18 17. The Final Match

Having us stand beside him was also a good way to build intrigue about us among the audience, that is unless they already had heard of our last Sentry mission.

Hours later it was finally our turn to get onto the stage. And as we bowed to the King and jumped straight onto the stage, a commotion arose.

The stage was enveloped in a giant shadow and as we looked up, the creature falling from the sky seemed to grow larger and appear clearer. A dominating presence like none other pressured me, and from what I saw, everyone seated too, save for the King, who only perspired a bit.

It felt like my heart was hammering away in my chest, trying to escape from my body. And then the creature landed and the courtyard was immediately wrecked. It cracked and created fissures in the ground in many places.

The barrier spell then kicked in and stopped the effect from reaching the seats.

The Ancient Sentry was a lot smaller than I had expected it to be. It was a two legged red-scaled dinosaur with a big golden beak for a mouth, long neck and possessed orange eyes. Giant silver coloured horns grew from its head, and both it's claws and belly were covered in an extra layer of hard skin the colour of silver. And from the looks of it, the silver was pretty sturdy and acted as an armour.

The being looked at me and Seraph, then slowly the pressure vanished. Although it was only as tall as a 7 floor building, I could feel it in my bones that it was in no way inferior to the Berserk Sentries I had faced.

It's orange eyes glowed, and I heard a voice in my head,

' I'm Gadarla, the last of the species you call "Ancient Sentry" and I've been itching to fight against someone my equal since centuries. You dare not disappoint.'

I didn't yet know how strong Gadarla was, but our only option was going all out and trusting the plan.

"Then let's get started!" Seraph summoned her staff and ran towards him.

I supported by summoning hundreds of wind bullets and shot them towards its eyes. But before they could even touch him, his eyes turned black and my bullets unravelled themselves and dissipated into thin air.

Shit! This wasn't good.

Enveloping my entire body in Iron Skin, I ran around the creature as Seraph did her best to find it's weak spots.

Waves of fire dissipated before they could hit it, a summoned beast from Hell managed to only leave a few claw marks on Gadarla's scales. Volleys of fire arrows were shot at the same time as meteors of fire, the arrows were in its sight and were negated, but the meteors that materialized behind it smashed into its neck.

Those left a few scorch marks.

A translucent green light covered my blades and just as the creature negated another of Seraph's Firestorm spell, I jumped onto its back and began running up. Gadarla shook its body and lashed around with its tail at me, the lashes hurt but I sunk my daggers into its back and held on.

It was then that I saw a terrifying sight.

It turned its neck and roared. A beam of turbulent black flames shot out of its mouth and enveloped me. The flames were terrible. They clung to me and burned every part of me.

I don't know when, but at some point in the intense pain I fell of the giant and onto the ground. There was only one way to handle this.

'System, Berserker Mode.'

The fire blinded me, but I felt the changes. The increase in power, the extra weight from the additional scales, the sensation of the horns growing, and my healing getting faster.

I held my right palm up and a giant translucent mouth formed in front of me. It's jaws opened and touched my chest, then it began sucking. Soon the disgusting fire was all sucked up by the translucent mouth and then as I pointed with my palm, the mouth turned and shot the fire onto the giant's neck.

I shot it just in time since Gadarla had opened its beak to shoot the flames onto the cornered Seraph. The beast shrieked.

The flames soon died away, but some of the scales fell off its neck, exposing it's bare skin. It was then that I noticed that some scales had also fallen off its back.

Huh. So it's not entirely immune to its own fire.

More surprisingly my Berserker Mode left me right after I shot the flames. And my body began staggering with exhaustion. I couldn't fall unconscious now, the beast needed to be taken down first.

Thankfully for me Seraph had brought Gadarla's attention back to herself by shooting a few fire arrows into its mouth when it shrieked.

I jumped upon the beast again, and like the last time, its neck turned around again, but I couldn't stop now. I would take its fire again but I wouldn't let go again.

With only a single Cloud Dagger in my hand now, I jumped towards its neck. It's head moved down to meet me too.

Perhaps unwilling to feel the pain again, it clamped down its beak on my left arm instead of shooting fire.

Saliva from its beak burned my skin, but I didn't falter and stabbed the dagger into its exposed neck at the same time. It shrieked, and this time took half of my arm away. From elbow to fingers, all of it was now swallowed by it. Some of the saliva was even left behind on the remaining half of my left arm.

I tore open the neck, grabbed an artery, tore it too and began drinking. I heard a sharp intake of breath from the entire audience.

I had gotten good at this. Somehow it took barely seconds to suck away a gallon of its blood, partly thanks to the the demonic mouth on my right palm.

Gadarla shook its body and I fell this time, barely able to remain awake. There was still half of the plan to execute.

'System, begin kaijufication. Keep me awake.'

The unconsciousness during kaijufication was simply a means for System to most efficiently mutate my body. I'm surprised why I didn't ask about the process before yesterday.

What followed was me and Seraph fighting with bodies that were breaking down from pain, bleeding and exhaustion. The only good thing was me growing in power during it because of the mutation in motion.

I jumped and landed a Tornado Punch straight onto the giant's beak right after the mutation ended. It was then, that Gadarla's beak broke, it legs gave away and it fell down paralyzed.