Chapter 123: Serious Punch.
After Jake Valentine descended from the main platform without even glancing at his own mark on the wall, the atmosphere in the arena completely changed.
The participants now understood the required level.
Before, many still treated it as a relatively simple initial demonstration. Not anymore. The monstrous crater left by Jake served as an extremely direct reminder of the type of monsters that would participate in that Ritual.
Even so, the process continued.
"Participant number two... Leon Valentine."
A tall man emerged among the participants, calmly walking towards the platform. Unlike Jake, Leon possessed an excessively refined presence.
His black hair was perfectly styled, his clothes almost obsessively aligned, and his gaze conveyed that unsettling calm typical of people too dangerous to show common emotions.
Victor watched him climb onto the platform while several participants avoided eye contact.
Rumors about Leon had existed for years.
No one had concrete proof of anything, but the simple fact that half of the Valentine Family avoided mentioning his name said enough.
Leon stopped before the gigantic black wall without any hurry.
Then he simply raised a hand.
Extremely fine blood energy began to condense on the tip of his finger, almost invisibly. The control was absurd. Unlike Jake’s monstrous brutality, this seemed like surgical precision.
Then Leon attacked.
TCHAK.
A perfectly circular hole appeared in the colossal black wall.
The entire arena fell silent again.
Because this was perhaps even more absurd than Jake’s crater.
Leon simply passed through part of the structure using an attack small enough to fit on the tip of a finger. The man only observed his own result for a second before calmly descending from the platform like someone finishing routine work.
"Psychopath." Victor sighed internally.
The Ritual was really gathering too many monsters in that place.
"Participant number three... Emma Valentine."
A woman with long dark hair appeared, walking towards the platform while holding a closed book against her body. That alone seemed strange within an arena full of vampires ready for violence.
Emma Valentine seemed absurdly calm.
She genuinely seemed more interested in her own thoughts than in the Ritual around her.
Victor watched her slowly climb the steps while analyzing the entire environment with an extremely attentive gaze. Unlike the other participants, Emma seemed to be constantly calculating things.
Distance.
Angles.
Structure.
Possibilities.
Then she finally stopped in front of the wall.
She closed the book.
And attacked.
The impact was instantaneous.
BOOM.
The mark left wasn’t as brutal as Jake’s nor as refined as Leon’s, but it still sank deep into the black structure.
The terrifying detail came later.
The cracks began to spread precisely along the weakest points of the wall, multiplying the initial damage extremely efficiently.
Victor noticed immediately.
She calculated the best structural point before attacking.
That wasn’t just strength.
It was intelligence applied to combat.
Emma observed her own result for a few seconds before simply picking up the book again and stepping off the platform without any visible expression.
Then—
"Participant number four... Grace Valentine."
The atmosphere changed.
Victor noticed it immediately.
Not because Grace released an aura.
In fact, she seemed absurdly controlled.
But there was something wrong with her presence.
Something cold.
A woman with extremely long silver hair appeared, walking slowly among the participants. Her white skin almost seemed made of porcelain under the artificial lighting of the arena, while her blue eyes observed everything around her in a completely indifferent way.
Victor stood silently observing her for the first time.
And honestly... The word beauty seemed insufficient.
Grace Valentine possessed an appearance too transcendental to seem like a vampire. Not in the emotional or warm sense.
She seemed like a work artificially created to be perfect.
Cold.
Distant.
Untouchable.
But the problem wasn’t her beauty.
It was her aura.
Victor sensed it immediately as he watched her walk toward the main platform.
Beneath that refined appearance lay something monstrous.
Something genuinely demonic.
An ice flower with the heart of a demon.
to narrate someone.
Grace simply observed the structure for a few seconds with eyes too cold for someone of the new generation. Her gaze seemed to analyze the composition of the entire wall in a matter of moments.
Victor noticed this immediately.
She was calculating.
But unlike Emma, this didn’t seem like the result of refined intelligence.
It seemed like natural instinct.
