Chapter 174: Chapter 174 - The Haven(Part 3)

"Each of you will face one of us in a one on one sparring bout. If you defeat us, or at least give us a good fight, you can stay here for a month. To be precise, we’ll let you stay here as our guests for a maximum of thirty-seven days. You may each choose which of us you want to face. Now, who wants to go first?" Inquired Howll, after a quick recap of their terms.

"Ooh, let me! I wanna fight one of you...which of you is the strongest?" Inquired Izzy with a gleam in her eyes, before any of the rest of us could respond.

Hm, ideally, I’d have preferred to have her go last, save the best for last and what not. Plus, if she goes first, that sets a pretty damn high bar for the rest of us to follow.

Well, then again, this isn’t all bad...with her going first, we’ve effectively guaranteed that we’ll start off with a win. Hope I didn’t just jinx things for us. Nah, a simple jinx won’t be enough to make Izzy lose.

"Wait, does she need to fight too? I mean, she’s not a human, so she has nothing to prove, right?" Pointed out Argent with a slightly alarmed look on his face.

Oh, I think I get what he’s worried about. If she ends up getting too into it, she could kill someone without even meaning to. That could be really bad for us.

"Ah, right, I forgot about that. Well, I suppose she doesn’t need to-...," Began Oberr, after a brief pause.

"What? No! No way, that’s not fair!" She protested in horrified indignation, before glaring at Argent, "I feel so betrayed right now..."

"Try to see it from my perspective, you could easily end up accidentally killing your opponent, they’d definitely kick us out, or more likely just try to kill us, if you did that. But...fine, if it’s that important to you, then I won’t stop you," He sighed in exasperation.

"Oh? I can’t ignore that...you just implied that we’re so much weaker than her that she could accidentally kill us, meaning that she’d be holding back to begin with. Alright, then, Monster girl...I’ll face you myself," Declared Howll, looking pretty insulted.

"Wow, you just picked the wrong thing to say twice in a row," I whispered to Argent in amusement.

"Please take this seriously," He sighed in response.

"Fine by me," Grinned Izzy eagerly.

Werewolves are an extremely powerful race, though they only reach their full potential during full moons. They’re still pretty damn powerful even without that though.

We then headed out towards that arena I’d spotted earlier after Izzy washed off the makeup on her skin, looking like she could barely contain herself as we made our way out towards the arena. We were getting a lot of wary stares and whispers as we passed by some other Demi-Humans, no surprise there.

I wonder, just how powerful is Howll, anyway? Can he put up a fight against Izzy? He looks pretty strong, but judging a book by its cover isn’t the best way to go.

He’s pretty tall with a strong, solid build, only wearing trousers and showing off his upper body physique. He had long, wild jet black hair that went down to his shoulders, dark brown eyes, wolf ears around the top of his head and a fluffy tail.

He also had a thick mustache that connected to a short chin beard, and sharp looking fangs and claws. As he and Izzy arrived and entered the arena, his body began to morph and change.

Jet black fur sprouted across his entire body, as his mouth and nose extended forward, his teeth growing sharper and longer as a slight growl echoed out, his claws growing longer as well.

In this form, a Werewolf’s base physical abilities are doubled, the books I’ve read about them estimate them in this state to be more dangerous than any Catastrophic Grade Monsters.

Werewolves can’t use Magic, but they do possess a total of three Skills instead. They don’t have Soul Weapons either, their trump card would be the fact that their power doubles again when under a full moon. They can also regenerate from most injuries pretty easily.

Now, then...let’s see how this Werewolf fares against one of the most powerful Monsters in existence...

———————————————————————————

Point-of-View: Izzozon

———————————————————————————

"This arena has been enchanted with a barrier that’ll trigger when one of you is about to receive a fatal wound and teleport you out before you can be killed. I’ve also placed a physical barrier around the arena to keep the fight contained," Announced the Fairy leader, as I eyed my Werewolf opponent with a sense of rising anticipation and excitement, "You may begin in three...two...one!"

The Werewolf immediately shot towards me, his claws gleaming as he began to close in on me. He then sprang forward towards me and drove his claws towards my throat with a rapid twist of his arm...wow, not bad, he’s faster than most humans.

