Victory!

"Bets closed!"

Butcher Zhang slammed the red button on the control panel, shutting down the betting channel.

Below the platform, Xu Bo gripped his data terminal so tightly that his palm was slick with cold sweat.

The screen showed that Jiang Yue's core physical performance had yet to recover to a safe level after the last grueling pressure test.

Against a veteran skilled in Force Unloading and rich in Blood Energy, his chances of winning were effectively zero.

Reason won out over impulse. In the end, Xu Bo did not dare wager the points he had just won.

He could only squeeze into the front row, clutch the metal railing with both hands, and shout into the arena, "Jiang Yue! Keep your breathing steady! Hold your rhythm!"

Amid the jeers and curses of hundreds of veterans, his feeble encouragement sounded painfully thin and was instantly swallowed by the heavy metal music.

Not a single person in the arena expected this civilian recruit, fresh from one challenge, to win another.

Whumm!

Two thick hydraulic columns activated at once and dropped with a crash.

Three hundred kilograms of weight bore down squarely on both men's shoulders.

The one-legged veteran sneered.

He summoned his strength and used his practiced Force Unloading breathing technique to channel the crushing weight into the base with apparent ease.

He even shot Jiang Yue a taunting look, hoping to catch the first sign that he was about to break.

It was an old veteran's trick. The atmosphere and the heckling would put anyone under pressure, making it harder for him to perform at his best.

Jiang Yue stared straight ahead.

The Smooth Breath and Tough Skin traits activated on their own. His Skin Membrane tightened, and he locked the pressure in his chest and abdomen.

At the first minute, the weight rose to 350 kilograms.

Neither man wavered.

At the second minute, it reached 400 kilograms.

The veteran still looked comfortable, but Jiang Yue's breathing began to quicken ever so slightly.

The unbroken strain had nearly exhausted the reserves of energy his Food Digestion trait had produced.

His raw strength had improved considerably, but under the relentless weight, signs of fatigue finally began to show.

At the third minute, 450 kilograms!

Creak...

A piercing sound of bones grinding came from Jiang Yue's spine.

The capillaries beneath his Skin Membrane burst under the terrible blood pressure. Fine beads of blood seeped out, speckling his training uniform red.

For the first time since stepping into the arena, Jiang Yue swayed, if only slightly.

He was starting to lose ground.

The one-legged veteran had sweat on his brow too, but his prosthetic shared the load, and his command of his Blood Energy kept his stance firm. He held a clear advantage over Jiang Yue.

The noisy spectators gradually fell quiet.

The mockery faded from the veterans' eyes. Four hundred and fifty kilograms was a dividing line.

An ordinary recruit, after two consecutive bouts, would already have broken bones and torn tendons. He would be on his knees, howling in pain.

Yet the blood-soaked young man in the arena, apart from that tiny sway, still held his spine perfectly straight. He had not bent an inch.

"Still hanging on."

The one-legged veteran exhaled heavily, his gaze darkening. "Let's see how long those bones of yours last!"

At the fourth minute, 500 kilograms!

Boom!

The deep hydraulic roar struck like a hammer blow.

Jiang Yue's left knee buckled sharply, stopping less than two inches above the metal base!

"He's going down!" Cries erupted from the crowd.

High above the arena,

Butcher Zhang leaned forward. His mechanical left hand unconsciously clenched the metal armrest, warping it out of shape.

His single remaining eye locked onto Jiang Yue beneath the hydraulic column, half his body nearly twisted out of shape by the weight.

The boy has held on for a long time...

A thunderclap of realization shook Butcher Zhang. Even with a Force Unloading breathing technique, anyone without the bone density to support it would have been crushed to pulp by now.

How did his body's resistance to pressure improve so much in just a few days?

Butcher Zhang had seen countless fighters. He could tell Jiang Yue's Blood Energy was nearly spent. Only an instinctive tenacity that unsettled even him kept the young man fighting the cold machinery.

At the edge of the arena,

Xu Bo watched blood spill steadily from Jiang Yue's mouth as his left knee sank closer to the ground. He clutched his hair with both hands, his eyes behind his glasses full of frustration and despair.

"No... he's pushed his body too far. All the readings are out of control..."

Xu Bo stared at the vital-sign curve flashing red with warnings on his terminal, his face twitching. "What a waste. Such a waste... If Jiang Yue had just a little more time to build up his strength, even half a month... At the rate he's improving, that Old Cripple would never outlast him!"

Under five hundred kilograms of pressure, Jiang Yue's vision darkened in waves from lack of oxygen.

All he could hear was the thunder of his own heart pounding like a battered drum. His organs felt as though an invisible hand had clenched around them, ready to burst at any moment.

He had fallen completely behind, with nowhere left to retreat.

Yet his bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the edge of his vision, on the gray characters that had begun to pulse violently once more under the life-or-death pressure.

The five-hundred-kilogram weight loomed like an insurmountable iron mountain.

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

For anyone else, the agony and suffocation would have shattered his mind long ago.

But every trace of human fear had vanished from Jiang Yue's eyes.

He focused on the hum of the descending hydraulic column, the meshing gears, even the faintest vibrations of the metal pump.

Shoulders down.

Collarbones set.

Jiang Yue's battered, trembling body moved in a rhythm that defied its own instincts, matching the immense mechanical column above him with near-impossible precision.

The pressure spread through him bit by bit, and Tough Skin dispersed the impact through his entire skeleton.

He held himself at the very brink of collapse, like a steel wire stretched to its limit that somehow refused to snap.

At the fifth minute, 550 kilograms!

Crack!

A sharp metallic snap rang out.

But it had not come from Jiang Yue's side.

The one-legged veteran's face changed.

His Mechanical Prosthetic had always been his body's weak point. Under the crushing limit of 550 kilograms, a burst of brilliant blue sparks erupted from its joint.

Cracks spread across the hydraulic tube, and hot black oil seeped through the gaps in the metal.

"Damn it!"

The veteran gritted his teeth and tried to shift his weight onto his flesh-and-blood right leg.

But he had neglected to condition that leg to its limit. The moment it took on the terrible load, his thigh muscles screamed as they tore.

He turned in horror toward Jiang Yue.

The blood-covered recruit's left knee still hung in the air. Those two inches might as well have been an uncrossable chasm.

Blood streamed from Jiang Yue's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. His eyes were shut, and he had fallen into a deathly stillness. Even his breathing was almost impossible to detect, yet he continued to withstand enough weight to crush stone!

Is this kid... some kind of monster that can't feel pain?!

Shock surged through the veteran. This was no recruit. This was a machine wearing human skin!

At the sixth minute, 600 kilograms!

Boom!

The veteran's Mechanical Prosthetic shrieked with alarms. Its load-bearing shaft twisted with a teeth-grating screech, and a sheared bolt shot past his cheek like a bullet.

If he kept going, the prosthetic's hydraulic core would explode.

Losing his prosthetic would cost far more than he could win from this wager. It might even cost him the rest of his life.

Unwilling to concede, the veteran glared at the blood-soaked figure who still refused to fall. At last, he clenched his teeth and cursed.

"Lunatic!"

Smack!

The veteran slammed his right hand onto the red surrender button beside the base.

"I give up!"