Anes? Anesthetic!

Gladiator slave... Zhou Yun clenched his teeth. His head spun, and the scene before him spread like ink, writhing like a vortex.

He could barely make out that the gladiator's body stood at the bottom of a sand-covered arena. High brick walls surrounded it, and beyond those walls rose tier upon tier of seats, spiraling like a vortex, like a passage to a world different from this one.

Zhou Yun could hear the bloodthirsty cheers of the audience, but he could not make out their faces. Some force field, hazy as dusk, shrouded the stands and blurred their voices. When they roared in excitement, they resembled clusters of twisted phantoms.

Blood... vortex... blood... Everything before Zhou Yun remained disordered. Chaos... the Veil...

He heard the roar of a bloodthirsty beast...

"Wake up, kid!" A furious shout rang out in front of Zhou Yun.

An older man with a thick, grizzled beard and scars covering both his face and body stood before Zhou Yun. He wore a half-enclosing brass helmet and simple leather armor over his upper body, holding a small round shield in one hand and a longsword in the other.

A monster with a dog's head, blazing eyes, sharp horns, and fur that gleamed with a metallic sheen charged at the old man. Zhou Yun had almost thought it was a demon... No, it was not a demon. It was a beastman.

The beastman swung its crude weapon at the old man. With superb skill, the old man lowered his body and deflected the blow with his buckler, leaving a bleeding gash across the beastman's chest with his longsword.

But there was more than one beastman present. Another, covered in even more wounds, pounced on the old man from the side—Zhou Yun quickly realized that this was a two-man duel, one man against one beastman.

The more heavily wounded one was the old man's opponent, while the nearly uninjured one was Zhou Yun's. The old man was helping him fight his enemy...

The dizziness gradually faded. This body was adapting to the impact brought by Warp psychic energy.

The Veil here was so thin that Zhou Yun felt as if he were standing upon an altar where a sacrifice was underway. This body originally possessed no psychic talent, so it would not have been troubled by it. But after Zhou Yun entered this body, the psychic talents of a Diviner, a Scholar, and an archaeologist had all stacked upon the gladiator's body. The intense psychic impact made it difficult for his nerves to adapt.

Simply put, the psychic energy here was too pure. He was completely wasted.

But now, Zhou Yun had recovered.

The Veil here was even thinner than Prospero's. Even without crossing into another Realm, this body could use psychic energy with ease...

Brightwing School. Warp Speed.

Extraordinary power from the Warp flooded Zhou Yun's cells, and his body instantly became an afterimage, flashing through the flying sand.

When his figure solidified again, he was already holding the weapon the gladiator had just dropped. Blood flowed along its not particularly sharp blade.

The more heavily wounded beastman clutched its throat and wailed as it fell.

A wound nearly severing its neck had appeared across its throat—Zhou Yun had coated the sword with the Falcon School's Psychic Blade.

For a moment, the air fell deathly silent, before cheers erupted from the stands.

"Citizens of Desia! What a shocking sight! Copper-Eyed Hornbeast from the southern jungles has actually died at the hands of a rookie gladiator!"

A silver spherical drone with an eye filmed Zhou Yun—Worm's Eye, as the gladiator's memories called it—and emitted a piercing voice:

"Just moments ago, we thought he had been beaten to death! Those of you who bet on Zhou Yun, give our warrior a cheer!"

Bloodthirsty cheers rose from the arena.

Elsewhere, the old man with the round shield and longsword also drove his blade into the beastman's chest. He kicked hard at its abdomen, and its body slid off his sword before crashing heavily to the ground.

The old man panted lightly and nodded to Zhou Yun.

Zhou Yun returned the nod while observing his surroundings... Around a dozen silver, eye-like spherical drones floated in the air.

"It seems today's battle has already been decided! The victors are Zhou Yun from the mountains and Old Bear Onomammus from Urcham!"

Worm's Eye was still shrieking, and its voice awakened fragments of the gladiator's memories...

The gladiator's memories were vague. He seemed to have once lived in a mountain tribe before being captured and brought here as a gladiator. That had been his first battle, and the beastman had easily taken his life—

The crackle of electricity sounded, and a bolt shot from Worm's Eye toward Zhou Yun.

But Zhou Yun moved a step ahead of it. The lightning grazed past him and struck the sand.

The old man behind Zhou Yun was hit by the current instead. He let out a muffled groan, collapsed, and lost consciousness.

Zhou Yun raised his head slightly and looked at Worm's Eye in the air. Although this body had not yet fully adapted to the Warp's torrent, his precognitive talent had already begun to function. He could see Worm's Eye's movements a step ahead of time.

His figure flickered, and he was already beside the old man. He intended to take him and escape this arena first.

One of the Falcon School's lesser psychic abilities was called "Floating." It allowed a person to hover briefly. With the Warp Veil so thin here, perhaps he could use it...

The Veil was thickening?!

Some kind of anti-Warp technology?

No, it was more like... the Veil's natural response after a ritual ended...

A sharp whistling sound cut through the air.

Zhou Yun spun around and caught the object flying at him in his mouth.

That was... a syringe?

It seemed to contain some faintly shimmering liquid...

Anesthetic?

As Zhou Yun considered it, another whistling sound rang out.

Zhou Yun whirled around and reached out, catching another syringe aimed at him.

No, it was not a syringe. It had no needle—

Bang!!

The syringe suddenly shattered, and a mist smelling faintly of medicine sprayed across Zhou Yun's face. His body immediately began to feel heavy.

It really was an anesthetic!

Zhou Yun swiftly activated the Brightwing School psychic technique, Cellular Control, and began controlling the cells in his body to metabolize the anesthetic that had entered him.

He sneered. "Anesthetic? You want to knock me out? Do you think this is—"

...Why can't I metabolize this anesthetic?

Zhou Yun froze for a moment. He realized that he seemed to have seen this scene in an earlier prophecy...

Wait, could this place be... oh, fuck...

Zhou Yun opened his mouth slightly and spoke the name of this damned place.

"This is... Nuceria... anes... thet..."

He fell onto the sand with a bang.