Chapter 044: Kazama Ye King

After dispatching several opponents with ease, Su Cheng’s winning streak reached seven consecutive victories.

It was said that a curse known as “the seventh win means certain death” haunted the arena: some experts could easily crush their adversaries through the first six matches, but after their seventh victory, they would be pitted against monstrously strong professionals and find themselves abruptly losing three times in a row, forced to leave in disgrace.

In truth, this was due to a change in the matchmaking system after seven wins, making it more likely for skilled players to encounter powerful professionals—otherwise, the arena would present no challenge at all for the top contenders.

“Matching a new opponent for the player, please wait patiently…”

After several consecutive victories, the matchmaking time grew slightly longer.

“Match found. The player will now enter the arena.”

A biting, icy wind howled around him as the scene shifted to a frozen hellscape, jagged iron-hard ice everywhere. The ice shards were as sharp as blades, more than capable of piercing flesh with ease.

All around Su Cheng, the ground was strewn with rigid corpses. The bodies’ fluids had frozen and expanded, forming grotesque blisters across their skin, rendering many of their faces unrecognizable.

To find oneself in such a terrifying icy hell—an ordinary player might be half-dead from fright before the battle even began.

In a setting like this, one had to be wary of the terrain’s deadly hazards: a single misstep onto a sharp ice shard wouldn’t kill instantly, but could certainly cripple and ruin any chance of victory.

A flash of light—and a petite figure appeared before Su Cheng.

“Hey mister, want a little online romance? I have a cute little girl’s voice~”

Standing before him was a twin-tailed, adorable girl, her appearance like a porcelain doll from a fancy shop, exquisite and beautiful. Her voice was soft and sweet, and she wore a gothic dress—her cuteness enough to drive any lover of little girls wild.

Su Cheng’s eyelid twitched; he sensed a hint of danger from this twin-tailed girl.

While a player’s gender in the arena couldn’t be changed, their appearance, body shape, and even their voice—thanks to voice changers—could be altered at will.

This twin-tailed look was likely a deliberate choice to deceive opponents.

In Su Cheng’s eyes, anyone who stood opposite him was an enemy. Whether it was a little girl or a mature woman, his only task was to bring them down with everything he had.

A cold light flickered in the eyes behind Su Cheng’s slaughter mask, and he lunged at the twin-tailed girl without hesitation.

“Waaah, you’re bullying me, mister~”

She pouted, feigning pitiful innocence, but her face betrayed not a trace of panic—instead, her lips curled into a foxlike, cunning smile.

Suddenly, she pulled an infinite RPG rocket launcher from beneath her skirt and fired a rocket directly at Su Cheng.

Su Cheng’s heart tightened. Just as the rocket was about to strike him, he swept his blade and knocked it off course.

Boom!

The rocket struck a slab of ice behind him, shattering it into fragments.

“What firepower! There’s no doubt—this girl is a professional.” Su Cheng felt the threat and grew excited.

“Oh my, you dodged that?” she said, feigning disbelief. She then retrieved a light machine gun from beneath her skirt and sprayed bullets at the distant Su Cheng.

Ratatatatat.

The bullets rained down like a torrential storm—breaking through her barrage head-on would have turned him into a sieve.

At that moment, Su Cheng slashed the ice beneath his feet, tearing up a chunk and using it as a shield against the bullets.

The hail of fire continued for half a minute. The moment she paused to reload, Su Cheng pounced like a hunting beast, closing the distance in an instant.

“Mister, I surrender! Please don’t kill me!” she cried.

The twin-tailed girl tossed aside her machine gun in terror, only to pull out two Silverwing Butterfly pistols from behind her back.

Was she hiding an entire armory under that dress?

Su Cheng abruptly accelerated and, without hesitation, slashed at the twin-tailed girl.

In the next second, her two fair arms dropped from her shoulders, blood gushing forth.

She hadn’t even had time to fire her guns before Su Cheng’s blade severed her arms.

Agonizing pain shot from her shoulders. Although death in the arena wasn’t real, the pain was certainly not imaginary.

“I lost? Impossible!” she gasped, but before she could finish her sentence, everything went black—Su Cheng’s blade had taken her head.

Just as she was pulling weapons from beneath her skirt, Su Cheng had caught an indescribable, suspicious bulge. So it was a cross-dressing boy after all.

Meanwhile, in a dorm room at a certain university in Tokyo, a two-hundred-pound unkempt fat man toppled out of his chair, horror etched across his face.

“Damn it, where did that lunatic come from? Not even a rocket launcher could finish him! Thank goodness I met him in the arena—if I’d run into him in kill mode, my life would be forfeit.”

