Timeline: Late December 1987 Location: Republic of Padokea — Heaven's Arena (Floor 200) Age: 12

  The heavy brass doors of the elevator slid open, and the atmosphere instantly collapsed.

  It felt like stepping out of a temperate room directly into a meat freezer. The air in the corridor was unnaturally thick, heavy, and saturated with a sharp, suffocating pressure. Along the edges of the dimly lit hallway, several veteran fighters leaned against the walls. They weren't moving, but they were deliberately leaking their malicious aura, projecting raw, unfiltered bloodlust straight at the elevator doors to test the new arrival.

  This was the infamous baptism of the 200th floor. A silent, violent initiation designed to cripple the uninitiated and weed out the weak.

  Stepping into that heavy air, I just felt a quiet sense of satisfaction. This wasn't a broadcast on a monitor anymore. It was real, tangible pressure, and it meant I had finally reached the actual starting line.

  A casual smile touched my lips. I drew a breath and let my own aura flare to life in answer.

  My Ren expanded, perfectly matching the dense, suffocating pressure of the hallway, neutralizing the veterans' bloodlust in an instant. The crushing weight vanished from the air around me. I stepped out of the elevator, my posture completely relaxed. The rhythmic, heavy thud of my tungsten-plated boots echoed loudly against the polished stone floor.

  The veterans leaning against the walls immediately stiffened. The malicious grins faded from their faces, replaced by cautious, calculating stares. In the language of Nen, I had just introduced myself, and they instantly realized I was not prey.

  I walked past them and approached the pristine registration desk at the end of the hall. The clerk behind the counter, a professional woman entirely unfazed by the aura warfare happening fifty feet away, offered a polite smile.

  "Welcome to the 200s class," she said, sliding a heavy, gold-embossed contract across the marble counter. "Please be aware that on these floors, all weapons are permitted, and there are no foul plays. Killing is allowed, though not required. You have ninety days to prepare between matches. Would you like to register your debut?"

  Before I could pick up the pen, a shadow fell over the desk. Three men had followed me from the hallway. They were "Gatekeepers"—veteran fighters who hovered around the registration desk to bully newly promoted rookies into scheduling matches. They farmed easy wins to maintain their status on the floor without actually having to fight true masters.

  "Hey, kid," the largest one said, crossing his thick arms. "You've got a decent shield, but this floor is a different game. Why don't you sign up against me for your first match? I'll make it quick."

  Ignoring his posturing, I picked up the pen and looked at the digital roster of available fighters projected on the wall behind the clerk. I scanned the names until I found the one I was looking for.

  "I'll take a match today," I told the clerk, tapping the pen against the contract. "Schedule me against Barris."

  Elian, who was standing a few paces behind me—entirely unaware of the aura baptism that had just occurred—blinked in surprise. "Wait, Barris? Kaelo, isn't that the guy we watched on the monitor days ago? The one who slashed that rookie up without even moving his arms?"

  "Exactly," I said, signing my name with a fluid motion and handing the contract back to the clerk.

  The three gatekeepers exchanged uneasy glances. The large man scoffed, muttered something about me having a death wish, and backed away.

  As we walked down the sprawling, carpeted hallway toward the competitor prep rooms, Elian caught up to my side. "Are you sure about this? You just got up here. Why pick the guy who can cut people from across the room right out of the gate?"

  "Because there's no such thing as invisible magic, Elian," I explained, my voice calm and measured. "I already analyzed his technique when we watched the broadcast. Barris uses a combination of Emission and Transmutation. He shapes his aura into razor-sharp blades, detaches them from his body, and leaves them suspended in the empty air around the ring, completely hidden with In."

  "Floating, invisible swords?" Elian asked, furrowing his brow. "And he just fires them at you from all directions? How do you even fight that?"

  "By reading him, not the blades," I explained, pushing open the door to my prep room. I stripped off my outer cloak but kept the heavy tungsten bands strapped firmly to my limbs. "Barris has to consciously activate those blades to propel them forward. Which means, just milliseconds before an invisible blade strikes me from behind, his brain has to send a signal to his own body to trigger it. His eyes will shift. His fingers will twitch. His breathing will hitch. He telegraphs his attacks before they even happen."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  An hour later, I stepped out of the tunnel and into the true arena.

  The atmosphere was entirely different from the lower floors. There were no cheap bleachers, no spilled beer, and no screaming fans. The audience sat in tiered, luxurious seating, their voices reduced to a low, cultured murmur. This was an arena for the elite.

  I walked up the stone steps onto the raised square platform. Barris stood across from me. He was a lean, wiry man with a smug, arrogant grin plastered across his face. He expected an easy win the moment the invisible cuts started appearing.

  "Begin!" the referee shouted from the sideline.

  Barris simply waved his hands through the air in a wide, theatrical arc. Through the clear lens of Gyo, I saw dozens of flat, razor-sharp crescents of aura suddenly litter the airspace of the open ring. They hung suspended at varying angles—some aimed at my chest, some hovering near the ceiling, others floating just inches behind my knees.

