Blood Online: Evolving Endlessly-Chapter 171: All Seeing Eye

With a casual wave of Jeren’s hand, white light engulfed the survivors of the first three rounds.

Seth, Ryan, Layla, Greg, and the others who’d fought through hell—all of them disappeared simultaneously, teleported away in an instant. No warning. No ceremony. Just gone, as if they’d never been there at all.

Akhil’s jaw tightened slightly. ’Where did they go?’ The question flickered through his mind. ’Back to their original locations in the settlement? Or somewhere else entirely? Another holding area? A recovery zone?’

He didn’t know. Couldn’t know. And worrying about it now was pointless when his own survival demanded every scrap of attention.

Jeren’s bright eyes swept across the remaining fighters—Akhil’s group and Thorin’s group, along with the scattered few who’d survived their first brutal introduction to the tournament.

"Alright!" The Titan’s voice rang with renewed enthusiasm. "Let’s see what our newbies have got!"

The announcement had barely finished when reality shifted again.

Akhil felt the now-familiar sensation of forced teleportation—that brief moment of weightlessness, of existence becoming uncertain—and then he was standing in a different platform. Smaller. More isolated. The massive group stage had been replaced by individual combat zones.

Barriers rose around each platform with a crystalline hum, trapping fighters within their designated spaces. The gods’ presence intensified, divine attention pressing down like atmospheric pressure before a storm.

In the divine realm, the chat exploded with mixed reactions:

**[God Poloneus: They’re really gone? Just like that?]**

**[Goddess Jayne: I suppose rest is necessary. Can’t have our favorites dying from exhaustion before the real challenges begin.]**

**[DaylithNight: Still disappointing. We finally found quality fighters and now we’re back to watching unknowns stumble around.]**

**[Goddess Vaydrix: Give them a chance. Sometimes the most entertaining performers are the ones you don’t expect.]**

**[God Verbraucht: Let them rest and recover. When they return at full strength, the matches will be even better. Worth the wait.]**

**[Unknown: I just hope these new ones aren’t as boring as the last batch. Most of them died in under a minute.]**

Akhil stood in his platform, the Blood Fang held loosely at his side, his eyes still fixed on where Jeren stood on his elevated position.

Or rather, on the figure standing behind him.

The presence remained exactly as before—indistinct, occupying space without quite being solid, features that suggested humanity without actually forming it. But there was something deeply unsettling about it now that Akhil could study it more carefully.

The way it didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t shift weight or make any of the unconscious adjustments living things made. It simply existed, as if it were a statue made of something less substantial than air.

’What are you?’ Akhil thought, his heat vision straining to make sense of the thermal signature that hurt to focus on. ’Why are you here? What’s your connection to—’

Movement at the edge of his platform cut the thought short.

Shadows gathered with that now-familiar swirling pattern, darkness coalescing into solid forms. From the void emerged his opponents—three figures dressed in fitted ninja garments, faces concealed behind masks, weapons already drawn.

Similar to what Seth and Ryan had faced in their first round. Similar to the data-gathering opponents designed to test capabilities without overwhelming immediately.

’They’re analyzing me,’ Akhil realized, his analytical mind slotting the information into place. ’First round is always reconnaissance. Learning what I can do, how I fight, what my limits are. So they can calibrate properly for later rounds.’

Which meant showing his full capabilities now would be strategically foolish. Give them too much information, and the next opponents would be designed specifically to counter everything he revealed.

’Blood Fang only,’ Akhil decided, shifting his grip on the glaive. ’Basic technique. No blood manipulation. No manifestation abilities. No advanced skills. Just weapon work and physical capability.’

Let them think he was merely a skilled fighter with a good weapon. Save the real power for when it actually mattered.

But surprisingly, it wasn’t just one opponent he had to deal with like Ryan and Seth, but three?!!

The ninjas spread out, forming a triangle around him with practiced precision. Their movements were coordinated—not perfectly synchronized like the higher-tier opponents Seth had faced, but competent. Professional.

They attacked simultaneously.

The first came from his left, twin daggers seeking his ribs in a quick thrust-and-slash combination. The second closed from the right, a longer blade aimed at his throat in a textbook killing strike. The third hung back slightly, waiting to exploit whatever opening Akhil created defending against the first two.

Akhil moved.

The Blood Fang spun in his hands, both curved blades coming into play. He deflected the left ninja’s daggers with one end of the glaive, the weapons meeting with a sharp clang. The momentum of his deflection carried into a spinning strike that forced the right ninja to abort his attack and leap backward.

