A condor-like majestic Cursed Warrior hovered above the arena. Of all the colossi and living monoliths, this one took up by far the most space, however, it also proved to be too formidable for eliminating it to be worth the hassle for most. Atop of the condor Cursed Warrior with massive, three hundred meters long finger-like wing protrusions and a beakless, hand-shaped head, rode a single man with a regal, dark ceremonial robe. The man's whole body had been decorated with enlightened sealing glyphs, and the same chakra that coursed through them beamed from the man's eyes. The man was a bulky individual with long, golden hair, swollen muscles, and a square jaw and looked about as mindless as the Cursed Warriors he fought alongside of.
Before the condor-riding, possessed mystery man could find his next target, a loud crack made the audience howl and cover their ears. A bundle of inanimate junk, wooden roots, and branches, and thick, thorny vines wrapped around granite, stone, and marble chunks slammed into the side of the condor Cursed Warrior, throwing it off course and wrapping its arms around the Cursed Warrior's wings. The Cursed Warrior goliath trembled and wriggled in the improvised hold of the titanic armored golem under Fennec Crew's employ, but he couldn't make much of a budge.
With a mad stare of bulging eyes, letting out a firm battle cry, the muscular man riding the condor Cursed Warrior shot off into the air and sought to plummet down with a downward aimed palm strike. The armored vine titan vaulted the Cursed Warrior over his shoulder, spinning him around before flinging him aside. He then turned to confront the airborne Cursed Warrior rider of unknown origin, but just then, a thunderous crack flattened the stone mask of the golem. His wood and vine-based body crumbled with an awkward angle, bending in ways that would have irreparably crippled any ordinary human.
As the humanoid Cursed Warrior bellowed with straight madness, driving his palm further and further down and releasing jasmine-colored tendrils of visible chakra around him, the armored golem collapsed to the ground with the noise of thrashed wood being shredded and snapping vines. This might have been the first instance in recorded history of a fly swatting a giant. The fighters surrounding the scene clutched themselves to struggle against the concussive shockwave. They readied themselves to fend off the creeping madness from the relentless assault of the terrifying noise all around them.
When the cacophony of the hectic actions and reactions of a thousand different forces working in a thousand different directions became bearable, only the voice of the announcer broke through and welcomed each listener back to reality.
"What a devastating strike! Leave it to someone working with the Cursed Warrior faction to deliver such a feat of power! Just who is this man who looks a lot like the Cursed Warriors he works alongside of, yet couldn't look more different at the same time?! The only ordinary human man amongst a squad of living neon monoliths! Is he their master or their puppet?! The only answers this man looks to be ready to give are ones asked by decisive fists, but who is powerful enough to ask these hard-hitting questions!?" the announcer issued a daring request to the participants to challenge this man and find answers to all these mysteries for the sake of entertainment.
With the collapsed stone debris shifting around underneath the waves of vines and roots that were quickly forming new bonds and rushing to once again provide shape to the armored golem, the humanoid Cursed Warrior brought his arm to the side, curving his fingers inward and forming a malevolent violet glow around his arm that seemed to corrupt and erode it from within. The expanding rot halted somewhere at the elbow. With a mad whoop, the Cursed Warrior drove his arm into his chest, making the cursed and malevolent chakra surround his entire body with a creeping and unstable aura. The aura formed a jolt-like beam with this ethereal javelin smashing into the rising armored golem.
The same curse that rot away the Cursed Warrior's right arm befell the armored golem, however, on a far larger scale. The rot engulfed his entire body and began withering down the vines, kicking the stone, marble, and granite debris comprising the build of nature's golem millions of years forward until they crumbled into dust. Instead of rising with its full, earlier splendor, the armored giant rose as a pathetic bundle of rotten vines and trashed tree roots that adopted the consistency and color of ash and withered away from the slightest touch. One-legged and disarmed, the golem twitched, making the casual observer feel happy for the fact that this creature wasn't actually alive to experience all the detriments of the Curse Technique cast by the humanoid Cursed Warrior.
