Chapter 529: Long time Partners Meet in Battle Part 1

After watching that nail biter of a match Joshua was a bit more amped up for his own match with Lily and it seemed like the audience had the same feeling based off the way they were still cheering several minutes after the match had ended. Although the match had only taken around ten minutes in its entirety the stakes of the fight the whole time seemed much higher than any of the other matches Joshua had seen throughout the tournament. It was a race to the finish where either side could have won. Madalyn's poison was on the verge of taking Dmitry down for good based off of the way he was vomiting black blood towards the end. Dmitry however was able to drain enough energy away from Madalyn in the end to take the victory.

Sarah had the task of calming the audience down so she could get them focused on the next match, but she let them get all of the amped up emotions out of their systems before she decided to turn her attention to the next match. "Well after the great show that Madalyn and the Iron Claw put on I'm sure everyone in the audience both here and at home are ready for another masterful clash of two of the greatest explorers in our hub city. This time around we have the Queen of beast herself gracing the stage going up against a man that could be considered as powerful as a beast himself. Welcome Lily and Joshua for the next fight."

Joshua appeared on one side of the stage while Lily appeared across from him with the same small smile she seemed to always have. They both gave the crowd a wave before they began to focus on each other completely. "I know for a fact that these two contestants have been working alongside each other since early on in their explorer careers. So I hope you all enjoy this match of two partners and let's see who will come out on top." The moment that Sarah stopped speaking the countdown started and both sides had a minute to prepare.

At first Joshua was expecting Lily to start off with a bit of conversation, but he was proven wrong when all she did was give Joshua a nod before stepping back and making the usual waving motion she made whenever summoning one of her beast companions. From this alone Joshua knew that Lily was being more cautious of him than she had been of any other contestants. The first beast companion she summoned was Tank in a slightly smaller form than his full-size. Joshua had the feeling that the only reason she didn't bring him out at full size at this point was so that she'd have enough space on her side of the arena to summon all of her strongest beast companions before the match started.

Joshua's guess ended up being right since soon after he could see her bring out Cinder who leaped up on to Tank's back in a smaller form than usual. She was still as big as a two story house, but that was relatively half of her full size. Up to this point she had only brought out beast companions that the crowd had seen before in previous fights. They had seen Tank be used to change the entire environment with his sheer size and his ability to control water to make several traps that made it hell to try to get close to Lily. They had also seen Cinder use Ice magic while being able to carry Lily all over the arena thus keeping her away from her opponents if necessary. Cinder also showed off her ability to manipulate fire which made her a high level threat in any match with her dual elements alone.

After summoning those two to the arena Lily didn't stop there as she brought in her last big surprise for the tournament as Titus appeared with a loud roar towering over everything. He was beating his chest and standing up as straight as he could to make himself appear even bigger than normal. Although he was taller than Tank he didn't take up nearly as much space, even so he was extremely imposing. Standing across from all three of these giant beast was a bit intimidating even for someone like Joshua, especially when they were all focusing their attention on him. The crowd was in awe after seeing the giant gorilla like beast roar and they were standing up as they watched the match that was about to take shape.

With the last thirty seconds left before the match would start Lily had Cinder jump down to pick her up before leaping back up on to Tank's back. From that Joshua could tell that Lily was going to focus on keeping herself out of harm's way while her beast companions went after Joshua. Both Tank and Titus were already preparing themselves to face Joshua in battle. Joshua could sense Tank's aura surging as clouds started to form in the air above the arena along with the surroundings growing far more humid do the combination of the moisture being added to the air along with the chill that Cinder was currently giving off. Titus on the other hand slammed his fist into the arena floor causing everything to shake. He wasn't doing it to attack, but instead vines started to grow out of the ground and wrap around his body forming an armor.