Like a creature created specifically for efficient destruction.
Then Grace slowly raised one of her hands.
The air in the arena changed.
The temperature dropped abruptly.
Several participants shuddered immediately as a cold mist began to rise around the main platform. Small ice crystals appeared on the black floor of the arena while extremely dense blood energy began to circulate around her arm.
Victor narrowed his eyes.
This was much worse than he remembered.
Her blood began to slowly seep from her fingertips.
But instead of falling to the ground...
It froze in mid-air.
The crystallized red fragments began to condense before her hand as pale blue ice naturally mixed with the refined blood. The whole process seemed absurdly beautiful to watch.
And at the same time, profoundly wrong.
A sword began to slowly emerge.
Thin.
Elegant.
Deadly.
A rapier made entirely of ice and condensed blood appeared in Grace’s hand as if that weapon had always belonged to her.
The cold released by the sword immediately began to freeze part of the surrounding platform.
Several nearby participants instinctively took a few steps back.
Victor continued to watch in absolute silence.
Because this wasn’t just elemental manipulation.
It was blood control on a monstrous level for someone of that age.
Grace calmly held the rapier.
Then she took her stance.
Her movement was absurdly refined.
No waste.
No excessive force.
It seemed like a perfectly calculated execution from the start.
Then she attacked.
THUNDER.
The impact shattered the entire arena.
A wave of ice and blood energy pierced directly through the colossal black wall while the sound of destruction echoed violently throughout the stadium.
The crater created was monstrous.
Much larger than Jake’s.
The destruction literally overlapped some of the previous damage, completely crushing the cracks left by it and sinking even deeper into the absurd structure of the wall.
But the most terrifying thing wasn’t the size.
It was the control.
The destruction remained concentrated exactly at the point of impact.
No useless dispersion.
No wasted energy.
Everything was compressed into that single refined blow.
Then the ice began to spread.
CRACK.
The entire black wall began to freeze instantly. Thick layers of crimson ice covered the colossal structure while bluish crystals emerged around the impact like dead flowers growing on a corpse. A chill permeated much of the arena.
Some of the weaker participants literally began to tremble.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Not even the murmurs continued.
Because it didn’t seem like something produced by someone of the new generation.
Victor watched the frozen crater in silence as Grace slowly lowered the rapier.
Then the weapon simply disintegrated into frozen particles of blood before her.
Effortlessly.
Without emotion.
As if it were just something normal.
Victor felt a small shiver run through his body watching that woman.
Because he knew her future.
And looking at that scene now...
It made sense.
Grace Valentine truly seemed destined to become a living disaster.
The silence still hung heavy in the arena after Grace Valentine’s strike.
Part of the colossal wall remained frozen, covered in thick layers of crimson ice that glistened under the artificial lighting of the gigantic stadium. Some Headquarters officials watched, clearly tense, as they assessed the structural damage.
Even among the Great Prodigies...
This had been absurd.
Then the judge took a deep breath before finally speaking again.
"Participant number five..." His voice echoed throughout the entire arena. "...Victor Valentine."
Instantly, thousands of eyes turned.
Victor heard the murmurs begin almost immediately around the arena. Unlike the other Grand Disciples, his name carried more than just expectation.
A large part of the new generation actually believed that idiotic story spread days ago. Serafall Valentine’s protected son. The boy hiding in the Lavender Palace because he was afraid of the Cross Family. The vampire unable to face the other Grand Prodigies.
Victor honestly found it all amusing.
Victor simply nodded calmly before starting to walk towards the main platform with his hands in his pockets.
The eyes of the entire arena were on him now.
Everyone was looking at him, especially... Kayn Valentine and the Celestial Demon.
Victor clearly noticed this as he walked.
Leon Valentine watched him with a neutral expression.
Emma slowly closed her book to pay attention.
Grace Valentine remained completely silent, but her blue eyes were fixed on him in an extremely analytical way.
And Jake... Jake stared at Victor like an animal observing something it wanted to crush personally.
