The battle raged on, and the tension in the arena thickened as both sides now had only five spiritual creatures left. The balance had shifted in subtle ways, with each move growing more deliberate, more calculated.
Every action, and every counteraction, had become much more purposeful.
The spider’s web now covered much of the field at a height or around 15 feet, completely isolating the creatures capable of flight, from those on the ground. As a result, the manticore and Dreadclaw demon were now at a numerical disadvantage against the ground-bound mantis, spider, and scarab beetle.
However, the Dawn Butterfly and Vermix were now under greater pressure from the flying harpy, gargoyle, and phoenix.
However, whereas the butterfly and Vermix had the wide open skies to continuously dodge their pursuers and stall for time.
The breathing space of the manticore and demon was being continuously reduced as more and more threads that could remove their senses were appearing in their paths.
Clearly the pros and cons of splitting into 2 battlefields with uneven numbers had been thoroughly considered by Ravi.
Likely sensing the emanant demise of its allies, the circling phoenix began to bombard the webs with fire from above. However, despite their delicate appearance, the threads were incredibly durable and quite resistant to its flames.
In the midst of the chaos, the Vermix, now charged with energy, zipped around the Phoenix in bursts of lightning, crackling through the air like a living bolt of pure power. However, the Gargoyle was more than prepared for the electric dragonfly’s agility. Its stony eyes glowed, and with a low rumble, it raised its massive lightning-resistant stone claws to intercept the Vermix’s attack.
The air around the Gargoyle grew heated as it swung its claws in a wide arc. A single swipe sent the Vermix spiralling toward the mass of webs covering the floor of the arena.
The Vermix was stunned, its body humming with residual power but unable to move quickly enough to recover. Thankfully, the webs it landed on were from its own ally and did not attack it or remove its senses, giving it a moment to compose itself.
From above, the Demonwing Harpy and Phoenix screeched, diving toward the vulnerable butterfly. The harpy’s sharp talons gleamed in the dim light as she made her descent. The butterfly, weakened from earlier skirmishes, barely managed to move out of the way in time. However, a single claw grazed its wing, sending ripples of light cascading outward like shattered glass.
Capitalizing on this weakness, a wave of combined red and black flames from both the harpy and phoenix pursued the butterfly.
The Dawn Butterfly fluttered desperately, a pulse of light sending a barrier outward to slow the flames’ pursuit. But this time, there was no dodging the massive amount of flames, their heat generated gusts of wind that pushed the butterfly back.
Meanwhile, despite Dark Moon in a precarious position in the skies, the Manticore and Dreadclaw Demon were in far worse straits on the ground.
With the threads of the Spider tightening around their movements, the manticore was already beginning to stagger. The sharp, spiny threads had started to wrap around its limbs, restricting its movements.
The Dreadclaw Demon was a powerhouse, but even it could not avoid the webs completely. Each step it took, the threads seemed to multiply, slowly numbing its senses and making each swing of its claws more sluggish and less coordinated.
The Manticore, with a low, guttural growl, made a desperate charge forward, only to have its body jerk to a halt as more webs wrapped around its legs. Its powerful muscles struggled to break free, but the more it fought, the tighter the webbing became. Isolde’s eyes widened with a mixture of frustration and calculation. This was bad. The Dreadclaw Demon was no better off, its colossal claws swinging more wildly as it tried to lash out at the webbing, but with little effect.
Suddenly the shared infernal blood of both the Demon and Manticore began to boil. Meanwhile, Isolde’s eyes shifted from blue to violet, and then to a bright red.
Instead of continuing to attack the Dark Moon contracts, the demon and manticore suddenly seemed drawn to one another by an uncontrollable force.
Isolde had activated her gift for the first time in the tournament. A gift that capitalized on all infernal creatures being descended from a common bloodline and allowing them to combine their strength.
Suddenly a hybrid creature much greater in strength than the two individual creatures appeared in the arena—the addition of their respective powers not unlike the Gemini transformation Serena had achieved on her Elemental Guardian in her previous match.
Unfortunately, because the gap between indigo-grade and blue-grade is far greater than that between yellow and green grades, her contracts were not able to advance a whole level like Serena’s were. If her other contracts weren’t separated by the annoying web, they could have also been combined using her gift. However, even then they still might not be enough to create one indigo-grade hybrid. The gap between the middle-grade and high-grade spiritual creatures was far too great.
Still, the pressure from their combined spiritual power definitely adds a great deal of pressure to the Dark Moon contracts, and the hybrid was no longer as easily restrained nor had its senses removed like before.
The hybrid is a terrifying colossus, its body is a twisted amalgamation of the Manticore’s lion-like form and the Dreadclaw’s hulking demon and gorilla-like features. The creature’s fur had turned into a dense, spiked carapace, darkening to a deep, mottled crimson and obsidian. Massive claws—like those of the Dreadclaw Demon—emerge from its forelimbs, each one as long as the average height of a person, their jagged edges sharp enough to tear through stone.
Its back is hunched while the manticore’s iconic scorpion tail, now brimming with an ominous red energy, has grown longer and more lethal.
The hybrid’s breath, a thick cloud of sulfur and smoke, released as it released a roar that shook the very ground beneath it, rattling its enemies with fear. Experience tales at
Muscles rippled beneath the creature’s skin, making every movement a display of overwhelming power and unrelenting brutality. When it stepped forward, the arena even trembled beneath its weight.
The large hybrid, standing nearly 15 feet tall was now in position to easily tear a gap into the webbed roof above it—and so it did.