242 Chain of Challenges

Out on the battlefield, three monkeys were wrestling two wolfcats to the ground, Shadowflash was nipping at them from the flanks, while the Star Wolf King and the King Challenger Baboon were engaged in a lunging, snapping melee. One more wolfcat was already down and badly injured; three monkeys and a second wolfcat had withdrawn with less serious injuries.

Abruptly Shadowflash changed his targets and scored a solid bite on the hamstrings of the Baboon King Challenger. The monkey stumbled; the Star Wolf King immediately pounced on the opportunity and clawed the throat of the Baboon Challenger as quick as a thought.

[Halt!] Tor'na-dras roared. [The Star Wolf King wins the challenge! Everyone withdraw and recover!]

Big plant-types sporting vines and flowers moved to the challengers, treating their injuries and stopping even the bleeding from the baboon's throat.

"Hey! How come we don't have healers like that?!" Tim protested.

"You have your own healer. Just make do with it." Darian advised.

"You keep saying that! But there's really very little to make do with, here!" Tim grouched.

Darian simply nodded in agreement wordlessly.

The challenges for the third and fourth regions went by very quickly. In half an hour, both regions were settled, and the winners won their kingdoms. Yet even after those regions were won, a lot of the Wilds stayed to watch the Eastern Edge and the North-East Edge Regions fought for.

Or, simply put, they stuck around to watch the humans get beaten to pulp.

Remian, by that time, had already fallen asleep. Mindy looked at him and hesitated. Phoebe held a finger to her lips and shook her head slowly. In a low voice, she said, "Don't wake him. Let him rest a while more."

"So… it's really going to be just me and Tim, then?"

Slowly, Phoebe nodded.

***

In the second fight for the Eastern Edge Region, Mindy firebombed the lioness and her pride from above. They snarled, and clawed, but except for a particular green lioness' sonic blasts, none of their attacks could even reach her.

As for that green lioness, Mindy charged down with her Flame Wing Sword aimed for her head. The lioness blasted Mindy with a sonic stream, but Mindy pushed her way through with her flame wings and finally hammered the lioness' head with her sword.

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The green lioness went down. The other oversized cats all lunged at Mindy from every side, but she zipped back into the sky and went on bombarding them from above.

Unable to reach her and getting fried in the process, the lions gave up before they lost all their fur.

***

The Star Wolf King went into battle with just three subordinates on his second round. Shadowflash, Lockjaw and Bright battled flying horses and land-bound unicorns to a standstill. At last, four horse-types conceded.

By that time, Lockjaw and Bright had already withdrawn, leaving only the Star Wolf King and Shadowflash on the field, both injured but victorious. The North-East Edge Region was theirs.

***

On the third bout, Mindy acted as a diversion while Tim ambushed the black gorillas from below. He tunneled under them, and all of them could feel the vibrations of his tunneling, but nobody could say for sure where he was.

Then, all of a sudden, he burst out of the side of a hill and stabbed one gorilla in the armpit. The explosion nearly took the monkey's arm off, before Tim himself slipped back underground and out of sight.

[Get him!] the gorilla howled. [I don't care how or what it takes! WHACK him!]

This led to what looked like a massive whack-a-mole where all the gorillas were players and nobody could tell for sure where their target actually was. They feverishly blasted the ground until it was holy enough to go to church, and still couldn't find him.

Even so, he hit them when they least expected it. One by one, they fell or withdrew, until only their leader was left, and Mindy fried the last one with multiple fireballs from far above.

By the end of the third fight, both Tim and Mindy were exhausted and barely able to walk. They flopped down for a rest just in time to hear Tor'na-dras say, [Having no other Challenges today, the next fight will, again, be over the Eastern Edge Region!]

To that, both Tim and Mindy let out groans.

"Remian? Are you up yet?" Phoebe asked, seeing no other options.

"Yeah. I'm up." Remian tugged himself up, and went to battle.

***

The fourth fight was against the Thunder Hawk Lord, who ruled the Striped Highlands.

The Thunder Hawk Lord immediately took to the skies with his entire crew. [Give up, human! You can't reach us up here!]

Remian didn't bother arguing. Instead, what he said was, "Blizzard!"

Dark clouds filled the sky. Snow began to fall.

[You think a little cold is going to stop us?] the Thunder Hawk Lord scoffed and went into a formation with his crew.

"Let's find out." Remian suggested, and snapped his fingers. "Flash Freeze!"

Abrupt silence fell, along with four frozen birds bigger than his house.

