Stronger Together chapter 222 (Patreon)

The rest of the night was a blur mostly. The crowd ate up my win and  Lucifer proclaimed me a talent for the ages, showering me with hell  liquor (seriously that stuff was nuts) and just generally naming me the  life of the party. Despite my advantages even MY head hurt. I'd done my  best to stay on my guard but I was still hungover the next morning and  Yang wasn't much better. Fallen angels really knew how to party from  what I could remember. But now it was a new day, and it was time for the  tournament.

It also occurred to me in hindsight that I  was a fucking idiot. The exhibition match had clearly been the plan all  along. There were thirteen cities and an odd number of tournament  participants was objectively a stupid idea. He could've given someone a  bye, but in the end having someone fight the night before killed two  birds with on stone. He got a show and got to prove his concept and he  straightened out the lineup for the tourney without overtly favoring any  one contestant. I still wasn't sure what the point of this whole thing  was, but I had zero understanding of hellish politics so that wasn't  surprising.

So now we were standing in an absolutely  massive arena, on a bed of very red sand and surrounded by A LOT of  demons and fallen. The stands of this place were jam packed with  monsters of every stripe standing below or surrounding attractive people  in fashionable but unusual clothes. I meanwhile was standing in one of  twelve identical recesses in the walls behind a giant ass gate waiting  to be called for my first fight. The number of gates made me wonder if  this had been something Lucifer had planned for literally ages or if her  just had them add these areas for us to emerge from later.

Yang  was here with me, but she wasn't coming out, she and Malachi were  basically the hell tournament version of my corner man. I wasn't first  up fortunately, because I had fought last night but I had know way of  knowing how long these fights would take. I was guessing not that long,  fights didn't really go on for hours like in the movies all that often.  It took two very similarly powerful beings with very specific skills ets  to allow for that kind of drawn out battle, and while the bigguns might  be able to manage it I didn't see the sneaks or the remaining Goldie  having the stamina.

The wait for things to star was nerve  wracking. Not because I was worried, I didn't have any doubts about  beating most of the participants even holding back, only the succubus  and the pureblood really worried me. But because this whole thing just  felt...dangerous. Like things could spiral out of control at any moment.  Which to be fair they really could, but I also suspected I was just  getting paranoid in my time here. Finally, after literally an hour of  waiting the heralds voice boomed through the gate. "And now, returning  to battle after a stunning victory last night, Lord Cameron!" There was a  loud cheer and the voice waited for it to quiet down before booming.  "And coming in from the other side, Kelthrak!"

That seemed  like kind of a let down after hyping me like that, and I would have  been pissed if I was Kelthrak, who I remembered being a biggun. Then  again maybe that was the point, maybe they were trying to get him  spitting mad so he would do a better job against me. If that was the  plan it wasn't going to work. Well, it might work on Kelthrak but it  wasn't going to help him much against someone like me. I cracked my neck  with a small smile at Yang and absolutely no attention paid to Malachi  as I strolled through the rising gate onto the red sand.

The  crowd was going wild when I walked in, which I admit, was pretty cool.  This place was giving me flashbacks to fighting the twins but having  actual fans was really helping. I walked to the center of the sand and  started stretching before beginning to bounce on the balls of my feet to  get a feel for the sand. It was stable, packed fairly tight and not too  much give, though judging by the crunching I did not want to fall down  on it. Still, this would be perfect, I could throw down without worrying  about dispersing my force since the sand would do it for me.

Kelthrak  lumbered out of his own gate. I'd kind of assumed the bigguns were all  close in size since I'd seen them from a distance, but watching this  giant red asshole pound towards me across the sand made it clear enough  that I'd been wrong. I grinned. I could theoretically use magic or  powers to take this bastard, but really, I wanted to make an impression.  I'd proven myself faster than Sharina, and I wanted to show them I was  stronger than Kelthrak. Showing off too much of my godsteel juice was a  no no but just brute force? That was fair game.

As  the lumbering hulk thumped into range I kicked on my force aspect and  cloaked myself in a force Aura to compound it. I turned on my lightning  aspect too, but mostly for optimum positioning. If I just shredded him  before he could react it wouldn't prove much. I nodded as he got close  enough to speak normally. "Hey there big guy, nice to meet you. Awfully  pleasant day we're having isn't it. Not a could in the...er" I looked  up. "dome of the giant skull we're under. Huh. So that doesn't work  really. Anyway no hard feelings whoever wins right?"

