Victory!

"Close the betting!"

Butcher Zhang slammed the red button on the control panel, and the betting channels sealed shut completely.

Below the stage, Xu Bo clutched his data terminal tightly, his palms slick with cold sweat.

The terminal screen showed that after the previous high-intensity pressure test, Jiang Yue's core physical curve had yet to recover to the safety threshold.

Against a veteran skilled in force redirection with deep qi and blood reserves, the odds of victory approached zero.

Reason overpowered impulse; Xu Bo ultimately dared not reinvest the points he'd just won into the betting pool.

All he could do was squeeze to the front row, grip the metal railing with both hands, and shout toward the arena: "Jiang Yue! Steady your qi! Hold your rhythm!"

Amid the unrestrained jeers and curses of hundreds of surrounding veterans, this dry cheer sounded pitifully thin, instantly swallowed by the heavy metal noise.

No one in the entire venue favored this civilian recruit who kept challenging.

Woom—!

Two thick hydraulic metal pillars activated simultaneously, slamming downward.

Three hundred kilograms of base weight landed precisely on both men's shoulders.

The one-legged veteran sneered.

He channeled his strength, using his practiced force-redirecting breathing technique to casually guide the crushing weight into the base.

He even shot Jiang Yue a provocative look, trying to see signs of collapse on the other's face.

This was one of the veteran's usual tricks—the atmosphere and the crowd's heckling always added psychological pressure, making it hard for opponents to perform at full strength.

Jiang Yue stared straight ahead.

The [Smooth Breath] and [Tough Skin] traits activated on their own; his skin tightened, his chest and abdomen locked with air pressure.

First minute, 350 kilograms.

Neither man wavered.

Second minute, 400 kilograms.

The veteran remained at ease, while Jiang Yue's breathing rate began to quicken ever so slightly.

Continuous high-pressure exertion drained the essence reserves converted by [Food Digestion] within Jiang Yue's body.

His absolute strength had increased significantly from before, but under the unrelenting weight consumption, fatigue inevitably began to show.

Third minute, 450 kilograms!

Creak...

An extremely grating sound of bone friction came from Jiang Yue's spine.

On the surface of his skin, capillaries burst from the terrifying blood pressure, seeping fine beads of blood that instantly stained his training uniform with scattered red spots.

Jiang Yue's form showed its first slight tremor since entering the arena.

He was starting to lose ground.

In contrast, though sweat beaded on the one-legged veteran's forehead, his stance remained steady thanks to the weight distribution of his prosthetic and his mobilized qi and blood, firmly suppressing Jiang Yue's condition.

The surrounding spectators, once rowdy, gradually quieted down.

The mockery in the veterans' eyes faded. 450 kilograms was a watershed moment.

For an ordinary recruit, after two consecutive rounds, they'd have long since broken bones and tendons, kneeling and wailing.

But the blood-soaked youth in the arena, aside from that one tiny tremor, kept his spine straight as a rod, without the slightest bend.

"Still stubbornly holding on."

The one-legged veteran exhaled a mouthful of turbid qi, his gaze darkening. "Let's see how long your bones can last!"

Fourth minute, 500 kilograms!

Boom!

The dull hydraulic roar struck like a heavy hammer.

Jiang Yue's left knee suddenly buckled downward, the gap between his knee and the metal base barely two inches!

"He's going down!" Bursts of exclamation erupted from the crowd.

On the high platform.

Butcher Zhang leaned forward slightly, his mechanical left arm unconsciously gripping the metal seat's armrest, deforming it.

His single remaining eye locked onto Jiang Yue, whose body was nearly twisted under the hydraulic pillar.

"This kid has held on for quite a while..."

A thunderclap stirred in Butcher Zhang's heart. "Even with a mastered force-redirecting breathing method, without strong bone density to support it, he'd have been crushed into paste long ago."

"In just a few days, his physical pressure resistance has improved this fast?"

He had seen countless fighters, and he could tell that Jiang Yue's qi and blood were nearly exhausted. He was purely relying on a tenacious instinct—one that even made Butcher Zhang's heart shudder—to stubbornly clash with the cold machinery.

