Chapter 25: The next contenders!

Both Surge and Nev had won their first fights by a mile, making it look easy which shocked the other warriors. The rest of the other warriors had also had their first fight, leaving only ten remaining out of the twenty that had come for the test.

However, out of all of the warriors that had turned up for Blake's little get-together, only a small handful stood out, with one of them about to have his second fight.

"Alright, Zar, is it?" Blake asked, getting a nod from the Kobold warrior before him.

"Yes, sir." He replied.

"You will be fighting him next," Blake said, pointing to another of the warriors, excited to see what would happen this time.

Zar was the highest levelled Kobold that had shown up, bosting a level of 14 with some good stats too.

Name: Zar

Race: Kobold Lv14

Health: 85/85

Stamina: 80/80

Mana: 3/3

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Strength: 17

Agility: 11

Intelligence: 5

Blake could see that he was indeed stronger than Nev in strength, but also faster than Surge in speed, wondering how a fight between them would go down.

Both Zar and the other warrior took their positions, waiting for Blake to give the go-ahead.

Zar may have been the strongest of the warriors here today, however, this next opponent that Blake had chose for him was no push over either.

"Fight," Blake said, watching and waiting to see what would happen.

Zar stood in a strong stance, keeping one hand by his hip and the other high above his head, making it look like he knew what he was doing.

Zar had a good build on him too, not being too big nor too small. His skin tone was a deep red with dark yellow eyes and the normal horns on his head. However, the most notable feature had to be the large scar on his face that ran down his right eye, giving him a tough look.

"Argh!" The other warrior grunted as he attacked with a combination of punches and kicks, throwing a well-timed one-two followed by a leg kick aimed at Zar's thigh, clearly not wanting to let Zar make the first move.

Zar was quick to parry the punches with his own hand and also lifted his lead leg to block the kick, checking it with his shin.

"Here it comes," Blake said to himself, watching as Zar was about to load his backhand he had been keeping by his hip, throwing the first counter punch right into the other Kobold's chest with a perfect Karate style strike.

"Rgh!" The warrior cried out as Zar's punch landed flush against his sternum, knocking the wind out of his chest causing him to stumble back a little.

Zar could see the other warrior was hurt and quickly took advantage of the situation, using his footwork to close the distance like a boxer would before he hit the warrior with a beautiful left hook followed by a right uppercut, rocking his jaw like a bobble head doll.

The Kobold didn't know what was happening as he felt the uppercut take him off his feet, hitting the ground with a thud before he rolled backwards and tried to scramble to his up.

Not bad... He took that hit pretty well. Blake thought, thinking that Zar would have finished the fight with a hit like that.

"Good chin on you. But you know you don't stand a chance against me." Zar said as he bounced on his toes, keeping his body loose with a confident smile.

The other warrior snarled as he wiped some blood away from his mouth, feeling his eye sight return to normal once his head stopped shaking.

"I'm not done yet!" He said, quickly charging toward Zar with his hands raised like a wrestler.

Blake smiled as he saw the telltails of what he was about to try, wondering if it would work on Zar or not.

The Kobold fainted with an attack up high, causing Zar to prepare to block and counter his efforts. However, at the last second, the warrior dropped down to his knee and dived into Zar's hips, tackling him with a great takedown attempt.

Zar had been taken off guard from the takedown and was scooped from the ground in a double-leg takedown, unable to stop his efforts.

"Take this!" The other warrior yelled as he slammed Zar into the ground, putting all of his weight on top of him to do more damage.

Zar hit the ground hard and grunted, feeling his back smash against the unforgiving ground, and the Kobold land against his chest, almost knocking the wind from him.

"You bastard!" Zar yelled, clearly not happy as he wrapped his legs around the other warrior's waist, putting him in something known as full guard, a defensive position for those who studied the art of Ju-jitsu in the real world.

The Kobold warrior tried to break free of the grip that Zar had on him, posturing up as he threw a couple of big punches down at Zar's head.

However, Zar was able to move out of the way, wriggling like a worm before he reached up and pulled the other warrior's head down with both hands.

What he did next was very interesting to Blake, impressing him with his skills of ground fighting.

Zar used his right leg to wrap it over the warrior's head, all while keeping his head down and controlling his arms, making sure to push one through his leg before he locked his foot under his other legs knee, succeeding in placing a tight triangle choke on the Kobold in his grasp.

"That's on tight!" One of the other warriors who was watching said, cheering from the sidelines.

Blake and the others had been taught this style of fighting during their hand to hand combat training. It was a very effective and defensive way of fighting an opponent one on one, however, once they had begun training with weapons and fighting in numbers, they had quickly seen it was safer to fight standing.

The Kobold warrior wriggled around as he struggled to try and break free of Zar's hold, however, he was not strong enough to do so and soon found his world turned black as the choke became too much for him to handle.

Zar felt his body go limp as he lost consciousness and released him from the hold, slowly standing up and leaving his foe flat on the ground asleep.

"Winner, Zar," Blake said, impressed with his fight.

Zar didn't celebrate and simply stood back in line with the others, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Very well, onto the next fight then," Blake said, also not wasting any time before he looked around at the other warriors.

Out of all of the warriors here today, one had caught his eye more than the others. Not because the person was strong and mighty. No... It was something else, something he had yet to see during his time here.

"What was your name again?" Blake asked as he looked at the only female warrior there.

"It's Rakbi, sir." She said, placing a hand on her hip.

Rakbi... She is an interesting one. Blake thought, remembering how she had won her first fight through cunning and speed.

She was small and slender, having a dark green tint along her scales. Unlike the male Kobold, she was short and much less built. However, Blake could see the lean muscle mass that covered her body, and the sharp claws and fangs that every female Kobold had, giving them more of a bite than the males.

Yet, despite her outward appearance what interested Blake the most about her was her stats, seeing something he had not seen as of yet among other Kobolds.

Name: Rakbi

Race: Kobold Lv12

Health: 60/60

Stamina: 70/70

Mana: 18/18

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Strength: 12

Agility: 14

Intelligence: 7

Rakbi, as was her name had very interesting stats indeed. Not only was her agility stat much higher than the others, showing that she had a great amount of speed and dexterity. But her stamina was also higher than her hit points, despite her strength level.

However, the main factor that Blake took an interest in was her high intelligence level and even greater Mana points. Making her the first Kobold that he had seen with a clear affinity for magic.

Blake smiled to himself as he watched her and the other male warriors he had chosen take their positions, with the male cracking his knuckles, certain he was going to win this thing easily.

Looks like things are about to get interesting... Blake said to himself, wanting to see how Rakbi would handle her fight this time.