The audience turned their heads upward with awe on their faces. Clouds began gathering above the Sun Disc arena in Agbarah, which was a rare sight to behold. The black clouds occasionally burst with a bright violet flash, as if sparking a lightning storm of cursed javelins like the one that just struck the armored monstrosity. The stroke of the violet lightning bolt was so sudden that more than a few women in the audience screamed out while plenty amongst the spectators jumped in startlement. The deafening clamor kicked their consciousnesses out for a few moments of release before the ethereal whirlpool dragged them back to reality.
"Wh…What's going on!? This cursed lightning came out of nowhere, but it didn't strike the armored goliath that the Fennec's mercenary crew brought along, it struck the Cursed Warrior himself!" the announcer leaned to the front, grabbing the railing with both hands as if the shocking and flashy light show in the arena warranted a closer look.
As if puppeteered by some invisible force, the humanoid Cursed Warrior elevated above the ground, twitching with pulsing growths that moved around his entire body like pus looking for release. What previously appeared like a bad case of zits revealed itself to be masses of whirling flames when the tornado flares busted out through the man's eyes, mouth, and the sealing glyphs on his hands and feet. Gargling, choking, and coughing these firenadoes, the Cursed Warrior wrestled against the flames until he connected the turbulent streams of blaze into a single tunnel engulfing and devouring the golem whole.
Even if madness was its one and only fuel source, the Cursed Warrior flopped face-first onto the ground while the audience fled in panic to escape the blazing wave of flames coming their way that would have left nothing but ash behind its wake. It boiled stone, making it bubble and turn to red-hot liquid in a blink, there would have been no trace left of the trees and vines if some unnatural force that gave the armored giant life didn't sustain them through whatever method it kept itself alive with.
Without making as much as a peep, let alone a grunt, the humanoid Cursed Warrior rose to his feet with a heavy stumble. A loud boom made him turn his lustrous eyes toward the smoke, only for a smoldering hand to emerge from the tumultuous cloud of dust. The Cursed Warrior widened his stance and raised his massive arms, taxing his biceps to their limits as he grabbed hold of the scorched stone pillars for fingers that tried to wrap around him and treat him like a rag ball.
Rampant cursed lightning bolts pierced through the layer of dark clouds, letting rays of sunshine beam through while the Cursed Warrior struggled against the ironclad attempt at a grip by the armored golem's hand. Reaching the pinnacle of brute force, the Cursed Warrior broke the hand by snapping it to the side and crumbling the granite fingers, looking to wrap around him to pebbles. With a bountiful leap, the Cursed Warrior pounced through the cloud and drop-kicked the demolished armored golem on its back. He raised his rotten hand into the air and plunged it deep into the golem's chest.
The vile, cursed energy flowed in jasmine tendrils around the Cursed Warrior once again as it seeped through his body and transferred right through into the revived roots and vines bolstered by the chunks of castles, fortresses, and statues that they used to bolster the golem. Instead of wood or vines, the armored core of the golem became black like the obsidian on the Cursed Warriors and littered with mosaic-like networks of veins that glowed with neon colors.
The obsidian, cursed heart pounded with visible shockwaves that flowed into all the surviving Cursed Warriors and imbued them with vigor and strength. It was almost as if with each successive beat of the cursed heart, each of the Cursed Warriors became revitalized and filled up with whatever malady it used for sustenance. Meanwhile, the curse that befell the golem's heart spread further and further, spreading across the entire body of the armored golem before beating it all away and converting the cursed energy into fuel for the other Cursed Warriors, the humanoid one included.
"W-Wow! It's always a shocker to see a smaller fighter overcome a terrifying giant like this! The Fennec's Crew lost a real powerhouse of theirs, then again, it may not have been the brightest idea to pick a fight with the Cursed Warriors who have proven themselves to be by far the most dominant faction here!" the announcer proclaimed the end to the dead and crumbled armored natural giant.