At the edge of the arena.

Watching blood continuously seep from the corners of Jiang Yue's mouth as his left knee crept closer to the ground, Xu Bo clawed at his own hair with both hands, his eyes behind the lenses filled with unwillingness and despair.

"No... the physical exhaustion is too severe, all the parameters are a mess..."

Xu Bo stared at the wildly alarming red vital sign curve on his terminal, his face twitching violently. "What a pity, what a pity... If only Jiang Yue had a bit more time to accumulate, even just half a month... with his rate of progress, that old cripple definitely wouldn't have lasted against him!"

Under the crushing weight of 500 kilograms, Jiang Yue's brain flickered black from oxygen deprivation.

All he could hear was the thunderous pounding of his own heart like a broken drum, his internal organs seeming to be clenched tight by an invisible giant hand, ready to burst at any moment.

Completely on the losing end, with no room to retreat.

But his bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the edge of his retina, locked onto the gray characters that, under the extreme pressure of life and death, had begun to pulse violently once more.

Five hundred kilograms of weight, like an insurmountable iron mountain.

Jiang Yue's left knee hovered just two inches above the alloy base. Veins bulged across his entire body, sweat mixed with blood pooling into a small puddle at his feet.

For an ordinary person, under the dual torment of such pain and suffocation, their nerves would have long since collapsed.

But in Jiang Yue's gaze, all traces of human panic had been stripped away.

The hum of the hydraulic column descending, the meshing of mechanical gears, even the minuscule vibration frequency of the metal pump—he locked onto all of it.

Sink the shoulder.

Lock the collarbone.

Jiang Yue's teetering, broken body, with a rhythm that defied the instincts of flesh, achieved an almost brutally precise synchronization with the mechanical column weighing over a thousand jin above his head.

The pressure was gradually distributed evenly, [Tough Skin] channeling the impact force into his skeletal frame.

He stubbornly wedged himself at that breaking point, like a steel wire stretched to its absolute limit yet refusing to snap.

At the fifth minute, five hundred and fifty kilograms!

Crack!

A sharp sound of metal fracturing rang out abruptly.

But it didn't come from Jiang Yue's side.

The one-legged veteran's expression shifted dramatically.

His mechanical prosthetic, which had always been the weak point of his flesh, burst with a blinding blue spark at the connection joint under the extreme crushing pressure of five hundred and fifty kilograms.

Cracks appeared on the surface of the hydraulic tube, and black, high-temperature engine oil seeped through the metal gaps.

"Damn it!"

The veteran gritted his teeth, trying to shift his center of gravity onto his flesh-and-blood right leg.

But that right leg, neglected from extreme training, let out a tearing scream from its thigh muscles the moment it took over the terrifying pressure.

He turned his head in shock, looking at Jiang Yue beside him.

That blood-soaked recruit, his left knee still suspended in midair, that two-inch gap like an insurmountable chasm.

Blood seeped from Jiang Yue's seven orifices, his eyes tightly shut, his entire being sunk into a deathly still state of meditation, his breathing so faint it was barely perceptible—yet he stubbornly held against the crushing weight that could pulverize rock!

"This kid... is he a monster with no sense of pain?!"

A storm of shock raged in the veteran's heart. This was no recruit at all; this was a machine wearing human skin!

At the sixth minute, six hundred kilograms!

Boom!

The veteran's mechanical prosthetic let out a shrill alarm, its load-bearing axle emitting a teeth-grinding screech of distortion. A snapped bolt flew past his cheek like a bullet.

If he held on any longer, the hydraulic core of the prosthetic would completely explode.

Losing a prosthetic limb cost far more than the gains from this gamble, and could even endanger the remaining half of his life.

The veteran's face was full of unwillingness as he stared at the blood-soaked figure that still refused to fall. Finally, he gritted his teeth and roared:

"Madman!"

Slap!

The veteran's right hand slammed heavily onto the red surrender button beside the base.

"I give up!"