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This time, as I looked up to the royal’s booth, there was no wheel to spin, and no choice of my last opponent.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Our young contestant has just accomplished something rarely seen in the history of our kingdom for his age!” the announcer proclaimed. I am guessing that he is not privy to my actual age, otherwise, I may have set some kind of record, but I will keep that to myself.

The announcer then took on an exaggerated look of regret, “But unfortunately, dear contestant, it is two years too early for you to be facing the next and last monster, as none from your level has ever bested an Ogre in combat. But do not let that discourage you! For there is no dishonor in losing to the pure strength and toughness of your next foe… Bring forth the Ogre!”

The portcullis opened, but for a few seconds, I saw nothing. Then I started picking up the sounds of roars and the pounding of metal coming from the tunnel, and as the seconds went by, the sound of what could only be an enraged ogre got louder.

Then out of the darkness of the tunnel, came two burly-looking aura-clad warriors who were pulling chains over their shoulders, and attached to those chains, was a tall metal box on wheels that was clearly enchanted and spotting quite a few outward dents, no doubt from the ogre’s attempts to break free.

Soon, the men pulling the chain were back in the tunnel behind the portcullis, and the chain to trigger the release of the ogre was pulled.

The moment the door for the metal box opened, a bloodshot-eyed ogre came out swinging, spun around while throwing a haymaker into the side of the metal box that contained it, sending the box flying, took a few more swings at the open air while roaring and frothing at the mouth.

It spun around while bellowing angry roars at the crowd in the stands before it noticed me, the moment it locked eyes on me, it charged, at first with slow lumbering steps, but as its bulk gained momentum, so did its legs.

It was at this point that, I started feeling dread. It was all intellectual when reading about ogres in books, but seeing one in person, and charging at me, I was starting to regret not recovering my spear from the lesser chimera’s ass.

To push down the dread I was feeling, I bit my lip and readied myself and my sword as I mentally weaved a combination spell. When the ogre got within stone-throwing distance of me, I cast a third-circle earth and water fusion spell, Quagmire.

As my spell hit the ground the ogre was treading on, the ground started becoming sloshy like it was walking in quicksand as the ogre’s feet sank into the ground, the first couple of steps sunk it to its ankles, and by the time it was in spitting distance, it was up to its knees and wading toward me. I expected the spell to at least slow it down, but I severely underestimated the raw strength the ogre had to power through the thick boggy earth, and I was not powerful enough to sink it any deeper than its knees.

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But that did not mean my spell failed yet. I stopped manipulating the earth portion of the Quagmire spell to solidify and extracted the water mana out of the spell, effectively cementing the ogre's legs up to its knees in the ground.

This suddenly stopped its momentum and the ogre jerked its upper body forward, but from the cracks in the ground around its buried legs, I knew I was not going to hold it for long.

When the ogre finally realized its situation, it raged even more violently than before, clawing the air trying to reach me, and when that failed, it started punching the ground where its feet were.

While this was happening, I cast a wind blade to try and sever its head from a distance, but when it made contact with its rock-like calloused skin, all I managed to do was give it the equivalent of a paper cut, which pissed it off even more.

I decided that if it was so tough, I could always cook its head with a flamethrower spell while keeping well out of range, but as I weaved a spell and raised my hand to cast fire upon it, the ogre managed to punch the ground enough to dislodge throwable chunks of earth, scoop them up, and throw it at me.

I was forced to abort my spell and dodge out of the way of what was essentially grapeshot from a cannon, a second later as I rolled to my feet, I could hear the heavy thuds of dirt impacting the Pit’s walls.

I had no time to cast any spells as the ogre flung another handful of dirt at me, and seeing that nowhere was safe from getting pelted by handfuls of dirt that most likely had enough power behind it to kill a man, I was forced to take the fight up close and personal.

As I zigzagged closer to the ogre while dodging the thrown dirt, the ogre was alternating between digging the dirt at its feet and throwing said dirt at me, and by my estimate, if I did not keep his hands busy, it would break free in less than a minute.

When I got close to the ogre, I sidestepped a meaty palm the size of my torso that tried to squash me like a bug, and then ducked under the other arm swinging in from the side to grab me.

When I sprung to my feet, I used the momentum to perform an upward aura-empowered slash against its body. I felt my blade split that tough skin of its ponch gut, but not even a foot into the slash, I could feel most of the momentum of my swing was already absorbed as my blade ran into resistance a few inches into its flesh.

But I had no time to analyze what caused of the ogre’s resistance to my blade as I noticed both of its hands reaching toward me. I ducked between its legs and had to dodge over to the side as the ogre did a backhand swing that almost took my head off.

As I got to my feet again and readied myself to charge in, I saw the wound I had just made on the ogre’s belly and realized that I was going to need some serious penetrating power if I wanted to do any meaningful damage to the ogre.

From the look of the pinkish white of the wound, it turns out that I only managed to cut into its fat layer and the muscles stopped my blade… my aura-coated blade.

I gave the lesser chimera corpse where my spear was a side glance but had to abandon the idea as I dodged another handful of deadly dirt. I think I will not get the chance to retrieve it, so I was just going to have to make do with my sword.