Chapter 1437 (2/2)

“You brought a horse as your partner,” Alana asked in disbelief. In front of her was the proof, calmly munching at the verdant foliage underneath the heavy treeline. They were in the seventh of the preliminary groups and Hank Howard was standing next to a completely ordinary brown horse that was enjoying its meal. And he looked very pleased about the whole situation. “How did the Order Ducis let that happen?”

“Let’s defeat him now and take the points,” Wivanya suggested as she twined her neck around a nearby tree trunk. For this preliminary, the Order Ducis has created a thick jungle and Wivanya was having quite a lot of difficulty moving around. As such, her mood had turned sullen and spiteful. To avoid attracting undue attention, she kept her body still while her long neck slide between the trees.

Hank just smiled and patted his horse’s neck. “Well, tehnic-ally I have entered alone, and they allow’d me ta bring a horse. But I found havin’ this fella with me helped my image. Feels more like a gunslinger with a horse, yanno? I might even set up a campfire.”

“So now you are dragging around a liability with you,” Alana shook her head. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but accept it. That was just Hank for you. He followed his own sort of tune, even when it was the most illogical thing that most people had ever heard. “Can you be sure you will pass through the preliminaries with this guy?”

“His name’s Ancho. And haven’t you noticed that the prior preliminaries all ended early?” Hank waved his hand. “People so itchin’ to fight that as long as I survive and mind my own business, I’ll pass. Because the others will have been beaten.”

“You are a certain sort of brave, Hank Howard,” Wivanya hissed. Then the Frost Dragon turned its reptilian gaze on the brown horse and blew a long breath out through its nose. The horse straightened from the fern it was devouring, seeming to sense the attention. Frost Dragon and brown horse regarded each other seriously. Then Ancho huffed out a breath, unimpressed by Wivanya, and returned to its meal.

Alana immediately sensed Wivanya gathering her power in her throat to unleash a blast of frost to punish this horse and patted her partner’s side to calm her down; there was no point in wasting energy against Hank right now anyway.

Growling, Wivanya followed Alana’s direction and began to stomp off, simply smashing the tree trunks in her path to kindling. It appeared they were done with the laying low strategy. Alana spared Hank a small smile before she followed her dragon to save whoever was dumb enough to investigate the loud noises. “Be careful. There are more powerful people here than I expected.”

“Heh, do you think I need to be reminded of that? The world… it’s a wide place,” Hank replied placidly. “There’s gonna be a good sky, tonight, I think.”

*****

Lyra smiled sweetly at the two men in front of her. They were in the ninth preliminary group and everything around them was covered in a seething mist that clung to their clothes. “Aren’t you two members of the Order Ducis? Hopefully, no one gets the wrong idea about your participation in this tournament.”

Tykes tossed the heavy iron ball he carried from hand to hand spinning it lightly. “We are external contractors. You, on the other hand, are a Village Spirit. Donnyton is really throwing its whole weight behind this effort, huh? Y’all trying to name this world Donnnydom?”

Lyra snickered. She lifted a hand and a crimson orb appeared on her palm. Ripples spread outward through the mist as she gathered her image. When she concentrated, the mist began to weaken and recede. “I’m here strictly as an individual. I even have a Class. I don’t think there is any problem with me entering this fun little tournament.”

“Same with us,” Tykes countered as he eyed that crimson orb warily. Then he looked sideways at Dinesh and spoke in a lower tone. “Are we fighting?”

“Maybe,” Dinesh said with a frown. He was facing Lyra’s partner, who was an average looking man whose most distinguishing feature was the extremely blank expression on his face. Even though Tykes could tell that Lyra was a dangerous foe, he chose her rather than her partner as an opponent because of that disturbing expression on the man’s face.

After hesitating for a bit, Dinesh spoke to him. “Stan… I hadn’t realized you had recovered. How have you been?”

Stan’s eyes remained glazed and unresponsive as though he hadn’t heard the question. The only answer was the muffled booms reaching them through the mist as the other individuals in the preliminary fought each other. Lyra batted her eyelids coquettishly at Dinesh. “He’s very shy, don’t take that personally. He’s been doing very well.”

Dinesh pressed his mouth into a thin line. Tykes chuckled. “Guess we are fighting then.”

Without waiting for an answer, Tykes stomped his foot and shot forward with his iron ball raised in front of him. Lyra raised her hand and thrust her marked palm forward with sinister quickness to meet Tykes’ advance. Their impact blasted outward, knocking away the surrounding mist and sending both Tykes and Lyra several steps backward.

In the wake of the blast, several other fights were revealed as their conflict pushed the mist further away. Abruptly, those fights broke off and regarded the figures of Lyra and Tykes with alarm; they had been fighting only twenty meters away from them without noticing anything. Truly, this mist completely obliterated detection.

For his part, Tykes’ smile widened. “Not very high Stats… but your image…”

“This is going to be fun,” Lyra chuckled. Then bought attacked each other once more.