THE ETERNAL REAPER’S REGRESSION

CHAPTER 4: BLOOD AND CURRENCY

The heavy iron portcullis behind me slammed shut with a definitive, bone-rattling thud. The dust kicked up by the dropping metal swirled around my bare, blood-stained feet.

"Listen up, you filthy meat sacks!" Valerius’s voice boomed through the arena’s magical amplification horn, laced with a sadistic glee. "The rules have just changed! This is no longer a standard execution. This is a clearance sale! Twenty slave gladiators enter, but Lord Valerius only feeds one tomorrow! Kill the anomaly, or kill each other—I don't care! Just give me blood!"

I spun around slowly, the cold leather of the Void Mask pulsing against my face. Surrounding me in a wide semi-circle were nineteen men and women, their bodies a map of scars, filth, and desperation. They held rusted shortswords, chipped spears, and heavy wooden clubs.

"He’s the anomaly," a massive, scarred gladiator with a broken nose muttered, pointing his rusted broadsword directly at my chest. "You all saw what he did to the Chimera and the Manticore. If we don't take him out first, we're all corpse-meat."

"He's right!" a lean woman with a notched dagger hissed, her eyes darting between me and the massive beast carcass behind me. "Look at that mask on his face! He's using some kind of forbidden relic! Surround him! Don't let him get his bearings!"

I didn't move. I didn't raise my weapon. I just watched them tighten the circle.

"You think fighting together saves you?" I asked, my voice echoing through the mask, deep and metallic. "You think Valerius lets any of you walk out of here alive if you kill me?"

"Shut up, slave!" the scarred leader roared, stepping forward. "A chance is a chance! We take your head to the Lord, we buy our freedom! That’s the law of the pit!"

"The law of the pit is that the strong live and the weak feed the sand," I said, my voice dropping to a chill whisper. "And right now, you look like a buffet."

"Kill him!" the leader screamed.

They charged all at once, a wave of desperation and flashing steel.

System, I commanded internally. Access Forbidden Evolution points. Unlock Tier 1 Area Control.

[Processing...]

[Skill Unlocked: Bone-Binding Mist (Rank F-Class - Growth Type)]

[Cost: 10 Forbidden Evolution Points.]

"What is that?" the dagger-wielding woman yelled, stopping dead in her tracks. "Look at the ground!"

A thick, milky-white fog began to erupt from the pores of my skin, pouring onto the sand like heavy dry ice. Within three heartbeats, the blinding sunlight of the arena vanished, replaced by a dense, suffocating perimeter that smelled of ancient catacombs and calcified bone.

"I can't see!" a voice cried out from the left. "Where did he go? Henry, is that you?"

"Get back! Something’s touching my legs!" another screamed. "It’s cold! It’s wrapping around my ankles!"

The mist wasn't just vapor. It was an extension of my own skeleton, a micro-particulate web of bone-dust that adhered to anything moving through it. Every step they took grew heavier, their joints locking up as the calcium micro-structures bound their flesh.

"Help me!" the scarred leader bellowed, his voice muffled by the fog. "He’s—he’s right behind me! I can't turn my head!"

"I told you," I whispered in his ear, appearing from the white void right beside him. "You’re just meat."

I didn't use the Star-Devourer tooth. I grabbed his jaw with my bare hand, my newly evolved strength cracking his cheekbone, and slammed his head downward into his own shield. The wood shattered. He hit the sand, paralyzed and unconscious, before he could even let out a final groan.

"Where are you, monster?" a young gladiator screamed, swinging his sword wildly into the white space. "Face me! Face us like a man!"

"You aren't men," I said, my voice appearing from the left, then the right, completely disorienting him. "You’re currency. And I’m cashing in."

I swept his legs out from under him, the bone-mist instantly locking his knees the moment he hit the floor. One by one, the sounds of snapping bone, blunt impacts, and terrified gasps echoed through the white wall. I didn't give speeches. I didn't offer mercy. I moved like a butcher in a pen, efficient, silent, and absolute.

"Stop! Please, stop!" the woman with the dagger pleaded, dropping to her knees as the mist climbed up to her chest, freezing her joints. "We were just following orders! We just wanted to live!"

"So did I," I said, stepping into her line of sight, the black mask completely devoid of emotion. "But I didn't ask for permission."

I tapped her forehead with the butt of my broken tooth weapon, knocking her out cold. Within less than two minutes, nineteen bodies lay scattered across the sand, immobilized, unconscious, or dead.

