When Moxy's match began, Asher was brought back to the very first time he’d witnessed a full on battle involving elements from the people of this world. He’d been in the middle of rescuing Rosh from Loratta’s compound when Draken’s coalition had attacked the main entrance. He’d gotten the chance to peek around the corner and see nearly a dozen different elements being thrown around in only a few seconds, and it was a sight that he vividly remembered to this day. Naturally, he’d been through plenty of his own fights with all sorts of different opponents since then, but rarely did he get the chance to sit back and watch two top-tier fighters go head-to-head with one another.

  Though he wasn’t really sitting back here, either, seeing as he was screaming on the edge of his seat right alongside the rest of the crowd.

  The moment the announcer declared the start of the battle, both fighters sprung into action. Curiously enough, Brutalizer also had the warrior class according to his Identify, which meant neither of them would have an advantage on that front.

  Just like how she’d started all their own bouts, Moxy leapt back, bringing up her fists and unleashing a powerful barrage of air blasts as she threw one punch after another. Asher knew probably better than anyone just how deadly each of those air bullets were, which made it all the more shocking when Brutalizer largely shrugged them off, keeping his arms raised in front of his face as he ran forward like an enraged bull. Asher didn’t know if it was the man’s Strength or Horse element that gave him such durability, but whatever it was, Moxy’s air blasts were doing little more than leaving red welts upon impact, rather than tearing chunks of flesh off his skeleton.

  Though even if they weren’t causing that much damage, the constant blasts must have still been incredibly painful, as Brutalizer let out an angry roar as he finally reached her. With speed that Asher never would have expected from his massive frame, Brutalizer lashed out, smashing his club down directly toward Moxy’s head.

  Life element or no, Asher was pretty certain Moxy wouldn’t be coming back from an injury like that if Brutalizer’s attack landed.

  Luckily, Moxy was two steps ahead. As the studded club swung down toward her, she blasted toward the side with a burst of air, narrowly dodging the ground-shaking impact. While she dodged, she did something she’d never once tried during their many battles against one another.

  Asher started as two of the pelts on her shoulders came to life and leapt off her body, landing on Brutalizer before he could recover and immediately going straight for his eyes. The undead foxes given life through Moxy’s skill were fast and nimble, just like the warrior herself, but they lacked offensive power based on the fact that Asher didn’t see blood going anywhere from their rabid attempts to claw Brutalizer’s eyes out. Even so, the large fighter had still been blinded for a moment, which allowed Moxy to dart around behind him and start firing air blasts into his exposed back.

  Rather than try and rip the pelts off his face, Brutalizer instead turned and threw his massive club randomly behind him. The move seemed a bit reckless, until Asher realized the club’s trajectory changed in mid-air, jerking to the side as it homed directly in on Moxy’s position.

  Some sort of homing club attack?!

  Asher sucked in a startled breath along with half the stands as the massive weapon blasted forward on a collision course with Moxy. She managed to partially dodge the attack with another blast of air, but either due to speed of the throw or the weapon correcting itself a second time, she wasn’t able to dodge it fully. A sickening crunch rang out across the crowd as the club smashed into her shoulder, followed by a roar of approval by everyone cheering for their home champion to take the win.

  “Oh no!” Samantha shouted, standing up with the rest of them and looking down at Moxy in horror. While she’d angled her body and moved with the blow to minimize the damage, her shoulder had clearly been dislocated by the powerful strike. Even so, Moxy’s grin was wider than ever, and she laughed as she raised a glowing violet hand to her wounded shoulder. The violet light spread over her injury, and within seconds, her arm was good as new.

  However, in the time she spent healing herself, Brutalizer finally managed to rip the fox pelts off his face, tearing each one in half and chucking the once-again dead pelts behind his head as he glared at Moxy from across the arena. The two combatants were right back where they started, only now, Moxy was down two of her pelts, and Brutalizer was missing his club that had lodged itself partway into the metal cage behind his opponent. Despite the fact that the entire crowd was standing at this point, it felt as if everyone was on the edge of their seats as they waited for one of them to launch the next attack.

  Brutalizer took the initiative this time, reaching out a hand toward his distant club. To the shock of everyone who hadn’t witnessed one of his fights before, the club twitched and tore itself free of the cage, shooting straight back into his outstretched hand. Moxy barely managed to duck in time to avoid getting smacked in the back of the head, and when she came back up, she had a familiar compressed ball of air in her hands.

  Asher had to physically fight back the urge to slip into the astral when he spotted the ball of dense air churning within her grasp. Moxy had blown him up on more than one occasion with clinical precision, timing the explosion just so in order to hit him when he was forced to return to the material realm. Just as she had in her fights against him, she took on the form of a professional pitcher and lobbed the ball straight at the ground between Brutalizer’s feet.

  With Brutalizer’s club returned to him, Asher briefly wondered if Brutalizer would try to strike the ball of air like one would a baseball. Instead, the larger warrior revealed that he had a better idea in mind.

  From a complete standstill, Brutalizer leapt into the air, launching his massive frame nearly twenty feet up and forward, completely avoiding the ball of air as it detonated where he’d been moments ago. The cage was just as tall as it was wide, yet even so, Brutalizer’s head practically scraped across the top of it as he traveled forward, already starting to drop down on Moxy’s position. Her smile not wavering in the slightest, Moxy blasted across the ground with another burst of air, making sure to stay out of melee range of her opponent. Most likely, she already knew what everyone in the stands suspected.

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  If Brutalizer managed to get an actual hold on her with one of those massive hands of his, she was as good as dead.

