Igniting malice

Amid the rousing music and the crowd's roaring cheers, Immovable and Razor began their fight.

The rules here were very simple: no weapons or other outside items were allowed. Beyond that, anything went.

The fight consisted of three two-minute rounds. If neither fighter became completely unable to fight, the winner would be decided by the round scores. Otherwise, the match ended immediately.

Tan Man watched the fight inside the octagon. The two men fought barehanded, every punch landing solidly, while their Cursed Techniques produced deafening clangs like metal colliding.

Even Tan Man found himself caught up in the atmosphere.

Whether the fight inside the octagonal cage was staged or not, the challenger, Razor, looked as though he had absolutely no hope of winning.

At least judging by their performance, both fighters suffered some wear and tear during the fight. Compared with Razor's nails, which were clearly limited in scope, Immovable's skin gave him a much greater advantage.

Immovable kept dodging to prevent Razor from repeatedly attacking the same spot on his body, ensuring that his opponent could not break through his defenses.

Razor had far fewer options. His nails were his only weapons, and as they kept getting chipped away, the long, sharp nails had already been worn down to half their original length.

At this point, Tan Man understood. No wonder the odds on the reigning champion, Immovable, defending his title were only 1.13 to one. Even so, plenty of people bet on him, essentially treating it as a reliable investment.

Most of those willing to bet on the challenger, Razor, merely threw in a little money to try their luck. The rest were newcomers who refused to believe the odds. Someone like Toji could single-handedly drive up the total amount wagered on Razor.

After watching for nearly a minute, Tan Man had completely figured out how Razor and Immovable attacked.

With less than thirty seconds left in the first round, Tan Man began making his move.

Tan Man strolled around the edge of the octagon, gradually moving closer to the cage.

He acted as though he wanted a better look, but in reality, he was looking for a chance to meet Razor's eyes and unleash Evil Eye.

His height as a six-year-old proved useful, allowing him to make eye contact with Razor, who was being held down.

Razor could sense the faint traces of Cursed Energy leaking from Tan Man, a clear sign that the boy had yet to master its control.

Razor was somewhat surprised. Why was a child with Cursed Energy here today?

Tan Man's Golden Eyes flashed in Razor's vision as he spoke.

"Come on, big brother!"

The moment that cheer rang out, Evil Eye took effect.

Immovable, who had been restraining Razor, suddenly opened a gaping maw and sank his teeth into Razor's neck. The blood and agonizing pain left Razor stunned.

"Fuck, have you lost your mind?!"

Razor roared and tried to break free of Immovable's grip.

But the Immovable he saw was not swayed by his words in the slightest. Instead, he bit down even harder, as though he intended to gnaw Razor's head clean off.

The fear of death swiftly forced Razor to act on instinct. He no longer cared about his agreement with the bookmaker or the script that called for him to put up a hard fight before losing.

All Razor knew was that if he did not fight back with his full strength now, this lunatic Immovable might very well kill him here.

He unleashed his Cursed Technique at full power. His almost completely ruined nails regenerated at an astonishing speed, and he coated them with a massive amount of Cursed Energy, making them incomparably sharp.

Razor lashed out in an instant. The sharp nails on his index and middle fingers plunged straight into Immovable's eyes, unleashing screams and blood at the same time.

"Aaaaaah!"

The sudden turn of events stunned everyone present. Apart from the pulsing music, the monkeys' voices abruptly fell silent.

The organizers were the most shocked of all. The predetermined outcome was an open secret, so what was this bloody twist Razor had suddenly added?

"Fuck, what is he doing?!" The bookmaker seated in the VIP section slammed the table in fury and sprang to his feet.

The moment Razor burst Immovable's eyes, the atmosphere throughout the villa changed completely.

After a brief silence, the monkeys erupted into even louder cheers, bordering on madness.

Rather than frightening the watching monkeys or making them worry about losing the money they had bet on Immovable, the bloody fight gave them an unprecedented thrill.

It was as though Tan Man's intervention had ignited all the malice and negative emotions that the economic downturn had left bottled up inside every monkey present.

"Kill him!"

"What are you waiting for?!"

"Keep going! Hurry!"

"Kill, kill, kill!"

The frenzied atmosphere left even the bookmaker a little dazed.

But just like the monkeys driven wild by the bloodshed, none of the bookmakers cared whether the two men inside the octagon lived or died. All they cared about was how much they would lose if they forcibly stopped this farce, and how much they would have to pay out if they settled the bets according to this result.

Even the low-level security staff thought exactly the same way as the bookmaker. Besides their fixed wages, they also received a cut of the proceeds from every betting match.

A life carried immense weight. Immovable's survival determined the fate of over a hundred million in wagers.

Yet a life weighed nothing at all, so little that no one truly cared whether he lived or died. They cared only about the things tied to his fate.

The electric bell signaling the end of the round briefly brought the bookmaker back to his senses. He strode angrily into the octagon with his men, while Tan Man ended Razor's hallucination after confirming that Immovable could no longer fight.

Razor looked at his bloodstained hands, then at Immovable writhing violently on the floor in pain. None of it felt real.

He had no idea that if he had thrust just a little deeper, Immovable would already have been a cold corpse.

The bookmaker, sporting an enormous beer belly, approached Razor and kicked him square in the chest.

Despite being a monkey himself, the bookmaker paid no heed to the fact that Razor was a sorcerer who had just nearly killed Immovable. He jabbed a finger in Razor's face and berated him with the domineering air of a man accustomed to authority.

"Have you fucking lost your mind?! What are you doing?"

"He turned into a devil! He grabbed me and started biting! Look here-if I hadn't fought back, I would've died!" Razor pointed at his neck and explained frantically.

But looking at that uninjured neck, the bookmaker could only feel that Razor was making a joke of the hundreds of millions wagered tonight. An inexplicable rage surged through him.

The bookmaker lunged at Razor and slapped him hard across the face. Then he pulled tight the iron chain around Razor's neck that marked his enslavement and roared in fury.

"You've fucking lost it! Look for yourself-where's the fucking wound?! Trying to wreck my operation, are you? I'll slash your neck myself if that's what you want!"

Elsewhere, however, Toji seemed entirely out of step with the atmosphere.

Holding up his empty briefcase, he impatiently demanded his winnings from the staff member responsible for paying out the bets.

"That guy's blind now. The fight's decided-there's no way he can keep going. Hurry up and hand over my eighty-one million."