  He had turned the arena into a 360-degree firing squad.

  Barris smirked, dropping his hands to his sides. He waited for me to make the first move, entirely confident in his trap.

  I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second and reached deep into my biology, elevating my heart rate.

  When I opened my eyes, they were a brilliant, flawless crimson.

  The Scarlet Eyes dragged me forcefully into The Zone. Time seemed to dilate, slowing the world down to a crawl. My processing speed exploded. Keeping my focus entirely on Barris, every micro-expression, every shift of his weight, every twitch of his muscles magnified in my vision.

  I took a single step forward.

  Barris’s eyes flicked slightly to my left. His index finger twitched against his thigh.

  He's triggering the blade targeting my left blind spot. Moving with precognitive spatial awareness, I tilted my neck sharply to the right. A split second later, a violent gust of wind sliced through the exact space my neck had just occupied, leaving a deep, perfectly clean gash in the stone floor ahead of me.

  Barris’s smirk faltered. He narrowed his eyes and his shoulder dipped subtly.

  A dual strike. Lower back and right ribs.

  I stepped forward, twisting my torso sideways while simultaneously lifting my back heel. Two invisible slashes crossed each other in the empty air right where my vital organs had been a millisecond prior.

  I was anticipating his attacks before they launched. Just like a master martial artist guarding their blind spots because they know exactly where an assassin's strike must logically land, I was mapping my own physical vulnerabilities in real-time and reading Barris’s intent to confirm the angles.

  I just kept walking forward.

  Barris began to panic. His eyes darted frantically, his fingers twitching in rapid succession. The air around me erupted into a storm of whistling, invisible guillotines.

  I shifted my shoulders a fraction of an inch to let a vertical slash graze past my shirt. I adjusted my stride to duck smoothly beneath a horizontal decapitation strike. I walked right through the densest part of his omnidirectional barrage like a ghost slipping through the cracks of reality. Knowing exactly when and where he was going to fire before the blades even moved meant I wasted absolutely zero movement.

  Barris was sweating profusely now. I had closed the distance in six measured steps.

  I reached him. Barris gasped, pulling his fist back for a sloppy, desperate physical punch, completely forgetting his own technique in his terror.

  Instead of striking him, I stepped into his guard, placed an open palm against his chest, and joined his panicked momentum. Using a flawless Aikido pivot, I redirected his forward energy and tossed him smoothly over my shoulder.

  I had already mapped the exact locations of his unused blades.

  Barris sailed through the air and was tossed directly into one of his own suspended, razor-sharp aura constructs. The dense, transmuted edge caught him flat across the back of his neck with the blunt force of a steel pipe.

  He choked out a ragged breath, his eyes rolling back in his head, and collapsed heavily onto the cracked stone floor, completely unconscious.

  The elite crowd fell entirely silent.

  "Knockout!" the referee yelled, waving his flag. "Winner, Kaelo!"

  Letting the Scarlet Eyes fade, my vision returned to its normal state. I turned and walked calmly out of the ring, leaving the stunned gatekeeper on the stone.

  Later that evening, back in the luxurious, sprawling suite Heaven's Arena provided for its 200s class fighters, Elian was pacing the floor. He was practically vibrating with excitement, but completely confused.

  "I don't understand," Elian said, gesturing wildly. "The floor was literally getting shredded to pieces! And you just... walked through it. You didn't even look at the attacks! You just strolled right up to him!"

  I sat down heavily on the edge of the plush velvet sofa, pressing a bag of crushed ice against my right temple.

  "I was looking at him, Elian," I explained quietly, wincing slightly as a sharp throb pulsed behind my eyes. "I tracked his spatial focus and muscle twitches to anticipate which invisible blade he was going to trigger next. I moved out of my own blind spots before the attacks were even fired."

  "But you beat him in twenty seconds!" Elian said. "You're already the best guy on the floor!"

  "No, I'm not," I said, pulling the ice pack away and looking at my friend. I pointed to my head. "The fight was tactically very simple. But simultaneously tracking an opponent's micro-expressions, maintaining absolute 360-degree spatial awareness of my own blind spots, and processing precognitive movement in real-time... it took a physical toll."

  I wasn't lying. The migraine currently splitting my skull was fierce. The Scarlet Eyes gave me incredible clarity, but that clarity was tied to my physical adrenaline. My human brain had been forced into absolute overdrive just to process the sheer volume of variables required for that level of precognition.

  If I fought a true monster—someone who masked their intent and possessed flawless bodily control—my biological brain would overheat. It was a severe hardware bottleneck.

  "I'm not scheduling another match for the next two and a half months," I told Elian, setting the ice pack down on the glass coffee table. "We are taking a break from the arena floor."

  Elian stopped pacing, looking at me with concern. "A break? But you just got up here. What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to upgrade my hardware," I said simply, looking out the massive penthouse window at the sprawling city lights below. "It's time for me to forge my Hatsu."