The Demonic Wolf dodged the swipes and retreated to a distance. It then charged forward toward the Demonic Gorilla and when it was close enough, it feinted to the left, then leaped high, raking its claws across the gorilla's chest, leaving deep gashes.
The gorilla roared in pain and fury. The gorilla received a new instruction from its tamer and quickly grabbed a nearby tree and swung it like a club.
Noticing an opening due to the wide swing, the wolf managed to get behind the gorilla and sunk its fangs into its shoulder. The Demonic Gorilla, as if expecting this situation, immediately let go of the tree, reached its back, and grabbed the wolf, slamming it into the ground with tremendous force. The gorilla's beast tamer cheered loudly implying that his tactic worked.
After getting slammed to the ground multiple times, the wolf finally managed to struggle away from the gorilla's grip and escaped to a safe distance again.
"Wolfy, use that move!" The wolf's beast tamer didn't communicate mentally anymore, he ordered loudly.
The wolf started sprinting at a high speed around the gorilla, leaving behind multiple afterimages. The gorilla tried to keep up with the wolf's movements but after a few seconds, it felt dizzy due to the loss of blood from its wound.
"Now!" The wolf's tamer shouted.
The Demonic Wolf shot toward the dizzy gorilla, this time, sinking its fangs into the gorilla's neck.
"I surrender!" The gorilla's beast tamer knew if the fight continued, his spirit beast would die, so he admitted defeat.
The first match ended with the Demonic Wolf's win. The demonic beasts' injuries were immediately treated by their tamers.
After the battle ended, a small part of the huge arena was torn asunder by the two demonic beasts clash. Trees are uprooted, rocks are shattered, and the ground is churned into a muddy battlefield.
Leyvi really impressed by the fight between the two demonic beasts. Once again, he felt like he had underestimated other cultivators' dedication and the effort they put into their passion. Looking back, most of the time, his spirit beasts were just enjoying life and he had never trained with them to fight as a team.
Sure, Scarlet and Mr. Bison might be getting stronger and could fight on their own, but if he were to call himself a beast tamer, he had to learn to fight together with them or he would be looking down on other beast tamers too much. It would be disrespectful to the advantage he had over them.
While Leyvi was lost in thought, the messy arena quickly reverted back to its original state. Everything was exactly the same as when the fight hadn't started yet. The rocks, the pebbles, the trees, the ground, the grass, everything was reverted. Even the blood and damage done to the arena was gone.
"Huh?" Leyvi confused.
Was it an illusion? Was the arena under some sort of illusion formation? No no...If it was an illusion, that would beat the point of having this tournament in the first place since every match can be faked like that. If everything was real....then....the only possible explanation for that.....Was that time reversal? Holy! Who made this formation? Wasn't that too heaven-defying? Can it revive the dead too?
Two matches later, Leyvi got his answer. A spirit beast died in the battle and it was brought away by its tamer sorrowfully. Due to his stubbornness, he refused to admit defeat quickly, which cost his spirit beast's life. The formation couldn't revive the dead. From Leyvi's observation, they waited until the arena was empty before they reverted it back to its original state. In addition, Leyvi also noticed that the trees and grasses in the arena were all fake.
Leyvi concluded that time reversal was only limited to the pre-determined inanimate objects in the arena because the blood, furs, broken fangs, or nails, all the inanimate things not originally from the arena disappeared after the reset. Although it was not as heaven-defying as he initially thought, it was still very mind-blowing to Leyvi. Leyvi wondered if whoever invented this formation had an insight into the Dao of time or found a time-related treasure.
Each match didn't take very long, the longest match so far took 11 minutes max. It was now the 24th match of the first round.
"The arena is ready, it's time for our next match. Beast Tamer Leyvi Leyan, Beast Tamer The Last Hairbender, please enter the arena!" The announcer called for the next participants.
Leyvi chuckled when he heard the nickname thinking his opponent might be a funny person. Leyvi realized in the second match that he didn't need to use his real name when he registered. If he knew earlier he would use a nickname too. For example, his nickname would be Panda Lover, Gardener's Husband, or The Fountain Receiver.
