Chapter 639 - Day UNKNOWN: Versus Vazasse, Part II

I watched all the fights just sitting on the couch, with the three Atri. Bashan also joined us. Druoag sadly was simply too big to sit on the couch, so he watched standing with arms crossed on his swollen with muscles chest.

Yagg levitated deeper in the room, not really paying attention to the event. I wasn't sure if he was meditating or sleeping.

Some of the duels were pretty good, others were terribly bad. One ended in basically five seconds when a guy got beheaded with an energy blade due to his mistake. The audience obviously had pretty similar feelings to me, because they were not really going crazy. You didn't need to be genius to figure out most of them were in the arena just for the last fight.

- It's time - Yagg suddenly spoke, getting out of his trance.

I looked over my shoulder at him. The fight before mine was still ongoing since it barely started, but he was actually right. I needed to get ready.

- Ok - I said, and went to the bathroom, to get a piss.

When I returned Druoag gave me the whole speech about staying focused and relaying his words during the fight. I knew all of that. He always repeated himself about that stuff before each duel. Then I went to sit in a corner of the room, to get focused, but the ongoing duel ended quite abruptly, so I only got a few minutes of that.

Then things progressed quite fast, and before I knew it, I was walking down the path between the stands towards the sandpit in almost complete darkness, as only the lights around the stage were going crazy to my preferred entrance theme.

The audience went crazy. Some were chanting my name, but an overwhelming majority were booing me heavily. There was also a  group, strong numbers, who kept repeating 'Vazasse' over and over.

To tell you the truth, I didn't care much about their opinions.

Before I knew it I reached the sandpit, and the judge as always briefed me about stuff in the language I couldn't understand, so the whole thing was basically pointless. When he finally shut his trap I want to grab my energy pudao from the rack and wend through the tunnel.

- Can you hear me? - asked Druoag even before I got out.

- Yeah, I can. - I replied.

- Just stay calm and focused. Get into your zone. Don't let yourself get distracted by meaningless stuff.

- I know.

As I got outside they briefly illuminated me with lights as the announcer has a few things to say, probably about my record and other things, then everything went dark again, and music got blasted through the speakers. To my surprise, it wasn't the usual hardcore dubstep, but something which I enjoyed way more.

It was very similar to the Arabic music I heard while watching the videos of belly dancers. Yeah, I can proudly admit to that.

The whole arena went in complete silence, allowing the theme to be played completely. Since I quite liked it, I also appreciated the fact that I could listen to it not be interrupted by crazy screams. Eventually, it ended though and my eyes got focused on the tunnel on the other side of the sandpit.

The deep blue barrier was still blocking it, so I actually couldn't see a thing, but that didn't stop me from looking. I was so focused that at some point I could swear I noticed a movement in the darkness, shortly after the barrier around the entrance vanished, and I noticed something large barely outlined I the shadows, so maybe I actually noticed him before that.

He was massive. Only slightly smaller than Druoag. The skin, just like I remembered from the photo I saw before, was deeply green, with slightly more yellowish patches. The large crocodile jaws were filled with nasty, sharp protruding teeth.

He was wearing a thick breastplate made out of plastic-like material, and also had some of the protective gear on his shoulders, forearms, and covering his legs. In his right arm was a scary-looking giant cleaver with a jagged edge. There was a slight shimmer to it, giving out that it was an energy weapon. In his left arm was a large elliptic shield made out of some brown material, with spikes coming from all around it, kinda like a childish sketch of a sun, with one in the center pointed directly forward.

He had this nasty grin on his face, or maybe I was imagining things, but I could swear it was the case. A shiver went down my spine, and I had to actually nag myself about even allowing such a feeling.

He was taking his time, walking slowly, but eventually, he stopped, and the light got turned on. The audience exploded with loud cheers a split of a second later. Everybody was excited to see the two of us clash, and they were about to get what they wanted.

The speaker did his usual introduction, but I couldn't understand shit out of that, which at this point was quite annoying, but considering the fact that there were several languages being used around, and to the fact that they were quite different from anything I was used to back on Earth, it was almost impossible for me to learn. Or at least that's how I felt, maybe partially thanks to the 'Linguist' class skills, which made me lazy.

The announcer finished his little speech, with the grand crescendo, which hyped up the crowd even more. They were chanting stuff and yelling like crazy. I tried my best to cut myself out from all of that and remain focused. Then the loud sound of gong finally announced the beginning of the duel.

My mind just snapped into the right place, like some gear, and there was nothing else but me and him standing against each other, ready to do everything we could to win.. It was like the time slowed down.