Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

It was a picture of the massive shirtless giant wearing the bright green Mantis mask.

It was the exact same steroid-pumped cybernetic freak they had seen drinking ale in the dive bar earlier.

The maid leaned in close, whispering softly so the nearby guards wouldn’t hear.

”He is the son of the Black-Ash Boss,” the maid revealed the ultimate insider secret. ”The tournament is a spectacle, but the ending is already written. He will most certainly win. The Syndicate will ensure it...”

Evelyn looked at the picture of the Mantis brute with her mind rapidly processing the implications.

’What a complicated day...’

The Boss’s son was fighting in the pit to win back the Boss’s other son.

The entire event was a rigged theatrical display of power designed to funnel massive gambling losses from independent fools directly into the Syndicate’s deep pockets.

”I appreciate the information,” Evelyn said, genuinely grateful for the maid’s dangerous honesty. It confirmed exactly what Silas would be dealing with down in the dirt.

But Evelyn didn’t change her mind.

The Boss’s son had cybernetics and rigged rules. She knew exactly where the smart money belonged.

They moved on, leaving the atrium and walking down another long opulent corridor leading toward the viewing boxes.

”The private isolated luxury viewing boxes are located at the far end of the hall,” the maid gestured vaguely as they passed several heavily guarded gilded doors. ”Those are reserved exclusively for the inner circle of the Syndicate, wealthy guild masters, and elite corporate sponsors. They are not for the general Manager tier for now...”

Evelyn smacked her lips in quiet annoyance behind her mask.

She had figured as much.

The Underworld always adhered to a strict unforgiving hierarchy.

But still... she really wanted her own private soundproofed privacy to smoke her premium Red-Lotus cigarettes and stress-pace in peace.

Sharing a room with a bunch of sweaty nervous Underworld managers sounded exhausting.

”Will the entire event, from the Battle Royale to the final bracket, take place throughout tonight?” Evelyn asked, checking the time on her datapad.

”Yes, Ma’am,” the maid confirmed with a polite nod. ”It is meant to be a rapid, brutal one-day event. The Boss prefers to conclude business before the sun rises over Shogitown... It will be a long night, of course, featuring a staggering amount of death.”

As they moved further down the plush hallway, the muffled sound of a struggle echoed from a nearby door.

Evelyn stopped with her hand instinctively twitching toward the hidden daggers strapped to her thighs.

The heavy oak door burst open.

Two massive armored Black-Ash syndicate enforcers dragged a screaming, thrashing man out into the hallway.

The man was dressed in an expensive suit with a Manager’s token pinned to his lapel.

One of the enforcers slammed the struggling Manager against the wall, pressing the cold heavy barrel of a pistol directly against the back of his skull.

”Move,” the enforcer growled, shoving the terrified man forward. ”Down to the lower stands.”

”No! Please! I can pay the debt!” the Manager sobbed hysterically, stumbling down the hallway at gunpoint with tears streaming down his face. ”Give me another week!”

Evelyn watched the grim procession disappear around the corner with her mind instantly connecting the brutal dots.

’Did something happen down in the locker rooms?’ Evelyn thought, her pulse quickening.

The Battle Royale hadn’t even officially started yet.

The only way a Manager was being forcefully escorted away at gunpoint to collect a death-debt was if their designated Fighter had already died before reaching the dirt.

It was a chilling violent reminder of the fifty-percent asset forfeiture clause she had signed.

The Black-Ash didn’t play games with their contracts.

’I see... they’ll detain you so even if you used fakes, they can still collect it but how do they handle the other part?’

The maid ignored the screaming man, gesturing for Evelyn to step through a wide open archway.

”Here is your designated section, Ma’am,” the maid announced, bowing once more before retreating down the hall.

Evelyn stepped through the archway and entered a very spacious, tiered viewing box.

It was essentially a massive luxury suite suspended directly over the arena.

The room was packed with dozens of other people, all sitting comfortably on plush leather chairs, gripping datapads, and nervously being served dark liquor by a team of silent waiters.

These were the other Managers.

