Damon lowered her slowly onto the bed, letting her back hit the soft cushions before he leaned forward and

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

A loud knock resounded across the room, coming from the door they entered through moments ago.

Damon and Ayame exchanged a short, somewhat surprised look before scrambling to their feet.

"Yes?" Ayame asked, patting her dress flat.

The door slowly opened to reveal Kazumi, Ayame’s female servant.

"Lady Ayame, the elders have heard of your choosing of a champion and have requested to see him."

Damon raised a brow. ’The elders?’

He knew Ayame was one of the Six Divine beasts, so he assumed she was the sole leader of her people, but now that he thought about it, this made more sense. Just like humans back home who had their council meetings, people here probably had something similar.

Ayame stayed quiet for a moment before replying. "Tell them we will be there in five."

Kazumi nodded, bowed, then left the room and shut the door softly behind her.

"The elders?" Damon finally asked the moment the servant left.

"Don’t worry about it. In my world, the strongest of their people rule and the rest...?" She paused for a short moment. "Let’s just say they like to think their opinions matter."

With that, the two of them left Ayame’s room and moved toward the hall where the elders normally met.

It was a large, dimly lit space filled with a burning smell of something Damon couldn’t quite recognise.

Four figures sat across a table made for at least two dozen, their eyes immediately locked onto Damon, who entered the room just a step behind Ayame.

The four of them rose to their feet the second she entered, showing a sign of respect and only settling back down once she chose her seat.

Damon sat right beside her, noticing the constant gazes watching his every move.

"So..." a soft voice suddenly cut through the room. "That’s him..." It was more like a murmur to herself than any meaningful statement.

Damon turned toward the sound of the voice to see a woman who would be in her 20s if she were a human, though he doubted that was her real age. She had jet black hair, fox ears and four tails behind her back, staring at him with an intrigued expression.

The man beside her, with short silver-white hair, wore something quite different. He stared at Damon with a frown and a look that almost spoke of disapproval.

"This is the person you bet your life on, sis?" the man with short silver-white hair asked.

Damon’s eyes widened slightly. ’Sis?’

For some reason, maybe simply because she had never mentioned it, but he never expected her to have any siblings, which in hindsight seemed rather foolish.

He filed it away and resumed his neutral expression.

Ayame’s response to her brother was exactly what he would’ve expected. Composed and completely unbothered by the opinion of others.

"He is," she said so simply that he could almost see the frustration on her brother’s face.

The brother’s frown deepened as his gaze moved away from Ayame and back onto Damon, whom he looked at with an expression that said he was deciding whether to lower himself to address him directly.

And apparently, he decided yes.

"What level are you?"

"Seventy-six," Damon replied calmly.

Raiden leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping slowly against the wooden table.

"The Dragon clan raises monsters from birth," he said. "And you chose not only an outsider but a weak one at that."

His red eyes narrowed.

"This is the person you’re wagering our future on?"

"He’s strong, Raiden," Ayame spoke up. "Once we get him to level 100, the other champions won’t stand a chance."

Raiden’s expression didn’t change.

"Level 100," he repeated flatly. "The Dragon clan champion is already at level 92." He looked at his sister with the particular frustration of someone who had made this argument before and expected to make it again. "Getting him to 100 assumes he survives long enough to get there."

"He will," Ayame replied, though between her words there was a flash of surprise, the same one that Damon wore in that moment.

Both had no idea what level the champion of the Dragon clan was, so it was quite shocking to hear it all of a sudden.

But just as fast as it appeared, the surprise was gone and Ayame’s expression snapped back to cold composure.

"My decision is final," she said flatly, the presence of her mana spilling across the room like a physical weight.

Out of everyone present, she was the only one who had nine-tails. Both Ayame’s brother and the woman beside him had four tails while the other two men who sat quietly so far had two and three tails.

Damon was well aware how big the discrepancy between each tail was so it was very clear to him how much stronger she was compared to them.

But it also raised another question he hadn’t asked yet.

How did she manage to recover her other tails so fast?

He filed the question away for later, keeping it in mind to ask it when he gets a chance to and focused back on the conversation around him which had grown rather stale.

Damon suddenly stood up, snapping everyone’s attention toward himself.

"Enough talk," he said, his eyes trailing across everyone present before landing on Raiden. "There is only one way to judge someone’s strength... What do you say, fox-boy, are you down for some sparring?"

Raiden’s eyes widened.

A second later, he surged to his feet, fists slamming against the table hard enough to nearly shatter it.

The two elder men who had been silent throughout shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

The woman with jet black hair and four tails made no attempt to hide her amusement as she watched the scene with a wide grin on her pale face.

"You—" Raiden’s jaw tightened, his four tails rising behind him with the particular agitation of someone whose composure had been punctured before they could prevent it.

"Outside." his fists clenched. "Now."