The day of my third match finally came, although it would be appropriate to say matches. Denzel had organized, with the help of some summoners, a special event which consisted of various waves of summoned creatures, of increasing difficulty, with a small break between waves. It was a pretty rare kind of event, but it was standardized enough to allow spectators to bet on what wave the contestants would quit.
Three raised platforms had been built on the opposite side of the arena from my entrance spot, where a mage on each platform was standing, ready to summon the creatures for the wave.
The first wave consisted of nine imps, that flew around, trying to sting me with their venomous tails. They were so small it was like killing flies. Exactly like flies, though, they were extremely annoying, buzzing around me faster than I could catch them, sometimes turning invisible before stinging me, and outright being annoying little fuckers. I still managed to crush them all, but it took me way longer than I liked.
After a short break, during which I cured my wounds and healed from the little remaining poison using a potion provided by Denzel, it was time for the second wave. This time, the three mages had summoned three dark wolves, that could disappear into the shadows of the platform or the border of the arena and reappear inside my shadow. They didn't have any more annoying abilities, and weren't otherwise any more powerful than normal wolves so, after the first bite to my shin, I managed to hunt them down without suffering any injuries.
The third wave consisted of a cave bear and two giant boars. It was quite the step up from the previous fights, as the cave bear tried to keep me busy, while the boars built up speed to charge at me, over and over again. They did actually manage to hit me and send me rolling on the sand twice, one time when they first used the tactic, and the second when I chose to let me open to the attack to finish off the bear. After the bear had been killed, though, the boars had no chance.
The fourth wave was actually quite troublesome. They had summoned a dryad along with two satyrs. The satyrs wore loincloths and were armed with bronze short swords, while the dryad was very much naked, and very hot. The moment she smiled at me, I suddenly lost the will to fight and found myself staring at her while smiling like an idiot, until the satyrs stabbed their short swords into my thighs. The pain immediately snapped me out of the charm of the fey, but I was already bleeding profusely.
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I let out a shout, calling upon the bower of the bear, which temporary stopped my blood loss as it slowly healed the wound. I then charged straight at the dryad, who was obviously the most dangerous of the three. As I was charging at her, I tripped on something, that I soon realized was the root of an unexisting tree. The two satyrs capitalized on the occasion, but even while on the ground, as I was no longer charmed, they had little chance to hurt me, and I quickly put them in their place with a few hits to their head.
When I got up, I saw that the dryad was preparing a barrage of magical thorns to throw at me. I shouted again, making the power of the tiger join the bear, and I leaped the over twenty yards that separated us, meeting her way too hot face to be real with the steel of my axe. As soon as the steel touched her bark skin, it started to smoke and melt away because of the iron in the blade. With the dryad gone, I made quick work of the two satyrs. I went back behind the portcullis to tend to my wounds, with a newfound hate for the fae.
The next wave consisted of three hellhounds, which were quite larger than the previous shadow wolves, almost reaching the size of the wolves on the mountains. I enjoyed my fight with them much more than the previous one. They used simple tactics and charged head on, trusting on their strength and fiery breath to do the job. I actually found myself playing a bit with them, in a clash of ice against fire, before dispatching their summoned bodies after they had burned a bit too much of the soft fur of my clothing.
The next challenge were three earth elementals. They were slow as snails, but could hit like a bulldozer, and they were able to meld into the earth to travel much faster through the arena. My initial tactic of trying to hammer them down with the back of the blade of my axe soon proved fruitless, as the elementals were able to simply heal back any damage. By pure chance, I was able to notice that they couldn't heal their wounds when separated from the ground, so I dropped my axe, and got to lift the piles of rocks off the ground, before crushing them with a bear-charged hug.
The seventh challenge was a single large horned fiend, twice as large as me and a couple of feet taller, with red skin, hooves for feet, and a large battle axe as his weapon. He welcomed me with a shout that spewed bolts of fire throughout the arena, which stuck to the ground. Knowing that I could not take him lightly, I immediately activated the powers of the bear, the elk, the tiger, and the ice cold power of the dragon. Where his axe hit, it would leave charred marks, while mine left behind layers of frost. The fight soon became the fiercest I fought since leaving the mountains, as the demon was almost comparable to Ivan in power. Unfortunately for him, he was nowhere close to Tasha's level.
That ended up being the last wave, as the summoners were not powerful enough, even when working together, to summon anything stronger without risking it slipping out of their control.