Divine Beast Ascension

“So we can either chase her doubles and pray to Dominus they’re the real thing, or we can wait and do nothing like helpless prey?!” Kako shouted in summary, trying his best to not demoralize himself.

Yeter nodded and kicked up some dirt. “That’s right! That’s why I’ll chase down the doubles unless you’ve got a better plan.”

Kako said nothing more. For the first time in a long while, Kako couldn’t think up a strategy off the top of his head or from the lower recesses of his mind. He found himself in a baffling situation with no answer anywhere to be found.

Chasing after one of the invisible doubles, Yeter made sure to spread his essence evenly across his essence armor. He wanted to leave no weak spots for Netra to exploit. Doing so then reminded Yeter of something. “Oh yeah! Brace yourself, because I think she’ll come after you first!”

“What!? Why do you say that?” Though Kako asked that question, he had already started pushing his essence armor to maximum strength.

“Because she’ll get hurt breaching my armor,” Yeter stated, baffling most people spectating.

Kako didn’t say anything in an immediate reply. He just paid closer attention to the nature behind Yeter’s earth essence armor before nodding. Then, Kako steadied his axe and did his best to sense the world around him in every way possible. He kept his eyes open, ears peeled, and essence sensory active at all times. Kako was fully focused on bracing for impact and reducing the imminent strike’s damage as much as possible while also preparing to counterattack.

The entire colosseum was silent, apart from the thud of Yeter’s hooves. Having so many empty seats only added to the tense lack of sound.

.....

Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. One minute. Three minutes…

No matter how many body doubles Yeter chased down, none of them were ever Netra. But Yeter didn’t care. He would need to maintain his essence defenses anyway, so spending a bit more effort to race after Netra wasn’t a big deal.

Kako felt the weight of the surmounting tension far more than Yeter. Since Kako wasn’t as fast as the stallion and didn’t have Yeter’s unusual essence armor, Kako could only wait until there was some kind of sign to follow and attack. But that left Kako standing still in confusion for three minutes straight, the longest three minutes of Kako’s life.

Sweating through his fur and doing his best to maintain a firm but not-too-tight grip on his axe, Kako did all he could to relax. The last thing he needed was to get stiff and lower his reaction speed or get too jumpy.

Then, Netra appeared.

Krrsh. Krrsh. Drip, drip, drip…

Two attacks, each made on a different person. One hit Kako’s uninjured side and the other hit Yeter’s hip.

“There you are!” Yeter yelled, turning around to chase that invisible, attacking figure.

Kako whipped his head around, startled to see Netra’s visage appear as soon as her claw was retracted from Kako’s side. “COWARD!”

Whiff! Krrsh.

To Kako’s shock, his axe cleaved through Netra without any resistance. It destroyed the illusory double. All the while, an invisible claw extended Kako’s first side wound, doubling its length and forcing the baboon to wince in pain.

Kako tried to turn around again but his body started to bleed out the moment he twisted his torso. While one side had a simple, clean injury, the other side was now lacerated to the point that Kako’s upper torso almost turned without the lower torso on that side. The movement resulted in a lot of blood loss and enough pain to shake Kako’s counterattack.

The invisible fox girl effortlessly evaded the incoming axe. Though Kako couldn’t see how she did it or where she went, it was obvious by his axe missing everything but the dirt. And he couldn’t even use his axe-slingshot strategy because he had no clue where his opponent had gone.

Yeter wasn’t injured as badly as Kako. But having his hip targeted greatly slowed his speed. Of course, Yeter was confident that Netra was at least partially injured by his earthen essence armor. So Yeter was glad for at least that.

However, the body double that had attacked Yeter faded out of existence the same moment it breached Yeter’s defenses. So Yeter could only conclude that he had been attacked by a double while Kako was assaulted by the real fox. “I told you so! She’ll target you first!”

Nodding and sighing, Kako did his best to stay still while sensing everything around him. Yet… nothing seemed to have changed.