The third ninja saw his opportunity and lunged—

But Akhil had already read the pattern. His spin continued, the Blood Fang’s opposite blade coming around in a devastating arc that the third ninja barely ducked under. The wind from the strike ruffled his hair.

All three ninjas repositioned immediately, reassessing. Their opponent was faster than expected. More aware of his surroundings. The kind of spatial awareness that came from extensive combat experience.

They attacked again, this time with more caution. Probing strikes rather than committed assaults. Testing his range, his reaction speed, his defensive patterns.

Akhil gave them exactly what they expected to see—competent defense, measured counters, efficient movement that suggested skill without revealing true capability. He blocked more than he dodged, conserving energy. Let them land glancing blows that his basic armor absorbed. Made his strikes powerful but not devastating, fast but not blinding.

A performance. Calculated to gather just enough respect to avoid being considered weak, while hiding the depths of what he could actually do.

The left ninja came in with a flurry of strikes, forcing Akhil to focus on defense. While he was occupied, the right ninja moved to flank—

Akhil’s glaive separated.

The chain mechanism activated smoothly, one blade section extending on the hidden chain while he used the other to continue blocking the left ninja’s assault. The extended blade whipped toward the flanking ninja like a striking serpent.

The ninja’s eyes widened—clearly not expecting this feature. He twisted desperately, but the poisoned blade caught him across the shoulder, opening a shallow cut.

He stumbled back, expecting the wound to burn, to paralyze, to do something immediate and catastrophic.

But Akhil recalled the blade before the venom could work properly, the chain retracting, the Blood Fang reforming into its complete glaive configuration. Let them know the weapon had unusual properties. Let them see the separation mechanism. But don’t let them experience the full effect of the River Serpent’s venom.

Give them data, but incomplete data. Misleading data.

The fight continued for another three minutes—a dance of blades and positioning, of probing attacks and measured defenses. Akhil controlled the pace, never letting himself seem overwhelmed but never dominating so completely that it looked easy.

Then, when he judged they’d gathered enough information, he ended it.

The third ninja—the one who’d been hanging back, coordinating the others—committed to an attack. A thrust aimed at Akhil’s chest, meant to pin him in place while his companions struck from the sides.

Akhil sidestepped, grabbed the extended arm, and used the ninja’s own momentum to throw him directly into the path of the left ninja’s incoming strike. They collided in a tangle of limbs.

Before they could separate, Akhil was there. The Blood Fang’s blunt end—the reinforced center section—caught the left ninja in the temple. He dropped instantly, unconscious.

The right ninja, seeing his companions fall, launched a desperate final attack. Akhil deflected it almost casually, reversed his grip, and struck with the glaive’s shaft across the ninja’s midsection. The impact drove the air from the ninja’s lungs and sent him sprawling.

The third ninja, struggling to his feet from the collision, met Akhil’s eyes for just a moment. Saw something there that made him hesitate.

That hesitation was fatal. The Blood Fang’s blade came around in a precise arc, the flat of it catching the ninja’s head. He joined his companions in unconsciousness.

Three opponents. Defeated. Total time: maybe four minutes.

Efficient but not overwhelming. Skilled but not exceptional. Exactly what Akhil wanted them to see.

He stood among his fallen opponents, breathing only slightly harder than normal, and allowed his gaze to drift back toward Jeren’s platform.

And froze.

The figure behind Jeren had changed.

Where before it had been vaguely humanoid—indistinct but at least recognizable in shape—it had now transformed into something else entirely.

Eyes.

Multiple eyes, dozens of them, had opened across the figure’s form. They weren’t arranged in any pattern that made biological sense—some clustered at what might have been a shoulder, others scattered across what could have been a torso, a few floating independently around the central mass.

Each eye was different. Some were reptilian slits. Others were compound like insects. A few looked almost human, but too large, too aware, too focused. And they were all moving independently, each tracking different fighters, different platforms, different details.

The figure had become a living observation post, a collection of sensory organs wrapped in that same not-quite-solid presence.

And several of those eyes—at least five that Akhil could count—were focused directly on him.

Not on Jeren’s platform. Not on the arena generally. On him specifically, tracking his every movement with unblinking intensity.

Akhil felt his skin crawl. Something primal in his hindbrain screamed danger, warned him that being watched by this thing was fundamentally wrong, that those eyes saw more than just his physical form.

’What the fuck is that monster?’