Victor noticed this immediately.
Because Jake had a very specific reason to hate this situation.
Rakshasa.
If Jake failed in that Ritual... Rakshasa would probably kill him without even hesitating.
And honestly?
Victor completely believed it.
He continued walking calmly until he stopped before the colossal black wall.
Or rather...
What remained of it.
The structure was completely destroyed in the area struck by Grace. Ice still slowly spread through the cracks while employees used blood magic to prevent further damage.
Victor observed this in silence.
Then he slowly raised his gaze.
His eyes immediately met one of the upper bleachers.
Rakshasa was sitting near the Destroyers.
And unlike her usual monstrous posture...
Now she seemed genuinely interested.
Her red eyes stared directly at Victor as a small smile slowly appeared on her face.
Then she moved her lips... "Destroy this."
Victor read perfectly.
Silence lasted a second.
Then he smiled slightly.
A small smile.
Natural.
Dangerous.
And he replied by moving his own lips calmly.
"As you wish, my love."
Rakshasa froze.
Literally.
Her red eyes widened instantly as an absurdly red hue began to appear on her normally cold and monstrous face.
Victor saw it clearly even from that distance.
And honestly...
It was fucking hilarious.
Especially because the man sitting next to her noticed immediately.
Yu Jin-Cheon.
The Celestial Demon.
The Destroyer’s monstrously heavy eyes slowly moved to Rakshasa.
Then to Victor.
And then back to Rakshasa.
His silence seemed dangerously paternal.
Rakshasa immediately looked away, trying to regain his composure.
Victor almost laughed.
Almost.
But then he looked ahead again.
The wall.
The arena.
The thousands of participants watching.
The Ascension Ritual.
The narrator of that story perfectly understood that specific moment.
Because in that destroyed timeline...
Victor never participated in that Ritual.
He had never been in that arena.
He had never faced those monsters directly.
But now he was there.
And unlike in the past...
He didn’t intend to hide.
Victor slowly removed one hand from his pocket.
Then he took a deep breath.
The entire room fell silent. Even the murmurs gradually faded as blood energy began to slowly circulate through his body.
There was no aura explosion.
There was no excessive pressure.
In fact...
It all seemed absurdly controlled.
Victor simply concentrated energy in his right arm while calmly observing the remaining destroyed part of the colossal wall.
His eyes grew cold.
Analytical.
Precise.
And then—
He punched.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
The sound faded first.
The entire arena fell into absolute silence for approximately half a second.
Because Victor’s blow didn’t feel like a normal explosion.
It felt like an erasure.
The wall simply disappeared.
It didn’t crack.
It didn’t break.
It didn’t explode into pieces.
It ceased to exist.
An entire gigantic section of the colossal structure was completely erased from the world at the instant of impact.
The air distorted violently.
An invisible wave swept through the entire arena as the blow continued to advance even after the wall was destroyed.
And then—
KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH.
Parts of the structures behind the wall exploded instantly.
Gigantic columns were pierced.
Entire layers of the arena were destroyed in sequence.
And in the end...
Only a hole remained. Perfect.
A monstrous tunnel cut directly through multiple structures of the arena as if some entity had simply ripped that space from reality.
The wind slowly swept through the newly created hole.
Absolute silence remained.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Because no one could process it immediately.
Jake left a crater.
Grace froze part of the structure.
But Victor...
Victor simply erased the entire wall.
Some participants were literally speechless.
Others seemed unable to comprehend what they had just seen.
Even veteran vampires observing from the upper levels were completely silent.
The arena judge stared ahead with a blank expression.
Because there was no longer a wall to judge.
Victor slowly lowered his arm.
Expressionless.
Without pride.
Without any exaggerated reaction.
As if it were nothing special either.
But the problem...
Was that even he noticed something.
The silence in the arena wasn’t normal now.
It was heavy.
Dangerous.
Victor slowly raised his gaze.
And immediately realized.
All the Great Disciples were staring at him.
Everyone in that place.
