Crystal Fangs

"Question thirty-three, name fifty actors and actresses from your planet?"

"Ryan Reynolds, Brad Pitt, Jack Black, Sofia Vergara..."

"Question forty-one, name seventeen different breeds of dog?"

"Shitzu, huskey, labrador, labradoodle..."

"Question fifty two, where would you wear an ascot?"

"Your neck."

A little over an hour and a half had passed, and the group were managing to answer the questions with relative ease, the relative relying on how many of one certain thing they got asked to name.

They each managed to answer a few questions, Kai and Cecilia managing to answer the most due to them having more random knowledge compared to Petunia and Remy, but they still put in their own fair share of work.

Each question they answer was one step closer to completing the trial, yet Kai couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

Since the questions were getting increasingly difficult, they were struggling to answer each one in an amount of time that would leave enough remaining for the rest of the questions.

Luckily, they hadn't answered a question wrong yet, but who knew how long that would keep up?

And yet, Kai-

Coming much sooner than he wished, the dreaded moment came.

"Question sixty-two, how far is the planet Jupiter from your home planet?"

Kai blinked.

He had no idea.

Glancing to his left, he saw that Cecilia, Remy and Petunia all also had no idea.

Which was understandable, considering that Remy and Cecilia had never been on Earth and Petunia was a child.

But that meant that...

They were going to get an answer wrong.

Kai sighed and mentally got ready to summon Esurient, preparing himself for a possibly hard battle.

However, at the next moment, Frosty spoke again.

"Well, what a shame, it seems like this is the first question you're going to get wrong. But do not fret just yet!

I'm willing to offer you a deal."

Frosty smiled.

And yet, even with that adorable feline face, Kai couldn't help but think that that smile was one of the most malicious things he had ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes upon.

But it's not like he could do anything about it.

"What's the deal?"

Frosty walked in the air towards Kai's shoulder before eventually leaning onto it and smirking.

"Well, I'm guessing that all of you can see that some cages have multiple beasts stored inside them, while some have a singular but stronger beast.

The way it's decided is that a wheel, similar to the wheel of topics we used for questions ten to twenty, will decide which cage gets opened.

What I'm proposing is that only one of you will have to challenge a cage, only the cage that gets selected will not suffer the same handicap of only having one combatant.

So if you land on that cage with the one hundred Glacial Goblins I have, you will have to fight them all. If you land on the twenty-seven Frostbitten Ravagers, one of you will have to fight them all. Even if you land on the strongest of my beasts for this section of the quiz, the Ice Enchantress, if you accept this trade only one of you will be fighting it.

To make it a little more fair, if one of you do decide to take on a cage solo, I will allow you to skip the next three questions.

So... do you accept the trade?"

Kai remained silent.

To be honest... the deal didn't really make much of a difference anyway. It would have only been him fighting in the first place, this option just meant that he would be able to fight and not have to worry about the rest of the group getting attacked while he was fighting something else.

Plus, there was the fact that they would be able to skip the next three questions, which would be a nice boost.

Of course, Kai had to survive first of all, but he definitely would... probably.

"Alright, I accept the deal. Spin the wheel and let me fight a cage."

Frosty grinned madly as another wheel appeared out of thin air. This one had many more possibilities of what it could land on compared to the previous wheel, making Kai feel a little nervous and a little calmer.

"Excellent. Now, time to spin the wheel and see which one of my harrowing creatures you will be facing!"

Suddenly, the wheel began to spin, the arrow at the top of it whizzing over countless different options.

Frosty watched on with way too much excitement as the speed the wheel had began to slow ever so slightly.

And finally, the arrow landed on its choice and...

"Ooh, this will be a good fight! Okay, Mr boring name, you have to fight my prized collection of Crystal Fangs!"

Kai watched silently as a beam of light descended on one of the cages, illuminating the beasts inside it.

There was six beasts inside the cage, each of them from the same species. Their bodies were made out of a hard material that looked like ice, only a darker shade.

They looked like panthers, only their bodies were much bulkier than the average panther and their tail ended in an extremely sharp tip, and Kai was near certain he would not want to test how sharp that tip was.

Or how sharp their fangs were.

"Well, good luck, and good fighting!"

Kai felt his body tense as he suddenly disappeared from where he was standing. The next thing he knew, he was standing in a different section of the arena, the six crystal panthers standing opposite him.

Everyone else was far to his right, except for Frosty, who was flying above Kai and was... now holding a microphone?

"Welcome, one and all, to the first battle of this episode of Frostbitten. I'm your host, Frosty, and I hope this fine gentlemen will produce an entertaining enough display of their power."

Kai quickly summoned Esurient from his soul. At the same time, Umbra crawled out of his shadow.

Umbra was roughly the same size as the panthers opposing them, only she was much, much weaker than the crystal beasts.

And Kai knew that, considering that after using Soul Sense he could see that all of the panthers were level 75.

He could also see that the panthers had an incredibly high Dexterity stat, much higher than his own, meaning the beasts were going to be quite a bit quicker than him.

Of course, he also had his own ways of making himself quicker.

Taking a deep breath, Kai infused Esurient with some Soul Inferno, empowering the blade. He then infused it with a little bit of his Mana, turning the blade near invisible except for the odd reflection of light.

Then, the sentient blade went off and began to relentlessly attack the panthers.

At the same time, Kai activated his fusion with Umbra. His body swelled, and he was a little upset that Cecilia was still wearing his bodysuit, meaning he would miss out on the bonuses from that, but he could live with that.

Considering he could just coat himself with Soul Inferno and his stats would get massively boosted.

His massive Lycan body got engulfed by raging red flames, boosting his Strength massively.

Then, he activated Indomitable, boosting his Strength even further.

And finally, two menacing eyes appeared in the flames behind him, out of his vision.

But while the eyes were out of his vision, the panthers were not. Kai did not miss the sudden hesitation in their bodies, like they were too scared to approach him, but that hesitation lasted only a second as the beasts recovered and got ready to attack.

But that second was all Esurient needed.

Suddenly, one of the panthers crystal eye shattered, but that was all that could be done as the beast instantly reacted, hopping backwards as another one slashed at where Esurient would have been.

Luckily, the sentient blade somehow managed to avoid it, but Kai felt a little bit worried.

The crystal panthers somehow had a way to sense where Esurient was.

And who knew what other tricks they had up their sleeves? A level 75 beast would not be an easy foe, and fighting six of them?

Kai knew that he was not in for a good time.

But what choice did he have?

So, after taking a deep breath, Kai let out a deafening roar and dashed at the panthers.

The rest of the group, the panthers, even Frosty was shocked by the sudden roar, but they managed to recover a second before everyone else.

"Incredible, what a transformation ability from Mr boring name! The power they gained in those few seconds is out of this world. Honestly, I had ruled him out of it as soon as it landed on the Crystal Fangs, but maybe he has a shot at surviving. No, not surviving, winning!"

Kai chose to ignore Frosty's comments about him. Not for any particular reason, he just done so of his own free will.

It's not like he would have been able to think about then much anyway, considering that he began attacking the first of the panthers the very next second.