The moment Callum came down, the front line of skeletal beasts shattered beneath him. His claws tore into a reanimated bear's ribcage mid-roar, splitting it in half with a crunch of bone and a wet crack of marrow. Its massive frame collapsed like a felled tree, ribs splintering outward from the force. One of the mounted skeletons—a fused tangle of rider and crumbling warhorse—lunged at him with a jagged lance. Callum let it strike, the lance driving into his side with a sickening thunk, but he didn't flinch. He grabbed the shaft, ripped it free, then hauled both mount and rider into the air in a single swing. With a grunt, he hurled the pair into a cluster of undead behind them. The impact scattered bones like shrapnel—legs, ribs, skulls spinning through the air as the tangle of bodies exploded on contact.
A skeletal wolf launched at his back. He twisted without looking, catching it mid-leap. One slash ripped its muzzle clean off, and the rest of its skull followed with a bone-splitting crack. Another skeleton came at him from the left, this one humanoid and wielding a rusted halberd. It swung once, aiming for his neck. Callum caught the shaft beneath his arm, wrenched it free, and before the skeleton could react, his claws pierced through its spine. Vertebrae burst apart with a snapping pop, and the skeleton folded in on itself like broken scaffolding.
"This is a complete undead massacre!" Quincy's voice rang out over the roar of the crowd. "Callum Duncan The Wolf is tearing through them like they're nothing but twigs!"
And he was.
Every strike shredded the undead like paper soaked in oil. Dozens had risen. It didn't matter. They crumbled. His claws flashed, his eyes burned, and his body never slowed—not even when bone shards scraped his flesh or weapons scored his limbs. Flesh torn from him simply grew back. Wounds closed before blood could pool. He was fire let loose in a dry forest.
The crowd could barely track him anymore. Each motion was a blur—limbs flying, skulls bursting, torsos snapped in half. Gasps and murmurs echoed through the stands. Some stared in horrified awe. Others rose to their feet, shouting in disbelief, caught between terror and admiration.
In the fighters' waiting room, no one said a word for a long time. Just silent, stunned stares.
"…I think I'd rather fight two Hittags than that," Calvinel muttered at last.
"Rude," Hittag grumbled with a loud exhale, arms crossed. Then added, "But understandable."
In the stands, Lia leaned forward, eyes tracking another skeleton as it sailed across the arena. "It's like he's just doing effortless yard work."
Dirk didn't answer right away, hands still clenched on his knees. "Yeah… I see that."
In a VIP stand, Samwell Mathers let out a slow exhale, brow deeply furrowed. "Barbaric—but aggressively effective."
Matthew, beside him, said nothing. Hands clasped. Eyes sharp. Mouth drawn into a tight line.
In another VIP stand, Zara stared ahead, voice low. "The Necromancer was doing so well in the beginning… but I doubt he's winning this match anymore."
Prince Mark gave a slow, thoughtful hum. "Yes. I doubt he'll be able to fight back. Let alone win."
Back in the arena, Callum didn't stop. His claws dripped bone dust, his fur streaked with black ash and flakes of marrow. He swatted aside a skeletal stag like it weighed nothing, its limbs snapping as it cartwheeled away, and charged through the last knot of beasts still clawing at him.
Vilak had retreated as far as the dead forest would allow, his back nearly pressed against the arena wall. His breaths were shallow, ragged. His staff trembled in both hands. The black gemstone atop it, once pulsing with power, now flickered unsteadily—weakening.
And Callum kept coming. A juggernaut of fur and rage, closing the distance with a savage, unstoppable gait.
"Fist of the Dark Lord!" Vilak shouted, his voice trembling with desperation as he slammed the base of his staff into the earth. The gemstone atop it flared violently—black light pulsing out in jagged bursts—before the sky above the arena ripped open.
Across the coliseum—in the stands and the fighters' waiting room alike—several figures went still at once. Amara, Zee, Larkin, Tianteng, Sarandel, X, Wolf, Xain and Ercale all of them seemingly felt it before, one of them used it.
*Astral Magic!?* Ercale's voice surged in Xain's mind, sharp with recognition and disbelief.
Above Callum, the tear in space twisted wider with a shriek of warped reality. From within that rent in the sky, a massive arm emerged—composed entirely of writhing shadow, its surface threaded with faint green mist that hissed like venom. It was enormous, its presence wrong in every sense of the word, as though it shouldn't exist in this world.
Then the fist came down.
It struck Callum with crushing force, large enough to engulf his entire frame. The impact detonated the ground beneath him in a shockwave of dust, stone, and shredded earth, sending debris flying in every direction. The arm lingered for only a moment—then retreated back through the rift like a phantom being reeled home, and the tear closed behind it without a trace, as if it had never been there.
The general crowd still buzzed in shocked murmurs, unsure if what they'd seen was real—but everyone else had gone completely still. The fighters. The VIPs. The magic users. Every single one of them stared, frozen in the aftermath, watching the dust settle with wide eyes.
Callum lay at the center of a shallow crater. His flesh looked scorched in places, but more disturbingly—parts of it were visibly rotting. Strips of muscle decayed, bone exposed. The attack hadn't just struck him—it had corrupted him. Even some of his ribs had blackened from the inside.
And then, before anyone could say a word—
He moved.
With a guttural snarl, The Wolf rose. Fast. Violent. Like something being yanked back to life. His limbs jerked up, his eyes burning again, and his regeneration—though slower now—was still working. Bone knit. Muscle reformed. His hands clenched into fists. Vilak's expression twisted into disbelief.
"Foot of the Dark—!" Vilak began, but he didn't even get to finish the name of his next attack.
Callum was already there.
He slammed into Vilak like a battering ram, his fist driving into the necromancer's stomach with enough force to lift him completely off the ground. Vilak's eyes bulged, all air knocked from his lungs in a single, pathetic gasp—before he hit the dirt, unconscious before he landed.
Callum staggered, his breathing ragged. His skin still sizzled with rot that hadn't fully healed. But even so, his form began to shrink, his fur receding, muscles contracting, bones shifting back into place. When it was over, Callum stood once again in his human form, hunched and exhausted.
He groaned, not in triumph or pain—but like someone who'd just been forced to wake up too early.
"End it already…" he whined. There was no pride in his voice, no edge. Just frustration—like a tired man pleading for a bad dream to be over.
Quincy, still wide-eyed, blinked hard and jolted into action.
"Uh—um—Th-the winner is… Callum Duncan! The Wolf!" she called out, voice cracking slightly.
The crowd, unaware of the deeper implications of what they'd just seen, exploded into wild cheers.