Scarlet

So I was a little disappointed when our strikes collided, since he was weaker than me despite apparently being a higher level. Although I can’t tell how he stacks up to the demons in physical strength, since they all vary, and I’ve never had much of a direct confrontation with them considering their lack of sapience. For the ones I’ve fought that is.

But after seeing his eyes glowing and his strength soaring with that? Now that makes this more interesting.

I quickly begin to use blood boil and life drain on him while coating my other hand in blood claws too, which surprises him with the sudden shift. But not enough to make him let down his guard as he quickly transforms his other arm as well and raises it to block my claws.

And this time, my claws don’t manage to pierce into his stone.

“Whatever skill he’s using, it’s got to be at least Epic rarity,” Tar suddenly tells me in my mind, making my eyes narrow slightly.

Epic, huh?

I narrow my eyes before suddenly seeing the guy’s arms begin to pulsate with an orange light. So I use blood sacrifice to give myself a sudden boost before pushing him back and disengaging. And almost immediately afterwards, some sort of shockwave echoes from his fists, and he brings them both down together to smash the ground, making a wave of spikes begin shooting up out of the ground in the process.

Now that’s a rather basic skill, unlike whatever other skill he was using to harden and strengthen himself.

Despite that thought, I narrow my eyes further and burn just a bit more of both my blood and the blood in my blood bank to clear my way around the attack before rushing at him while he’s recovering from attacking. And when I make it within four meters of him, I jump up off of the ground with one of my claws raised and bring it down straight from his shoulder to his waist, only getting part of it blocked when he manages to raise one of his arms back to around his waist, deflecting the end of my strike and throwing me off balance.

I grit my teeth and land on the ground before regaining my balance and kicking at him to create some distance. But I quickly find that to be unnecessary, because the man is already beginning to bleed out from my attack.

And he very clearly doesn’t look too happy about it.

My sense of pride tingles at the back of my head, pleased at having won the duel so thoroughly. So I begin walking towards him while spreading my claws out again, ready to deal the finishing blow. But right when I’m about to do it, I pause as I realize this’ll be the first time I’ve killed a human being. Even if it’s in a magical reality.

“Dodge!” Tar shouts in my head, but it’s too late as I feel something slamming into my side, sending me flying for several meters before I crash into the ground. I then cough out a mouthful of blood and try to climb back to my feet, only to find my side less than agreeable with that. “Damned pride and hesitation!”

Shit. That fucking hurt. Even if about fifty or so percent of the pain is reduced while inside of a magical reality.

“Well now you know better than to let your guard down due to your pride!” Tar scolds me, but my attention is quickly taken by the sight of my wound slowly knitting itself back together. Much faster than the blood moon would, but still rather slow. “Or hesitation to kill.”

At the rate it’s going, it’ll take about half a minute to a minute to heal fully. So I turn my attention to the other guy to find him still bleeding out over on the ground, but with what looks like a large stone fist frozen where I was standing.

Some sort of last resort or something?

Either way, I hear him saying something rather clearly with my ears, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to hear it if I didn’t have my wolf ears.

“Damned fucking claws…”

Okay, guess he’s not talking to me.

We both sit in place for a few seconds until I begrudgingly push through the pain of standing up through pure willpower before staggering over to him again and using blood boil, apparently making his injury much worse in the process considering his coughing.

“Such a brutal tournament,” Tar mutters, and I can’t help but agree. But from my understanding, the people like the bloodshed in it as it shows that we can defend them when it matters.

Which is kind of ironic because it’s also their defenders who are shedding blood, but whatever.

Anyways, I need to fight that prideful instinct harder the next time it comes. Otherwise, it might be the death of me.

As I make my way over to the man, I find it slowly becoming easier to walk purely thanks to my regenerative skill. And by the time I make it to him, I don’t feel too much of the wound anymore – most of it likely having been a fractured rib or a broken one or something. Since the stone fist never actually broke the surface of my skin, or even my magi-tech armor.

I can’t help but take a little bit of pride in the shocked way I find the man looking at me, likely having expected me to be down for the count as well or something from his blow. Then I immediately leap towards him and dig my claws straight into his chest to grab his heart.

No hesitation this time.

The man – I think his name was William – coughs out a mouthful of blood and smiles lightly, quietly muttering, “Good fight, Scarlet Wolf.”

I let out a sigh at the title, finally just deciding to accept it.

Then the magical reality begins to break apart and I find myself standing exactly where I was before entering it, with the boy standing in front of me with a grimace on his face – likely suffering from a bad headache right now. And the earpiece then plays a slightly different voice in my head. One clearly just stating a fact instead of asking a question.

[Three points have been awarded for winning a duel. You now have a total of 3 points.]