The plasma being descended slowly, its warped frame dimming with every pulse.
What had once been chaotic and radiant now flickered dull, as though its core struggled to hold itself together.
Aziel shifted, trying to step onto the air and gain height with conjured wind panels.
Nothing formed.
The air remained hollow, dead. His foot met only empty space, sending him stumbling on the uneven ground.
For a single, fatal heartbeat, he froze.
His eyes widened with the realization, though late.
Far too late.
'My mana… it's nearly drained. By now it should've recovered at least a trickle through the surroundings…' His breath caught.
But it didn't.
Here, there was nothing.
There was no mana at all in the surroundings.
The creature tilted its faceless head, catching the hesitation painted across him.
Its shifting visage twisted into a jagged, mocking grin before it surged forward.
Not sprinting.
Not leaping.
But liquefying, sliding beneath the earth like molten metal, reemerging beneath his feet in an instant.
The ground erupted.
Aziel barely vaulted aside, scraping against a crumbling pillar as a tendril lashed past.
The whip of its body cracked the stone in two, nearly slicing his arm.
He hurled debris back at it, rocks, shards, even dust spun by weak wind arcs.
Each passed through harmlessly whenever its body blurred into vapor, only for the thing to solidify again and hammer into him with punishing force.
A tendril caught his ribs.
His world spun, the breath blasted from his lungs as he slammed into the ground.
He tumbled through dirt and rubble, grit grinding into his skin.
He forced himself up, but the creature was already there.
A strike lashed out like a hammer.
He ducked.
Too slow.
The blow scraped his shoulder, spinning him sideways.
Another tendril flickered into solidity and slammed into his thigh.
Bone screamed.
His leg nearly buckled, sending him staggering backward.
He tried to conjure a thin barrier of wind, trembling wind condensed in his palm.
The creature smashed through it as though tearing wet cloth.
The backlash burned his skin raw, sparks of mana exploding across his hands.
It pressed in, relentless.
Flickering gas, then iron weight, then liquid.
Each shift left him reeling, never able to anticipate the next attack.
He swung a broken pillar like a club, desperation howling through him.
The plasma being turned translucent, the strike passing straight through.
Then it solidified mid-motion, slamming him square in the chest.
Now its state transitions didn't feel random at all.
Unlike before, this time the plasma being seemed to change his state on whim.
Aziel flew.
His back hit stone, hard, splintering rock and bone alike. Blood spraying from his lips.
He clawed at the ground, forcing breath back into his lungs, but the next strike was already upon him.
He rolled, barely dodging the jagged body parts that carved trenches where his skull had just been.
Another clipped his side.
His vision flashed white. He coughed violently, crimson pouring between his teeth.
The world swayed.
His knees trembled.
His arms refused to lift.
Still, he staggered.
Still, he refused to fall.
But the being struck again.
Harder.
It caught him across the torso, flinging him like a ragdoll.
He bounced once, twice, then crashed into the earth with a sound that rattled his own ears.
His vision blurred.
Thump.
A second heartbeat.
Thump.
A third.
By the fourth, he was sinking, as though the land itself had swallowed him.
The thought pressed down on his chest heavier than the pain.
'Am I… dying again? Just like this'
'Wait... Why was I even fighting?'
For survival?
For pride?
For some half-baked reason he never cared to question.
'Should I just surrender and die peacefully...'
'What if I am transmigrated again, maybe somewhere better, or perhaps somewhere worse too'
Faces flickered, blurred.
The life he had before.
The people he had lost.
The ones he could never reach again and the loneliness of waking up in a world not his own.
Blood spilled from his mouth, staining his chin as coughs wracked his chest.
His hands were raw, trembling, his body bruised and battered.
But instinct clawed him back.
He rolled, forcing his broken form upright, dragging breath through searing lungs.
He spat blood, wiped his chin with the back of his hand, and lifted his gaze toward the heavens.
A grin etched across his face, almost threatening.
"…It's been so much time, hasn't it?"
His voice rasped, half-choked, but steady enough to carry.
The grin thinned, losing its edge, turning into something colder.
"I finally see it now… I wasn't fighting to survive. I wasn't fighting for honor or power. I was fighting to pretend I was busy, to prove to a life that isn't mine that I mattered."
His breath hitched. His eyes sharpened, pain and a strange clarity burning behind them.
"…I woke up in someone else's body with their vivid memories, and kept swinging because stopping meant looking at the hole inside me. That terrified me more than death."
He let out a short, humorless laugh, blood flecking his teeth.
"…Maybe I'm done running from that truth."
"And for you…" Aziel spoke, his finger lifting, blood trailing from its tip as he pointed straight at the shifting mass in the distance.
"I've fought you enough now, and I've come to a conclusion…"
His voice rasped, hollow but steady. "You may not be allowed to exist anymore."
"CHAMPION'S ARENA"
The words fell like a sentence.
A black, translucent dome unfurled around him, stretching no further than fifteen metres in every direction.
It was suffocating, close, like a cage.
And then it hit him.
Strength.
His body felt as though it had been reforged, every broken thread rewoven tighter, every muscle twitching. His vision cleared, his heartbeat steadied, his very breath burned cleaner.
The pain was still there, but almost manageable.
His limbs no longer dragged, they moved like weapons drawn from their sheath.
Across the cage, the plasma being shuddered. Its movements dulled, its liquefied steps sluggish.
Aziel wiped the blood from his chin, shoulders squaring, his grin twisting wider.
"Now this…" he muttered, voice sharp enough to cut.
"…this is what we call a fair fight."