Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

The poison mist was penetrated by massive roots, shooting at the poison fairy. The female cultivator managed to avoid the attack barely, but her robes were ripped in several places, exposing subtle, pale skin.

“Hmmp” Dowloon expressed her dissatisfaction as she looked at her opponent. April Vine had a dangerous glint in her eyes after her vegan attack had almost left a scratch on the beauty.

“C'mon, stop running from me sweetheart. I just wanna play~” she said, seductively licking her lips. Her hand ran down her tight, green leather armor, implying what she wanted to do to Dowloon.

With the Cultivator advancing another round, the mood of the event was dampened, but the fight between the two ladies, the poison fairy Dowloon and April Vine was slowly- quickly lifting the mood of the audience. Especially the chat was filled horny dogs.

“If you don't stop running, you will end up naked before we can make it to the private room,” she moaned, as thick trunks impacted the arena floor, shaking the stadium. Dowloon barely managed to evade the heavy-handed attack, losing a few more rags of her robe, riling up the audience and the chat.

“Keep dodging!” “You can do it, Dowloon!” “We believe in you!” the chat was flooded with messages and cheers, playing off of what April Vine had just said. Everyone was hoping that the poison fairy would stay in the ring until the end.

So far, April Vine had shone, and incredible resistance to the poisons Dowloon had spread in the arena. Even when she started using hidden weapons, they were either blocked by wooden vines, or the wounds they caused would close quickly. It was the only display of her skills as a high druid, so far.

If anything, the fight not only further revealed the plant lady's eccentric personality, but also that she was an incredible mid-range fighter. The cultivator had yet to find a chance to approach her to engage in melee combat as she did with the Saintess of Gatris.

Some more of Dowloon's fair body was revealed before the situation finally took a turn.

It started with Dowloon suddenly halting, before throwing a row of silver needles at April Vine. They were too fast for the audience to see and were only revealed when they hit the thick root, the plant lady used to block them.

The was no difference from before. The cultivator used a hidden weapon and the druid would block it. Except, the massive green vines April had used to attack and keep the cultivator in the distance suddenly started withering.

Dark spots were spreading from various places, not just the five where April blocked the attack. All vines visible in the arena were quickly turning black, as they lost all life. As if exposed to incredible heat, they shriveled up.

This was her chance. Dowloon rushed at the champion from Urth, who was still baffled by the sudden turn of events. As before, her hand shot forward, aiming to rip out April's heart, however, her hand was deflected by a thick vine, tightly wound around the adventurer's body.

The next moment she received the full brunt of a strike by a giant paw that struck her chin from the left. Her brain rattled, and she stumbled back to see the consequences of her actions. The beautiful April Vine, the High Druid turned into a massive bear with the antlers of a moose.

“ROAR!” she roared to the sky, shaking the arena with her voice alone. Triggered by the memory of the dwarf, the audience joined in and started to polter once again. As she cried out, as if powered by the poltern, a thick, moss-green aura rose from the bear, and the vines further wrapped around the transformed fighter, giving the bear additional armor.

Dowloon who had just been struck by one of the massive paws had barely regained her composure when a flurry of strikes started raining down on her. The bear, covered in the green aura, used its arms like clubs as it rapidly aimed to smash the tiny cultivator under her paws.

April Vine had lost the playful aura. This was the real fight. It seemed that Dowloons poison was not effective against the vine armor covered by the high druid's powers, as such she could only accept being forced into a disadvantageous melee combat. Despite cultivators having stronger bodies on average, it wasn't the case this time.

For some time she was able to keep up, but the battle quickly turned into a one-sided beatdown. April Vine seemed truly angered by something, as she literally massaged Dowloon into the ground. The audience was delighted, intensifying their poltern. These people were here for death and destruction and a brutal beatdown was right up their alley.

As the two went at it in the arena, a staff came into Minas Mar's booth and handed Mary a note. Her eyes jumped back and forth as she read the note. Her lips became thin.

“This is confirmed?” she asked the messenger dryly. Seth looked over to her, this didn't seem like they were good news. Seeing his look, Mary explained.

“Arget Nore has decided to retreat from Gamma,” she revealed the information they had just received. The undead empire had ultimately decided to retreat back home, instead of resisting the siege of the Shadow army that had risen on the necrotic land.

Seth tried concentrating his senses on the presences of his golems. The more there were, the harder it had become to distinguish the small dots in the far distance, but he was able to confirm it. Where he had previously a slight inkling of the golems they had sold to Arget Nore somewhere northeast of Delta, there were no more signals. This meant they were either destroyed or had left this dimension.

The blacksmith sighed. This wasn't good news, as they had lost an ally that could have helped them to resist the possible invasion of Spatia. But he also couldn't say that he was saddened to hear, that the undead had struggled to the point they had to retreat. He held no sympathy for the undead empire, it was just a shame to lose a potential shield and customer like that.

“How likely is it for this jackal army to leave Gamma?” Mike asked concerned. After all, it was a force that had forced a multidimensional empire to retreat. Of course, this didn't mean Arget Nore was beaten, they had just judged the endeavor to not be worth the effort. Still, took some power to accomplish this much.

“Unlikely,” Leana stated certain.

“Oh, how did you come to this conclusion?” Seth asked, why she was so sure of her answer.

“I'm 80% to know what this jackal army actually is. My contacts in Chrona were cut off, so it took a while but I believe it is the skill of a holy relic of Anubis,” the princes revealed to them what her sources outside of Chrona managed to dig up. “Apparently it vanished a couple of centuries ago, but apparently it possessed the power to not just boost a necromancer's skill, but also grant specific Skills of the god, such as summoning the Army of Anubis to the mortal plane.”

“Okay, but why does that make it unlikely for them to leave Gamma?” Mike asked confused.

“because they are only that strong in Gamma. They are strengthened by Arget Nore's Land of the Dead, just like the undead maybe even more. We already suspected that they didn't use this to attack any of the Tree Stations because it might lack power anywhere else. This information confirms this,” she explained.

This conjecture meant, that the Army of Anubis was no real threat to any of the Tree Stations. The Guardian Trees had already dealt with more than enough undying fiends.

“And this concludes our third match! Can I have a great applause for our winner, Dowloon?” Umi exclaimed in the arena, prompting everyone's head to turn back to the arena. How in the world did the poison fairy manage to turn the match around?

Seeing her badly bruised figure, “barely” was the answer. At least Chat got what they wanted. Dowloon lasted till the end, and she had barely any fabric left to cover her body.