To test his theory and make sure his guess was correct, Raze rushed toward James at full speed, unleashing a relentless flurry of blows.
James's brow furrowed. Something was off.
He raised his arms to block, but twenty or so heavy strikes hammered against his guard. James gritted his teeth—the pressure was absurd. Raze was piling on the attacks, throwing body shots, throat jabs, and headshots in a blur.
James focused strictly on protecting his head and throat, leaving the rest of his body exposed. Raze was punching way too damn fast.
Suddenly, Raze grabbed James by the skull, lifting him into the air. With his free hand, Raze gathered his magic, coating his entire fist in a thick layer of churning magma.
He threw a devastating punch straight for James's face.
On pure instinct, James thrust out his own hand, wrapping it in dense darkness to block it.
CLASH!
Raze's searing fist was halted mid-air by James's dark-coated hand.
"Knew it," Raze sneered with a shit-eating grin.
Instead of focusing on the fact that Raze was holding him in mid-air and capable of popping his skull at any moment, James kept his attention locked on Raze's magma-coated hand. On the raw magic pulsing through it.
Before James could act further, Raze hurled him away at full speed. James's body slammed violently against the arena wall—a bone-rattling impact he was becoming far too used to.
"So that's what you were doing," Raze chuckled softly. This was turning out to be much more fun than he had anticipated.
Using magic like that was insanely inefficient—there were far better ways to sense a target.
But James was a complete novice. He didn't know any better; he was just throwing shit at the wall to see if it stuck.
"You're flooding the whole arena with your magic so you can sense me," Raze said, almost laughing. Not only was it a massive waste of energy, but it also had a fatal flaw.
In the next instant, Raze completely vanished from James's magical 'sight.' He reappeared directly in front of the boy, his fist already cocked back. Without wasting a single millisecond, he delivered a terrifying blow.
DOOM!
The entire arena shook from the impact, the sheer force of the strike causing visible spiderweb cracks to spread across the surrounding barrier. Raze's fist plunged into James's gut with enough kinetic force to imprint itself against his internal organs.
James violently spewed a mouthful of blood. It hurt so fucking badly. If he hadn't managed to reinforce his abdomen with magic at the absolute last second, that punch would have punched straight through him—giving him the full Ace treatment.
Raze pulled his fist back as James collapsed onto his knees, wheezing desperately as he tried to pull air back into his crushed lungs.
Raze casually reached down, grabbed the boy by his dark locks, and yanked his head back up.
Up in the Stands...
With Raze's group, Kael tilted his head, watching intently as Raze hoisted James by his hair.
"Wait... how the fuck did the kid block that magma punch while completely blind?" Something wasn't adding up to him.
Kael personally believed that if one punch didn't work, twenty more would do the trick.
He was a werewolf; there was practically nothing in existence they couldn't hunt. But he was also curious.
He loved stealing his enemies' techniques and adding them to his own arsenal.
It was his way of showing respect—even if the opponent was defeated, at least someone remembered their moves.
He wanted to learn whatever trick James had just pulled.
Malkor, who hadn't spoken in a while, stared down into the pit with a stern, unimpressed expression.
"It is a crude, desperate attempt at magic-based echolocation," Malkor explained, his voice low and calm. He kept his eyes fixed on James.
"The pup is actively flooding the entire arena with his own magic, turning the battlefield into a dense, atmospheric web. Whenever an object or person moves through that web, it interrupts the flow and sends a micro-vibration back to his core. His brain interprets those disruptions, allowing him to construct a rough spatial map of his surroundings."
He shook his head slightly.
"However, it requires an absurd amount of upkeep. Because the magic rapidly dissipates into the air, he has to constantly pump out massive amounts of energy just to keep the sensory field active. If his magic pool weren't so unnaturally vast, he would have drained himself bone-dry the moment he started."
"Sounds pretty useful to me," Toren chimed in with a grin, leaning casually over the railing.
"It is effective, but deeply flawed," Malkor countered.
"He isn't actually seeing physical shapes in real-time. He only perceives where an object was at the exact moment his magic pinged off it and sent the feedback back to his brain."
"Oh, so he's only seeing snapshots of Raze, not a live feed," Kael caught on immediately.
"Huh?" Toren blinked, looking confused.
"To put it simply," Kael clarified, "he's seeing where Raze was half a second ago, not where he actually is right now."
Toren frowned. "That's way too slow for high-level combat."
"Precisely," Malkor agreed calmly.
"And Raze figured out that latency instantly. He countered it by overloading the sensory web. By pouring massive amounts of magic into rapid-fire decoy strikes, he flooded the pup's mind with dozens of delayed sensory pings. James's brain was so overwhelmed trying to process where those fake attacks were half a second ago that he completely missed Raze moving in for the real blow."
In short: Raze had outsmarted him, using the kid's own sensory system to blindside him.
"This will be over soon enough," Lyra said, her tone dripping with boredom. If the boy's famed adaptability stopped at a flawed trick like that, he wouldn't last much longer.
