The damp air of the underground fight club clung to Qin Hong's skin as he took in his surroundings. The bald enforcer loomed over him, knuckles cracking.

  "Who are you? What's your business here?"

  Qin Hong tilted his neck, activating his transtor impnt with a brush against his earring. A holographic interface flickered to life. "I'm here to see Jason," he said, maintaining eye contact despite the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. "Word is he runs this town now. I've got a proposition."

  The punch came faster than expected—a crushing right hook that split his lip. "I asked who you are!" the bald man growled.

  Spitting crimson onto the concrete, Qin Hong smirked. "My conversation is with Jason. You're not cleared for this discussion."

  A voice cut through the darkness like a bde.

  "Enough."

  The bald giant immediately retreated as a slender figure emerged from the shadows. Qin Hong's eyes widened—this couldn't be the feared warlord of Walchi. The boy before him stood barely five-foot-six, his frame swimming in an oversized school uniform, nk hair obscuring hollow cheeks.

  *This is the kid who crushed crime syndicates?* Qin Hong thought, struggling to reconcile the rumors with reality.

  "Your doubt is understandable," the boy said, catching Qin Hong's expression. "I am Jason."

  "With respect," Qin Hong measured his words carefully, "how does someone like you command men like him?" He nodded toward the cowering enforcer.

  Jason's ughter started as a quiet chuckle before erupting into maniacal peals. "You want proof?" His eyes locked onto Qin Hong's, pupils diting unnaturally. "The st man who questioned me... let's just say they're still finding pieces of him."

  Without warning, Jason's body began convulsing. His shirt seams burst as corded muscle erupted beneath his skin, his frame expanding like a grotesque balloon. Within seconds, a three-meter-tall behemoth loomed where the scrawny teen had stood, his transformed voice rumbling like an earthquake:

  "Still think I'm weak?!"

  One massive hand snatched Qin Hong's entire chair off the ground, bringing them eye-to-eye. The stench of adrenaline and sweat filled Qin Hong's nostrils as his brain scrambled to process the reversal—now he was the insignificant one.

  "Misunderstanding! Clearly a misunderstanding!" Qin Hong backpedaled, pulse hammering against his ribs.

  Jason's lipless mouth twisted. "Where's that arrogance now? Only respect strength when it's pointed at you?" The chair shattered against the concrete as Qin Hong rolled free.

  "You've got ten minutes," the colossus boomed, cracking his knuckles like timber splitting. "Make them count."

  Qin Hong wiped blood from his chin. "My deal's simple: I can save your life. That fruit you ate? It's got a death sentence attached."

  The fist came faster than thought—a meteorite aimed at Qin Hong's skull. He barely got the words out: "Sanctioners are coming for your heart!"

  Air pressure buffeted Qin Hong's face as the punch halted millimeters from his nose.

  "Expin." Jason's voice dripped menace.

  "You're not the first ability user they've hunted," Qin Hong said, watching the giant's pupils contract. "We can remove the fruit safely—"

  A hammerblow to his sor plexus unched Qin Hong across the ring. Ribs screamed as he impacted the cage wall.

  "And you're different?" Jason advanced, each footfall shaking the ptform. "Just another vulture circling my power."

  Through the pain haze, Qin Hong noted something peculiar—no blood where Jason's right hand should be. The limb ended abruptly at the wrist, yet moved naturally.

  His own bde flickered to life—Voidbde humming with violet energy. "Didn't... want to do this... the hard way," Qin Hong gasped.

  Jason stared at his phantom hand, then at Qin Hong's weapon. "Clever. Sliced it during my punch?" He flexed invisible fingers. "But can you keep up?"

  Darkness erupted outward from Jason's stomp, swallowing the arena whole. When the lights returned, they stood enclosed in a custrophobic octagon—the "Hell's Cage," as Jason announced. More terrifying was his transformation: muscles compressing into a leaner, deadlier form wreathed in steam.

  *Traded mass for speed,* Qin Hong realized too te.

  The onsught was brutal. Jason moved like quicksilver, slipping between Qin Hong's sshes to deliver piston-fast strikes. Blood painted the canvas as Qin Hong's swings grew desperate.

  "End this!" Jason roared, winding up for a skull-crushing finisher.

  In that millisecond of terror, Qin Hong's fist clenched involuntarily—and his bde fshed orange.

  Screams filled the cage as Jason's severed hand suddenly gushed blood, the deyed effect of Qin Hong's earlier cut manifesting. The reprieve was brief; Jason's eyes burned crimson as he activated another transformation—blood vaporizing from his pores in a sinister mist.

  "You don't know what they did to me!" Jason shrieked, speed blurring as he smmed Qin Hong into the fencing. Ribs cracked on impact. "Where were you when they shoved me in lockers? When they made me eat trash?"

  Each accusation came with a bone-jarring blow. Qin Hong's vision tunneled, Voidbde flickering out as consciousness wavered.

  Through swollen eyes, he saw them—inky silhouettes rising from the canvas like liquid nightmares. Six shadow samurai materialized, their bde-arms whirling in perfect sync.

  Jason's ughter died as the first katana found his kidney. The warriors moved with eerie precision, dodging his wild swings to deliver surgical cuts. When twin bdes erupted from his abdomen, the cage dissolved—along with Jason's defiance.

  "Go..." he rasped, sinking into the expanding darkness beneath him. "These things... they're not... mine..."

  As the shadows consumed Jason, Qin Hong's st thought before bcking out was that the boy's eyes held not fear, but relief.