Stronger Together chapter 222 (Patreon)
Content
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.