He quickly leaped onto the stage and saw his opponent on the other side. Leyvi was immediately speechless when he saw her. She lived up to her name as The Last Hairbender. A short woman wearing a cute-looking mask was using her Qi to control her hair making it float and wiggle continuously on above her head.
Is this her strategy to distract him? Unfortunately for her, he still hasn't practiced any team battle coordination or tactics with his spirit beasts, so all the fighting depended on their personal experiences.
"Go, Scarlet!" Leyvi threw his spirit beast bag on the ground and Scarlet emerged from it.
Leyvi awkwardly walked toward his spirit beast bag, picked it up, and returned to the beast tamer spot.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
The audience laughed at the comedy they just witnessed. On one side they had a weird hair girl, while on the other side, they had a goofy guy participating. Lilian, Layla, Hana, and Sayu had red faces feeling secondhand embarrassment. Although they were familiar with Leyvi's goofiness, they didn't expect him to act goofy right now.
Why did I throw my spirit beast bag? Weird. Leyvi was embarrassed by his unprecedented action. He put up a poker face and seemed unfazed by the laugh around the coliseum.
"Pfttttt....Hahahahahaha! Dammit...I'm not supposed to laugh at this! Hahaha!" The Last Hairbender was on her knees, laughing hard. Her hair wiggles matched the rhythm of her laugh. She was supposed to be the one distracting her opponent's focus not the other way around.
A while later, she stopped laughing and stood again dusting off the dirt on her knees. She carefully observed her opponent's face who was unfazed by the laughter directed at him. She used her mental connection and summoned her spirit beast to the arena.
"Hmm? A Demonic Stag Beetle. Interesting." Leyvi talked to himself.
"Since both spirit beasts are in the arena, let the 24th match begin!" The announcer declared.
The Demonic Stag Beetle with its iridescent carapace shimmering in hues of emerald and sapphire, immediately climbed atop a moss-covered rock. Its formidable mandibles clicked together, creating metal-clashing sounds as it waited for Scarlet to make the first move.
Scarlet, however, didn't make the first move. She just bounded leisurely, circling the stag beetle on the rock for multiple laps, clearly taunting it.
The taunt was successful. The annoyed stag beetle launched its attack first, as it forgot the instruction from its tamer. With a fast movement, it charged toward the Demonic Red Fox, as its mandibles aimed for the body, snapping like thunder. But Scarlet was agile and cunning. With a fluid movement, she dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the piercing grasp of the beetle's formidable jaws.
Undeterred, the stag beetle pivoted, its armored exoskeleton reflecting the rays of sunlight. It lunged again, this time attempting to clamp down on Scarlet's hind leg. Unfortunately, she was quicker, as she leaped into the air, shrunk instantly, and landed on the stag beetle flat upper head. Scarlet's action thoroughly enraged the Demonic Stag Beetle.
It started flinging its head around aggressively trying to shake her off its head but Scarlet impressively maintained her balance on its head.
"Staggy! Calm down! Listen to me!" The Last Hairbender frantically tried to reestablish the mental connection with her spirit beast but it was too absorbed in its anger at the moment to listen.
The stag beetle rammed its head onto multiple rocks, destroying them, in an attempt to get Scarlet off its head but each time, Scarlet gracefully hopped and landed on its head again once the rock crumbled.
Due to this, it hurt itself in its confusion. Read complete versıon only at 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡•𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚•𝙣𝙚𝙩
In the end, the stag beetle in a state of confusion, moved aimlessly toward a pond where it fell into it. Scarlet quickly jumped off the stag beetle and landed near the pond, watching the stag beetle slowly drown.
"Leyvi Leyan wins!" The announcer declared the winner.
The Last Hairbender quickly flew to the pond and rescued her drowning spirit beast. Unlike the other bloody matches, this battle ended quite interestingly.
From the beginning to the end, Leyvi didn't do anything. He was like a spectator instead of a beast tamer.
"Hahaha! Scarlet, I didn't expect you to fight so elegantly. Smart and beautiful!" Leyvi praised.
Scarlet returned to Leyvi looking proud.
"Of course Boss, I'm not just a damsel in distress you know. The situation when you found me was just.... a series of unfortunate events and circumstances. Yup!" Scarlet said.