Chapter 9: The Fleshstorm

The gates of the Cull Arena didn't creak.

They screamed.

Iron slid against iron like bone grinding in a socket as Kaelren stepped forward, the first of Camp 12's combatants to enter the field.

The crowd erupted. Not with polite applause or silence — but with roars, chants, howls. The stands were packed with thousands — soldiers, clan scions, mercenaries, war barons, and sadists. Some threw bones onto the arena floor. Others banged drums or pounded their fists on spiked metal rails.

Above it all, a horn sounded — a sharp, two-note signal.

The Cull had begun.

Day One

His opponent was already on the field: a wiry teen from Camp 7. Pale skin. Wide eyes. A faint tremble in his fingers. His body showed signs of starvation, but his arms held scars. He had survived something.

But not this.

The boy didn't attack. He hesitated — just for a breath — and Kaelren was on him.

Kaelren closed the gap in four strides and ducked beneath the boy's clumsy swing. He drove his fist into the boy's gut so hard the body folded. Then a knee shattered the sternum. Ribs crunched. Breath fled.

The boy hit the ground gasping — alive, barely.

Kaelren stepped forward.

And without blinking, crushed the boy's windpipe with his foot.

Cheers. Howls. Bloodlust.

Day Two

The arena's scent had seeped into Kaelren's skin — iron, ash, sweat, and heat. The crowd called for violence. Some shouted his name. Most shouted for blood.

His opponent today was a Synth from Camp 3. Her arms hissed with hydraulic muscle, and her left leg had been replaced with a spike-tread prosthetic that tore the stone beneath her step. She was confident.

Too confident.

She launched herself at Kaelren like a missile, spike-kick aimed at his ribs.

Kaelren caught the leg midair.

He twisted.

The prosthetic ripped free of its joint with a shriek of metal and tendon.

The woman screamed, fell, rolled. But even one-legged, she tried to claw at him with her augments.

Kaelren dodged a piston jab and drove his elbow into her temple.

She crumpled.

The crowd roared — some in rage, some in admiration.

From one of the upper boxes, a figure in a red mask whispered to a nearby aide. "That's the beastblood boy from Camp 12. Mark him."

Day Three

Kaelren sat cross-legged in the corner of the undercell. His body ached. His knuckles bled. But his breath was steady.

The gruel they gave him was colder than usual. He didn't care. It tasted like the first days in Camp 12 — filth, hunger, desperation. He swallowed anyway.

Around him, the others whispered.

"He's killed two already."

"He ripped her leg off."

"But—he's only from Camp 12."

Kaelren didn't react. He let the noise pass through him.

He was back at the bottom — no status, no rest, no warmt

Day Four

The moment Kaelren stepped into the sand, the crowd shouted his name.

Not all of them. But enough.

"KAEL-REN! KAEL-REN!"

His opponent was a Synth berserker. Buzzsaw for an arm. Chestplate fused to flesh. Eyes replaced with heat sensors that flickered red.

The man screamed before attacking, sprinting with his saw raised high.

Kaelren didn't move until the last moment. He ducked, stepped inside the reach, and slammed his forehead into the Synth's nose. Bone crunched.

The berserker swung blindly.

Kaelren grabbed the saw arm with both hands, turned his hips, and threw the man over his shoulder.

The crowd screamed.

Kaelren mounted the berserker's chest and rained elbows into the faceplate until it cracked open like an egg.

Blood spattered across the sand.

The roar from the stands was deafening.

High above, a pair of masked observers from opposing factions argued. One said, "Too reckless." The other, "Too efficient." But both kept watching.

---

Day Five

The gates opened.

And Kaelren immediately felt it — this one was different.

His opponent was silent. Thick-bodied. Black-skinned with bone ridges rising from shoulders and back like natural armor. A Gene Warrior, mutated from too many generations of bestial bloodlines.

He didn't charge.

He walked.

Deliberate. Dangerous.

Kaelren cracked his knuckles.

Then they clashed.

The fight was brutal. No elegance — just impact. Kaelren landed a strike to the ribs. The Gene Warrior didn't flinch. Kaelren rolled beneath a clawed swipe and drove a knee into the warrior's thigh.

The beast roared and slammed both fists into Kaelren's back, sending him sprawling.

Pain exploded across Kaelren's spine — but he rolled, twisted, and caught the tail lash that followed. He wrenched it — and something tore.

The Gene Warrior shrieked.

Kaelren charged. Two punches. A kick to the knee. He grabbed the creature's head and drove it into the arena floor over and over and over until the body stopped twitching.

Day Six

The gate opened.

And his opponent ran.

Kaelren didn't chase at first. He just watched.

The crowd howled in fury. Booed. Spit from the stands.

But the boy kept running. Climbing. Desperate.

