As the announcer's words fade away, I grip my blade and get ready for the real fight to begin. From my understanding of the crowd's reaction and the words echoing through the arena, close to no one is capable of defeating this ghoul monster. The fighter known as Monk is an anomaly to this rule.

Even with the display of strength I showed in the round before, defeating a monster at the peak of stage 6, the crowd is confident enough to place their bets against me still. I showed nearly all my skills in the last event.

My hopes are that I'll be proving them wrong once again.

I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, and I may have to use them all in this next upcoming fight.

The transfer magic lights up a small portion of the arena near the back side where the opponents are usually spawned in.

A familiar-looking pale-skinned figure appears. With orange glowing eyes, and rotting yellow teeth, a Mutant Ghoul locks its gaze on me in fractions of a second. It's height is similar to mine, possibly half a meter taller than me at most.

This variant of Mutant Ghoul only carries one long silver sword, and its body is barely covered in clothing. They're more like rags that are held on by threads.

Its eyes pulse brighter, then the beast runs forward at me without making a sound.

I activate all my buffs to try and scan the creature for any extra information while lighting my sword on fire and positioning myself for a counter.

Its status throws me for a loop when it shows up in my mind's eye.

_____________________

[Lv. 689]

Active Items: [Enchanted Long Sword] +200% Strength +200% Speed +200% Agility

Active Skills: [NONE]

Buffs: [Curse Mark of The Lich King]

_____________________

All it has to its name is a single sword and a mysterious curse in its buff slot. To my surprise, there aren't any active skills either. Something is very off about all of this.

Nevertheless, I hold my sword up to position myself for a block to test the monster's strength. It falls for the bait without hesitation for a moment and there is a loud clang that echoes out in the arena.

It's the sound of pure metal on metal... A noise I haven't heard in quite a while.

The moment its sword touches my mana shielding barrier, an orange glow surrounds its own and the two barriers of energy pass right by each other without reacting at all.

The swords meet, and our strength is nearly even. The oddity of the creature just slipping through my defenses without any resistance throws me off guard, and I take a step back, but soon decide to activate my bloodlust and newly upgraded extreme strength skill to counter before it pulls any other moves on me.

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The moment the crimson and gold lights begin to shimmer around my body, I feel MP being burned at an immense rate. The buff percentage rises on my extreme strength skill. Instead of just a 50% boost at its normal no grade ranking, it's risen to 125% at legendary grade and shimmers so bright golden white it almost looks platinum.

It's worth the burned MP. I lunge forward and swing my blade across my body to propel the Ghoul away from me, airstepping back and deactivating my buffs to reassess my situation.

At the same time, I try to use my plunderer skill to siphon some MP off my opponent to restore the mana used in my buffs and clash, also attempting a minor lifesteal to weaken it as much as I can from a distance, but my heart skips a beat at what I soon realize.

"No mana... and no health points either..."

The Ghoul in front of me doesn't have a drop of MP in its body, despite the glowing orange aura that now covers its sword, arms, and is slowly expanding to engulf its entire body. It also has no HP to be stolen either.

This monster may have unfathomable defenses, or some way of masking its inner mana control, but all my senses are pointing to something else.

"Its Buff... The Curse Mark of The Lich King..."

I have keener senses than any hunter or monster within hundreds of levels, there's no way I could visibly see an energy source, and not be able to sense any of the mana flowing through it. Not even my all-seeing eye can pick up the presence of even a bit of flowing energy.

The only reasonable explanation in my mind is its buff giving it some type of power source that isnt mana. It's using energy I'm unable to manipulate.

It runs forward and we clash again. The sound of metal on metal echoes, but this time I use my buffs much more conservatively while straining my senses to attempt to find any more clues.

Three more equally powered exchanges take place, and already over 30% of my mana is used up and I'm as clueless as I was when I started examining the ghoul.

This next attack, I'm going in for some blood. As much as I want to understand what makes this creature tick, winning the battle is much more important right now.

Instead of the equal exchanges we had earlier, I start charging my footsteps with wind magic and strategically activate my buffs as I move and turn to use them as efficiently as possible without draining massive amounts of MP and get in line for my swordsmanship skill to slowly activate.

As my flaming blade gets closer and I run around the Ghoul in circles, dodging its blade, the thread finally begins to form in my mind's eye, attaching the tip of my sword to the Ghoul's midsection in a winding shimmering line.

I take a deep breath and begin to follow the path.

After half a dozen sweeping motions, I lunge in close after multiple near misses from its own sword before mine makes contact with its upper torso.

The searing sound of my fire magic melting its flesh and tearing the monster clean in half lasts only for a fraction of a second before I'm raising my blade in the air for the audience to react as two pieces of the Ghoul rest behind me covered in flames.

Cheers of joy and boos of hatred don't come as I expected at all...

The crowd doesn't react at all actually, minus the few intoxicated bettors yelling out loud. Most of them just point straight at me with devious grins or wide-eyed in horror.

It isn't until too late I realize they're not pointing at me, but at the two halves of the Ghoul I just cut down crawling back together and reforming its burned tissue and skin in the areas where it was sliced.

The orange glow that surrounds its body and now pours from its gaze grows brighter and brighter as my confusion grows at the same rate.

I turn to the monster, and my conclusion that its buff is giving it power becomes my number one theory.

The only time I saw its kind defeated was Monk beating it down with nothing but his fists. However, I never saw that man use a hint of mana either.

One thing I do know, by the end of this fight, I'll either be broke and out of luck, or know exactly how the arena champ defeated a nearly level 700 creature without a hint of magic power.