NOVEL NEXT Chapter 123: The Real Battle
Grumpy Bear's voice boomed. "Forget your one-on-one! Forget best-of-seven! This isn't just about a duel anymore! No! This is a two-versus-one challenge! One that has only ever been used four times in BGA history!"
"The finalists will now fight a mysterious boss together," Sleepy Smile said, his tone more solemn than before. "And the one who contributes more to the kill will be crowned the champion."
"And this ain't just for show," Grumpy Bear added, his voice low and reverent. "Whoever proves themselves in this match won't just walk away with a trophy. They'll walk away with the military's blessing. Maybe even a direct recruitment offer. Hell, they might even get an audience with the Grand Marshal himself."
Damien stood still, his black mech casting a long, silent shadow across the arena floor.
Inside her cockpit, Colonel Xue Lingtian's fingers tightened around the controls.
She remembered that fight.
It had haunted her.
An opponent faster than thought, stronger than logic, scarier than anything her nightmares had ever dared to show her. And the way he moved… the way he dismantled everything she knew about battle… It still made her shiver.
And now… it was happening again.
But this time, she wasn't facing him alone.
This time, she was standing beside him.
The Hungry Monster.
Her rival.
Her unspoken fear.
And maybe, just maybe, her salvation.
Whether it would make a difference was another question entirely.
But one thing was certain: the challenge ahead would be monstrous.
Still, a strange, twisted thrill curled in her chest at the thought of watching him go head-to-head against something like the Asura-class boss. She had seen what Damien could do to men and mechs.
Now she wanted to see what he could do to a nightmare.
High above, in the marble silence of the military skybox, Grand Marshal Li Qingshan finally lifted his untouched tea.
He didn't drink it.
He simply looked out across the arena.
And waited calmly for his personal BGA Sim Pod to arrive.
A low tremor pulsed through the stadium floor.
The arena lights dimmed.
And then the gates opened.
What stepped out was not a monster in the traditional sense. It wasn't twisted or grotesque. It didn't snarl or roar.
It walked.
Tall. Calm. Utterly silent.
A sixth-generation black-armored mecha, matte in texture but with reflective undertones that caught just enough light to gleam. Its form was sleek and elegantly humanoid, like Damien's own Battle God, but denser, broader, with thicker plating across the chest and limbs.
A long-barreled rifle was strapped to its back. It gleamed with suppression coils and mana-reactive nodes, the kind of tech that could level bunkers from a mile away. But it wasn't just a rifle, it had a spearhead at the barrel's end, forged from condensed mana-steel, ready to pierce at close range.
A hybrid weapon, brutal and brilliant.
On its hips, twin short swords rested in sheathes shaped like vertebrae. A hexagonal mana-shield was mounted on its left arm, flickering faintly with dark purple pulses.
A name lit up across every screen in the arena.
DARK ASURA – DARKNESS PROTOCOL 01 BOSS
The crowd collectively sucked in a breath.
The pressure of its presence was immediate.
The silence it brought was absolute.
Colonel Xue Lingtian felt her stomach tighten.
She had fought many monsters in simulations. But this?
This wasn't a simulation, definitely not. This was a nightmare come true.
Her hands hovered over her weapon controls. Trembling slightly.
Then Damien's voice came through the comms. Calm. Polite. Clear.
"Colonel Xue? May I trouble you to keep shooting at it from a distance? Vary your tempo, make it unpredictable, please."
Her lips twitched.
The tone was polite. Almost gentle.
But the meaning was razor-sharp.
Stay out of my way.
She exhaled slowly. Then replied, softly, "Hm."
No argument. She knew better. Against that thing, she wouldn't last thirty seconds in melee.
On the command deck, the Grand Marshal's aides started to breathe heavily and leaned forward in intense anticipation.
Down below, the match began.
The Dark Asura moved.
And Damien moved.
The black-armored boss didn't accelerate like a beast. It disappeared like a ghost. One step, and it blurred forward in a straight-line lunge, its hybrid spear-rifle drawn and ignited with a pulse of anti-mana energy.
But Damien was faster.
His mecha twisted away with a pivot so sharp it blurred on camera. The Battle God curved around the strike like wind around a stone, and his blade clanged hard against the shaft of the spear, redirecting its momentum just enough to throw it wide.
The entire crowd gasped.
"Holy hell," Grumpy Bear muttered. "That's not just timing. That's…" he trailed off.
"Something else entirely," Sleepy Smile finished for him.
The two mechas clashed in a ballet of impossible speeds.
Dark Asura's mass shifted mid-stride, its gravity core flaring as it increased its weight output, hammering downward with crushing force. The ground cratered with each step, creating small shockwaves that would've staggered any other mech.
But Battle God didn't stagger.
He danced.
With every shift in weight, Damien used it. Dodged toward collapsing space. Slipped under strikes. His footwork bordered on supernatural.
"Oblivion Hammer would've been crushed by that opening assault," a BGA analyst whispered from the VIP box.
"But that thing can't land a clean hit," another muttered, watching in disbelief.
The problem wasn't power.
It wasn't armor.
It was that Damien's mecha was wearing nothing extra. It was bare bones. Lightweight. Aggressively minimalist. It had no backup systems, no stabilizer units, no assistive force modules.
Just a blade.
A pilot.
And pure movement.
Whereas the stronger Dark Asura was like an armored knight. Sleek, powerful and utterly deadly.
But not as agile and dexterous.
The Dark Asura slammed its spear down again. Damien parried, slid along the shaft, and retaliated with a rising slash that sparked across the boss's right shoulder plate.
Minimal damage, but it was a mark.
A cut.
The first one of the match.
High above, Colonel Xue followed instructions precisely. She fired from varying angles, her beam rifle lancing toward Dark Asura's flank at inconsistent intervals, trying to disrupt its rhythm.
But Dark Asura's shield flared each time, blocking effortlessly.
It barely seemed to acknowledge her at all.
Because its attention was locked on one target.
The Hungry Monster.
And Damien wasn't backing down.
He ducked beneath a rising slash, spun to the outside, and launched himself off a chunk of debris, his blade striking twice, quick and sharp, against the side of Dark Asura's helmet.
Then he dropped low again, swept under the counter-blow, and retreated half a step.
The boss paused.
Just for a moment.
As if it were recalibrating.
Recalculating.
Reconsidering.
Because something had become very clear:
The boy in the tattered black mech wasn't running.
He wasn't even scared.
He was hunting.
And the Dark Asura, for all its armor, all its weaponry, all its upgrades, couldn't seem to catch him.
Not in the one thing that mattered most,
Movement.
The crowd was on its feet. Every screen, every camera, every breath, focused on the center of that battlefield.
Where a monster in black armor faced a phantom in matte steel.
And the real battle… was only beginning.