They were a diverse sketchy mix of minor gang leaders, desperate debt-brokers, and wealthy thrill-seekers looking to strike it rich on a long-shot fighter.

Evelyn found an empty leather chair situated near the back corner of the room, far away from the loudest groups.

She sat down, pulling her oversized hood lower over her masked face, blending into the shadows.

A few minutes passed in tense simmering silence.

The heavy muffled roar of the massive crowd in the stadium outside bled through the thick walls.

Suddenly, the heavy double doors at the front of the viewing box swung wide open.

The room went instantly silent as every single Manager stiffened, putting their drinks down.

A middle-aged man walked into the room.

He moved with the slow terrifying grace of a predator as he possessed striking sharp features with a remarkably handsome face forged by years of ruthless combat, and perfectly styled slicked-back silver and white hair.

He wore a pristine impeccably tailored dark suit.

But the most defining intimidating feature was the sprawling, jagged black tattoo etched directly across the left side of his face, winding from his jawline up to his temple.

It was the crest of the Black-Ash Syndicate.

This was the Boss.

’Or rather... Jax’s father.’

He exuded an aura of crushing authority.

He didn’t possess a Lord core, but the concentrated weight of the blood he had spilled to build his empire commanded immediate suffocating respect.

’I can also sense he uses mana... but how...?’

The Boss walked to the front of the room, standing before the massive, opaque blast-shield that currently blocked their view of the arena below.

He clasped his hands behind his back, looking over the nervous crowd of Managers with a cold smile.

”Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the culmination of the Black-Ash tournament,” the Boss began, his voice echoing as a deep baritone that filled the room without him needing to raise it.

He paced slowly across the front of the box.

”I apologize that the invitations were sent out on such incredibly short notice, especially considering the registration only opened earlier this week,” the Boss continued with his tone mockingly polite. ”But I am genuinely glad that so many of you were able to gather the funds and find the courage to come.”

He snapped his fingers.

Instantly, the massive opaque blast-shield sealing the front of the viewing box hissed with pressurized air.

The heavy metal plating retracted upward, sliding smoothly into the ceiling.

A massive unobstructed pane of reinforced crystalline glass was revealed, giving the Managers a proper dizzying view of the staggering, colossal dirt arena situated hundreds of feet downward.

The deafening roaring noise of the thousands of spectators washed into the suite like a physical wave.

Not only that, but the exact second the glass opened, a sleek glowing holographic tab materialized out of thin air, hovering directly in front of every single person’s face in the room.

The tab displayed a full, high-definition, multi-angled view of the massive dirt arena below, alongside a sprawling list of odds, names, and betting options.

The Boss sat down heavily in a luxurious, throne-like leather chair positioned at the very front of the glass.

He crossed his legs with a cruel entertained smirk playing on his lips.

”Enjoy the show, my friends,” the Boss told them, gesturing to the violent spectacle waiting below. ”After all, it has been quite a while since we had so many interesting, desperate fighters taking place in the pit at the same time.”

Evelyn ignored his theatrical speech, focusing her intense, calculating gaze entirely on the glowing holographic tab hovering in front of her Kitsune mask.

The tab was intuitive.

It gave her the immediate choice of who to bet on, allowing her to scroll through the massive roster of names and adjust the specific amount of spirit credits she wished to wager.

A large crimson digital timer was ticking down rapidly in the top right corner of the screen, indicating that the betting window for the preliminary Battle Royale was about to close permanently.

”Place your wagers now,” the Boss called out over the roar of the crowd, raising a glass of dark liquor in a mock toast. ”Go big, or go home in a body bag.”

The room erupted into frantic whispered chaos as every Manager began desperately typing on their holographic tabs, betting massive sums on cybernetic mutants and syndicate favorites.

Evelyn didn’t hesitate.

She scrolled past the heavily favored Mantis brute and she scrolled past the giant troll-blooded mutants.

She found the name.

She clicked on ’Onii-Chan’, letting out a soft dry chuckle at the absurdity of the moniker sitting amidst a list of terrifying blood-soaked killer aliases.

