Chapter 208: Who’s Next

Their muscles bulged to unnatural size, their veins turned black like worms under their skin, and their elemental energy, Fire, Earth, and Lightning, fused into a massive, destructive elemental pillar that shot up into the clouds, tearing the sky. The granite under their feet melted from the heat.

The crowd gasped. People in the front rows felt their skin burn. The sheer pressure radiating from the six boosted fighters was so heavy that the protective barrier around the stage began to hum and crack. The barrier lights flickered.

"THEY ARE COMBINING THEIR BOOSTED OUTPUT!" the announcer yelled nervously, holding onto his desk. "THE ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE IS DANGEROUS! LYNX AZARION IS FACING A COMBINED STRIKE FROM SIX HIGH TIER COMBATANTS! THIS IS THEIR FINAL TRUMP CARD!"

Lynx looked at the glowing obsidian rings on their fingers. His eyes narrowed slightly into a cold, dangerous glare. The playful smirk was gone. Now his face was ice.

"Those rings," Lynx muttered softly, his voice dripping with venom and disgust. "Those are the little trinkets you used to hurt Ophelia and Lira, right? Those are the toys that made you think you were strong."

Jax laughed crazily, his boosted aura tearing up the ground beneath him. His teeth were black from the energy. "So what if they are?Power is power! It doesn’t matter where it comes from! DIE, AZARION! DIE!"

"COMBINED DESTRUCTION!" all six shouted in unison, their voices fused into one monstrous roar. They pushed their hands forward.

A monumental beam of fire, earth, and lightning, ten meters wide, swirling with black energy from the rings, shot straight toward Lynx. It scorched the granite into liquid lava as it rushed forward. The air itself screamed.

Lynx didn’t dodge. He didn’t run. He stood right in front of the beam. He took one step forward.

BOOM!

A divine, golden aura of absolute Fire and Lightning exploded from Lynx’s body. His body transformed into a living storm of absolute flames and crackling thunder. His hair lifted into the air.

His eyes turned golden. The ground under him turned to glass from the heat, but he was unharmed. He WAS the fire. He WAS the lightning. His comprehension about those affinities was way beyond anyone dead or alive.

Lynx raised both hands and walked directly into the massive combined destruction beam, He walked into it like walking into rain.

"HE WALKED INTO IT?" a spectator shrieked, standing up. "HE’S GOING TO BE VAPORIZED."

BOOOOOM!

The combined attack hit Lynx head on. Flames and lightning detonated across the stage. A massive fireball rose into the sky, covering everything. The stadium lights went dim from the dust.

Jax and Kain laughed hysterically, thinking they had finally vaporized him. They were breathing hard, their rings smoking.

"WE GOT HIM! WE GOT HIM! FINALLY!" Kain screamed, pointing at the fire. "HE’S ASH!"

"Did you?" a cold, terrifying voice echoed from inside the flames. The voice was calm. Amused.

The fire parted. Like a curtain being pulled.

Lynx emerged from the inferno completely unscathed. Not a single burn. Not a single scratch. The hostile fire and lightning had been absorbed into his Fire King and Storm Monarch aura, making his golden flames burn fifty times hotter and brighter. He looked like a god of fire and storm.

Before Jax or Kain could even process what was happening, before their brains could understand, Lynx flashed forward using Lightning Stride. He moved so fast the fire he left behind was still burning in the shape of his body.

He appeared right in front of the four supporting Void fighters. They didn’t even see him coming.

GRAB!

Lynx reached out, grabbing two of their hands simultaneously with his left and right hands. His grip was like iron.

With a cold, merciless motion, Lynx squeezed their fingers. Not just squeezed, he crushed.

CRACK! SHATTER!

The obsidian cheat rings on their fingers shattered into tiny black dust, along with every single bone in their hands! The rings exploded like glass. The fingers bent backwards.

"AHHHHHHHHH!" the two fighters screamed in pure agony, dropping to their knees, holding their destroyed hands. Tears and snot ran down their faces.

Lynx didn’t stop. His face was emotionless. He kicked them both in the ribs, a short, sharp kick.

BOOM! BOOM!

They were sent flying off the stage like balls, landing in the medical area, unconscious.

Then he turned to the other two supporting fighters. They tried to run, but Lynx was already there.

He grabbed their wrists, shattered their cheat rings with his bare thumb, just pressing his thumb into the ring until it cracked, and slammed their heads together with a sickening crunch.

THWACK!

Both fighters collapsed instantly, unconscious and bleeding from the nose, their rings turned to dust that fell onto the granite.

In less than ten seconds, all four supporting fighters were eliminated, and their cheat rings destroyed.

Now, only Jax, Kain Draven, and Queen Kimberly Vane remained on the entire stage. Nineteen down. Three left.

Lynx stood over the broken pieces of the obsidian rings, crushing the black dust under his boot, grinding it into the stone. He looked at Jax and Kain, his smirk sharp enough to cut glass, his golden flames still burning around his shoulders.

