Reborn as the Last van Ambrose

The arena erupted in cheers as the most recent match of the day concluded with a decisive victory. A stocky fighter from the western provinces had defeated his opponent through sheer brute strength, battering through his opponents defensive, managing to break their arm.

"Next match," the announcer’s voice boomed across the coliseum. "Lord Grim Van Ambrose versus heir Feng Lin!"

Grim rose from his meditation, fighting the heaviness that still permeated in his limbs. He had managed to isolate some of the Ghost Veil’s effects, concentrating the poison in his non-dominant side to preserve his sword arm’s functionality. It was an imperfect solution. His balance would be compromised, his reaction time slower than normal, but it was the best he could manage on short notice.

[Your opponent approaches,] the voice warned.

Across the preparation area, a tall, lean man in crimson robes embroidered with gold thread stepped forward. Heir Feng Lin’s weapon of choice was a curved dao sword with a deep red tassel hanging from its pommel. A blade specifically designed for fire-attribute techniques.

Their eyes met across the chamber. Feng offered a formal bow, exactly deep enough to acknowledge Grim’s status without suggesting any inferiority. Grim responded with the barest tilt of his head, noticing how Feng’s eyes narrowed slightly at the deliberate slight.

Good. Let him begin the match irritated. Grim thought.

As they walked side by side toward the arena entrance, Feng spoke without turning his head. "I look forward to testing my skills against the legendary Ambrose house."

"Don’t worry," Grim replied coldly. "It will be educational, if brief."

Feng’s face remained impassive, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. "Arrogance is a poor substitute for skill, Lord Ambrose."

"So is poison," Grim said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

That earned him a quick, startled glance from Feng, but before the man could respond, they split into different directions. They emerged into the blinding sunlight of the arena. The crowd’s roar intensified, particularly from the noble sections where substantial sums had likely been wagered on the outcome.

Grim scanned the audience as he took his position at one end of the fighting area. In the royal box, the Empress sat with her usual entourage, her expression unreadable. Nearby, in the section reserved for the highest-ranking nobles, Julius Luminaris watched him, his son Max and his daughter Mira seated beside him.

[Focus,] the voice cautioned. [The poison is affecting your concentration.]

Grim forced his attention back to his opponent. Lord Feng had taken up position at the opposite end of the arena, his crimson robes fluttering in the light breeze. He drew his dao in a single, fluid motion, the blade catching the sunlight with an unnatural intensity that suggested fire-infused metal.

The chief official stepped forward. "The match will conclude when one participant yields, is rendered unable to continue, falls out of the ring or..."

He paused, glancing at Grim with poorly concealed apprehension.

"...or dies," he finished. "Begin!"

"Scorching Heaven: Lingering Flame." Fend yelled as he charged foward at Grim very quickly. His dao traced a blazing arc through the air, fire trailing behind the blade like a comet’s tail. Sorching Heaven Sword Dao. It was an aggressive, direct, designed to overwhelm opponents with pure offensive power.

Under normal circumstances, Grim would have countered using Feng’s momentum against him. But the Ghost Veil had slowed his reflexes just enough to make such timing-critical techniques risky.

Instead, he opted for a basic defensive maneuver, bringing Echo up to parry the flaming strike. The swords met with a thunderous clash and a spray of sparks. Feng’s fire surged down the blade toward Grim’s hands, a secondary attack meant to force him to disengage.

Grim channeled a thin barrier of aurora energy to shield his grip, but the effort cost him more mana than it should have. The poison was disrupting his energy efficiency as well as his physical movements.

[Careful,] the voice warned. [Your mana utilization is approximately forty percent higher than normal. At this rate, you’ll exhaust yourself before the match concludes.]

Feng pressed his advantage, launching into a complex series of attacks that forced Grim to retreat across the arena floor. Each strike came faster than the last, building momentum like a gathering storm. Fire trailed from the dao in intricate patterns, forming glyphs in the air that intensified the heat of each subsequent blow.

Now, he was simply trying to survive it.

A particularly vicious strike slipped past Grim’s guard, scoring a shallow cut across his shoulder. The wound itself was minor, but the fire-infused blade left a burning sensation that spread outward from the injury, further taxing his already strained system.

Feng stepped back, a confident smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Perhaps the stories of your prowess were exaggerated."

The crowd murmured, surprised to see the fearsome Ambrose heir on the defensive. In the noble section, Lord Draykar leaned forward eagerly, clearly pleased with the direction of the match. And there, Julius raised his wine glass in a mocking toast, his smirk visible even from a distance.

Rage bloomed in Grim’s chest, hot and clarifying, burning through some of the poison’s fog. These people had conspired against him,they had tried to rig the match through underhanded means rather than facing him honorably. They were celebrating prematurely, confident in their scheme’s success.