’Why did he even let me do this...?’

She tapped the wager interface but Evelyn didn’t bet a safe conservative amount. She typed in 1,000,000 spirit credits, betting that Silas would survive the meat grinder and enter the Top Twelve.

Immediately, the system calculated the staggering long-shot odds. The interface flashed a bright green confirmation prompt.

It showed her exact massive payout if he succeeded.

Her balance would jump from a 1,000,000 credit wager directly to a 5,500,000 credit return!

’Ah... all this money for me? I love gambling!’

A glowing ’CONFIRM’ button pulsed at the bottom of the screen.

Evelyn reached out and pressed the button.

The system locked the bet, encrypting the wager against her anonymous shell corporation and the exact second she confirmed, the timer hit zero.

The betting tab vanished from front of her face, and simultaneously disappeared from everyone else’s view in the massive stadium.

It was time.

The waiting was over as it was time for the slaughter to begin.

Deep down in the sunken cavernous pit of the arena, the earth began to shake.

Several massive heavy steel hatches built directly into the towering walls of the Null-stone cage began to grind open.

Rusted chains screamed in protest as the heavy iron grates were hauled upward as people began flooding into the dirt field.

It was a tidal wave of flesh, metal, and violent intent.

Over two hundred desperate adrenaline-fueled fighters charged out of the dark tunnels, spreading out across the blood-stained earth.

Some carried themselves with disciplined martial stances while others screamed like feral beasts, beating their chests.

Evelyn stood up from her chair, stepping closer to the thick glass overlooking the drop.

She strained her enhanced eyes, desperately scanning the massive chaotic sea of black uniforms to see whether she could spot his broad-shouldered frame among the crowd.

But the sheer volume of bodies, combined with the blinding sweep of the stadium spotlights, made it impossible.

She couldn’t find him manually.

She resorted to using her secondary datapad, pulling up the live-feed tracking cameras assigned to her specific fighter to monitor his vitals.

Down below, the deafening roar of the thousands of spectators reached a fever pitch.

Suddenly, a sleek glowing anti-gravity platform shot out from the side of the arena, hovering precariously over the center of the dirt pit.

Standing on the platform was a man wearing a violently bright, neon-purple suit adorned with flashing light-runes.

The Announcer.

He tapped a magically amplified microphone against his chin with the feedback booming like thunder across the colosseum.

”Ahem!”

He immediately cleared his throat, commanding the attention of every single soul in the place.

”Listen up people!”

He took his floating platform down slightly, hovering just ten feet above the heads of the filling field, feeding off the aggressive violent energy of the combatants.

”LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND DEGENERATES OF THE UNDERWORLD!” the Announcer screamed into the microphone, his voice echoing with insane hype. ”Welcome to the grandest, bloodiest spectacle in Shogitown! Welcome to the Black-Ash Blood-Sport!”

The crowd went violently feral.

They stomped their feet against the metal bleachers, the rhythmic booming sound vibrating the very bedrock of the city.

”Today, we do not deal in petty street credits! We do not deal in empty promises!” the Announcer roared, spinning around on his platform to hype up every section of the arena. ”Today, we deal in flesh! We deal in data! We deal in what one might call... destiny!”

He pointed a dramatic glowing finger down at the massive, chaotic swarm of fighters standing in the dirt.

”You all know the grand prize waiting at the end of the bracket! You all know the staggering unparalleled value of the asset on the line tonight!” the Announcer hyped the crowd further, refusing to say Jax’s name, letting the mystery fuel the greed. ”And you all know the exact unforgiving stakes!”

He raised both hands high into the air as the heavy steel hatches built into the arena walls slammed shut with a deafening final boom.

The locks engaged as there was no way out.

”Two hundred and thirty-four desperate souls stand in the dirt right now!” the Announcer screamed, his voice reaching a hysterical pitch that made even Evelyn surprised. ”But this is the preliminary Battle Royale! There are no referees! There are no rounds! There is no mercy! You fight until only the twelve strongest and most ruthless bastards remain breathing in the mud!”