I deflected his arm away by tapping the back of my fist against his forearm, before lightly driving my fist towards his face. He just barely evaded it by tilting his head to the left, the force of my punch leaving a small cut across his right cheek, which quickly healed up.

As he then swung his right foot at my side, I deflected it with a whip of my tail, before he swung his claws down at my head. I reached up and grabbed his wrist before his claws could hit me, before wrapping my tail around his throat with a tight grip as he began to open his jaws.

"Is this it? Aren’t you supposed to be the strongest one here?" I sighed in disappointment, before letting go of him as he suddenly swung his foot up towards the side of my head.

He’s really flexible, huh. I raised my arm to block his kick, before grabbing his leg as it thudded against my forearm and then flinging him away. He managed to regain his balance in mid-air and landed on all fours, skidding back slightly as he eyed me warily.

"Okay, you’re really powerful...I underestimated you. It’s clear now that I can’t afford to hold back here," He replied with a wry smile, before suddenly vanishing from sight.

Oh, he’s behind me. I swiftly spun around and blocked with my palm as he drove a punch towards me, before he teleported again as I fired out a small bolt of lightning at him from my mouth.

I then glanced up as he reappeared high in the air, swinging out his arms as his claws glowed brightly, firing out slashing waves from his claws down towards me.

I spread out my wings and zipped across to evade the slashes, before flying towards the Werewolf as he began to plummet. He teleported again, reappearing behind me. As I spun around, he inhaled sharply before unleashing a deafening howl from his jaws, my ears ringing and my vision blurring as it hit me.

I quickly flew away and landed, stumbling a bit as I felt a kick land on my chest, before springing back a few pages and forming a sphere of blue flames around me, swirling fiercely as I waited for my hearing to recover. That was so loud, ow...I feel pretty disoriented.

It’s so hard to figure out how much to hold back...he is pretty fast and strong, but it seems like he doesn’t have much experience with real fights. And that’s really throwing me off for some reason...I’m holding back to try and enjoy this fight, but he’s not really giving off much of any intent to play off of.

Well, this was disappointing. Might as well get it over with now. I then drew the blue flames back in towards me, and as the Werewolf teleported right in front of me, looking ready to unleash another howl, I swiftly reached out, grabbed his chin and snout and snapped his jaw shut.

He quickly slashed at me with his claws, likely in an effort to get me to let go, but I ignored it, letting him slash my neck as I opened my mouth and charged up blue flames, the gashes in my neck closing up rapidly.

He then vanished as I fired out the blue flames, reappearing outside of the barrier before they could engulf him, a stunned look on his face.

"Defeated so easily?" Muttered one of the other leaders in disbelief.

"And those blue flames, what Monster species is she?"

"I don’t know, but she’s powerful..."

"Hey, that wasn’t much fun. Can I fight someone else?" I requested with a frown.

"Easy there, tiger, you’re gonna make them feel bad," Larrk whispered to me, as Argent pulled me back by my shoulders.

Ugh, fine...and if that guy really is the strongest one here, then any other opponent I face would likely be even more disappointing.

"Anyway, uh...who’s gonna fight in the next round?" Inquired Rosary, as an awkward silence began to set in.

"Let me handle it, if that’s okay," Remarked Prysm, stepping forward.

"Sure, go ahead, knock yourself out," Replied Larrk with a shrug.

"Good luck, you can do this," Added Argent encouragingly.

"Yeah, you’ve got this, kiddo," Rosary smiled at her.

Hm, guess I should say something too.

"Hey, be careful...they’re strong but inexperienced in real combat, it’ll end really quickly if you take it too seriously," I advised her.

"Oh, uh...thanks, Izzy. I’ll keep that in mind," She replied with a wry smile.

_____________________________________________

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this Chapter! Don’t forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism!

Also, check out my Instagram account @aimdaqs for posts relating to this book.

Join the Discord server, I plan to tease upcoming Chapters and future story arcs here, and you can also discuss or ask me any questions about the story and characters. Use the invite link to join:

https://discord.gg/sRbx9VbTVP