The Bone Dragon’s skull filled Jack’s vision, green flas burning as it glared at Jack. The skeletal construct radiated ancient malice, necromantic energy rolling off it in waves that made the air taste like rot and sulfur.
Jack’s hand remained pressed against the dragon’s skull, red lightning crackling from his palm into the bone.
The green flas flickered, dimd, then blazed brighter in response.
The dragon’s jaws began to open.
Deep within the skeletal throat, green fire gathered. Necrotic fire that would sear not just flesh but soul. The glow intensified, building pressure, preparing to unleash devastation at point-blank range.
Jack even bother to move.
He stood there, hand still on the dragon’s skull, red eyes locked on those burning sockets, and waited.
The Bone Dragon’s throat erupted.
Green fire exploded from its jaws in a torrent of corrupted fla. The blast engulfed Jack completely, a column of necrotic energy that would have incinerated most beings instantly.
The heat was so intense it turned the sand around Jack’s feet to glass, the air itself screaming as oxygen was consud.
The flas roared for five full seconds, the dragon pouring everything it had into the attack. When the fire finally cut off, smoke obscured the entire section of the arena where Jack had been standing.
The Colosseum held its breath.
Rhys had gone white as a sheet. "Jack!" His voice cracked with panic. "JACK!"
Father Caelen’s hands tightened on the railing, prayer beads clicking faster. His serene expression had finally cracked, worry bleeding through.
Pho remained motionless, his blank white eyes fixed on the smoke.
Waiting for the next step.
The smoke began to clear.
Jack stood exactly where he’d been, hand still pressed against the dragon’s skull. The Infernal Set’s demon bone had blackened slightly from the heat, smoke rising from the armor plates.
But Jack himself was intact.
His red eyes blazed brighter than before.
[HP: 6,250/11,250]
[-5,000 HP]
[Demonic Mastery Activated]
[Regeneration: 5% Maximum HP]
[ 563 HP restored]
[Current HP: 6,813/11,250]
Jack’s lips curved into a smile behind his helt. Then he leaned forward, close enough that if the dragon had breath, he would have felt it, and whispered two words that carried across the suddenly silent Colosseum.
"Kill everyone."
Twenty-two thousand demons moved as one.
The army that had been standing motionless in the upper levels of the Colosseum exploded into action. They fell upon the spectators with the coordinated precision of a military strike. There was no hesitation, remorse or discrimination between demon classifications or allegiances.
The screaming started imdiately.
A Terror-class demon in the lower stands turned to flee and found himself facing three Nightmare-class soldiers in black and red armor. Claws tore through his throat before he could even raise his hands. Blood sprayed across the seats, and his body collapsed in a heap.
[Enemy Defeated: Terror-class Demon]
Another spectator, this one Dread-class and ard, managed to draw his weapon before being sward by five attackers simultaneously.
They pulled him down through sheer numbers, and his screams lasted perhaps three seconds before cutting off abruptly.
[Enemy Defeated: Dread-class Demon]
All across the Colosseum, similar scenes played out. Jack’s army worked with brutal efficiency, killing anything that moved.
The spectators had co to watch violence. Now they were experiencing it firsthand.
And Jack felt every single death.
[Crimson Recovery Activated]
[Enemy Killed: Restore 1% HP and 2% Mana per second for 4 seconds]
[Stack 1]
[ 113 HP/sec for 4 seconds]
Another notification appeared almost instantly.
[Stack 2]
[ 113 HP/sec for 4 seconds]
[Stack 3]
Then the kills started coming faster. Much faster.
[Stack 10]
[Stack 25
]
[Stack 40]
[Stack 50]
The system notifications blurred together as Jack’s army tore through the crowd with devastating speed.
Fifty demons diedd in the first five seconds.
A hundred more in the next ten. The kill counter climbed exponentially as panic spread and the slaughter intensified.
[Crimson Recovery: 50 Active Stacks]
[Total Regeneration: 5,650 HP per second for 4 seconds]
Jack’s HP bar overflowed. The damage from the dragon’s fire blast was erased in less than a second. His health climbed past maximum, the excess regeneration wasted but the point made clear.
As long as his army kept killing, Jack was immortal.
[Current HP: 11,250/11,250]
[Sanguine Accelerator: 10 stacks - MAXIMUM]
[Effect Active: 10% of magic damage converted to lifesteal]
[Movent speed increased by 10%]
The Bone Dragon, seeing its attack completely negated, reared back for another blast. Those massive jaws opened again, green fire building in the skeletal throat.
Jack’s hand clenched into the skull.
Red lightning exploded from his palm directly into the dragon’s skull. The electricity didn’t just crackle across the surface—it flowed through every bone, every joint, every connection in the massive construct.
The dragon’s entire fra lit up like a crimson beacon, forty feet of skeletal structure outlined in crackling energy before it exploded and the dragon’s bones spread out before him.
[Lightning Web Activated]
But Jack didn’t stop with the dragon. He expanded the web, letting it spread from the initial point of contact. Red lightning branched outward in fractal patterns, covering the arena floor, climbing the walls, spreading across every surface in the Colosseum.
Within seconds, the entire structure was wrapped in a net of crimson electricity.
The web pulsed once, twice, then settled into a steady hum of power.
[Lightning Web - Arena Coverage: 100%]
[Effect: All enemies within web radius suffer 25% reduced movent speed]
[Duration: Until dismissed]
The spectators trying to flee suddenly found themselves moving through molasses.
Their enhanced demonic speed ant nothing against the web’s effect. They stumbled, fell, were caught and killed by Jack’s army before they could adjust to their reduced mobility.
The slaughter intensified.
Jack finally removed his hand from the dragon’s skull stil embedded in his hand and stepped backward, giving himself space.
The dragon began reforming itself, but even without a soul it knew when to not fight.
Red lightning began gathering in his palms. Not one sphere, but two. Judgnt Bolts forming simultaneously, one in each hand, drawing power from the ambient demonic energy and the Faith stacks that still burned bright in Jack’s enhanced system.
The spheres grew, compressed, intensified. Each one contained the sa devastating power that had obliterated the Champion the first ti.
And Jack was preparing to unleash both at once.
"Hey brat!" Pho’s voice cut across the chaos, his tone carrying urgency. "NOW!"
The Deathfrost Demon moved with speed that belied his calm deanor. He leaped from the section, his form a blur of pale skin and ice-blue power.
As he fell toward the arena floor, his entire body transford.
Black ice.
Corrupted ice that spread across Pho’s body like armor, covering every inch of exposed skin, thickening over his chest and limbs until he looked more like a statue carved from obsidian than a demon.
[Black Ice Soul Activated]
[Special Ability: Black Ice Soul]
[All attacks deal 45% True Damage]
Pho hit the arena floor and imdiately drew ford his weapon. The battle axe was enormous.
A six-foot handle topped with three-foot blades on either side.
Each blade was ford from the sa black ice that covered Pho’s body, impossibly sharp edges that seed to cut through the air itself just by existing.
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