Alcott frowned, “He is keeping up with Arad.” He couldn’t believe his eyes. Azorn was capable of not just enduring Arad’s assault but even fighting back with equal relentless savagery.

“Of course he would.” Tiamat said with a proud smile, and Alcott looked back at her. “Because he is your son?”

She shook her head, “No, I’m mostly useless. Maharaja raised him; she is the one who taught him how to fight.”

“Not many can keep up with Arad. I’ve seen gods fall to him like deer to a lion.” Alcott said, and Tiamat burst laughing.

“So! Dragon Slayer. Can you take on Azorn then? Am I not far above that?” She looked at him with a smug face, and Alcott laughed as well, “Didn’t anyone tell you that you’re a bit naive?”

She stopped laughing and frowned, “In fact, I was told many times that I’m a bit dense sometimes.”

Alcott stood and shouted at the battlefield, “ARAD! He should have multiple elements! His weakness is the time he’ll need to switch between them. Force him to use those and strike when he is switching elements.”

Tiamat froze, and even Azorn halted for a second.

Alcott was spot on, even if Azorn didn’t even use his magic yet; somehow, this monster, Alcott, already saw past it and figured out a weakness that could be exploited.

“ALSO! IF MAHARAJA TRAINED HIM, THEN HE IS PROBABLY BAD AT AERIAL COMBAT!”

That was another weakness that Alcott had found. Maharaja is a massive black jaguar; she can snipe anything in the sky without looking while doing a backflip, but she is nowhere near as dexterous or masterful in the air as dragons or other aerial creatures, so Azorn, who trained under her, would be lacking a bit compared to someone like Arad.

Arad smiled. He was already noticing that Azorn was a bit slow to react to attacks while mid-air; he thought it wasn’t important, but hearing Alcott, he had to change his mind.

He wanted to laugh; his father was nothing short of a monster, especially when it came to dealing with dragons. Arad didn’t know if Alcott would win or even stay alive fighting Azorn for this long, but he was sure of one thing: it would end with Azorn dead if Alcott was motivated enough.

Arad didn’t waste a second and started putting more pressure on Azorn, making it harder and harder for him to fight on the ground to try and force clashes in the air, and it was working.

Each time Azorn tried to attack Arad, Arad would smash the ground into pieces, sending them both flying into the air. And just as Alcott said, Arad was indeed at an advantage while facing Azorn in the sky, which made him land more hits and even defend better.

The battle started to rapidly tip in Arad’s favor, because Azorn was getting pushed back and unable to find a weakness to exploit.

Azorn did, in fact, see many weaknesses in Arad’s style, but all of them were unusable because Arad wasn’t aware of them. It was a strange thing to think about, but it did make sense.

If you point a gun at someone who doesn’t know what a gun is or what it does, they’ll charge right at you in the middle of a fight without a care. So now turn into a vampire that regenerates at a blinding speed, and bullets won’t mean a thing to them.

Nina’s fighting style had left Arad open for many counters thanks to its primal and telegraphed moves; each counter could rip Arad’s head off and kill him outright, but to Azorn’s surprise, Arad didn’t seem to care about his own life.

What Azorn didn’t know is that he was only facing a quarter of Arad, just one incarnation. To Arad, it didn’t matter if this incarnation died or not, so he could play a risky game as much as he wanted without worry. And if Azorn managed to kill this incarnation, it’ll spawn right back at the inn and fly in for round two.

The pressure started accumulating on Azorn, and he started to feel that he was in fact facing a monster that surpassed death. It didn’t matter what he did, Arad never flinched or even reacted. Azorn would get so close to crushing Arad’s skull and spine in a single hit, a risk that none would dare take, but Arad would take the hit to the face and barely endure it by twisting his head and torso at the last second.

What shocked Azorn more was that this fighting style wasn’t strange to him; he had seen it before from his Master Maharaja. From what she told him, she learned it from Tarra, the Primordial Tarrasque from Ancient Earth.

That creature was immune to death, so it fought without a care in the world, charging headfirst through attacks and ripping everything in its path to shreds.

Azorn growled, dodging a kick from Arad as he grabbed him by the face and dragged him around the Arena, “You’re an animal, do you really think you’re above death?”

Arad’s burning purple eyes glared back at him with cold indifference, but then they flashed golden, giving Azorn a pause. Something in those eyes looked alien, utterly wrong, the ghost of a long-dead soul, a being that should’ve died, but still refuses to give up on life.

Arad’s body sank into the ground, disappearing without a trace, and that was Azorn’s sign that his worries were justified. Arad was a monster, a wild beast that should be put down before it put his sister and the world at risk, because this draconic look-alike wasn’t a dragon at all, but… a wild lizard.

Arad popped from the ground behind him, moving faster than before, and striking harder than ever with brownish golden scales around his body. This wasn’t magic, but a deep shift.

Azorn tried to dodge, but the punch smacked him right in the back, bounced him off the ground, and sent him spinning in the air.

As Arad landed, he panted, a deep growl escaped his lungs as his voice slowly changed, his body shifted, and soon, it was a woman standing there.

Shi’s soul had woken up.

“Ho! HOOO! HOOOOOOOO!” Shi thumbed her chest, roaring like a mad ape. It had been ages since she could feel anything, and the first thing she felt was pain, the accursed pain. So this bastard who made her feel pain is going to cry, she’ll rip his fingers and shove them up his eyes.

Arad has size magic, can polymorph his body shape thanks to his draconic polymorphing abilities, and can even switch genders thanks to Virgo’s constellation. This meant that technically, by combining all of those together, he could give the souls inside him a suitable body to use.

And no soul was better at using Nina’s fighting style than Shi, someone who also shared the blood of the Tarrasque.

So Arad had a soul that understood the power, and a body that could enable that soul to reach its full potential.

Azorn smacked on the ground and bounced back, landing on his feet. “A woman? Who of you is the real Arad?” He then smiled, “But I see, Sister saw something in you.” His fists ignited with infernal flames.

“But, you used magic first. So it’s a free game now.”

Arad was smiling internally, wanting to laugh. Azorn seemed to know what a Tarrasque is, but didn’t seem to remember that magic is the last thing you want to use against it.

Round two was on.