Martial Arts Worlds

"Argh! Haa! Ngh!"

Kiernan inched his feet closer to the top, but his body was shaking, and the blood dripped off his body like a slow, steady rain.

His vision started to seem hazy, and he could feel his strength fading.

'Is this my limit? Please, since when did I become this pathetic?'

'Ha! Ha! Ha!'

He suddenly started to hear laughter.

When he looked around, he couldn't tell where the laughter was coming from. He was the only one here.

'How pathetic of you, Kiernan!'

In the air, three faces appeared. They were obscure and just circled around Kiernan like vultures. They smiled and laughed, clearly enjoying Kiernan's pain.

"Who?" Kiernan frowned.

'Already forgotten us, you bastard?' The three faces said. 'You killed us, remember?'

"I've killed many people." Kiernan said. "You must be more specific than that!"

'We are the ones you betrayed.'

"…" Kiernan frowned. "Michael, Samuel, and Isaac."

'Bingo! You're catching on!'

"Haha!" Kiernan laughed and pushed himself up the hill. "I betrayed you? Only one of us was going to survive—that's the point of the Devil Ritual!"

'Four of us were like brothers. We could've fought the creators of Devil Ritual and escaped, but you decided to betray us and then killed us!'

"I only made the first move. I saw the look in your guys eyes. All of you planned to betray each other for the reward—after all, you all came willingly to the Devil Ritual to become the strongest.

"I didn't believe in your talks about friendship and working together—I knew how that would've ended if I decided to help you guys!"

'Your thirst for power corrupted you. All you wanted was to become the strongest. It didn't matter how many you betrayed, killed, and sacrificed along the way!

'You're a horrible person, Kiernan, and there will come a time when you will be punished. You already escaped death once. You think you deserve reincarnation?

'You should be burning in the flames of hell instead!'

"Fuck off!" Kiernan shouted. "You three are dead, and I am busy!"

The three faces laughed mockingly and then disappeared into thin air, but their laughter still lingered like a haunting memory.

Kiernan looked pissed, and then took one more step, and without realizing it, he had already reached the top of the hill!

"Oh?"

The chains around his arms loosened and dropped to the ground with a loud clang.

The red and bloody markings on his arms looked like they would leave a permanent mark. Those chains almost reached his bones.

"Whew!"

Kiernan combed his hair back with his hand, exhaling deeply, and then planned to start running again, but that thought only lasted a second.

He stopped, blinking blankly as he looked at the scene in front of him. This was not what he expected.

In front of him, instead of having more of the road, there was water. He was standing on the edge of a small lake of some sort.

He had left behind the cave hallways and entered some kind of cavern—there were some blue crystals in the ceiling, brightening the place, and the small lake seemed deep.

"I need to swim, huh."

He looked ahead to the other side of the lake and saw more of the road leading straight to a bright exit of the cave—he was really close to the end of the time trial!

'Is this the last challenge?'

Kiernan's eyes brightened, and he quickly jumped into the water. Splash. He quickly appeared from underwater, gasping for breath, and then kicked his legs against the water.

He wasn't the fastest swimmer, but he began to make his way through the lake at decent speed.

With the blue crystals casting light over the water surface, it made him seem like he was swimming through a magical world.

It was very beautiful.

Kiernan saw that the end of the lake wasn't too far away, but then, he felt something strange around his leg, and he suddenly came to an instant stop.

He tried to swim ahead, but couldn't for some reason.

'Did something just grab my leg?'

He had that thought for exactly one second, but then he was dragged underwater by a powerful force.

As he looked down, he saw that there was a tentacle wrapped around his leg, and when he looked even further down, there was some kind of creepy octopus at the bottom of the lake!

The octopus was very big and had glowing eyes that seemed to pierce through the darkness.

'What the hell? Of course this test couldn't be simple, shit!'

Kiernan tried to rip the octopus' tentacle, but it was as strong as the steel chain from before.

It was starting to get really hard for him to breathe!

'Come on!'

Kiernan raised his fist and punched at the tentacle, but the octopus didn't even flinch. It kept dragging him down like a delicious meal.

'About to die?' Another voice entered his mind. 'You are the champion of the Devil Ritual, yet you're about to die to an overgrown octopus, haha!'

'The dead sure like to bitch and moan!' Kiernan gritted his teeth and raised his fist high. 'Just keep watching!'

The tentacle brought him all the way to the octopus—the octopus stared down on him with its eternally creepy gaze.

'Iron Smash!'

Kiernan punched through the water and squarely hit the octopus in the eye.

The octopus flinched, and the tentacle recoiled in pain, accidentally letting go of Kiernan.

Kiernan immediately started swimming back up to the surface, but the angered octopus swam after him and moved its tentacles over to him.

'Iron Smash!'

Kiernan punched the tentacles away and then saw that the octopus wasn't going to back off easily.

'Fuck it. Broken arm, fine!'

His right arm started twisting and turning like a drill, and then, he punched through the water with the force of a jackhammer and punched the octopus straight in the face.

'Hyperion's Smash!'

The powerful punch sent the octopus back down to the depths of the lake.

Kiernan panicked, quickly kicked his legs against the water, and then returned back to the surface. He immediately took a greedy breath of air.

If he stayed in the water much longer, he would've passed out!

He then felt a crazy amount of pain, and when he turned to look at his right arm, it was completely broken—purple in color, twisted, and jagged.

Kiernan pushed through the pain, swam to the end of the lake, and climbed up. There was only ten meters between him and the exit of the cave.

'Finally…'

However, then a strange sound came.

BANG!

"?!"