"Why did you stop us, Khinzira!?" a pair of tanned mercenaries standing further away from the scene of battle and walled off from interfering by Vizeriman's second in command turned to the woman clad in armor made of fur, fangs, and steel alike.
"Yeah, now we've lost our second out of the three powerhouses, not to mention Vizeriman!" another one wielding a large and jagged chain that he used for a highly flexible weapon that both slashed and whipped barked out at his superior.
"If you interfered, you'd have only joined that thing in defeat. Normally I wouldn't care about the fights you pick because of your stupid machismo pride, but your actions now reflect on the rest of our band. We've lost most of our big names, so we can't afford to extend ourselves and look for eliminations anymore. That thing was put together with Vizeriman's techniques, without him, we couldn't control it anyway. It's unfortunate it picked a Cursed Warrior for a fight right out of the gate, but I'm more than willing to sacrifice anyone in this group to achieve victory for Fennec, is that clear?" Khinzira growled and stepped up to the pair despite lacking the height to effectively intimidate them. This proved to matter little, as the pair backed down when pushed almost immediately. They just knew better.
Somewhere else in the arena, cut up and worn out, Konishi Gokojin slammed the tip of his sword into the ground, pushing himself off the tiles with blood leaking from his mouth and his cuts. If he just laid there and got no more adrenaline pumping, he'd fall asleep and would be easy prey for someone looking for an easy elimination and being one step closer to the Top 16. Like clockwork, the moment Gokojin stood up, his opponent presented himself.
"Heh, you've got moxie, old man, I'll give you that!" an obese yet perfectly round fighter with baggy leather trousers stuffed with black and white frilly fluffs, a black and orange robe over a chain-mail shirt and a taller than his head, jagged black collar protecting his chunky and oval-shaped bald head with a thick, red beard declared. The man had painted over the lower half of his face with sky-blue face paint, while the upper half had chalk-white powder smeared over it. "I expected an old man, let alone a beaten and crippled one, to be easy prey. Now, I suppose, I will have to show you my impeccable fighting skills!"
"Impeccable? Don't make me laugh…" the veteran samurai croaked through the strain of his wounds. "You sat on your rear the entire time, showing your face only when you see an elderly opponent and only when they are halfway on to the other side already. You're a Sky Warrior, aren't you? You must have modeled your fighting style after a vulture…"
"Actually, it's the turkey!" the round fighter proclaimed, pointing with his finger at Konishi before pulling his thumb to point at himself while he posed in his flamboyant outfit and peculiar for a fighter build. "You may not know this, but a turkey is a terrifying bird of prey in its own right. Just like me, it can't quite fly, even with all the necessary equipment, but it makes for some terrifying ground forces for all the times when the fearsome Sky Warriors of Sky Country need to fight on the ground!"
"I have no time for clowns! I may be your senior and half-dead, but you are still hesitant to fight me. Walk away and look for little children, someone dying of a heart attack or people teetering over the edge to challenge," Konishi warned his opponent before drawing his sword off the ground and sheathing it. Upon seeing his opponent walk with a slight limp and clutching his ribs with one hand, the Sky Warrior became emboldened and crossed his arms.
"Nice try, old man! But your intimidation tactics won't work on me! Belittle the terrifying power of the turkey at your own peril!" he croaked before taking off in a surprisingly nimble for someone his size pounce toward Konishi.
"Divine Punishment Style: Swan's Wingbeat!" Konishi chanted while drawing his sword with one stroke. Instead of slashing his opponent, Konishi decreased the range of his draw and ended up drawing the blade by slashing the ground beneath his feet instead of his opponent. The strike caused a violent upheaval of tiles, dirt, and dust to shoot off in the air and cushion the force of the Sky Warrior's strike, flinching him and blanking the Sky Warrior out.