Kaelren moved.

Caught him.

Dragged him down.

Broke his legs. Broke his arms.

Kaelren stood as the blood soaked into the sand.

Day Seven

He walked from the arena limping, bruised, but upright.

The undercell guard handed him a cloth bundle.

Inside: meat. Real meat. Charred. Seasoned. Still warm.

Kaelren bit into it without ceremony.

For the first time in a week, something close to satisfaction lit behind his eyes.

Above the arena, behind a slotted window, a woman in a white-gold mask turned from the sight of him and spoke softly to the shadow beside her:

"Watch that one. The Cull won't kill him."

By the second week, Kaelren didn't enter the arena to fight.

He entered to demonstrate.

Opponent after opponent fell. Some were Synths packed with augments and pressurized limbs. Others were Gene Warriors twice his size, dripping with feral bloodlines. None of them mattered.

Kaelren ended each match in under a minute.

Some were crushed with a single strike. Others begged before it was over. The ones who fought the hardest simply made more noise before they hit the ground.

The crowd gave him a name.

"The Fleshstorm."

It began on Day Two of Week 2 — a drunken war-chief in the crowd screamed it, voice half-mocking. But after Kaelren tore a combatant's arm free at the socket and used it to batter the opponent unconscious, the name stuck.

By Day Six, it was roared by thousands every time he appeared.

"FLESH-STORM! FLESH-STORM!"

Kaelren didn't acknowledge it. Didn't even blink at the noise. He walked into each match with bare fists, bare feet, and no hesitation — and walked out the same way.

But inside, he was frustrated.

His body had stopped evolving.

The Gene Refinement Sutra, his beast-blood path, needed extreme pressure to adapt — wounds, exhaustion, survival at the brink. But these battles were too soft. Even when he knocked out teeth or shattered ribs, he wasn't pushed far enough.

So he redirected his energy.

Every hour outside the arena, Kaelren trained his Qi. Focused, methodical, consuming the time he would've spent healing and regrowing under Gene Refinement.

He felt it building day by day — like heat behind the eyes, tension beneath the ribs.

On the sixth night, meditating in the undercell corner while others muttered about the coming Finals, the surge came.

Stage 3 of Qi Gathering.

The room sharpened. He could hear water dripping behind stone. Smell rust. Taste tension. Feel the heartbeat of a fighter four meters away as if it were his own.

He opened his eyes.

And the undercell felt smaller.

High above the arena, on a tier reserved for Bloodfang Clan elites, she stood without speaking.

Her name was not announced.

But her armor was unmistakable — gray and crimson steel, layered with claw marks and seared plating. She bore the sigil of the Ashwalkers, a frontline faction of the Bloodfang Clan known for breaking sieges with bodies and blood.

Wherever they went, the earth cracked and the enemy collapsed.

And now she wanted Kaelren.

"He's beyond the others," she said softly to the masked lieutenant beside her. "No wasted motion. No hesitation. He doesn't think like a pit fighter. He moves like a weapon."

The lieutenant snorted. "You're not the only one watching. The Vilethorn Legion, the Ember Howlers… they all want him."

"I don't want him," she said.

"I need him." Her ears having shades of pink flash on them.

Kaelren still didn't realize how many eyes were on him. The higher tier veiwing platforms had runes etched on them, keeping sound and sight from escaping.

He Had noticed the nobles placing wagers on his name. He Had noticed the messengers sent by rival factions to scout his lineage, measure his bloodlines. He had seen the painted sketches passed from observer to observer, the crude drawing of a bare-chested boy with storm-filled eyes.

He had also heard did the other names rising.

Even in his corner of the undercell, the talk spread:

The Bone Widow, spider-limbed Gene Warrior who laced her strikes with venom and ripped people apart mid-scream.

Ravien the Red, lightning-fast Synth with glass-plated armor and twin plasma claws.

Harnok of the Chain, a walking mountain who shattered augments with his bare fists and dragged his victims' corpses behind him like banners.

Kaelren had not fought them.

But he could feel it coming.

The Final Day of Week 2

A different horn sounded that morning. Deep. Triumphant. Almost funereal.

Kaelren rose before it finished echoing.

Only thirty-seven remained.

From over four thousand.

The ones that lived where sent back to the camps after defeat. The ones that died, we'll the hunting dogs looked especially full this week.

He stepped into the arena with the rest of them — each one hardened, blood-soaked, and breathing like wolves penned too long.

A voice echoed from the top of the coliseum.

"The Cull Finals begin at dawn."

Silence.

Then the crowd roared, louder than ever. Flares were fired. Bones thrown. Fights broke out in the upper stands just for the hell of it.

And still, above it all, in her dark seat behind carved bone railing, the woman in the gold mask watched.