James was not really in the best of moods. That was his hair they were talking about, and he was not too sure whether his regeneration also helped heal hair.
He paused.
Now that he thought about it, he had never actually seen a bald werewolf before. Maybe regeneration also included hair.
However, he did not plan on finding out.
Besides, he was not the kind of guy who enjoyed having his hair pulled.
Raze lowered himself until he was right next to James' ear before whispering.
"Stay away from her."
James was not feeling it. He had practically tried everything already and still failed. At this point, he really only had one option left.
"Or else, I will make sure you end up an orphan."
Every thought in James' mind vanished in that single instant.
That guy had gone after his parents again.
Raze jumped away, landing in the middle of the arena.
His hand was dislocated in such a grotesque way that it looked like whatever had done it had twisted the entire thing first before finally snapping it.
Meanwhile, in the stands...
Aldric simply raised his hand, stopping Thane from entering the arena.
Anyone who could properly sense aura could tell what was happening.
And while, yes, James was far closer to a wild beast than a human right now...
Anyone with eyes could also see that Raze had provoked it.
By the rules of the tournament, if you decided to throw out a taunt, you had better be capable of backing it up.
Luna watched as James' form began to change.
His hybrid body expanded, muscles swelling and bones cracking as his entire frame grew larger and larger until a towering, twelve-foot monster stood in the center of the arena.
The beast remained bipedal, its thick brown fur glinting beneath the moonlight.
Its eyes...
There was no white left.
Not even a sliver.
Its irises had completely consumed both eyes, leaving behind nothing but two endless black orbs that stared back at the world without a shred of humanity.
Even Aldric found himself curious to see where this was going to go.
Back in the arena, Raze glanced down at his ruined hand.
The twisted limb slowly untangled itself.
Bones shifted back into place with loud, sickening cracks before knitting themselves together as though they had never been protruding through his skin only moments ago.
Yet...
He could not help but smile.
This...
This was going to be fun.
The beast's gaze remained locked onto Raze.
And Raze alone.
Before...
Raze blinked.
The instant his eyes opened again...
A fist the size of his torso was already inches away from his face.
There was no time to dodge.
No time to react.
His only thought was—
'Shi—'
Before James' punch crashed into him with enough force to shake the entire arena.
The beast did not stop.
It was already behind Raze before his body had even finished flying away.
A devastating kick exploded into his spine.
Before he could recover, James hurled him high into the fucking air.
Then came the hammer fist.
It slammed Raze back toward the ground like a meteor.
The beast caught him before he could even hit the floor.
A brutal roundhouse folded his skull sideways, launching him into the arena wall.
Before the impact had even settled, James grabbed him again and smashed his face straight into the ground.
Then...
The beast leaped nearly fifty fucking feet into the air.
It came crashing back down, driving its knee directly into Raze's stomach with enough force to crater the stone beneath them.
Raze's body was nothing more than a ragdoll.
He did not even get the chance to breathe.
The creature never stopped attacking.
There was no rhythm.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
Only endless, relentless aggression.
"Back the fuck off!"
Raze unleashed a barrage of lava attacks toward the creature, who was currently sprinting toward him on all fours.
The beast...
Ran straight through them.
The flames scorched its fur.
Molten rock splashed across its body.
It simply did not care.
It burst through the barrage without slowing down.
Its fist buried itself into Raze's gut, folding him over before bouncing him off the concrete.
A split second later, a savage kick launched him into the barrier with enough force to create a goddamn crack across its surface.
The beast raised both hands.
Several massive chains erupted from the ceiling, wrapping themselves tightly around Raze's battered body.
James pulled backward.
The chains obeyed.
Raze was violently slammed into the arena floor with such overwhelming force that the entire ground trembled beneath everyone's feet.
To say Raze looked bloodied would be an understatement.
His body barely resembled something that should still be alive.
Bones jutted out where they had no business being.
Limbs bent at impossible angles.
Blood poured from nearly every wound.
The beast threw its head back and roared toward the moon.
The sound echoed across the arena like the cry of something ancient.
Then it slowly began walking toward Raze on all fours.
With every step...
Magic gathered inside its mouth.
The energy grew brighter.
Denser.
More unstable.
Reaching Raze, the beast rose back onto two legs.
It grabbed the warrior's limp body by the throat and forced him to look directly into its black eyes.
Then...
It opened its mouth.
A beam of pure magical energy erupted point-blank into Raze's body.
BOOM!
It sounded like a bomb had detonated inside the arena.
The barrier cracked even further, spiderweb fractures racing across its surface.
Smoke and dust filled the battlefield.
The beast simply stood there...
Looking down at the limp body of the warrior before it.
"Is that all you got?" Raze growled through gritted teeth before spitting a mouthful of blood straight into the beast's face.
The beast answered by opening its jaws, attempting to swallow him whole.
However...
Before it could clamp down, Raze's body began to transform.
His already massive hybrid form twisted and expanded into his full beast form.
"I am not that easy to beat."
Raze forced the transformation far faster than anyone normally should have been capable of.
