His vision went dark.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but pain.
Not sharp pain.
Not sudden pain.
But deep, grinding, endless pain. The kind that crawled into thought itself.
And in that moment, something inside Kexell stopped resisting.
He didn’t fight it.
He embraced it.
Every injury.
Every fracture.
Every nerve screaming itself raw.
He measured it.
Not with numbers.
But with instinct.
With understanding.
Pain wasn’t chaos.
Pain was his first experience. Pain was his first emotion.
His birth was cursed by the people of his own race. He spent the majority of his life in pain.
The others wanted to kill him, so he lived in their spite and became an unkillable monster who would terrorize them and fight them.
He wasn’t stronger, but he was unkillable. He fought them. He increased his scars and decreased the morale of his enemies.
Because pain was his fuel.
Kexell’s eyes ignited.
The world snapped back into focus.
True Concept: Pain is Gain!
All the pain he suffered turned into pure fuel to boost himself. He quantified pain into a fuel!
Kexell looked up, his mouth stretched into a grin.
Everyone’s eyes flickered as they felt an overwhelming power bursting from Kexell.
’A new True Concept.’
’Kill him!’
In a single moment, dark flames condensed, coiling tightly around his frame like living armor. His shattered ribs forced themselves outward, snapping back into place thicker than before. Muscles swelled, tearing and reforging simultaneously.
The curse anchor shattered.
The suppression fields cracked like glass.
Kexell vanished.
He reappeared in front of the lightning brute, a member of the first-ranked Club, and drove his claw straight through the man’s chest, lifting him off the ground. The brute screamed once before Kexell tore him in half while his flames completely devoured him.
"As expected," Kexell said, grinning. "Weaker than my fart."
Everyone was shocked at the overwhelming power displayed by Kexell. His physical parameters especially far surpassed that of Grim Students!
"All of you! Come and die! Hahahahaha!"