Chapter 67: CLUSTER-FUCK

"To be the best, you must beat the best. There are no shortcuts." — Ric Flair.

– – –

"ATTENTION ALL COMPETITORS AND SPECTATORS. THE GRAND FINALE OF THE ASTRALIS ELITE TOURNAMENT WILL COMMENCE IN THIRTY MINUTES. ALL FINALISTS REPORT TO THE MAIN ARENA STAGING AREA IMMEDIATELY."

The display updated, and two names appeared in glowing letters side by side.

MICAH SELMAN vs JON BOLTON.

The competitor’s box went silent. Every person in the room knew the second name. Every person in the room knew what it meant.

Jon Bolton. The reigning, undefeated champion of the Astralis Elite Tournament. A peak-tier Genetic Soldier who had held the title for three consecutive years.

A man so dominant that most of his opponents surrendered before the fight even started, because challenging him was widely considered the same thing as signing your own death certificate.

Tasha looked at the screen. Her eyes widened, and the warmth in her expression disappeared immediately. It was replaced by fear. Not for herself, but for him.

"Jon Bolton," she said quietly. "Squad Leader, that man killed a demonic general single-handedly. He’s been champion for three years. Nobody has even come close to beating him."

She looked at Micah, while her eyes searched his face for any sign of worry or hesitation.

Micah looked at the name on the screen. Jon Bolton. He then finished his water, set the bottle down, and stood up.

"Get me his file," he said. "Everything the database has. Every fight, every technique, every weakness. I want to know everything there is to know about Jon Bolton before I step into that ring."

Tasha nodded.

The fear in her eyes was still there, but it was buried under the determined, focused expression of a soldier who had a job to do. Her fingers were already flying across the comm-pad, pulling every piece of data she could find.

Micah reached over his shoulder and drew the Widow’s Wail. The katana hummed as it left the scabbard. He rolled his shoulders, loosened his muscles, and walked toward the staging area door.

The grand finale was waiting.

– – –

The Coliseum was electric.

A hundred thousand spectators packed into the stadium, and every single one of them was on their feet.

The noise was beyond anything the arena had heard in years.

The reigning, undefeated champion of the Astralis Elite Tournament against the unknown rookie who had walked through toxic gas, disabled a cybernetic soldier with a single touch, and dismantled every elite veteran the bracket had thrown at him.

Micah stepped onto the arena platform from the east tunnel. The Widow’s Wail was strapped to his back, and the Cloak of Dela was draped over his shoulders. The Phantom Carapace was hidden beneath his civilian clothes.

He looked exactly the same as he had in every previous round, calm and unhurried, walking across the reinforced concrete with the steady pace of a man who had somewhere to be and wasn’t in a rush to get there.

The crowd roared when they saw him. His name chanted in sections of the stadium that had been empty three days ago.

People who had never heard of Micah Selman before this tournament were now wearing makeshift shirts with his name scrawled across the front in marker.

Then Jon Bolton stepped onto the platform from the west tunnel, and the crowd exploded into something completely different.

Jon Bolton was a living legend.

He stood nearly two and a half meters tall with bulging muscle and battle-hardened flesh.

His body was covered in scars, tens of them, layered on top of each other like a roadmap of every fight he had ever been in.

He carried a halberd.

The weapon was long. It stood nearly as tall as Bolton himself, with a thick steel shaft and an engraved blade at the top that glowed with a faint light.

The engravings were Flux-infused runes, ancient military symbols that channeled energy through the weapon and amplified its destructive output.

The blade hummed with dense, compressed Flux Energy, making the air around it ripple.

Beast Analysis fired the moment Micah’s eyes locked onto him.

The system scanned Bolton’s body with the same methodical precision it applied to every target, mapping his anatomy, his energy circulation, and his structural vulnerabilities.

The data streamed in fast, filling Micah’s mind with a comprehensive picture of the man standing across from him.

[Jon Bolton - Level 10]

Stats: Very High Strength, Very High Vitality, High Agility, High Spirit.

Abilities: [Flux Armor], [Halberd Mastery], [Area Crush]

Flux Equivalent: 80% (Peak Genetic Soldier tier).

Combat Record: 63 wins, 0 losses. 41 wins by knockout.

22 wins by opponent withdrawal.

Behavioral Pattern: Complete Fighter. No weaknesses detected.

Micah stared at the data, and for the first time since the tournament began, he felt something cold settle in his chest.

Beast Analysis had scanned every opponent he’d faced so far. Thomas, Julian, Myra, Vargas, Grath.

Every single one of them had shown weaknesses. Gaps in their guard, habits in their footwork, patterns in their energy circulation that could be exploited.

The system had always found something, some crack in the armor that Micah could pry open and use to win.

Jon Bolton had nothing.

His combat posture was flawless. His muscular tension was perfectly balanced, with no favoring of one side or overcommitment to any stance.

His energy circulation was smooth and continuous, flowing through his meridians without a single bottleneck or disruption.

His Flux output was perfectly controlled, spreading evenly across his body like a second skin.

There were no gaps. No habits. No patterns. No weaknesses.

Decades of brutal, lethal warfare had refined Jon Bolton into something that Beast Analysis couldn’t find a crack in.

He wasn’t just a strong fighter. He was a complete fighter, a man whose body and mind had been forged in the fires of real combat until every imperfection had been burned away.

Cheap tricks wouldn’t work. Poison wouldn’t work. Tactical exploitation wouldn’t work.

This wasn’t a wounded Alpha or a cybernetic soldier with a vulnerable power core.

Micah closed his eyes for a few seconds. He knew he was fucked.