… Krrsh. Crunch!

Kako felt a claw jab through his earth essence armor and stab the back of his shoulder, between his armpit and shoulder blade.

Though he could do nothing to stop the attack already piercing him, Kako retaliated by raising stone spikes out of the ground and swinging his axe toward the invisible foe with his untouched arm.

But all Kriff managed to do was destroy his own stone spikes. Netra had vanished as quickly as she had appeared.

“That one was probably a body double!” Yeter shouted, forever optimistic. “Get ready. Otherwise, we won’t be able to counterattack!”

Breathing heavily but slowly, Kako nodded. He kept his senses sharp. At least, Kako kept them as sharp as his battered and cut-up body would allow. Just to stall the bleeding, Kako was forced to redirect a lot of essence and attention to his open wounds.

Just then Kako realized what was going on. “She’s trying to bleed us out! She wants us to pass out from blood loss!”

Krrsh.

Another wound opened on Yeter’s lower underbelly, targeting the same side and vicinity of Yeter’s hip injury. Only this wound was gushing with blood.

“Not again!” Yeter cried out in frustration.

“Again? You knew this was one of her strategies?!” Kako shouted back.

All-knowing, Yeter quipped, “Of course that’s her merciful strategy! She’ll target the areas of high blood flow instead of places she can kill us in one hit. That’s how assassins are merciful!”

“Like I said, I wouldn’t know that!” Kako retorted but still clamored to keep up his defenses.

“Too bad it’s too late for you to win.”

Both Yeter and Kako turned their attention to the outer edge of the arena. There they spotted Netra calmly sitting up and staring back at them with a neutral depression.

“THERE YOU ARE!” Just as Yeter redirected his charge at Netra, he felt another rush of blood escaping his wound. “What…”

Netra said, “I’ve injured you in places that will bleed out more every time you move. The more often or faster you move, the more blood you lose. Now, I could make the match a game of tag without any need to touch you again and I would still win. Do you surrender?”

“NEVER–”

“I give up…” Kako sighed and let his body slowly collapse to the ground.

Furious at his partner, Yeter stomped and broke the ground under his hoof. “Quitter! How dare you call yourself a challenger!”

“This isn’t the Mortal Championship. It’s a chance to learn,” Kako replied while some rushed to his side to give him a divine elixir and some salves to stop his bleeding.

Netra was unfazed by Yeter’s outbursts. Knowing Yeter for so long, Netra was completely unaffected by his outstanding personality and actions. “Yeter, if you want to continue then I’ll let you play tag. But we both know I’m not losing.”

“So be it!”

Throwing caution to the wind, Yeter bolted for Netra. The stallion didn’t bat an eye as he tried to slow the bleeding with his somewhat solidified essence and focused solely on the motionless fox.

CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

A blender of earthen spikes appeared on either side of Netra, clashing and breaking apart as the two sets of spikes clashed with Netra at the center.

But the visage of the fox girl faded away without any blood.

Krrsh! Crack! Crack!

“I’ll honor your determination and end this now.”

That was the last thing Yeter heard before he collapsed and tumbled across the ground. Three new wounds appeared on Yeter’s body. A long slit had opened up along Yeter’s side, spilling blood at a terrifying rate. But the worst was Yeter’s broken front legs. Each femur was cleanly split and rendered the stallion completely immobile.

As Yeter hit the floor hard, he cried out in pain but still managed to shout one last phrase before passing out from shock and blood loss. “HA! I came in second! …”

“HA! HA! HA!” Laughter broke out from the banquet balcony. In particular, two people at separate tables were slamming their fists down or holding their guts to hurriedly expel the laughing fit. Zelsh broke his goblet without realizing it but didn’t seem to care. And Bradok broke the table he, Vloz, and Ania were at.

All the while, Vloz silently controlled himself to keep from chuckling. And Ania sighed, masking her face with her hand to hide from her father’s embarrassing display.