Chapter 82 - Advancing

Amid the mess created by the Demonic Flamingo, nobody could see what happened to the Demonic Red Fox. Even with their spiritual sense focusing on the arena, they couldn't properly pinpoint Scarlet's location among the rubbles, they could only sense the general outline of the outer surface of the area. 

It would take too much effort to use their spiritual sense to explore every nook and cranny below the pile of broken trees, uprooted roots, broken branches, and scattered leaves just to find Scarlet. Only the beast tamer could feel their spirit beast's condition in this situation.

Although that would be the case for the audience, the same couldn't be applied to Heavenly Demon, Leyvi's current opponent. He was currently working hard using his spiritual sense to detect any abnormal movements around the wreckage because he could tell from Leyvi's expression that his spirit beast was probably fine.

He instructed his flamingo to stay hovering and to keep vigilance for now. Heavenly Demon kept looking at Leyvi and saw him smiling confidently. Was he bluffing? Was the Demonic Red Fox actually heavily injured right now and was recovering? Dammit! What's happening here? I couldn't sense any movement at all! Should I attack again?

Not wanting to waste more time, Heavenly Demon finally ordered his spirit beast to unleash a second devastating gust at the same area. He felt that the red fox was healing itself and if he couldn't find it, another big area attack would finish the job.

The flamingo spread its massive wings wide, gathering power to summon a powerful gust again. However, when it was about to execute the first big flap, a shadow suddenly blitzed behind it and the next thing it realized was its body falling to the ground helplessly.

All this time, Scarlet had been hiding underground waiting for the right moment to strike. When the violent gusts started, she immediately dug into the ground and escaped the attack unscathed. She dug away from the attacked area to the area of the unharmed trees behind the flamingo.

This time, Scarlet asked Leyvi for a little assistance by informing her of the right moment to attack as she couldn't see the situation above the ground. She also asked for the best position where to launch her surprise attack.

When the flamingo was about to unleash the second attack, she received a signal from Leyvi, emerged from the ground and instantly enlarged, sprinted, climbed a tall tree right behind the flamingo, and finally pounced with all her strength, severing its two wings with her razor-sharp claws.

The sneak attack happened so fast that the Demonic Flamingo was unable to react in time. It crashed to the ground followed by its wings a few seconds later.

Huh? What happened? Why am I on the ground? Wait!! I can't feel my wings! No!! It hurts!! Where are they?? MY WINGS!!!

HOOONNNNNNKKKKKKKKKK!!

A loud honk resounded through the entire coliseum.

The Demonic Flamingo limped motionlessly on the ground soon after. Foam formed from its beak as it fainted from excessive shock. Its most loved wings had been severed from its body. Blood dyed the leaves around it red.

"Leyvi Leyan wins!" The announcer immediately declared.

"DOFFY!!!" Heavenly Demon quickly rushed toward the flamingo, grabbed its severed wings, applied thick layers of Limb Reconnecting Lotion, a tier-2 alchemy product, on the severed wound surface, and then carefully reattached the wings back to its body.

The healing effect of the Limb Reconnecting Lotion was a far cry from what a Medium Healing Elixir could achieve, but given enough time, it would eventually heal the wound perfectly and the wings would function as normal. Additionally, the Limb Reconnecting Lotion was way cheaper than Medium Healing Elixir, making it a more affordable choice for poor cultivators.

After the flamingo's wings had been attached, Heavenly Demon recalled it into the spirit beast bag again to recuperate. He left the arena without causing any ruckus. In a tamer fight, a spirit beast could die at any moment. A few spirit beasts died in today's tournament because of how fierce the fights were. However, since they participated, they couldn't blame anyone if their spirit beast perished.

People who aren't familiar with beast-taming might be wondering why were these spirit beasts made to fight each other, costing them their lives. The answer was simple, they had to fight in order to get stronger. Not just stronger by physical strength increase, but also stronger by evolving to a higher level.

The main reason they became a demonic beasts in the first place was because of their survival and evolutionary instinct to become stronger. Sure, the demonic beast's offspring would be able to become a demonic beast more easily due to the evolved genetics that were passed down, but they wouldn't be as strong as their parents who survived the wildlife on their own. Not unless they went through the same hardship.

Even after becoming a spirit beast, they must continue fighting, or their survival and evolutionary instinct will diminish, leading to their stagnation. There were many examples of these stagnations observed among the spirit beasts in the past causing the current-day beast tamers to solve the problem by making them constantly train and fight. However, it came with the risk of them dying so the decision was up to the tamer.

Heavenly Demon was considered lucky that the Scarlet didn't decapitate Doffy but showed mercy by only severing his wings. At the very least, the wings were re-attachable, if the head was gone, putting it back would be useless.

"Boss, thank you for the assistance, if not, it would be harder for me to win this match." Scarlet had returned to Leyvi's side.

"What are you talking about? That was how a beast-tamer fight should be in the first place. Finally I had some contributions. I thought I would be the most useless tamer competing today. Hahaha!" Leyvi joked as they walked toward his seat.

"Hehe, I think it's fine. If the boss constantly gives too many orders, I might find that annoying you know." Scarlet reminded.

Leyvi nodded. That actually made a lot of sense. Too many orders would distract them, and no assistance at all would give the opponent more advantages. In the end, a beast tamer has to learn how to balance these things according to their spirit beast preference.

A smart one like Scarlet probably can handle most things on her own and would ask for help if needed. Meanwhile, a dumb one like Mr. Bison probably needs a lot of instructions from him.

"Why did I feel like someone talked shit about me?" Mr. Bison in the spirit beast bag suddenly had a feeling. 

Suddenly, Scarlet returned to the space.

"Yo Scarlet, you win again? Did you really fight? You look the same as when you left." Mr. Bison asked.

"Of course, if you fight smart, you won't get injured," Scarlet replied and laid down to rest.

"Is that so? I see. If I fight smart, I won't get injured." Mr. Bison tried to remember her quote.

In the audience,

"Wow! Scarlet won again! She's so cool!" Hana jumped excitedly while Sayu nodded in response.

Lilian was happy. The Metallic Durian was one step closer to her now. She couldn't wait to obtain this fruit and study it completely. Aside from the Thorned Vines, if she could perfectly conjure the Metallic Durian, she would have another weapon in her arsenal.

She had studied many types of plants before and only the Thorned Vines were suitable to be used as weapons so far. However, all the studying didn't go to waste because she employed her Texture Changing Technique in her night battle with Leyvi many times, creating many kinds of reactions.

That was why when Layla told her that a Metallic Durian appeared as a prize, she immediately stormed into Leyvi's room. She was confident that Mr. Bison could win any battle with his tough body.

Besides the Metallic Durian, she had a few other plants or a certain part of other plants that she wished to get her hands on for more variety of weapon selections.

At the participant seats, Leyvi continued to watch the next fight between a Demonic Crocodile and a Demonic Shrimp. This fight interests Leyvi because both of them were fighting in the water. The shrimp had a deep red color and it had two arms similar to a mantis's arms but the end part was like a huge club instead of a blade. Leyvi wasn't sure what kind of shrimp this was.

At first, he assumed that the Demonic Crocodile would certainly win, but he was wrong. He underestimated this unknown shrimp.

Under the crocodile's fierce assault trying to bite the shrimp with its large and terrifying teeth, the shrimp launched an unbelievably fast and powerful smash using its large clubs, shattering every single one of the crocodile's teeth and simultaneously breaking its long jaws, deforming them.

With just a single devastating attack, the deep red shrimp won the battle. Soon after asking around, Leyvi learned what kind of shrimp this was.

A Demonic Mantis Shrimp.