If Joshua had to guess he assumed for the moment that Lily would be synced to Tank so that Joshua couldn't do any real damage to her with a long range energy slash or some other tactic. Her entire game plan was staying out of the way so she was doing everything to give Joshua a hard time of even coming near her. Before the match started Joshua noticed that she summoned one more beast companion as Light appeared next to her before turning into aura and jumping into her body. The little dog was just another line of defense that was going to give Joshua a hard time. Joshua took out his scale blade knowing full well that he was going to need it if he wanted to do any real damage to her beast companions. Blunt force wasn't going to be enough to deal with beast of their size and he knew he was going to have to deal with them in some regards if he wanted to get to Lily.

Unlike all of Lily's other opponents up to this point Joshua knew that just charging at her from the get go was a horrible idea. There were many reasons for this but there were two simple things that weren't so obvious for those who didn't truly know Lily's beast companions and her own personal capabilities. The first was the fact that all of Lily's beast were insanely powerful and could change size at any time allowing them stave off just about any attack that came her way. Leaving her beast companions alone while just going for her would put you in a situation where powerful beast that could control elements could attack you from all angles and make getting to Lily an almost impossible task in the first place. That along with the fact that she had two powerful support beast that some of her opponents didn't even know about that could either hide in her shadow in Jade's case or her aura in Light's. Those two were a final line of defense that was always there to take her opponents by surprise leaving them open for an onslaught of attacks from her other beast companions and herself.

The other thing that needed to be kept in mind was the fact that Lily was no slouch at protecting herself either. Joshua knew this personally after spending a lot of time teaching her how to use her staff properly to attack others and defend herself. This alone wouldn't help out to much against the high level contestants that were left in the tournament, but the fact that she could synchronize with any of the four beast she currently had out to improve her own stats and gain the abilities of the beast companion that she was synced with. If she synchronized with Tank then she would become so hard to physically hurt that most attacks would only leave small scratches on her skin even from blades and bullets, not to mention the control over water. Synchronizing with Cinder would give her insane speed and dexterity with decent boost to her other strengths, she'd also gain control over the elements of fire and ice. Lastly synchronizing with Titus would give her the strength to overpower anyone in the entire tournament by a large margin along with the control over plants.

Most opponents wouldn't know any of this stuff about Lily and would be taken by surprise. The only exception to this was Laura, but she just had a horrible match up against the combination of beast that Lily had brought out to fight her. Joshua on the other hand wasn't going to let himself fall for the same traps. Just as the countdown ended Joshua kicked off the arena floor dodging to the side as several vines shot out of the arena floor where he once stood. Joshua wasn't going to be caught by surprise since he knew that the moment that Titus brought out his vines to create his armor there was likely several more left behind under the arena floor to strike the second the match started. At this point Joshua knew there was no way that he was going to be able to stay in one spot for long, to prove this thought an ice spear came soaring directly for him that he had to knock aside with his scale blade before avoiding more vines that tried to take advantage of him standing in one spot.

Both Titus and Cinder continued their onslaught while Tank started changing the concentration of water in the air creating a heavy mist that grew cold with the added effect of Cinder's ice fog. For most humans the chilly environment would quickly wear them out in such a high energy scenario, but Joshua's aura kept his body warm as his aura cloak protected him from the sudden shift in temperature. The only problem Joshua had with the sudden change in environment was the low visibility that would come from it. He would have to rely more on his aura sense more than he wanted to and that was hard to do with the massive amount of aura that Tank was generating along with Titus and Cinder to a lesser degree. Their giant well springs of aura made it hard for Joshua to hone in on the aura or mana inside of their control over powerful spells making it hard to react to them before he could see them with his own eyes.

The match started off just about the way that Joshua was expecting with him completely on the defensive without being able to catch a single break, but he knew that he was going to have to end things quickly if he wanted to come out victorious. The longer the match went on the harsher the environment would get for him to try to withstand the onslaught of Lily's beast companions. He could already see several vines sticking out of the arena floor on his side while Tank had grown larger in size taking up all of Lily's side of the arena. Titus had leapt on to Joshua's side trapping him in the middle. With all of the vines Joshua was running out of space to move around and he knew that cutting them down would just be a waste with how quickly Titus was able to get them back up. No Joshua needed to go on the attack and he had recently learned just the skills for this situation.