Jade knew that now was her moment to turn the tide.
Her Shadowstrike Jaguar, moments ago locked in a tense battle with Axel’s Ice Fox, had finally found an opportunity to knock out one of the opponents.
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After what seemed like an eternity of near-misses and frustration, the jaguar had stealthily moved from the shadows, the calculated predator now poised for a direct attack. The Ice Fox, distracted by the flashing blur of the Windstrike Cheetah, hadn’t seen the danger until it was too late and was unable to warn its ally.
With a brutal, fluid leap, the Shadowstrike Jaguar’s claws dug deep into the Frozen Bloodhound’s side—its razor-sharp talons finding purchase in the beast’s softer underbelly. The Bloodhound’s surprise yelp echoed through the arena, but the jaguar wasn’t about to let it go so easily.
At the direction of Jade, the jaguar simply dug its claws in deeper as it struggled instead of immediately removing them. The jaguar’s grip prevented the Bloodhound from healing, from freezing the blood to slow the bleeding, or from generating any defensive layer of ice between it and the jaguar.
The Bloodhound was held to the ground, pressed by the Jaguar’s weight, and as it struggled to rise it only made the damage caused by the lodged claws even more severe.
The arena fell deathly silent, save for the wet, sickening splashes of the Bloodhound’s frozen blood spilling onto the stone floor. Its once-pristine, ice-blue fur was stained red as it struggled, but there was no escape. Jade’s jaguar stood tall over it, its amber eyes glowing with dark satisfaction. The Bloodhound’s movements slowed, its strength drained, the battle lost.
It was now 4 to 5—advantage Dark Moon.
Jade didn’t waste a moment. She pressed the advantage.
The Windstrike Cheetah, using its speed and wind manipulation, began creating gusts of wind that circled around its own body. These gusts surged like a mini-tornado around the fox as the Cheetah kicked up a trail of snow, stone, dust, and ice from the arena floor—obscuring the vision of the ice fox.
After confirming that it wouldn’t be re-entering the fray, the jaguar abandoned its hold on the Bloodhound.
In the blink of an eye, its shadowy form melding with the darkness as it stealthily moved to the fox. The fox had no time to react, not with the Windstrike Cheetah creating whirlwinds of distraction in its wake.
Appearing from the tornado to its right, the cheetah concentrated all of its power to launch a heavy blow on the fox. However, the fox was able to materialize a shield to the right to block the attack.
However, the cheetah was merely fulfilling its role of diversion, ad at the same time from the opposite direction appeared the jaguar.
With a sharp crack, the jaguar’s claws found their mark, raking across the Ice Fox’s side, once again it adopted the strategy of leaving its claws embedded in the target—especially since the fox is even more adept at healing and creating armor on itself than the Bloodhound.
However, it was also much stronger than its ally, and taking advantage of all the wind created by the cheetah, it increased the power of the wind and also added hundreds of sharp blades of ice in the swirling tornado that continuously attacked the jaguar.
Although the jaguar could easily heal from the injuries, that didn’t mean it didn’t feel the pain caused by them. Its concentration broken by the sharp ice shards constantly slicing it, it ended up unconsciously letting go of the fox. Capitalizing on the opportunity, it immediately tried to flee the area.
However, unfortunately waiting for it was the Thunderfang Tiger, who had been momentarily free from its scuffle with the Behemoth due to the swift Cheetah zipping around it as a distraction.
With a mighty roar, the Thunderfang Tiger leapt forward. Its powerful, muscular frame crackled with electricity as it launched itself at the Ice Fox. Before the fox could even begin to shield itself, a bolt of lightning shot from the tiger’s claws, surging through the air and striking the fox with such intensity that its body locked up, paralyzed from the sudden shock.
The Ice Fox’s form sagged, its body twitching as the lightning coursed through it. It collapsed to the ground with a final yelp, unable to rise again.
Jade let out a breath of relief, but there was no time to dwell on the victory. Axel’s remaining beasts—Frost-Warden Behemoth, Ice-Golem, and Icecargot—were still on the battlefield, and they were not to be underestimated.
However, unlike the powerful innate defense of the Ice Golem and Icecargot which doesn’t consume any spiritual power to maintain, the ice shields and armor that the Behemoth could maintain to boost its defense relatively easily, still consumed some spiritual power. Usually the amount is negligible, but this high-intensity battle had been going on for around an hour now, therefore its previously impenetrable defenses were no longer as tough.
Despite the Behemoth’s seemingly impenetrable defenses, Jade could sense the cracks beginning to show. The Behemoth’s movements were slowing, its towering form becoming sluggish with each step.