Still shaken, the fat man grabbed a giant bag of snacks from his cabinet to calm his nerves.

After dealing with the cross-dressing boy, Su Cheng queued for a new opponent.

After seven victories, nearly every opponent he faced was a converted professional, though there was variation in their strength. Support classes like healers were relatively weak in combat, and some professions—like zombies or wraiths—with obvious flaws weren’t difficult for Su Cheng to handle.

“Match found. Please enter the arena.”

The scene shifted to a medieval castle. Sinister demon statues loomed in the dim light, creating an atmosphere thick with dread.

This time, Su Cheng’s opponent was a scholarly-looking young man, black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose and a confident, knowing smile on his lips.

Su Cheng sensed this man was likely an intelligence-based professional, though the specifics of his power remained unknown.

“This environment suits me well. You must be the masked man who defeated Leon. If we’re matched here, that means you’ve also won at least seven times.”

Kazama Haoh took one look at the mask on Su Cheng’s face and recognized him immediately—he hadn’t expected to be matched against this infamous foe.

At that moment, the spectators in the livestream chat erupted.

“Haoh actually matched with the masked man!”

“Haha, can’t wait to see Haoh demolish him.”

“I bet 100 yen Haoh will crush the masked man in under three minutes.”

“Tch, he won’t even need that long. Big brother Haoh will wrap this up in a minute,” declared one of Haoh’s fangirls in the chat, starry-eyed with adoration.

Inside the fearsome castle, Kazama Haoh looked at Su Cheng with an air of ease, making no move to attack. “For a newcomer to the arena, your performance has been impressive enough. But this is where it ends.”

Another silver-tongued king?

Su Cheng’s eyes narrowed. This Haoh was no rookie like the blond man; he clearly had something up his sleeve.

“I wonder what his trump card is.”

Su Cheng took a few steps forward, then broke into a run, his Shadow of the Gale blade gleaming with a chilling light.

“So you’re a battle maniac after all.”

The black gemstone ring on Kazama Haoh’s left index finger began to glow with an eerie light. Suddenly, a swarm of shadowy bats flew out, rushing straight at Su Cheng.

“Wraith bats?”

Su Cheng frowned. He could sense the aura of evil spirits emanating from the bats.

Wraith bats were spiritual entities, much like the shikigami used by onmyoji, but these were corrupted by darkness—vicious and imbued with sinister power.

“So he’s a dark summoner?”

It seemed the black ring on Haoh’s hand was a professional tool, just like Su Cheng’s Shadow of the Gale.

A jet-black blade flashed, slicing through the wraith bats that rushed Su Cheng, shattering them into fragments that melted back into the pervasive darkness.

Watching in the livestream, the blond man smirked. “It’s useless. Ordinary physical attacks can’t kill Haoh’s wraith bats. That swarm alone could wear the mask off him. He’s done for.”

But as the spectators watched the unfolding battle, they began to sense something was off.

“Wait, have you guys noticed that there seem to be fewer and fewer wraith bats?”

“No way! Can his attacks actually kill wraiths?”

Haoh’s fangirl was incredulous. Ordinary blades shouldn’t be able to kill evil spirits without spiritual power.

At that moment, Kazama Haoh himself sensed something amiss. His summoned wraith bats were nearly wiped out by Su Cheng.

In theory, Haoh could summon wraith bats endlessly, but his spiritual energy would eventually run dry. If the bats couldn’t wear Su Cheng down, he was in real danger.

“Looks like taking down the masked man will require far more spiritual energy than I thought.”

With no way to replenish energy or stamina in the arena, Haoh had been conserving his strength in previous matches. Now, it was clear that dealing with Su Cheng at a minimal cost was impossible.

“Evil Amplification!”

Haoh began channeling spiritual energy into his ring without restraint. The wraith bats multiplied, forming a vast, surging swarm.

Su Cheng’s eyes flashed cold. He immediately activated the Shadow of the Gale’s Infinite Shadow Blade skill.

Razor-sharp shadow blades swept out like a horde of black butterflies, instantly shredding Haoh’s summoned wraith bats into countless fragments.

The expressions on the faces of the spectators were priceless.

“Haoh’s summoned bats are all gone—am I dreaming?”

“That masked man is a monster!” Haoh’s fangirl was stunned, refusing to believe her eyes.

After cutting down the swarm, Su Cheng pushed off the ground and slashed at Haoh’s neck. Typically, summoners had far weaker physiques than combat professionals—once you got close, their fate was sealed.

But just then, a pitch-black metal shield blocked his strike.

A mysterious, terrifying shadow appeared before Su Cheng.

Terror descended.