Autophagy

Seeing that Tao Hai wasn't casting a self-detonation spell, Song Lei charged for the last attack.

Even though he was in tremendous pain, Tao Hai was still a seasoned veteran. He could ignore the pain and put up a desperate last defense.

He knew that he couldn't match Song Lei in strength so he had to use another way. He willed up all of his mental power and started chanting as fast as he can for a small fireball spell.

'If I can muster up this one spell, I might have a chance!' He thought.

Unfortunately, Song Lei was still very fast. He wasn't tired enough to slow him down.

'Spellcasters are really useless,' Song Lei thought. He knew that spell casters could be really useful on a battlefield. But on a one versus one battle, spellcasters with such long cast times were really at a disadvantage. Tao Hai must've known this fact as he was trained in CQC too.

If Tao Hai hadn't been underestimating him at the start, things would have been different for Song Lei.

Song Lei managed to reach Tao Hai before the spell was completed. Tao Hai smiled, realizing that he was already done for. Song Lei swung his gladius. His sword cut halfway through Tao Hai's neck. This was enough to instantly kill him.

The crowd went silent. Everyone held their breaths for the announcer to announce the unbelievable.

"T- Tao Hai is down! The winner is the newbie!" The announcer shouted. As his voice echoed through the silent colosseum, the crowd broke into a cheer.

Song Lei raised his hand, implying that he was the winner.

"As promised, the winner will be meeting the holy one to get the evolution rights! He will ascend to a perfect being, getting reshaped by the holy one himself," the announcer explained the prize.

Song Lei turned his head towards the announcer. Basking in glory wasn't something he had experienced before. Although it made him a bit happy, he knew that all of the things happening right now were probably in the young boy Chester's mindscape.

Chester was Amber's youngest child. He was a sadistic person who liked to torture the maids of the mansion. In his own mindscape, he seemed to think of himself as some kind of god. Song Lei could bet that the evolution the announcer talked about was some kind of weird torture.

Two guards came next to him.

"We'll bring you to the holy one," one of the guards said. Song Lei followed them without saying anything.

After going through countless passages, they arrived at a gate, leading them into some kind of palace. This palace had an architectural style that Song Lei couldn't match with any of the buildings he had seen back in the old world. It had a mix of purple and blue colors decorating it.

After they entered the palace, Song Lei was brought into a guest room on the second floor of the palace. The room only had a small bed in the corner of it.

"You see that door?" The guard asked while pointing his finger at a door in the room. "There is a bathroom you have to use to clean yourself up. Make sure that you're clean before going to the evolution room."

Song Lei nodded and walked to the bed. The guard, seeing that Song Lei had understood, left the room and closed the door.

"*Sigh"

Song Lei looked at his broken wrist.

"They don't even give me time to heal," he thought. "This will be hard."

Song Lei got up from the bed and went to the bathroom.

"What the..?" Song Lei muttered.

He opened the door and realized that the bathroom the guard mentioned was a hot spring.

"How can there be a hot spring in a place like this?" Song Lei thought out loud. He had no answer. Instead of searching for an answer to this question, he opted to search all parts of the room to find out any possible dangers.

After confirming that there were no dangers and the water didn't have a problem with it, Song Lei got in the hot spring.

At first, he was scared of the water being poisoned to there being a trap. But while checking out the water, Song Lei realized that it could actually heal his broken wrist. When he touched the water with his hand, green lights started to appear around him, slowly healing his body.

'It's almost like a game,' he thought.

He took off his clothes and entered the water. They had let him keep his cursed gladius with him. He kept it near his hand, ready to use if he had to.

Weirdly for him, nothing happened at all. He managed to heal without anything happening and put his clothes back on.

"It seems to be fine," he muttered while moving his wrist around. "These mindscapes really have weird rules..."

A wound that would normally take months to heal was healed in a few minutes. At this point, these kinds of things stopped surprising Song Lei. He was getting numb to it.

After leaving the bathroom, he heard a knocking on the door. He opened the door to see who it was and was met with the guards from before.

"The time has come. It is already midnight," the guard said. Song Lei looked at him while frowning.

'It was still noon when I first entered the palace. One hour has passed at most. How could it be midnight?' Song Lei asked himself while leaving the room. Fortunately, he didn't have anything left to do in this room. 'I guess the day and night cycle is a bit weird in here...'

He followed the guard through some corridors. Eventually, he arrived at a corridor with dark green walls.

'This is the same corridor...' Song Lei thought while inspecting the carvings on the walls.

He was back in the corridor that he had entered back in Isabel's mansion. The walls were covered in the same carvings.

Song Lei turned his head to the guard and realized that he was long gone.

After gulping loudly, Song Lei traversed the corridor. The invisible wall wasn't there. After reaching the door, Song Lei pulled the handle of the door and entered the room.

"Welcome to the evolution chamber...."