There was a short, wordless pause.

[Anything more to say?] Tor'na-dras asked the Thunder Hawk Lord.

[C-c-c-cold…!] was the bird's only response.

[Very well. I hereby judge that the Fourth Challenge is won by the humans!] Tor'na-dras announced. [This leaves only the last fight of the day, the Fifth Challenge for the Eastern Edge Region! Humans, you have five minutes to get ready!]

"Five minutes?!" Mindy protested. "That's not enough time! We haven't even been able to rest!"

[Blame that on your friend for finishing his fight too quickly.] the Elder Dragon snorted. [We have taken enough time today! Let us be done with it!]

***

"Can we really manage?" Mindy asked, still breathing hard.

"We have to. It's just one last fight." Tim grimaced, recharging his sword runes with a yellow mana crystal.

"One more fight. Just one more fight." Mindy drew herself up. "I'm not ready, but we don't have any more time. Let's do this."

"Let's do this." Tim breathed.

Remian just coughed, and wobbled as he turned around to return to the battlefield.

***

The last fight was against the brother of the old Cyan Python Lord.

[Humaans! You will pay for what you did to my brother!!] the new Python Lord hissed.

[Pay! Pay! Pay!] his three subordinates hissed in chorus.

[You will suffer!]

[Suffer! Suffer! Suffer!]

[You will die!]

[Die! Die! Die!]

[Stop copying me!]

[Copying! Copying… eh?!]

Whack! Before the fight even started the three subordinates took direct injuries to the heads inflicted by none other than their superior.

Mindy also gave them injuries to the head. She dropped a rain of fireballs on them from a hundred feet above ground, just out of the range of their spitting venom.

Meanwhile, Tim disappeared underground. They could feel tremors and they knew he was tunneling around, but they couldn't figure out where.

[Get down here!] the lead serpent roared.

"No, thanks. Here, have another fireball." Mindy replied politely and dropped an extra-large one on his head. It nearly went down his open mouth.

Afterwards, the lead serpent shut up, though the other three kept spewing threats.

Tim decided to stop that, so he jumped out from the ground and stabbed one right in the mouth.

BOOM! One snake went down with smoke rising from its head. The other two learned to shut up very quickly.

BAM! A second serpent retaliated, slamming its head into Tim at point-blank range. There was a sound of cracking bones and a yelp from Tim as he went flying across the field.

"YOU!" Mindy descended in fury, slamming her sword into the second serpent's head with full-force. It tried to dodge and only partially succeeded. The sword cut deep into its neck and diagonally down its back, causing a great deal of blood to seep into the ground.

The third snake whipped its tail into Mindy's side, so that she went sprawling into the dirt.

"Light!" Remian threw up a light barrier, but the third serpent just crushed it with its massive body. "Earth Spike!"

The third serpent dodged.

"Flash freeze!" Remian froze the snake, but without the blizzard for a setting, the power of the flash freeze was a lot lower than the one that took down the birds. "Ice boots, both together!"

BAM! Left shoe and right shoes together stomped on the third serpent. The snake went down, but so did Remian.

With all three fighters down, and three snakes down, this left only the Python King Challenger and Phoebe facing each other on the field.

[Very well!] the Python Lord finally drew himself up smugly. [You have defeated my seconds! Now you can fight me!]

To that, Phoebe's only response was to lose all the color in her face. She glanced at Remian, Tim, and Phoebe, filling her hand with healing light, but it was obvious that they were in no shape to fight and even if she tried to heal them, they just didn't have time.

Seeing her dilemma, the Python Lord roared with laughter. [Stupid humans! After all your efforts, all your hard work, in the end, it will all only benefit me! How does it feel, to flag and fail at the very, very last minute, at the very edge of success… if only there wasn't me standing in your way!]

The hissing laughter filled the sky. The Wilds cheering for someone, anyone fighting the human, let out approving roars. Doom looked over the cacophony and finally shook his head, sighing. "What a mess."

To that, Darian nodded. "Yeah. A total mess."

Doom eyed him glumly. Darian just raised an eyebrow in response. Doom sighed again.

At last, Darian stepped out, and put a hand on Phoebe's shoulder.

"What… what should I do?" Phoebe asked, numbly.

"Take care of my brother." Darian advised. "Withdraw."

"But… but the fight…" Phoebe spluttered.

Darian laid a finger on her lips, and smiled.

Then, he turned to the huge snake.

"Very well. You have defeated my seconds! Now, you can fight me!"