In the next fight of the tournament, the Dragon chose the winner of the second fight and the st one. The man with a crooked nose and cauliflower ears was facing the second worst participant in the whole tournament. The favourite was clear, especially since the better-trained guy was also taller by a head and weighed a good forty pounds more.

  It seemed the shorter guy wanted to keep his distance and maybe tire his opponent by dodging his punches, but he couldn’t run away endlessly. Despite his bigger size, the man with the crooked nose seemed quite agile and managed to catch up to the shorter fighter. The first few hits were blocked, but the strength behind them was overwhelming, and while the shorter man managed to block them, he was clearly in a losing position.

  The fight didn’t st long. One of the punches slipped past the guard and struck the smaller guy in the liver. He gasped in pain, lowering his guard, and when a hook followed to his face, he fell like a log. He didn’t get back up until the staff picked him up and carried him out of the ring.

  That meant it was time for my fight against the man with the scar running across his face. He was taller and heavier than me, and during his first fight he had pressed forward aggressively. I suspected he would be even more relentless against me. There wasn’t much of a break between fights, and as soon as the ring was free, we were pushed to the center.

  The Dragon was staring at me the entire time, and under other circumstances I might have worried that tempting her with my blood was too much, but I didn’t have time for that with the next fight already starting.

  I shifted my gaze to my opponent, focusing completely on him. After confirming that we were both ready, the referee started the fight.

  He immediately rushed at me, guard up, trying to nd the first punch, but I moved out of the way. He followed, his fists flying as he kept attacking without any real pn. Just full strength behind his blows, hoping one of them would reach me.

  I was moving out of his reach, dodging all his punches. It was a simir tactic to what I had seen in the previous fight moments earlier, but there was one big difference. While the shorter fighter back then had been faster, he hadn’t been that much faster. I, thanks to my css, was far more agile than my opponent, and I had no trouble avoiding his attacks.

  The thing was, you can’t win a fight by only dodging punches. I needed to strike back. The next time I sidestepped one of his punches, I hit as hard as I could just below his guard, smming my fist into his muscur side before dashing backward, out of his range.

  That stopped him for a moment. He didn’t rush in again immediately, clearly feeling the impact of my strike and wary of getting hit like that again. He approached more cautiously, but it didn’t help him. I dodged his next attack as well, this time countering again.

  He managed to take it on his guard and immediately followed up with an uppercut. I leaned back, his fist missing my face by mere inches. Taking advantage of the opening he left, I struck him with a hook. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the best position to put much force into it, but a clean hit to the chin should hurt him regardless.

  He stumbled a few feet back but quickly regained his composure, wiping blood from his mouth. I stayed calm, not rushing at him. So far, my tactic was working, so I waited for him to come at me again, hoping to counterattack.

  I didn’t have to wait long. He moved toward me quickly, as if closing the distance at high speed was supposed to surprise me and finally let him reach me. I juked the first punch, took the next one on my guard, and drove an uppercut toward his chin. He managed to block it with his forearm, trying to answer with a wide hook from his other hand.

  I raised my right hand to block it and smmed my left fist into his stomach. He grunted in pain. I tried to follow up with a straight right to his face, but he ducked low. My hand brushed over his forehead, and only then did I realize he wasn’t just dodging - he was going for my legs.

  Grabbing me by the hips, he lifted me slightly, and before I could react, my back smmed into the ground. I immediately wrapped my legs around his hips and reached up, locking my arms around his head and shoulders, pulling him into my closed guard.

  After both of us had just taken a hard exchange, we paused for a moment, catching our breath, still locked together. Not wanting to give him too much time, I punched him in the side.

  Then I loosened my grip just enough to make him try to pull away. The moment he shifted his weight, I moved with it, twisting my hips and forcing his bance to break. Suddenly, I was on top.

  He panicked, trying to get away, twisting his body and giving me his back - and more than that. He slipped up with his neck close to my forearm, and I couldn’t waste an opportunity like that. I locked my arm around his neck and shifted behind him, closing the choke from his back.

  Too te, he realized what had happened, trying to tuck his chin down, but my arm was already pressed tightly against his neck. I wrapped my legs around his hips and pulled back with all my strength.

  He struggled for a few seconds before his hand started tapping frantically against my arm. I immediately released the hold, letting him draw a deep breath. The referee rushed in, pushing me away from him. He was still gasping on the ground when I stood up over him.

  I wasn’t even that tired, no doubt thanks to my css. Despite his physical advantage, he hadn’t been anywhere close to winning that fight. It had only sted that long because of my more defensive, reactive approach.

  As they helped my opponent off the ground, I first looked at the Dragon, who was speaking quietly with the woman at her side, hiding her mouth. Then I looked at Sage. She wasn’t smiling anymore, watching the crowd with a frown and something that looked like disgust.

  “Potion for you,” the woman who had taken my shirt earlier said, approaching me with the mixture in her hand. I didn’t really need it, and this time there wasn’t even a reason to pretend that I did, but after inspecting it to make sure it wasn’t something else, I drank it anyway. Not that it could really harm me.