But the mist wasn't dissipating. In fact, in the very center of the arena, the fog was burning away in a perfect circle of golden, holy light.

"Well, this is an unexpected development," a calm, smooth voice said from within the light.

I turned my head. Standing there was the twentieth slave. He wasn't wearing rags. His gray tunic was perfectly clean, untouched by the filth of the pit or the black blood of the Chimera. His eyes weren't filled with the desperate terror of a livestock gladiator—they were glowing with a pale, celestial gold.

"You're not a slave," I said, my hand tightening around the Star-Devourer tooth.

"Of course not," he smiled, stepping out of the light. The bone-binding mist dissolved the moment it touched his boots. "The Upper Realm required an eyewitness. Lord Valerius is a sloppy manager, and the Deities dislike losing their transmission feeds. My name is Judicator Malakar. I am the eyes of the High Council."

"A Plant," I spat. "A divine spy dressed up like cattle."

"Call it what you like, anomaly," Malakar said, his form suddenly blurring.

Before I could even register his movement with my overclocked perception, his hand was wrapped around my throat. He lifted me off my feet, slamming my back into the heavy stone perimeter wall of the arena. The impact cracked the granite blocks behind me.

"You’re fast," I wheezed, the mask absorbing most of the concussive force, but my weak physical frame still groaning under the pressure.

"I am a divine entity, trash," Malakar whispered, his face inches from mine, his eyes burning with pure, unadulterated arrogance. "You are a glitch in a broken system. I don't care what artifact you found in the mud, and I don't care about your little mask. To me, you are still just an F-Class livestock. I will peel that relic off your face and present your soul to the Architects."

"Is that so?" I smiled beneath the mask, my lips pulling back over my teeth.

"You're laughing?" Malakar’s golden eyes narrowed, his grip tightening until my windpipe began to crush. "You're at zero health, boy. One squeeze and your soul enters the cycle."

"You forgot one thing, Judicator," I choked out, bringing my right hand up between our bodies.

"What could a worm like you possibly have to say to a god?"

"I'm not a worm," I hissed. "And you aren't a god anymore. You're a battery."

I jammed the Broken Tooth of the Star-Devourer straight through his palm, pinning his hand to my own throat, then twisted the jagged bone weapon into his wrist.

Malakar didn't scream. He roared in confusion as his divine armor—the golden aura protecting his flesh—simply ceased to exist where the tooth touched him.

"What... what is this?" Malakar gasped, his golden eyes wide with sudden, agonizing panic. "My divinity... my connection to the Upper Realm is breaking! What are you doing to me?"

"System," I commanded, my soul roaring with the ancient, dark hunger of my past life. "Activate Void Reliquary. Sub-routine: Devour."

[Warning: Attempting to absorb a Divine Entity.]

[Target Tier: Low-Level Judicator.]

[Success Rate: 12%...]

[Overriding with Sin Echoes... Success Rate: 100%]

[Devour Initiated.]

"No! Stop!" Malakar screamed, his smooth skin beginning to wither and wrinkle as a stream of liquid gold began to pour from his eyes, nose, and mouth, flowing directly into the pores of my Void Mask. "You can't do this! The High Council will see! They will destroy this entire world!"

"Let them watch," I growled, my muscles expanding, my skin turning a fierce, healthy bronze as his divine essence flooded my veins. "I'm just taking back what they stole from me."

High above us, the clouds began to swirl into a violent, golden vortex, a sign that the Upper Realm was finally realizing their spy was being eaten alive by the livestock.

"Valerius!" Malakar shrieked toward the royal box, his voice turning into a frail, old rasp as his body became skeletal. "Help me! Open the gates! Kill him! KILL HIM!"

But Valerius wasn't moving. He was staring down into the mist, his mouth wide open, his wine glass shattered on the floor, completely paralyzed by the sight of a slave turning a god into a meal.

The gold kept pouring. My system screen exploded into a frenzy of notifications.

[Divine Essence Extracted: 10%... 30%... 50%...]

[Soul Tier Upgrading...]

[Warning: The Deities are locked onto your position!]

I didn't stop. I pressed the tooth deeper into his chest, pulling his dying, shivering frame closer until my mask touched his forehead.

"Tell the Architects," I whispered into his fading mind, "that the Reaper is back. And I'm still hungry."