  Despite the fact that Moxy had already escaped out from under him, Brutalizer surprised the crowd by smashing his club into the ground anyway. The front three rows of people all collapsed over on top of one another, revealing the fact that he’d activated some sort of ground-quaking skill. Somehow, Moxy must have seen this coming, as she’d already jumped up into the air, catching onto the far cage and hanging from it as she waited for the skill to end. Of course, being Moxy, she didn’t just hang there doing nothing. She’d hammered into his head time and time again that the key to winning a fight was to be the one acting instead of reacting, and even as she dangled, she lashed out with her free hand, throwing another handful of deadly air punches directly into Brutalizer’s face.

  From that point forward, the fight ended up falling into a deadly yet predictable rhythm. Moxy danced around just outside of Brutalizer’s range, pelting him with powerful air blasts as she nimbly avoided crushing strike after crushing strike of the man’s club. Every so often, Brutalizer would attempt to throw his club again, or trip her up with another ground quake, but now that she knew what to expect, Moxy dodged each with ease. Despite the fact that she was narrowly avoiding being turned into paste every few seconds, the crowd began to grow annoyed with this turn of events after a couple of minutes passed without anyone actually taking any meaningful damage.

  “What is with the booing?!” Samantha shouted, looking around in shock at the reactions of everyone around them.

  “I think both Moxy and Brutalizer have each decided to turn this into a battle of endurance!” he shouted back, wincing as Brutalizer took another spray of air bullets to the face that would have easily killed any regular person. “Moxy is used to fighting like this against opponents with strong defenses, and seeing as he’s barely even slowed down after all this, I’d bet Brutalizer’s Horse element has a skill that gives him an incredible amount of stamina!”

  “Really?! How can you tell?!”

  “Neither of them are trying anything new!” he tried to explain over the half-roaring, half-booing crowd. “And despite having never lost, Brutalizer’s record included having five battles end in a tie! I bet that’s his go to against particularly slippery opponents! The crowd wants to see new skills and crazy ideas, which is why they’re booing!"

  It seemed the spreading boos across the crowd had finally roused whoever was in charge of the underground arena into action, as the announcer’s voice rang out once more, cutting through the sounds of battle.

  “This is a prize fight like no other, so we’ve decided to add a new rule! The usual time limit has officially been abolished! Both warriors will fight until we have a decisive victor!”

  That got a fresh wave of cheers from the crowd, and Asher didn’t miss how the angry expression on Brutalizer’s face morphed into an evil smirk. If Asher hadn’t already suspected that the man had some sort of bonus-endurance skill, that pretty much all but guaranteed it. Brutalizer had to be confident that Moxy would run out of energy first, and without her air blasts she kept using to dodge his devastating attacks, he’d be free to crush her with ease. If she’d been anyone else, Asher would have expected to turn and see Brutalizer’s opponent with a look of horror on their face as they realized their plans to draw things out were no longer going to work.

  Though seeing as Brutalizer’s opponent was Moxy, he wasn’t surprised in the slightest to instead find her smile had grown larger than ever, looking positively deranged after hearing the rules of the fight change mid-battle.

  “Why does she look so happy?!” Samantha shouted at him, her eyes never once leaving the battlefield below them.

  “Because she’s insane!” Asher laughed, eager to see just what Moxy had in store for them. Not one to disappoint, before the announcer’s words had even finished echoing around the cavern, Moxy sprung into action.

  Sprinting directly toward the man who had been trying to get close to her the last few minutes.

  Brutalizer seemed just as caught off guard as the rest of them, as the cheers and roars faltered in a split second of mass confusion while everyone wondered what in the realms she could possibly be up to. Recovering quickly, Brutalizer roared as he brought his club up overhead, before bringing it down with enough force to shatter solid rock.

  A small burst of air launched Moxy up over the devastating attack, and the remaining pelts covering her vitals dropped off her body, coming to life and latching onto the club in order to prevent Brutalizer from raising it again. Flipping over the head of his club with the grace of a gymnast, Moxy landed on the handle, putting herself face-to-face with her opponent for the first time that match. Before Brutalizer could tear his club free from the pelts or drop it entirely in favor of grabbing her, Moxy struck. Lashing out with a lightning-fast jab, she revealed the new ball of condensed air she’d formed sometime during the last few seconds.

  Right before jamming the entire thing into Brutalizer’s mouth as he roared at her.

  Asher realized a split second too late just what she was planning, and his stomach churned as he and what sounded like a few thousand other people got to witness first hand what happened when a massive quantity of compressed air was forced into someone’s lungs.

  Enough of the air blasted out of his mouth that Moxy was sent flying back to safety, but it didn’t matter at that point. Brutalizer’s Strength element was enough to keep his body from being torn apart from the force of the explosion, but it wasn’t enough to save his lungs. Based on the blood that erupted out of his still-open mouth, Asher’s gut churned as his limited first-aid training kicked in unprompted.

  Two collapsed lungs at a bare minimum, but based on all the blood, I’d be willing to bet Brutalizer’s lungs were utterly blasted to shreds from the force of the air rather than just collapsed. Earth’s medical knowledge can’t really weigh in on what happened accurately, seeing as I don’t know how his Strength and Horse elements altered his body. But one thing’s for sure…

  This fight is over.

  It seemed he wasn’t the only one with that opinion, because as Brutalizer collapsed to the ground in a giant puddle of his own blood and the crowd began cheering at the reckless finishing move, the announcer called out one last time, barely loud enough to be heard over the thousands of shouting fans.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, she’s done it! Moxy is your new champion!”

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