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile, handing the potion back to her. It was actually kind of sweet in taste. Amber should have learned from them, so hers wouldn’t taste like shit anymore.

  Thinking about Amber, my thoughts drifted to her, Zoe, and Azura, who were waiting for me back at the house, probably worried and nervous. I should really compensate them for the whole situation once I got back to Ortas.

  My wandering thoughts were interrupted when the announcer in her chainmail bikini stepped into the middle of the ring, announcing that they would give me one more minute of rest before the final fight of the night.

  I looked at my next opponent, who was already standing in the center of the ring, his gaze locked on me. He was built simirly to my previous opponent, a bit taller and heavier than me.

  With the st one, I had gotten lucky. Not that I needed it to win, but when he went for my legs and took the fight to the ground, he wasn’t very good at it and allowed me to finish the fight. With this opponent, though, I would much rather keep the fight standing.

  If he managed to get on top of me, even the advantage of my css strength might not be enough to break free, and then I’d be in real trouble.

  “Ready?” the referee asked, the minute passing quickly while I was lost in thought.

  “Yeah,” I murmured, stepping a little closer to the center, preparing for the st fight. So far things had gone well, but my final opponent seemed like the strongest one yet, something that shouldn’t really surprise me.

  The referee started the fight, but neither of us moved forward right away. We stood there, watching each other. I was the first to step in, still keeping my distance, searching for an opening.

  He didn’t try anything at first, so more to test him than to truly attack, I threw a punch. It nded on his guard, and he immediately answered with a hook of his own. It seemed he was trying to use the same tactic I had used on my previous opponent, focusing on counterattacks, but I stayed cautious and leaned out of his reach.

  He quickly brought his guard back up, but I moved in again, looking for a gap in his defenses. At the same time, I stayed careful, so we mostly traded strikes through empty air, both of us keeping a safe distance.

  The fight wasn’t really going anywhere yet, but one thing felt off. He was faster than my previous opponent, faster than he should have been. Maybe he was using some kind of magical boost. Even so, he was still slower than me, and I intended to use that to my advantage.

  I closed the distance carefully and tried a right hook, but he blocked it with his guard. He swung back toward my face, but I juked to the side. No matter what either of us tried, everything ended up blocked or dodged, the two of us dancing back and forth, neither willing to fully commit.

  But I was pretty sure I could outst him and that my stamina was better, even if the fight dragged on for a long time. At some point, he must have realized the same thing, because he finally went on the offensive, taking a much riskier approach.

  I blocked the first punch, then the second, and when he got too close, I managed to nd a hit to his side. But he didn’t stop. Holding his guard, he started to rain punches on me. I dodged as many as I could, but some still smmed into my guard, until one finally slipped through my defenses, his fist connecting with my chin and part of my mouth.

  I staggered back and quickly raised my hands to block any follow-up attacks. He came at me again, but I dodged and countered with a punch to his stomach, then jumped a few feet away. I could feel blood on my lower lip, but despite how massive he looked, his strikes hadn’t really bothered me that much.

  The advantage of my css made it hard for him to win the fight, even if I took a few hits. Growing more confident, or maybe cocky, I moved toward him. I feinted a straight right, and when he shifted to block it, I snapped a quick left. I only grazed his face, but as he stepped back, I followed, blocking his punch before striking again.

  A wide hook flew just above my head as I dropped low, and I drove my fist into his ribs. My hand hurt after that, and I really hoped his ribs hurt more.

  He faltered, moving as if he wanted to attack, then hesitated. I used that moment to hit him again. He blocked it, but the next punch connected cleanly with his face. Even after that, he stayed on his feet. He spat blood to the side, but looked ready to continue.

  He came at me aggressively, but I juked his attacks and smmed my fist into his stomach two more times. He kept his guard high, protecting his head well, but that left his body wide open.

  We kept fighting like that. I slipped just out of range of his attacks while hammering his stomach over and over, hoping to finally wear him down.

  Instead, he grew more aggressive, leaving even more openings for me to exploit, but also making it harder to block or dodge everything as he stopped caring about defense.

  One of his punches slipped past my guard again, this one hitting my chin much harder. My vision swam, but I kept my guard up, moving almost blindly, barely even seeing his punches. I just hoped he’d miss. Then, more on instinct than any real pn, I shifted left, ducked down, and threw a wide hook toward his head.

  My fist met his chin as he stepped into it. Something broke on impact - either his jaw or my hand. Probably both. Pain shot through my fingers as he fell backward, hitting the ground completely unconscious.

  I stepped back, still reeling from the hit I’d taken, keeping my guard up until I realized he wasn’t getting back up. It was over. My chin hurt, but it was nothing compared to my hand, where I was sure I’d broken something badly.

  I looked around, hoping the woman who had been handing out potions earlier was nearby, but my gaze stopped on the Dragon.

  She was staring at me with a sly smirk, her dark brown eyes wide and mesmerizing. Her pupils locked onto me, growing rger. And rger. And rger…

  Suddenly, I was swallowed by her gaze. The strength drained from my body, and I fell into the darkness of her eyes.