The grand bronze gong boomed, its vibration shivering the air inside the sunken crater as Bram launched forward like a catapulted boulder.
With every stride across the flagstones, the champion’s boots pulverized the granite, blowing out craters of red sand and splintered rock that sprayed outward against the lower barriers. He had dropped his daggers to snatch a heavy poleax from the perimeter rack, swinging the iron shaft with both hands in a violent, whistling arc that carried the full weight of his artificially forced seventh level Qi Realm momentum. The sheer kinetic draft tore through the air, screaming with enough force to cleave the platform bedrock straight down the center.
Caleb Conway did not raise his meteor iron blade to meet the descending iron.
He moved his heels with clea
