Chapter 88 The Neon Ice

Chapter 88 The Neon Ice
The subterranean belly of Macau was a completely different circle of hell.

Way down under the glittering, multi-billion-dollar casinos, the Neon Ice arena throbbed with a blinding toxic shine and that ear-splitting roar from the entire global criminal crème de la crème. 

Billionaire cartel bosses, corrupted politicians, and deep-web warlords were yelling from the reinforced VIP tiers , raining blood-money down onto the frozen, blood-soaked gladiator pit below.

I stood in the dark, freezing gladiator corridors, totally peeled of my pristine silk suits and that whole high-society glamour vibe.

I wore sleek, heavy-duty pitch-black tactical gear, cut like it was made for my elite skater’s frame. My twin custom combat blades were strapped tight along my thighs. The stark, dark crown tattoo on my chest stayed hidden, but my repaired heart thumped against my ribs with this absolute, terrifying cold kinetic anticipation.

My encrypted earpiece crackled awake, and it pretty much swallowed the roaring crowd like nothing.

"The vault perimeter is breached, Kaelen," Julian Vance’s voice came through the comms, deep, heavy, and way too dominant. Even miles away, down inside Valerius’s subterranean financial labyrinth, the Fallen King’s massive alpha presence anchored my whole soul. "The Praetorian guards are completely engaging us. We are painting the walls."

"I am bypassing their biometric firewalls right now, Papa," our son said, crisp and ice-cold, the rapid clicking of his keyboard loud over the sound of his sister’s gunfire. "Give me exactly ten minutes, and the Shattered Crown will be completely bankrupt."

"Take your time, my Prince," I murmured smoothly, sliding out of the shadows and straight into the white-hot neon glare of the arena entrance. "I have a few champions to slaughter first."

The heavy steel gates groaned and then ground open, like they hated the idea.

I skated onto the Neon Ice.

The roaring crowd instantly choked into a confused, absolute silence. I didn’t look anything like the hulking, heavily armored brutes that usually dragged themselves into those deathmatches. I glided to the middle of the blood-smeared rink with this effortless, olympic-level calm. My icy-blue eyes were flat, no fear in them at all.

"Fresh meat for the grinder!" the masked announcer screamed through the PA. "Round One! Release the Chain!"

From the opposite tunnel, a massive, towering skater detonated onto the ice. He had heavy, rusted plate armor and a nightmare of a ten-foot spiked titanium chain. He roared as he swung the thing in a lethal, horizontal arc—made to completely remove my head from my shoulders.

Fifteen years ago, the Golden Boy would’ve slipped that strike with flawless edge-work, graceful and clean.

Tonight, the Mafia Consort rewrote the rules, then threw the textbook in the trash.

I didn’t retreat. I channeled the explosive kinetic energy from my legs and launched straight into the brutal path of the chain. I lifted my heavily padded tactical forearm, letting it take the impact like a shield. The shockwave rammed through my bones, but my repaired heart didn’t even stutter.

Using the brute-force momentum of his own swing, I yanked the chain violently, ripping the giant’s balance off the ice, hard. He stumbled forward , fully exposed, and i pivoted on my heel with blinding supersonic speed. Then my twin combat blades drove into the unprotected gaps in his neck armor, perfectly placed.

He dropped at once, blood spraying hard across the glowing neon ice.

The entire arena gasped—collective, absolute horror. The match was only four seconds long.

I didn’t stop for a bow. 

"Send the next one," I ordered coldly, flicking crimson off my steel.

For the next ten minutes, the Neon Ice turned into a breathtaking masterclass in kinetic slaughter. Valerius sent weaponized mercenaries, unhinged deep-web assassins, and armored brutes. I didn’t merely out-skate them. I made blunt-force trauma into a language: shattered knees, severed tendons, and turning their own massive momentum into their graves.

"The vault is completely drained, Papa," our son’s voice echoed in my ear, utterly calm, zero panic. "Every single cent of Sovereign gold has been routed to the Vance offshore accounts. Valerius has absolutely nothing."

"And the Praetorian guards are entirely dead," our daughter added, her pitch-black eyes practically smiling through the secure frequency. "Daddy literally threw the last one through a steel vault door."

"Flawless," I breathed.

As my current opponent lunged desperately , i sidestepped and drove the hilt of my blade into his temple, dropping him completely unconscious onto the ice.

I stood alone in the center of the arena. Neon light caught the bodies scattered across the rink, dozens of them.

Up in the stands, the billionaire elites went completely, terrifyingly quiet—realizing too late they hadn’t bet on a gladiator.

They had locked themselves in a cage with an apex predator.
High above the ice, that reinforced glass of the master VIP box sort of— violently shattered, like boom and then everything went quiet for a second, then loud again.

Valerius stepped out onto the balcony. his pale aristocratic face was completely twisted into this mask of pure, unhinged fury. No calm at all.

He gripped a glowing tactical tablet, and in that single instant he understood, or realized in a way that hurt, that his entire multi- billion-dollar empire had just been erased. Like , gone.

“Frost!” Valerius screamed , and his voice cracked with centuries-old hatred. “You stole my gold!”

“I am the Mafia Consort, Valerius,” I said, perfectly steady and flat, projecting this cold absolute dominance across the whole arena. I raised my blood-stained combat blade straight at his chest, close enough that it felt like a verdict. “I own the earth, and your champions are pathetic. Step onto the ice and face me yourself, or I will scorch this city into ashes.”

Valerius’s freezing-steel eyes widened. not from fear exactly, more like feral rage finally finding air. He threw the useless tablet over the balcony—just tossed it like it meant nothing. He didn’t call for another mercenary. instead he slowly unbuttoned his tailored suit jacket, showing off his sleek, highly advanced biometric combat gear.

“I’m going to tear that synthetic heart out of your chest,” Valerius promised, darkly, vaulting flawlessly over the VIP balcony and dropping directly toward the neon ice.

The absolute, devastating mirror match of the two fastest apex predators on earth had officially begun.