First Battle, Slaughter Arena

The contestants around him were all watching.

Some whispered among themselves, some wore looks of disdain, and some eyed him with sinister gazes.

But not a single person approached him.

It wasn't that they didn't want to. It was that the aura radiating from the child made people instinctively want to keep their distance.

Half an hour passed in the blink of an eye.

"Next match! Contestants, enter the arena!"

The referee's voice came from the center of the arena, hoarse and powerful.

The chains on the iron gate clattered as the heavy doors were slowly pulled open.

Luo Yun opened his eyes, drew the Moon Eclipse Sword, and walked toward the arena.

The moment his figure appeared at the entrance, the entire grandstand fell silent.

It wasn't the kind of silence that came from being awestruck. It was the kind that said, "Am I seeing this right?"

A child.

A child who looked only six or seven years old, dressed in a black robe and carrying a sword longer than his arm, walked expressionlessly into the Slaughter Arena.

The grandstand fell dead silent for a moment, then erupted in laughter like a crashing tidal wave.

"Ha ha ha! Whose kid is this? Did he wander through the wrong door?"

"Since when did Slaughter City open a nursery?"

"Hey, little brother, are you lost? Your mom's over there!"

"Go on, get back home! This isn't a place for you!"

The laughter surged louder and louder. Some people laughed so hard they slapped their thighs; others laughed so hard they slid off their seats; still others laughed until tears streamed from their eyes.

In Slaughter City, laughter was a luxury, but this joke was funny enough.

Luo Yun ignored the laughter, walked to the center of the arena, and stopped.

Nine people stood opposite him.

Nine people, nine weapons, nine pairs of eyes.

Their expressions as they looked at Luo Yun varied. Some frowned, some sneered, some were expressionless, and some had shifting gazes.

But they all had one thing in common: none of them took the child before them seriously.

A bald, burly man in leather armor spoke first, his voice loud enough for the whole arena to hear. "I've been fighting in Slaughter City for five years, and this is the first time I've run into such a good deal. A free head?"

A thin, lanky man beside him chimed in, his voice shrill. "Don't get too excited. What if this kid has some special ability?"

"Special ability?" The bald man scoffed and raised the iron hammer in one hand. Its head was bigger than his own. "Could his ability be bigger than my hammer?"

Another burst of laughter rose from the grandstand.

Luo Yun stood quietly, the Moon Eclipse Sword hanging at his side, its tip resting on the ground.

He was waiting.

Waiting for the referee to say start.

"This match is a ten-person free-for-all. Begin!"

The moment the referee's voice fell—

Luo Yun moved.

He didn't run or charge. He flashed.

His body shot forward as if flung from a catapult, leaving an afterimage behind. The purple-black light of the Moon Eclipse Sword traced an arc through the dark-red glow.

The first strike: the bald man's iron hammer was still suspended in midair when a line of blood appeared across his neck.

The second strike: before the lanky man's scream could escape, the Moon Eclipse Sword had already pierced his throat.

The third strike, the fourth strike, the fifth...

Swordlight flickered across the arena. Each flash came with a dull thud, a body falling, and a pool of blood.

Luo Yun wove between the nine men, fast as a bolt of black lightning. He moved so quickly that the people in the stands couldn't make out his actions. All they could see was purple-black swordlight flashing through the dark-red glow, followed by one contestant after another collapsing.

Two breaths.

Two breaths later, Luo Yun stopped at the other end of the arena, the Moon Eclipse Sword hanging at his side. Blood dripped from its tip, drop by drop, onto the dark-red stone slabs.

Behind him, nine corpses lay in pools of blood, each sprawled in a different position. Some were on their backs, some facedown, some curled up, and some piled on top of one another.

Blood spread out from beneath them, merging into a vast, dark-red lake across the stone floor, its surface glistening with a sticky sheen.

The entire arena fell silent.

Completely silent.

There was no laughter, no cheering, no shouting.

Everyone stood with their mouths open and eyes wide, frozen in the same poses they'd held while laughing.

The fat man who'd laughed the loudest still had his mouth hanging open, but his laughter had caught in his throat, reduced to a muffled gurgle.

One by one, the people in the stands came back to their senses, but no one spoke.

They looked at the nine corpses, then at the six-year-old child. Their lips trembled, their eyes filled with terror.

Two breaths.

Nine people.

This was the fastest victory in the history of the Slaughter Arena.

Not "one of the fastest"—the fastest.

It was a record that probably wouldn't be broken even a hundred years from now.

And besides—

He was only six years old!!!

Luo Yun turned and looked toward the referee at the edge of the arena.

The referee was still frozen in the pose he'd struck when announcing the start, one hand raised in midair, mouth agape, eyes wide as saucers.

"Can we end this now?" Luo Yun's voice wasn't loud, but every word rang clear in the deathly silent arena.

The referee's throat bobbed as he struggled to swallow.

"This... this match... the winner—" His voice trembled. He drew a deep breath and shouted the name with all his strength. "Frost—Cloud—King!"

After shouting, even he froze for a moment.

Frost Cloud King.

From this day forward, that name would spread throughout Slaughter City.

Luo Yun sheathed the Moon Eclipse Sword, turned, and walked out of the arena.

The people in the stands watched him leave. No one spoke, no one moved, and no one even dared to breathe loudly.

They watched the small black figure pass through the arena gates and disappear from sight.

The same thought rose in everyone's heart at once.

That child wasn't human.

He was the God of Slaughter.

Luo Yun walked out of the arena and stood in the street outside, taking a deep breath.

He looked over his surroundings.

His gaze swept across both sides of the street before settling on a respectable-looking building not far away.

It was a three-story stone building. Its outer walls were painted dark red, and two red lanterns hung at the entrance, bearing the words "Gentle Haven."

Two provocatively dressed women stood at the entrance, heavily made up and wearing stiff smiles. Whenever they saw a man pass by, they beckoned to him.

Luo Yun frowned and looked away.

He wanted somewhere quiet to stay.

Not a place where he could hear someone screaming next door every day.

He kept walking. At the end of the street, he spotted a detached villa.

The villa wasn't large; it had two stories and a small courtyard enclosed by walls of black stone, each more than a man's height.

The gate was made of iron, decorated with some carvings. It looked rather elegant.

The villa stood some distance from the street, with no other buildings nearby. It was so quiet that it hardly seemed to belong in Slaughter City.