I  expected a sneer or a derisive snort, but what I got instead surprised  me. The massive nine foot red demonkin nodded his horned head, and a  deep, booming voice echoed from his huge throat. "That is acceptable. I  too look forward to facing a worthy foe. Your display last night was  most impressive, I hope this will be an entertaining match, for both  ourselves and out lords." I was surprised, but pleasantly so. He seemed  like a cool guy, I was pretty happy to have him as a first opponent.

He  nodded again then set himself, and I did the same, and we began to walk  forward slowly. I made sure to keep my feet planted, because this was  going to be a brute force contest. When we managed to get in close I  lunged, and he did the same and we ended up in a sort of standing  grapple. Hands on each others shoulders and trying to use our feel to  trip the other up and unbalance him. It reminded me a bit of some of the  reading I'd done on collar and elbow wrestling, an Irish martial art  that actually favored smaller combatants, but since I didn't know any of  that it didn't help me much.

We  were both strong and skilled enough to make toppling the other person a  challenge, so Kelthrak decided to make this less about leverage and  more about force. He headbutted me in the face. I winced as his fucking  horns scraped me but I was smaller enough that I mostly hit between  them. However I wasn't the only one shocked. I had literal divine metal  in my bones, headbutting me was not pleasant, especially not with an  Aura up to blunt the impact. Kelthrak wobbled a bit and his eyes lost  focus and I grinned. Then I reached up, grabbed his horns and headbutted  HIM.

Theoretically  that should have had roughly the same effect, except for two things.  First, though I was as strong as he was, my strength was packed into a  much smaller body and hence pound for pound I exerted more force. Second  and most importantly, I had a force Aura. The crash was multiplied by  about ten when it slammed into his head and Kelthrak went stumbling  back, arms windmilling as he spilled onto his ass in the red sand,  purple blood trickling down his forehead and head clearly spinning.

Despite  that he had a massive shit eating grin on his face as he staggered to  his feet. He shook his head to clear it and then roared with glee,  spitting to one side to clear the blood that had dripped into his mouth  and charging. I saw him coming, and could have dodged or pulled some  trick but I still wanted this to be a straight brawl. I shot him a grin  of my own, set my feet, then wound up a haymaker and swung. I hadn't  expected to even connect, but damned if he didn't run right into it,  taking the blow to his ribs before rolling right over it and throwing  his own in response at my face.

My  Aura blunted the blow but didn't stop it and with him in range and  started showering him with body blows. I laid into him like a fucking  punching bag, working the body best as I knew how with every strike and  hit I knew from klurkor. Hands, knees, elbows, I went all in. Through it  all he was smashing me in the head and shoulders, throwing his own  fists with equal abandon. There were literal sonic booms shaking the air  around as as we fought and I fucking loved it. I mean it hurt like hell  but it was a blast.

We  were fighting like idiots. No guarding or blocking just pure unbridled  aggression as we pummeled each other. The crowd was eating it up,  hooting and hollering as we fucking wailed on each other like morons.  I'll say this for Kelthrak, that big bastard could take a punch. I  wasn't pushing up too hard in terms of strength, I bet I could have  killed him with even a force spell channeled into my arm for a triple  stack blow. But still it was nice to just let loose on someone who could  take it who I knew couldn't kill me.

We  fought like that for about twenty minutes. It made me smile to remember  my earlier thoughts about long battles but hey that was what this was.  Guess the next guy up got a longer break. Despite using very few  techniques aside from just hurting each other it became obvious over  time that I was going to win. Kalthrak was flagging and I was going  strong. My body fueled by my frankly enormous Aura. Converting my  massive soul into physical power to keep me fighting meant I could  literally do this all day, and sadly Kelthrak couldn't.

Unlike  previous times I fought to outlast I didn't get some grand opening with  Kelthrak. He was a thug, a true bruiser, I just laid into him again and  again and he took it, slowing bits at a time as we went, but he never  gave me a straight shot, not to the very end. Finally though the straw  broke that camels back and he dropped to his knees, wheezing. I stepped  back, giving the man room so he didn't have to worry about me killing  him for no reason, though I wouldn't have of course.

Then  I turned to the crowd and raised my fists in the air. There was a  deafening roar of exultation as the stadium shook with the sound of a  million demons venerating me, chanting my name. I smiled and headed back  to my gate, letting my arms slump but making sure not to show weakness.  I was sore as fuck of course, I'd just been wailed on by a super strong  demon man. Aura blunted the blows but didn't stop them completely, some  feedback got through so I still felt that ass kicking. Oh well, round  one was over, and I'd won. On to round two.