The betting floor was alive. Not lively. Not energetic. Alive in the way a cornered animal was alive, all noise and movement driven by hunger. Cash slapped against scarred tables with dull, meaty sounds. Crypto chips clicked and slid across sweaty palms. Voices overlapped until they blurred together, gamblers shouting names and numbers into air thick with smoke and cheap alcohol. Above it all, floating screens flickered endlessly. Odds rose and crashed in real time, glowing figures shifting every few seconds as confidence moved like a tide. Nearly all of it flowed one way. Enoch Lander. He wasn't famous. No grand highlights. No viral clips. But reputation didn't need a spotlight down here. It spread quietly, passed between people who knew what violence really looked like. Close combat specialist. Jujutsu elite. A fighter who didn't rely on overwhelming strength or flashy techniques. He fought with precision, pressure, and control. The kind of man who broke opponents slowly an

The room tightened when LeRoy stepped inside.Not loud. Not chaotic. Just heavy with the kind of tension that followed hard fights and narrow survival.Yohan stood near the far wall, posture straight, eyes forward. He looked untouched, as if the earlier fight had cost him nothing. Delila leaned against a locker with her arms folded, gaze lowered but alert. Another fighter sat on a bench, hands still wrapped, staring at the floor. Two more lingered near the corners, quiet, watching everyone without saying a word.No one spoke.Shawn Hall closed the door behind him and waited.When he finally broke the silence, his voice was calm. Measured."Alright," he said. "That's everyone."A few eyes lifted."You all fought tonight," Shawn continued. "And you all gave the organisers exactly what they were looking for."He paced slowly across the room, boots echoing softly against concrete."Some of you won clean. Some of you didn't. Doesn't matter. What matters is that none of you folded."LeRoy f