Chapter 524 - Days MMCXVIII - MMCXXI, Part III

The mage's face was twisted by anger. He clearly was pissed off by how hard it was for him to deal with Urho. I witnessed on my own skin how powerful the transformations are, and werebear was an incredibly sturdy opponent.

The impact of the beast hitting the ground raised a cloud of dust and caught everybody's attention. This created an opening in Mbeki's stance, which Lorenzo used to deliver a heavy blow, that blasted the spearman into the air.

Andy attempted to fix the terrible situation, and send few bolts of water at both of them, ignoring temporarily the girl. Unfortunately for him Valentin's barrier was too hard to break, and the magic, just slid off it, but he got Lorenzo. He scored a direct hit on him, as the guy was about to celebrate his victory.

He stumbled few steps back but withstood it. Unfortunately, Mai also used the opening on Andy, and just covered him I the summoned dolls, forcing him to drop his staff.

- I surrender - he yelled..

At the same moment, Urho jumped up from the ground, as he got back to his senses. The beast wasn't that easy to take down. He whaled on top of his lungs, shaking the whole arena.

Valentin, cursing under his breath, immediately moved his hands to cast another spell, the beast on the other hand charged straight at Lorenzo, he tried to block the giant paw, but the force behind it was just too strong, slamming him to the ground, just as a fireball struck the werebear, pushing him off the knocked down human.

Meanwhile, Andy rushed towards Mbeki, as Mai released her summons, and dropped to his knees to provide healing.

- Didn't they just lose? - asked the room service guy.

- Only Andy surrendered - said Vikram. - They still need to take down the bear.

Just as he said it, the thing actually happened. A barrage of firebolts came flying from multiple directions like homing misles. All of them exploded on the beast's body one by one, knocking Urho down.

- We surrender! - shouted Andy.

There was no way of winning with Mbeki down, despite the crazy durability of the werebear.

The fight ended, and the medical team entered the arena, but we didn't see them in action, as the production team took the viewers to the studio.

- Damn... That was a good fight - said the hotel employee. 

- Mhm - Vikram agreed with a full mouth, and after finally swallowing his food, added: - But tomorrow... Tomorrow we will have an even better fight.

He immediately looked at me, and the guy, following his gaze, smiled awkwardly at me.

- I'm... - he pointed towards the door. - I'm gonna go.

- That would be a good idea - said Vikram.

The guy left us. There were still six matches to go, but I personally doubted that any of them could be this good.

- He got so hypnotized that I doubt he even realized we were in the room - I said.

- It was a good fight - my assistant pointed out. - I hope yours tomorrow also will be good. I hope you won't embarrass me.

- Embarrass you?

- Yep. I already told all my family how strong you are, and that you will demolish every competition, so now you have to win.

- Because you told you,r family?

- Do you want me to lose my face? How will I look my wine in the eyes I bed after that? You can't do that to me.

- Ok. As a fellow man, I have to support you in that - I went with the joke. - Bros before hoes.

Vikram froze, with a sandwich halfway to his mouth.

- Did you just call my wife a hoe?

- Maaaeee... - A strange sound escaped my mouth as I tried to say something, but since I didn't really know what, it turned this way. - No?

- Oh. Ok. Because if you did, I would have to take you down.

I bit my tongue and just nodded.

- Mhm.

We watched the rest of the fights, eating all the food to the very last piece of cheese, and drinking everything to the last gulp of soda. Just as I predicted, none of the fights were as entertaining, like the one involving Urho, Kagiso, and Andy.

There were few decent ones where both parties had similar strength, so there was soma action, and uncertainty fo who is going to win, but the others, with a clear difference in strength, were just simply boring.

When it finally ended, he left a complete mess in my room. I wasn't going to clean it up, so I just left it, deciding to be an asshole, and call room service the first thing in the morning to take care of it, while I would enjoy a breakfast.

I spent some time on the terrace, looking at the city on the other side of the river, and contemplating. Knowing that tomorrow was going to be filled with action. I needed to take that guy out before he would do something worse than he already did to the team he fought with.

There was also 'The Great One' problem on the back of my head. He still didn't make any contact, and I wasn't really sure how he saw this whole thing moving forward. Were we supposed to make an alliance? Unite? Or maybe compete with one another, and grow stronger this way, to eventually switch to the enemies hiding somewhere, out there, in the vast multiverse.

The problem was so menacing, that I couldn't think of it more than a minute. I was still a weakling compared to what I needed to become if we were to ever have a chance against what was out there.

Then I returned to the room and decided to take a long shower, and then to go to sleep, despite the early hour. There was plenty of events awaiting me on the next day, including a major clash with somebody who wouldn't hesitate to even kill me, so being well-rested would definitely be beneficial. Or at least that was my line of thinking.