With his arms straightened over his head and twirling like the world's most obese ballerina, the round fighter whirled around the wing-shaped wall of ground and dust, but the eyes of the skilled samurai followed him the entire time. Konishi weaved to the side, slipping the erupting straight palm strike, then wobbled around the flurry of chained punches and turned the other side of his blade to block the combination of kicks from the stubby legs of his opponent.
Surprising the veteran samurai even further with his flexibility, the Sky Warrior fashioning himself after a turkey spun around with a roundhouse push kick to the mid-section but Konishi put his sword in the way and absorbed the shock just in time, using the force of the kick to skid back into the safe distance from his surprisingly agile opponent. Having gained some distance from his opponent, Konishi sheathed his sword again.
"I might not be able to fly, but you'd be surprised by how well I can jump!" the Sky Warrior gloated with a cocky chortle before uncrossing his arms and taking it into the air, diving directly above Konishi and unleashing a flurry of strikes from directly above.
"Divine Punishment Style: Swan's Aerial Wingbeat!" Konishi barked out, drawing his sword and cutting the draw short mid-swing. Because of the speed and force of the draw and how suddenly it all went away, the airwave popped with a sonic boom that formed an air pocket more than capable of absorbing the Sky Warrior's flailing.
The flamboyant turkey-man grunted, reacting to the shock of counteracting force that sent him hurling toward the air like a cannonball, not only repelling the Sky Warrior's strikes but sending him flying at the same time. Pushing his sheathed sword underneath the band tied over his waist and fixing what remained of his tattered robe, Konishi began wobbling in search of either a better spot to lick his wounds in or his next opponent, whichever came first.
Meanwhile, the Sky Warrior howled and flew the entire way to the audience stands, crashing with a definitive boom and a deep crater since his landing made the staircase leading up to the taller sections of the spectators' stands collapse inward. The Sky Warrior proved himself to be relatively tough, if nothing else, when he poked his bald and painted over head from the hole, demonstrating gritty smears across the layers of face paint and damage to his flashy and exuberant outfit.
"Ugh… He got lucky that I wasn't on the ground. The turkey is a dominant force on the ground…" he mumbled while the healers swarmed the round-belly fighter and helped him out of the crater of his own making, leading him to the infirmary.
"There's a shocker! After the thorough beating at the hands of Soragen Hanamuro, a samurai from his own faction of comrades, I thought that Konishi Gokojin was as good as counted out! Yet, somehow, defying all odds, his own old age and grievous injuries working against him, the veteran swordsman took no time at all in eliminating Tanzhi of the Sky Warriors! With 72 fighters still left in the competition, this leaves the owl-like scout of the Sky Warriors, Neshtcha, as the last Sky Warrior in the competition! Will we see an upset and will the last man standing amongst the Sky Warriors make it to the Top 16, or will the Sky Warriors become the second faction, after the Immortals, to be wiped out!?"
The audience clamored after this observation. It wasn't something that many had taken note of until the announcer made it obvious. The Sky Warriors were hardly the favorite faction of the locals, with the Sky Country floating far away on the very opposite side of the world. Despite it, however, that Neshtcha was the last one standing made him an instant crowd sweetheart, tremendously pressuring the shoulders of the bespectacled with massive goggles scout with a fuzzy white coat over his shoulders, hovering around the battlefield.
Not to mention, with the numbers of a few factions dwindling down and approaching the edge of wipeout already, it gave the audience a feeling like this glorious and bombastic spectacle of a battle royale they were watching was progressing. Seeing a hundred and seventy godlike warriors swinging at each other made it feel like a majestic celebration of all the different warrior cultures around the world, yet it sometimes felt like this festivity would never end and there would always be another warrior to take the place of an eliminated fighter.
Factions approaching the edge of elimination showed to the audience that they better cherished these explosive moments they witnessed, because there would be a time when this would all be over and seared only into their memories for it was highly unlikely that such a battle for the sake of the entire Agbarah Sheikhate would be set to boil and spill over ever again.