"Your little toys are broken," Lynx said softly, his voice echoing. "Now, who’s next? Which one of you wants to pay for hurting my girls next?"

Jax stumbled back, his face completely pale, his hands shaking violently. The sheer, overwhelming fear that Lynx radiated was no longer something he could ignore or cover with anger. This wasn’t a fight against a student, this was facing a god among mortals. A true monster.

"Monster..." Jax whimpered, his voice cracking, his boosted aura flickering. "You’re a monster... you’re not human..."

"Jax! Pull it together! Don’t you dare run!" Kain roared, though his own legs were trembling so hard he could barely stand. His bandages were soaked with blood again. "We are Void elites! We can’t lose to a single guy! We have our pride! If we run now, we will never live it down!"

Kain charged forward, desperate, screaming to cover his fear, activating his remaining Fire and Earth energy into a last ditch, all or nothing punch aimed at Lynx’s face. His ring was glowing so bright it was burning his own skin.

"DIEEEE!"

Lynx didn’t even bother dodging. He didn’t step aside. He raised his left hand and caught Kain’s boosted fist squarely in his palm. He caught it like catching a slow ball.

BOOM!

The shockwave blew away the dust around them in a circle, cracking the granite for ten meters. But Lynx’s arm didn’t budge a single millimeter.

He held Kain’s fist effortlessly, his feet planted. Kain’s eyes went wide with horror as he realized his full power punch did nothing.

Lynx looked down at the terrified boy with cold, merciless eyes.

"You’re the one who fought Ophelia, right?" Lynx asked softly, his tone dangerously calm. It was the calm before a storm. "You made her fight for twenty minutes until she bled. You laughed when she fell. You kept hitting her when she was on her knees. I remember."

Kain’s eyes widened in horror. His mouth was dry. "Wait, I yield, I YIELD! I YIELD!"

"Too late," Lynx whispered.

CRACK!

Lynx squeezed his palm. Kain’s obsidian ring shattered into black powder, and his hand bones were crushed into powder along with it.

The sound was loud. Kain let out a blood curdling scream, a scream that echoed across the whole stadium. But Lynx didn’t let go. He held him.

Lynx pulled Kain in close and delivered a devastating knee strike straight into his stomach. Not a normal knee, a knee infused with a tiny burst of Earth energy.

BOOM!

Kain’s eyes bulged out of his head as the air was violently forced from his lungs. Blood shot from his mouth. He fell to his knees, vomiting blood onto the stone floor, his chest armor completely caved in, his body folding.

Lynx casually stepped past him, letting him drop, leaving Kain lying face down, completely broken and unconscious, his hand a ruined mess.

"KAIN IS INCAPACITATED!" the referee shouted, his voice shaking with fear and excitement. "KAIN DRAVEN IS OUT!"

Jax turned to run toward the boundary edge, completely broken by fear. He was crying now. "I YIELD! I YIE— I YIELD! PLEASE!"

SWISH!

Lynx appeared directly in front of Jax, blocking his path. He moved so fast Jax ran straight into his chest and bounced back.

"You fought Lira," Lynx said coldly, looking down at him. "You dislocated her shoulder. You smiled when she cried. You called her weak."

Jax tried to throw a desperate, wild punch, but Lynx caught his wrist, twisted it back with surgical precision, and popped his shoulder joint completely out of place with a swift, merciless motion. It was the exact same injury he had given to Lira. An eye for an eye.

CRACK!

"AHHHHH!" Jax shrieked, falling to his knees, holding his dead arm. The pain was blinding.

Lynx delivered a low kick to Jax’s thigh, shattering his leg armor into pieces, then finished it with a swift chop to his neck. The chop was precise, not lethal, but enough to shut off the brain.

Jax went limp instantly, collapsing onto the ruined granite floor, his face in the dust.

"JAX IS ELIMINATED! JAX IS OUT!"

In less than twenty minutes, twenty one Void fighters had been completely, ruthlessly wiped out. The stage was a graveyard of unconscious bodies, broken rings, and shattered stone.

The entire stadium of hundreds of thousands of people was dead quiet. Nobody was cheering. Nobody was shouting.

Everyone was sitting or standing in utter, paralyzed shock, staring down at the lone survivor standing among twenty one broken, unconscious Void fighters. The only sound was the wind.

In the Aether medical tent, Ophelia, Lira, and Ava were watching through the viewing array, propped up on pillows. Tears of gratitude and deep love welled in their eyes as they saw Lynx avenge every single drop of blood they had shed. They were holding each other’s hands.

"He... he broke every single one of them for us," Lira whispered, holding her bandaged shoulder, tears running down her cheeks.

Ophelia smiled softly, her heart swelling with pride and love so big it hurt. "That’s our man. That’s our Lynx."

Down on the stage, Lynx turned slowly, his golden aura fading a little, his eyes locking onto the final Void representative standing at the far end of the platform. The last one.

Queen Kimberly Vane.