Already heavily injured and in the middle of combat, he somehow managed to complete it just in time, narrowly avoiding having his head ripped clean off.
Now in his full wolf form, Raze lunged forward.
His jaws sank deep into the beast's neck.
James let out a furious roar, instinctively releasing his grip.
Using the opening, Raze kicked away, putting distance between them, his muzzle dripping with fresh blood.
His eyes landed on the beast.
The wounds on its neck were already closing.
The flesh knitted itself together before his very eyes.
Raze licked the blood from his lips.
It tasted...
Awfully sweet.
The beast, however, did not seem concerned by that.
Instead...
Raze suddenly froze.
It felt as though poison had entered his body.
Tiny explosions began erupting beneath his skin.
His organs convulsed.
His muscles spasmed violently.
He dropped to one knee, coughing up blood.
"Oh... the fucker..."
The beast had used its aura.
Unlike James, who barely understood what he was doing, the creature possessed absolute control over it.
It was closer to the source.
Hell...
It might as well be the source.
And because that blood had come from its own body...
It could make the aura inside that blood detonate whenever it pleased.
Raze growled through the pain.
Then forced himself back onto his feet.
His magma aura erupted once more, flames roaring around his massive body as he charged.
With a thunderous leap, he launched himself toward the beast's throat.
James raised both forelimbs.
The collision echoed throughout the arena.
The two colossal beasts locked together in a contest of nothing but raw physical strength.
Muscles bulged.
Claws dug into flesh.
Teeth snapped only inches away from one another's faces as magma and darkness violently collided, turning the space around them into absolute chaos.
For a brief...
Agonizing...
Moment...
Neither moved.
It was a brutal display of equality.
Then...
Raze's aura flickered.
The compressed darkness James had planted inside his body earlier suddenly erupted once again.
Raze coughed violently.
Dark gray blood splattered from his jaws.
His rear left leg buckled for the briefest fraction of a second.
That...
Was all the shadow beast needed.
James twisted violently out of the deadlock.
The darkness blanketing the arena suddenly surged upward.
Shadow wrapped itself around the beast's limbs, hardening into solid plates of pitch-black armor.
Then...
It disappeared.
Not literally.
It simply moved so fast that Raze's eyes barely tracked it.
The beast blitzed.
Its speed completely defied its monstrous size.
Raze's glowing eyes widened.
Too late.
James' armored forepaw came crashing across his face in a devastating hook.
CRACK!
The impact completely shattered Raze's volcanic mantle.
His ribs caved inward.
The enormous ash-gray wolf was launched over fifty feet across the arena, carving a massive trench through solid stone before finally tumbling to a stop.
Raze groaned.
His front legs trembled violently as he struggled to push himself back up.
His magma aura...
Had been reduced to little more than dying embers.
Before he could even lift his head...
A shadow appeared above him.
James materialized directly out of the darkness.
Then dropped.
BOOM!
A colossal paw, coated in dense shadow armor, slammed directly onto the side of Raze's skull.
His head was crushed into the arena floor.
The beast's dark aura exploded outward.
Gravity itself seemed to increase.
An unbearable weight descended upon Raze's body.
He thrashed wildly.
His claws scraped uselessly against the stone.
His muscles strained until veins threatened to burst.
He could not move.
Not even an inch.
The entire coliseum fell silent.
The drums stopped.
The cheers vanished.
Every spectator stood frozen in the galleries.
Towering over the defeated Vanguard elite...
The colossal shadow beast slowly raised its head toward the open sky.
"RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Its roar shook the heavens.
As the sound echoed throughout the arena, every wound covering its massive body finished healing.
Meanwhile...
Raze's body looked more broken than ever.
The beast lowered its gaze.
It reached down and grabbed Raze by the throat, effortlessly lifting the giant wolf into the air.
Raze had long since lost feeling throughout most of his body.
He could feel it.
His will...
Was being dominated.
Crushed beneath the overwhelming pressure radiating from the creature.
And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
Even then...
Raze spat another mouthful of blood directly into the beast's face.
The creature did not even blink.
It simply opened its jaws.
Wide.
Rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth glistened beneath the moonlight as they descended toward Raze's body.
The beast's jaws snapped shut.
BAM!!
Before they could connect...
A blur slammed into James from the side.
The impact launched the twelve-foot monster clear across the arena.
Its body smashed through the barrier.
The magical wall shattered like glass.
James continued flying until his back slammed into the arena wall hard enough to leave a massive crater.
The beast slowly stood.
It was furious.
Its black eyes locked onto the newcomer.
Thane.
He had entered the arena.
"The fight is over," Thane said calmly, standing between the beast and the broken warrior.
"Raze has lost."
The beast answered with a deep, monstrous growl.
It did not care.
It wanted to kill that bastard.
It wanted to kill Raze for what he had dared to say.
A/N 2.8k words.
Anyway, how was the fight and what can be improved.
Did i properly show that James is not as strong as Raze.
Any questions?
Vote with powerstone{Webnovel}
Vote with stars {Watpad}
Like the chapter {Scribble hub}