With a deep, rumbling roar, the Earthshatter Lion charged at the Behemoth. The massive titan attempted to create an ice barrier in front of itself, but the Lion was faster—its fiery claws slashed through the ice, each strike turning the frozen pillars into steam.
The Frost-Warden Behemoth attempted to retaliate with a powerful swipe of its own, but the Earthshatter Lion dodged easily, its agility belying its size. With another strike, the Lion landed a powerful blow, the heat from its fiery claws melting through the Behemoth’s ice armor, weakening its once-impenetrable defenses.
The Behemoth staggered back, its massive frame groaning under the pressure of the attack. Axel’s giant ice-beast tried to summon more ice to regenerate its shattered defenses, but it was too late.
With a final, devastating roar, the Earthshatter Lion leapt forward, its claws piercing the Behemoth’s chest, the fire from its claws being pumped into the core of its body continuously.
The Behemoth let out a deafening scream in agony as the scorch heat ripped through its body, before collapsing to the ground in an exhausted and steaming heap.
Seeing that it had no more energy for further resistance, the claws were promptly removed to prevent killing the Behemoth.
Jade allowed herself a single, triumphant breath. One more down. Two left.
The Viperfang Lioness’ venomous fangs had been ineffective against the Icecargot’s defenses. The green-grade snail’s thick, frosty shell had proven difficult to penetrate. But Jade had a plan.
The Thunderfang Tiger, finally freed of its duty of holding off the blue-grade opponents, could finally pay attention to the snail with their numerical advantage.
It darted around the snail’s shell, staying just out of range of the Icecargot’s defensive slime and sharp spines. Then, with a sudden, forceful leap, the tiger forcefully struck the Icecargot’s shell from the side, sending a shockwave through the snail’s body. An deafening electrical hum began to resonate through the shell, considering that snails hear by sensing vibrations with their entire bodies, the sensation must have been unbearable.
The Icecargot’s defenses momentarily faltered as the vibration forced it to move slightly out of its shell, a defensive response to the sudden shock. The shell shifted, the snail’s body becoming exposed for a brief, vulnerable instant.
Capitalizing on that brief instant, the Viperfang Lioness lying in wait leapt with precision. It sank its venomous fangs deep into the exposed soft flesh of the Icecargot, biting down with all the force it could muster.
The shell had protected the snail from most of the earlier strikes, but now the Lioness’s venom began to spread rapidly throughout the creature’s body, and causing it to be paralyzed while exposed from its shell’s protection.
The Icecargot writhed, its body stiffening and convulsing as the venom took hold. With one last twitch, the snail collapsed, its body succumbing to the venomous attack.
Jade allowed herself a single, triumphant breath. Only one left.
With Axel’s Frost-Warden Behemoth and Icecargot dispatched, only the Ice Golem, Axel’s final blue-grade contract remained.
Jade’s gaze never left the hulking, impenetrable form of the Ice Golem that stood resolute at the center of the battlefield. Its thick armor of ice was unyielding, and even her contracts’ most powerful attacks had done little to dent it.
The Thunderfang Tiger, its body still crackling with residual electricity from earlier, leapt forward, its paws slamming into the ground with a burst of energy. The air around the beast hummed with static, the electrical energy gathering as it prepared to strike. The Tiger released a bolt of lightning that crackled toward the Golem, hoping to overload its ice defenses.
But as the lightning struck the Golem, the ice simply absorbed the energy, causing no visible damage. Jade gritted her teeth in frustration. Until finally her eyes glinted with realization.
The Golem’s defense is a fortress, and no direct attack is going to break through it… Jade’s mind raced
. ‘But what if we don’t need to break the ice?’
Since she couldn’t crack its defense, she would give up on doing so; after all, as a golem it has one clear weakness—its core.
Using the Earthshatter Lion to manipulate the ground and destabilize the golem. With a push from both the Windstrike Cheetah, the Viperfang Lioness, and the Thunderfang Tiger at its back, the golem was pushed to the ground.
The Thunderfang Tiger sent massive amounts of electricity through the Golem’s prone body. However, the electricity caused no damage. However the lightning wasn’t aimed at the surface—it was designed to travel through the Golem’s icy form, searching for its internal core, the source of its energy.
With the information transmitted through her contract, Jade directed the Shadowstrike Jaguar on the location of the core.
Since its defenses couldn’t be penetrated to target the core, instead the faint shadow the core cast within the body will be capitalized upon and used to launch an attack by the Jaguar.
However, due to the many shadows cast by the chunks of ice composing the body, the jaguar needed the precise location of the core in order for the plan to work.
The Golem let out a deafening roar, the sound echoing through the arena, but Jade could see the signs—its core was struggling to maintain its power as it was enveloped by dark energy and disconnected from the rest of the body.
Finally the Golem slumped weakly to the ground—she had won.