A thick red mist billowed forth.
Everyone in the arena was thrown into confusion by the blood mist, laden with its piercing scent of blood.
It was a kind of anomaly that even the gods were witnessing for the first time.
And it was also the signal that marked the end of the fight.
Having activated his magic, Zar’s every physical sense was amplified.
The enhancement of his five senses was a given; even his sixth sense awakened.
He could vaguely foresee the future.
That was how he knew.
That lightning-fast sword was coming!
From the red mist filling the crater in the arena, a swordsman like a raven flew in.
His speed and killing intent were incomparable to before.
The sword was swifter and deadlier than ever, and its trajectory could no longer be followed with the naked eye.
Amid swordsmanship for which the word swift was more fitting than anything else, all Zar could make out was a vertical slash descending like a guillotine blade.
"K-Kugh...!"
"..."
His unmoving arm could not be used no matter what he did, so Ian swung his sword with his remaining arm and drove it straight into Zar’s chest.
He had intended to cleave him apart completely, but that was not easy.
One arm did not produce enough force.
But Ian did not give up.
The mindset and obsession of the boy he had once been—the determination to kill the opponent before his eyes—came alive once more, bestowing superhuman strength upon his dying body.
The warrior thrusting his sword into Zar was no longer Ian.
In his place stood an immature boy who took delight in slaughter.
Even Ian himself did not know why that thing, which Porit had buried deep within Ian’s psyche, had emerged now.
Perhaps this was his true nature.
In any case, what mattered was that the boy’s sword was slowly tearing Zar’s body apart vertically.
With a single crack, the sword dug deeper into Zar’s body.
Zar let out a twisted groan and writhed in agony, but the boy did not care.
Once again, a crack rang sweetly in the boy’s ears.
The sound coming from Zar’s mouth could no longer be called human. No, it was hardly even something that could be described as a sound.
It would be more fitting to call it his final breath.
And at last, the red mist swirled as a lightning-like flash split Zar’s body in two.
No one in this world could hope for Zar’s survival.
The grotesque sight of his head holding together a body split in half did not last long.
Most kindly, the boy slit Zar’s throat and helped separate the body.
It was a kindness difficult to find in the boy, though not in Ian.
It was an act quite unlike the common definition of kindness, but to the boy, what he had just done was indeed kindness.
For it clearly carried the intent of helping ensure a swift death.
The head of a first-class adventurer rolled pitifully across the ground.
Cheers and screams erupted like a storm.
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