Deciding Match!

Bam!

With a dull thud, Jiang Yue landed squarely on the Alloy Fighting Platform, still stained with Shen Qing's blood. He was not especially burly, but his body had the compact, fluid lines of a cheetah.

Before Scar, who stood two meters tall and radiated the terrifying pressure of a mountain of flesh, Jiang Yue looked slight—almost frail.

The two faced each other, the contrast between them striking.

Silence.

The underground Black Boxing Arena, thick with the stench of sweat and blood, fell into an eerie silence that lasted two full seconds.

Then the whole place erupted, as if a massive bomb had detonated deep underwater!

"Holy shit! Someone actually went up there?!"

"Three seconds left! Does this kid have a death wish?!"

No one had expected a recruit to jump onto the platform just before the countdown reached zero and accept the fifth fight to the death.

Slumped against the wire mesh at the edge of the platform, Shen Qing stared wide-eyed at the slender figure above him, disbelief written across his face.

"He actually..."

Shen Qing drew a sharp breath.

During Combat Sparring early in training, Jiang Yue had shown an almost freakish ability to take a beating and keep going. But his punching power had definitely been low back then. His foundation had been poor!

Jiang Yue had improved at a startling pace over the past dozen days, steadily climbing the rankings.

But facing Scar, who could strike with nearly eight hundred kilograms of force and wore a thick layer of muscle like armor, was still like throwing an egg against a rock!

Was it because I casually explained a few key points of Inch Power to him just now?

Shen Qing's heart jolted. The idea struck him as absurd.

Ancient Martial Arts' Inch Power was notoriously difficult to grasp. Its power came from subtle adjustments along the entire Spinal Dragon. How could anyone hear the theory and put it into practice within minutes?!

Jiang Yue was usually withdrawn and cold, and the two of them were hardly friends. Shen Qing could not believe he was the kind of hotheaded fool who would throw his life away for so-called "collective honor."

So why had he taken this challenge?!

The other recruits below did not care why.

"Jiang! Kick his ass!!"

Xu Bo's face flushed red with excitement as he screamed himself hoarse.

At Xu Bo's shout, sharp-eyed recruits soon recognized Jiang Yue.

"It's Jiang Yue! The guy who pushed through 3.5 times normal gravity in the Gravity Exam and broke into the top thousand!"

"I remember him! After the exam, he ate an entire Exotic Beast Meat Mountain by himself in the Cafeteria! Even the Supervision Team showed up!"

At this humiliating moment, with the veterans trampling them at will, Jiang Yue's decision to step forward was a spark that instantly lit the powder keg in every recruit's chest!

As fellow recruits, they were naturally on his side.

It was not just shared pride. If Jiang Yue could win this supposedly unwinnable match, he would deliver a resounding slap to every veteran's face and reclaim the recruits' lost dignity!

Their own interests were at stake, too!

If they knocked the veterans down a peg today, the veterans would be far more restrained when setting odds in the Gambling Arena. They would not dare fleece the recruits so brazenly again!

"Recruits will win!"

"Smash that big bastard! Take their opening stake!"

The recruits went wild, shouting themselves hoarse as they cheered Jiang Yue on.

Their voices rose like a tidal wave, drowning out the filthy insults and vicious curses from the Veteran Faction.

On the platform, Scar frowned at the deafening cheers below.

He looked down at the young man before him, who was less than half his size and whose muscles had not even fully swelled with exertion. Grinning cruelly, Scar clenched his massive fists until his knuckles cracked.

"What? Is everyone in your Recruit Camp dead?"

His eyes blazed with savage provocation and contempt. He stepped toward Jiang Yue, casting the young man entirely in shadow.

"I smashed that kid to pieces, and now you send up some scrawny brat who hasn't even finished growing to die?"

Faced with Scar's crushing presence, Jiang Yue did not take the bait. His eyes, still as ancient wells, grew so deep they were unsettling.

He looked at Scar without a trace of the wariness one might show a formidable opponent.

Meanwhile, up in the second-floor stands,

Butcher, the underground boss who had just settled the commotion and returned to his seat in the shadows, found his attention drawn to the strange standoff below.

He toyed with an Exotic Beast skull, narrowed his piercing eyes, and swept a cold gaze across Jiang Yue's face.

As the man who controlled this Grey Zone, he knew a great deal about the people who passed through it. Jiang Yue's background came to him at once.

"Oh? So that's who it is."

An intrigued smile touched Butcher's lips. "The recruit who wagered on the Thousand-Jin Stake over in the Veteran Barracks Area a few nights ago and kept at it until Old Cripple's Mechanical Prosthetic gave out."

As a true Martial Artist, Butcher saw far more than the underlings below, who judged a fighter by height and muscle.

He sensed that something was off.

Jiang Yue appeared to stand loosely on the platform, open to attack from every angle. Yet to Butcher's senses, a ferocious beast seemed to lie dormant inside him!

"Interesting..."

Butcher stopped turning the skull in his hands. Rare surprise flashed in his eyes as he murmured, "It's only been a few days, yet his Blood Energy has surged—and the density of his body... How has he refined it to this degree?"

"The Primary Genetic Serum issued by the Military couldn't have given him a foundation like this..."

A dangerous gleam entered Butcher's eyes. Then he signaled to the veteran Referee on the ground floor, who stood at a loss.

"Time for the show. Let's see whether this kid has been hiding his strength or just came up here to make a spectacle of himself."

With Butcher's permission, the veteran Referee had no choice but to raise his right hand. He was furious that Jiang Yue's arrival had spoiled their chance to split the winnings.

As the Referee's arm rose, the red countdown suspended overhead resumed from "00:03" and reached zero!

On the platform,

Jiang Yue's chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly. He had pushed Smooth Breath to its limit.

In his mind, he frantically reworked the way he generated power, fitting it to the key principle of Inch Power that Shen Qing had taught him: "Power comes not from the arms, but from the spine and hips."

A shrill whistle cut through the air like a blade tearing open the night and rang in everyone's ears.

"Fifth-Round Decider!" The Referee slashed his arm down.

"Begin!"