Chapter 73: Hope you’re not dead yet??
They collided in mid-air.
The air pressure shattered with a violent, thunderous boom as Vince’s heavy double-edged blade, Executioner’s Edge, slammed directly against Vetra’s hardened obsidian talons.
Shockwaves rippled through the atmospheric smoke, blowing embers in every direction as the two warriors locked eyes for a split second in the sky before bursting into a frenzy of high-speed exchanges.
Clang!
Sparks!
Crack!
Steel met claw at blinding speeds. Vince swung his massive broadsword in sweeping, heavy arcs, every strike laced with mana-enhanced force.
Vetra didn’t give an inch—she parried a horizontal cleave with her left claws, pivoted mid-air, and whipped her tail straight toward Vince’s head.
Vince leaned back, feeling the wind from her tail graze his nose, before thrusting his blade straight at her throat.
Vetra caught the flat of his sword between both palms, her slitted amber eyes ablaze with wild, uninhibited excitement.
"Yes! Finally!"
She laughed, a dark, thrilled sound that echoed over the roaring winds.
"A real fight!"
She kicked off his chest, creating distance in the sky. As she hovered for a fraction of a second, her throat swelled, a terrifying, white-hot glow illuminating her chest through her scales.
Dragon Breath!
A beam of concentrated, space-warping flame erupted from her jaws, incinerating everything in its path.
Vince didn’t hesitate.
Using vector drive, he tilted his body in mid-air, dodging the lethal torrent of fire by a razor-thin margin as the heat singed the ends of his hair.
Using the momentum, Vince closed the distance in a flash, cutting beneath her guard.
Through his continuous exchanges with her, his blade had absorbed her brutal kinetic force via Kinetic Dispersion.
Vince focused every drop of that pent-up kinetic energy, channeling it directly into the steel of Executioner’s Edge, vibrating the heavy metal at a hyper-frequency capable of bypassing surface armor.
He aimed directly for her upper stomach—the one patch of her torso left bare of crimson scales.
"Gotcha!"
Vince gritted out, thrusting the vibrating steel forward.
KANG!
The release of energy was explosive. Vetra let out a sharp gasp as the kinetic shockwave violently impacted her bare stomach.
The raw force launched her backward across the summit like a meteor.
Vetra tumbled across the hot obsidian floor, her clawed boots digging deep, smoking trenches into the stone as she brought herself to a sudden halt—stopping just inches from the edge of the circular ring.
Below her heels, bubbling, primordial magma churned violently. A few inches more, and she would have plummeted straight into the volcanic abyss.
Vetra slowly stood upright, holding her stomach.
A thin line of blood trickled down her skin where the blade had cut, but it wasn’t deep.
"Nice hit,"
She commended, her raspy voice laced with genuine awe.
Vince landed softly on his feet, spinning his broadsword with a low exhale.
"I guess you’re tough everywhere, Vetra."
Vetra let go of her stomach, standing tall as her body began to pulse with a terrifying, crimson aura.
"I must say, Vince... this duel has gotten me ecstatic. I never thought it possible to be able to go all-out in a fight... and I certainly never imagined it would be against a human."
Her smile faded into a cold, predatory grin.
"That being said... up until now, we’ve fought like kids trying to save our skins. Why don’t we raise the stakes? If it’s not worth dying for... it’s not worth doing."
Immediately, her body underwent a violent transformation.
Her crimson scales hardened into a dark, impenetrable dragon-plate, and her eyes shifted from amber to a deep, blood-red luminescence. Her tail elongated, whipping through the air with terrifying force, while her talons, fangs, and forehead horn surged in size. Despite the heavy additions, her stance grew noticeably lighter, agile, and weightless.
Opposite her, Vince’s eyes glinted with excitement.
Instead of backing away, Vince rolled his shoulders and began to bounce lightly on the balls of his feet. He cracked his neck from side to side, loosened his wrists with fluid, circular flicks, and took a deep, steady breath, bouncing in place as his aura began to retract from the surrounding area.
The wild black-and-purple energy pulled inward, tightly outlining his body from head to toe in a sharp, concentrated sheath.
A cold system interface chimed silently in his mind:
[NOTICE: OVERDRIVE ACTIVATED — 20%]
His pupils flared into a brilliant, glowing purple.
Vetra’s red aura exploded outward like a volcanic eruptive column.
"Here I come!"
She roared, lunging across the arena, tearing the floor beneath her to shreds.
Vince stopped his warmup, his eyes widening with a wild, infectious grin.
"Ready when you are!"
Vetra reached him at point-blank range in less than a heartbeat.
Her claws raised high, her sharp fangs bared in a terrifying display of raw power.
"TYRANT’S CLAW!"
She screamed, bringing her talons down to tear him to pieces.
Vince didn’t dodge.
Instead, he shot his hands upward, catching her descending wrist mid-air, locking their fingers together.
Vetra’s eyes snapped wide in shock as her other claw shot down to crush him, only for Vince’s free hand to clamp around that wrist as well.
The collision drove both of their feet deep into the cracked obsidian floor, creating a crater beneath them.
It instantly turned into a pure, unyielding tug-of-war of physical strength.
Vetra gritted her sharp fangs, her blood-red aura flaring wildly as she tried to force Vince down, but the ground beneath her began to give way. Her arms trembled violently under his sheer, overwhelming power.
With a low grunt, Vince flexed his legs, effortlessly lifting the massive dragonkin woman off her feet and hurling her straight into the air above the summit.
A golden system notification flashed rapidly in Vince’s field of vision:
[TAMING SEQUENCE INITIATED: 5%... 10%...]
Floating high in the air, Vetra looked down at him.
Her blood-red eyes were wide, filled with an intoxicating blend of pure, primal pleasure and an undeniable, booming attraction to the man who was currently tossing her around like a toy.
Vince looked up at her, caught slightly off guard by the sheer satisfaction flushing across her fierce face.
But as he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, he couldn’t deny the truth either—he was having the time of his life.
"Very well then,"
Vince said, his deep voice carrying through the sky.
"This is the climax!"
FWIP!.
Vince vanished from the ground and materialized directly above her in mid-air.
He unleashed a relentless, lightning-fast barrage of punches and kicks, his movements so ludicrously fast that Vetra couldn’t even raise her hands to block.
She had to rely entirely on her hardened scales to take the blunt force—but even her ancient bloodline armor wasn’t enough.
With every heavy impact, her crimson scales cracked, shattered, and flew off in blinding fragments.
With one final, full-power hammer-fist strike from above, Vince sent Vetra crashing straight down into the center of the peak.
BOOM!
A massive cloud of black ash, dust, and smoke erupted from the impact site.
Vince hovered in the air for a moment as the system interface chimed continuously:
[TAMING SEQUENCE: 50%...]
[OVERDRIVE INACTIVE — COOLDOWN: 5 HOURS]
The tight sheath of aura surrounding Vince vanished as he descended, his boots touching down softly on the cracked stone. He shook out his tired knuckles and walked through the lingering smoke toward the center of the crater, hands in his pocket.
Looking down through the clearing dust, he saw Vetra lying on her back, her scales cracked, her primitive garments torn, and her eyes staring up at the cloudy sky laced with absolute, breathless satisfaction.
Vince stopped at the edge of the crater, looking down at her with a dry smirk.
"Hope you’re not dead."