The Largest Fish in the Arena

The timer dropped to just one minute, and the lights in the room began to flicker with increasing frequency.

“Hurry up! Time’s almost up—are you done yet?” White Fox urged, her impatience growing obvious.

Though the Man with the Mask had been solving the puzzles at an impressive speed, they seemed endless, each one leading into the next with no finish in sight.

“Just one last step!” For the first time in a while, the Man with the Mask spoke, grabbing a fragment of an oil painting.

He strode quickly to the eyeball painting on the wall and pressed the fragment onto the spot where the eye should be.

In an instant, the massive hanging painting crashed to the floor, revealing an electronic combination lock behind it.

“There’s more?!” The Man with the Mask and White Fox cried out in unison, disbelief in their voices.

The countdown was now at twenty seconds.

To unlock the code, they’d have to find another clue somewhere in the room. But twenty seconds was far too little for such a task.

“Let’s just blow the door open!” White Fox suggested impatiently.

“Didn’t you look at the material this door is made from?” The Man with the Mask snapped back, unable to hold back his annoyance. “It’s military-grade blast-resistant. Even if you blew yourself up on it, it wouldn’t budge!”

“Uh…” White Fox scratched her head, confusion clear on her face.

The Man with the Mask turned away, unwilling to waste more time, and started searching for the code.

A chime sounded as the countdown ended, and a bone-chilling, mad cackle—like that of a Soul Hall elder—echoed from the speakers. The ceiling began to descend at a speed visible to the naked eye.

“Are you done yet?!” White Fox shouted, panic creeping into her voice.

Though she possessed the undying gift of explosive power, being crushed to a pulp by a collapsing ceiling was still a painful prospect.

The Man with the Mask’s hands trembled as he clutched a book, panic flickering in his eyes. Still, he managed to mutter, “Almost!”

The ceiling quickly dropped to the height of a person, shrinking the space to a suffocating narrowness. White Fox braced the ceiling with both hands, trying to hold it back.

But even the strength of a mutant could not resist the cold, mechanical force pressing down.

“Hurry! At this rate, we’ll both die!” White Fox urged frantically.

“I found it! The code is 11037! Damn it, I should’ve thought of it earlier!” The Man with the Mask shouted, scrambling toward the lock and punching in the numbers with shaking hands.

“Password correct!”

With a mechanical chime, the heavy door slid open.

But the ceiling did not stop descending. The room was soon less than a meter high; the desk and vanity inside were crushed to splinters.

The two exchanged glances and crawled desperately for the exit.

“Ah!” In his rush, the Man with the Mask banged his knee against a broken plank. A sharp splinter drove into his calf, sending him sprawling in pain.

Seeing this, White Fox, who had nearly escaped, scrambled back, grabbing his arm and dragging him toward the door.

“Let me go! You don’t need to save me!” the Man with the Mask cried out in terror. As he jerked his head up, his hood was caught by the descending ceiling, exposing a mop of yellow hair.

“What are you talking about?” White Fox retorted, refusing to let go. She hauled him toward the exit. “If you hadn’t opened the door, we’d never have gotten out.”

“I’m just repaying the favor now!”

With a final heave, White Fox shoved the Man with the Mask through the doorway just as the ceiling crashed down.

A sickening crack rang out—bones shattering, explosives bursting. White Fox’s upper body had made it through, but her lower half was pinned inside. Her legs were ground to pulp, and blood with the tang of gunpowder trickled from her gas mask.

The Man with the Mask yanked the splinter from his leg, his gaze cold and devoid of any relief.

“Why did you save me? We’re enemies,” he said, crouching beside her and pulling his hood back over his yellow hair.

“Don’t start with that,” White Fox coughed, spitting more blood. “Let me get out of here first.”

Her arms strained, and soon she dragged her mangled lower body from the crushed room—her legs were little more than bloody pulp.

Fortunately, White Fox was immortal. Her lower body reformed itself, flesh and bone knitting together in seconds, and soon she stood whole again.

“Whew, made it out after all!” She stretched, her body fully restored.

They found themselves in a tunnel—once through, they’d be back on the battlefield above.

“Once we’re out, we’re enemies again,” the Man with the Mask warned.

“I know. I’ll beat you to a pulp when the time comes,” White Fox replied with a cheerful, terrifying smile.

“Then why save me?” the Man with the Mask asked, still baffled.

“I repaid you for solving that damned escape room, nothing more,” White Fox admitted. “But I have to win—I need the gene repair serum.”

“Gene repair serum?” the Man with the Mask fell silent for a moment. “Isn’t that something you can just buy?”

“What, are you crazy?” White Fox’s ears twitched furiously. “Do you have the money? That stuff costs a fortune!”

“It’s only three to five million a dose… Never mind,” the Man with the Mask began, but stopped himself, his words trailing away.

“Stop bragging, kid. Just get ready for me to clean your clock,” White Fox laughed, her ears flapping as she strode out of the tunnel.

The Man with the Mask fell silent, gazing ahead. He quietly removed his mask.

Beneath it was a young man’s face, strikingly beautiful—so much so that it seemed unreal. With that unmistakable yellow hair, anyone would instantly recognize his identity.

If it became known that Xu Qing, the scion of the Xu Corporation, was participating in the Grand Arena Tournament, it would rock the entire city.

Thinking back to what had brought him here, Xu Qing couldn’t help but smile bitterly.

Ever since the incident in Kunlun District, the Xu Corporation had continued to operate with apparent efficiency, but internally, anxiety ran rampant.

Even a fool could see that brute force alone, like that of the Midnight Headsman, could never bring down the Three Great Clans. There had to be a mastermind orchestrating all this from behind the scenes.

Yet the Xu Corporation’s knowledge of this mastermind was scant. All they knew was that he possessed formidable hacking skills and was a master of intelligence, intimately familiar with every affair in Night Pivot City.

Then, something even more despairing occurred: the Xu Corporation’s star-making commercial plan for the Grand Arena Tournament was scrapped—despite being meticulously prepared.

It was at that moment that Xu Qing noticed something.

With his high intelligence and intuition—both rated at five—and the aid of the AI think tank, Xu Qing began to suspect that all these recent events were orchestrated by the same person.

A skilled hacker, a master spy, and someone clearly targeting the Xu Corporation…

Whether it was the Jin Yuchuang incident, the trouble in Kunlun, or the Grand Arena Tournament, all three had striking similarities.

And the mastermind seemed to be surfacing at last—a bespectacled “strategist” who appeared harmless but might well be the very shadow they’d been seeking.

“Father, I’m going to enter the Grand Arena Tournament myself!” Xu Qing had declared, and soon struck a deal with the Kunlun team, taking a slot for himself.

With all his abilities maxed out at five, and equipped with gear specially made by his family, he was more than ready to take on any challenger in the arena.

“I will unmask that strategist… and not only him, but his accomplices too!”

That had been his resolve—until White Fox had, unilaterally, saved his life.