I narrowed my eyes as my space-severing spell cut into Peng Yao.

He staggered backwards a few steps from the impact, dropping the now-empty vial that had contained the elixir he just consumed. The glass container split and shattered into countless little pieces with a loud yet satisfying noise.

Somehow, my attack, even amplified by my Chaos power, was not enough to kill him. I could see a massive cut on his body, but it healed up in the blink of an eye.

"… How troublesome."

Peng Yao's body became bigger, taller. His muscles bulged so much that it tore his shirt apart as he gazed down at his own body in wonder.

"Wow… that man did say this was good stuff, but I never expected it to be this strong…" he muttered, inspecting his own overly-ripped arms.

That man… so, someone gave him this elixir...

… To target me specifically, perhaps?

I opened my palm once more, prepared to unleash another attack. "Level Three Light Magic — Holy Ray."

A beam of red light shot out of my palm, sparking with black energy. There was nearly no projectile travel time since this was literally a beam of light, so Peng Yao had no choice but to block it head-on.

He made his arm into an X-shape in preparation to block the attack since he didn't have time to cast a spell back, but both his own surprise and mine, my attack hit some kind of invisible force field around him. It was blue, but after getting hit by my attack, it began flashing red, signaling it was almost broken.

I quickly prepared to cast another spell, but obviously, Peng Yao wasn't about to just let me do that.

He immediately closed the distance between us two, thinking he had an advantage over me in close-distance combat.

Well… that shield of his might have recharging capabilities anyway… there's no point to keep using magic here. If this guy wants to take it real up close and personal, then so be it.

To Peng Yao's current form, I must've seemed just like a puny human, only able to cast spells from range and run away. Unfortunately for him… I was a half-vampire, thanks to Count Draculus. My physical capabilities were far beyond that of a normal human being — comparable to even this form of his.

That's precisely why he was so surprised when he saw that I blocked his punch with one hand.

Although my figure was far smaller, my actual strength wasn't any weaker. In fact, probably even the opposite.

I tightened my grip on his fist as his eyes widened in shock. Before he could react, I threw him onto the ground with one hand, before quickly getting on top of him. Rearing my fist back, I threw it towards his face with all my strength, which he blocked with his arms.

However, I was relentless. I kept pummeling his face over and over, giving him no chance to fight back.

My goal? Stall out his time limit, of course. Very few elixirs gave permanent effects — I doubted the one he consumed just now was one of those few. Eventually, his time limit would run out, while my vampiric strength could not.

But then, he suddenly grabbed my waist, letting me sink a hit into his face. I was then lifted up and tossed away with his superhuman strength.

"Tch…!"

I hit the back glass wall with my feet, before landing solidly back on the ground. Peng Yao's face had bruises, but they quickly regenerated.

"Heh… did you use some kind of pill or elixir before this fight too?" he raised an eyebrow and asked. "For an Intermediate Mage, you're holding up pretty well. Though… I suppose I shouldn't call you that, should I? After all, you just used a Level Three spell with seemingly no trouble at all."

"Who knows?" I responded mysteriously, shrugging. "But who gave you that elixir? Seems pretty powerful."

"Heh… I'll tell you if you can beat me!" he yelled, lunging towards me once more.

I smirked from beneath my mask.

"Sure… I'll be your guest."

His fist met mine, sending a powerful shockwave all across the arena from the sheer impact. If the glass walls here weren't reinforced ones, they probably would've cracked under this force.

He then tried to hit me with a left hook aimed for my head, but I blocked that with my free hand and counterattacked him, sending a kick towards his stomach.

Peng Yao was clearly not very good at hand-to-hand combat as he was hit directly by my foot and sent tumbling backwards a few steps. I would've sent any normal person flying with that kick, but his defense capabilities had been boosted as well by the elixir.

It also seemed that any damage I inflicted on his body was automatically regenerated after a short while… this made things more difficult. I either had to continue with my current plan, waiting for his time limit to run out, or alternatively…

… I could kill him in one attack.

Naturally, though, killing him here wouldn't do me any good. I wanted to know about the person who gave him this elixir. Not only because I needed to know if someone was targeting me specifically and hiring Peng Yao to do it, but also because this whole fight reminded me of another one I participated in a while ago, back in Shenzhen.

At the time, I had been facing off against my brother (cousin) — Xuan Kun. After nearly losing to me, he consumed a mysterious blue substance that transformed him into a monster, both physically and mentally.

It had been against the rules at the time, but here, there were no rules against using elixirs and such. It was a free-for-all, anything-goes-type battle.

It was a painful memory, having to fight against such an opponent again. Still, if the two events were truly connected… that meant the Midnight Syndicate was also involved here. In other words, that knight guy I fought… has began making his move.

Peng Yao took a different approach this time, using magic himself.

"Legendary Fire Magic — Solar Nova!"

I've seen this spell in action many times before. Song Qian Long had used this against Mei Mo in the battle for Shenzhen. However… despite only being an Ancestral Mage compared to Song Qian Long's Golden Monarch level cultivation, the sphere of pure destruction here appeared to be far larger and more powerful.

It breathed fire, hissing and pulsating as the massive projectile headed towards me.

Deciding to take a gamble, I raised my hand…

… And activated the Chaos power laying dormant within my body.

My eyes widened as the spell was actually showing resistance.

I was almost able to absorb Ling Xin's Legendary spells… but this… this is showing an even higher resistance than hers?!

Did that elixir… boost magic power as well…?

Narrowing my eyes, I concentrated as hard as I could. In the end, I was unable to absorb it. It was too late to dodge, so I did the only thing I could and instacast one of my trump cards.

Forbidden Magic — Chaos Mirror.

Everyone in the audience was blinded by the massive orange ball of fire, so I could cast this spell without any worry. As long as they didn't see me casting it like a spell, it was fine. I could just say this was a special one-time use artifact later on.

A translucent black mirror opened up in front of me, seemingly dwarfed by the Solar Nova. But as the projectile made contact, it froze, the mana being sucked into the mirror.

As the audience watched on in excitement and shock, the ball slowly got smaller and smaller until nothing remained left of it. Meanwhile, the black mirror began pulsing with energy, heavier and heavier…

Until at last, it expanded.

It expanded to twice the size of the original Solar Nova, height nearly reaching the ceiling of the stage platform.

And out came an enormous sphere of Chaos energy, slowly traveling in Peng Yao's direction. The sphere was big enough to cover the whole width of the arena — he had nowhere to run.

Oh, shit… this might kill him.

His eyes widened in horror as his mouth hang agape.

"W-Wha… n-no… WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

Faced with the massive Chaos Nova that looked similar to a literal star in space, just scaled down, Peng Yao fell into despair, unable to budge a muscle. His smug and confident look from earlier was nowhere to be seen.

"U-Uh, hey, guys? I think that thing's gonna break the windows," the announcer said, forgetting he still had his microphone on.

"You think?!" a burly male voice called out, also on the comms that were broadcasted to everyone. "NO SHIT IT IS! ALL STAFF, ACTIVATE THE GODDAMN SHIELDS!"

The moment my Chaos Nova hit Peng Yao's frozen body, it exploded. The noise drowned out the screaming of both Peng Yao and the audience as everything was engulfed in black flames. The ground split and the whole land began shaking violently, as if an earthquake was taking place.

Chunks of the arena flew everywhere, tossed around like tennis balls by the immense shockwave let out by the explosion. The 'reinforced' glass shattered completely — it didn't stand a chance against this astronomical impact.

As I stood behind my Chaos Mirror, completely unaffected by all this destructive damage going on around me, I whistled and placed my hand above my eyes.

"Whew… I think I went a little overboard this time."