"Did they pay you well? House Luminaris? House Draykar? Or was it simply the honor of serving your betters that appealed to you?"

Feng’s composure cracked, his face flushing with anger. "Enough talk!"

He launched another offensive, but this time his movements had lost some of their precision. Grim’s accusations had rattled him, disrupting his mental focus.

It was the opening Grim needed.

Despite the poison still flowing through his system, Grim found new reserves of energy fueled by his cold rage. He stopped retreating, planting his feet firmly and meeting Feng’s charge head-on.

Feng stumbled slightly, thrown off balance by the unexpected shift from defense to offense.

Grim pressed forward, each strike more powerful than the last. Aurora energy began to flicker along Echo’s edge, responding to his heightened emotional state. It wasn’t the full manifestation of the Aurora Flash Sword Dao, but it was enough to make his attacks dangerous and unpredictable. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

"Scorching Heaven: Tenpest Wall," he yelled out. Barriers of flame between arose between himself and Grim’s assault. It was a clever tactical shift, using the fire’s intensity to maintain distance while he regrouped.

But Grim had no intention of allowing him to recover.

With a wordless snarl, Grim channeled mana into his legs and launched himself through the fire barrier. Pain seared across his skin as the flames scorched his robes and flesh, but he pushed through, appearing before Feng.

The blow caught Feng across the chest, cutting through his crimson robes and drawing a line of blood from shoulder to sternum. The wound wasn’t deep. Nowhere near as devastating as what Grim had done to Jin Tao, but the shock of it sent Feng staggering backward.

"How?" Feng gasped, genuine confusion in his eyes. "The Ghost Veil should have....."

"Should have weakened me more?" Grim finished for him, advancing steadily as Feng retreated. "It did. I’m fighting at perhaps sixty percent of my normal power. And yet here we are. You are bleeding. Worse than i am."

The crowd had gone quiet, sensing the shift in the match’s dynamics. What had begun as a one-sided contest in Feng’s favor had transformed into something else entirely. A predator toying with increasingly desperate prey.

Feng launched a desperate counterattack, channeling enough fire mana into his dao blade to make it glow white-hot. "Sorching Heaven: White Hot," he called out. The heat was intense enough to distort the air around them, creating a wavering effect that made precise movements difficult to track.

It was an all-or-nothing gambit, sacrificing technique for raw destructive power.

Echo met the superheated dao in a clash that sent shock waves across the arena. For a moment, the blades locked together, steam began to appear from the blades. "Celestial Mist: Shui Ren," Grim said as he cracked a smile. Then, with a sound like shattering glass, Feng’s dao cracked near the hilt.

The blade’s integrity, compromised by the extreme heat it had been channeling, finally gave way under the pressure of Grim’s counter. The weapon broke apart, leaving Feng holding only the hilt and a jagged stub of metal.

Feng stared at the ruined weapon in disbelief, then up at Grim. There was fear in his eyes now, the realization that he had failed what was supposed to be an easy task.

Feng dropped to one knee, head bowed. "I....."

Before Feng could finish his sentence Grims blade was inside of Feng’s mouth.

The arena went silent. Even the most bloodthirsty spectators held their breath, watching as Echo’s edge rested against the inside of Feng’s cheek, a trickle of blood running down the steel.

"The nobles who sent you," Grim said, his voice carrying in the unnatural quiet, "they thought Ghost Veil would make this easy for you."

Feng’s eyes bulged with terror, unable to speak or move with the blade inside his mouth.

"I could kill you right now," Grim continued. "But that would be too quick."

With a deliberate motion, Grim drew Echo back slightly, then flicked the blade upward, slicing through Feng’s tongue and splitting his upper lip in two.

The man screamed, blood pouring from his mouth as he collapsed to the arena floor, clutching his face in agony.

"Poisoners don’t deserve a voice in my presence," Grim announced, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Let this be a lesson to anyone else who thinks to move against House Ambrose through such dishonorable means."

The crowd erupted, a mixture of cheers and shocked exclamations...

His gaze locked with Julius Luminaris, who had risen partially from his seat, his earlier smug expression was gone.

Grim pointed Echo directly at Julius, the gesture unmistakable in its intent. It was a clear challenge, a public declaration that he knew who was behind the attempt to sabotage him.

Then, deliberately maintaining eye contact with Julius, Grim drew his free hand across Echo’s blade, coating his fingers with the lingering drops of Feng’s blood. He marked his own face with three vertical lines. Not many knew what this meant besides noble houses that had delt with the Ambrose Clan before their fall from grace. This was a blood debt. A warning to let someone know their days were numbered.

As Grim finally turned to leave the arena, he caught sight of Lady Mei Zhou sitting among the lesser nobility. Unlike those around her, she wasn’t cheering or exclaiming over the match’s outcome. She simply watched him. The faintest of smiles playing at the corners of her mouth.