13 Practice (2) + Creature?

The "next" morning, Alfred made his way to the canteen. The wisp was still there, as promised.

'Ai~ … I guess that's one way to wake me up…"

From the time his training ended in the wee-hours of the new day, Alfred only got 3 hours of sleep. He felt slightly groggy, but his focus was taken away by his training.

Some odd/confused looks were sent his way by guards and slaves alike, but he ignored them thoughout his morning journey. When he got in line and eventually received his perfectly balanced breakfast, he nearly dropped the plate due to the new movements the wisp had him maintain with the new item.

He got through it, though, and managed to wolf down that serving, and another before going right back to refining. He felt a rush of euphoria once the energies in his body got to work. Due to his soreness, the äura felt unnaturally good. Less like a warm bath, and more like the feeling one gets when you get a good stretch in, but across his whole body.

It dissipated quickly, but his muscles in turn felt much better.

His mind wandered back to a question he had in the carriage ride to the colosseum. That being: "Is there a way for me to have more control over the refining process?" Now that he had a master, he could answer that question. He felt the perfect time to do that would be before the night's practice started.

After finishing that thought, the guard arrived to tell them that breakfast time was over, and to get into the SE.

Got up quickly, as practicing the passive exercise slowed his pace down a decent chunk to avoid making too many mistakes. This resulted in him arriving later than expected, but it seemed that the corner in front of his master had kept its usual sparse population, giving Alfred a spot to watch the day's events.

The announcer started the event, implying that either Alfred had taken a long time to get there, or they had begun preparing the event much earlier than normal.

"...~Begin~"

Before anything moved, Alfred's eyes widened and a shiver went down his spine when he noticed what the slave… or rather slaves were going up against.

It was definitely not 100% biological, not even close, as its body was made entirely of a dark gray metal exoskeleton, and it also had a gray glowing stone at the center covered in a metal cage. The strangeness of it came from the rest of its features.

It's limbs were bug-like. The legs were shaped like a flea's, just scaled up to it's three meter height (obviously). Small and flat spikes alongside protruding gill-like appendages went up the legs. Those small appendages flowed up throughout the rest of the creature's body, and moved in a twitching fashion as if they were antennae. The torso of the creature was thin like the legs, and vaguely shaped like a human's without the skin and muscle. It had longer, hair-like protrusions at and around where the shoulder-blades would be that bore an even greater resemblance to antennae. The arms resembled a praying-mantis' long arms, as they were split into two parts and folded inward. There, it had sharp blades on the inside of the arms that seemed to cut the air despite not moving. All of this was held together with a dark-gray and fleshy material that resembled muscle tendons.

If it's bug-like appearance and twitchy micro-movements couldn't already inflict a sense of unease into a spectator, the head would. The base shape of it was that of a human skull, but that's where the similarities stopped. A tall and thin spike at the back of the head flowed into a few more spikes down the rest of the middle of the skull up to the brow, similar to a mohawk. The mouth was hung slightly open and stretched back almost to the neck of the creature. Every centimeter was lined with razor sharp teeth that dripped a clear liquid. The eyes were the crown jewel.

Red and beady, each one of the four, two big and two small, moved independent of the other and darted around almost as fast as Alfred's did while in HSM. They seemed to have a… faint intelligence. Almost as if it knew it was being used for entertainment. It stared at the crowd and the slaves in a contemptuous manner, and for a second, Alfred thought he saw it smile.

Four slaves were pitted against this monster, and each of them, despite the obvious caution leaking from their auras (not to be confused with äura), moved to form a triangular-shaped formation once the announcer initiated the event.

One man, who had to be the tallest Alfred had seen in all his three lives, took the front. 'That isn't a shield!' Alfred mind-shouted. 'That's a door!'

Alfred was referring to the, as described, massive door-sized shield that the man held in front of his body with both his hands. That man was well over two thirds the size of the monster, roughly putting him at the 2.2-.3m mark. His tanned arms, neck, chest, core, and legs were all fully chiseled and massive muscular beams. He wore a gladiator style helmet atop his head, so Alfred could only see the red eyes staring down the beast over his shield. His age was undeterminable, but Alfred guessed around 35 to 40 based on appearances.

Behind him was a far smaller man. His stature was in almost complete juxtaposition in comparison to the man in front of him. His height was below average, Alfred estimated 1.70m, and his build was slim and unassuming. He almost disappeared behind the towering giant in front of him, but Alfred's enhanced senses didn't allow him to escape his awareness while simply standing idle.

He had a pale fox-like face with extremely thin, lime-green eyes and medium length black hair that was pushed back, almost as if he stuck his head out of the window of a moving car. He held two menacing looking daggers that were so thin, one of them almost avoided Alfred's notice due to the angle he was sitting at. He wore sand-colored wraps all around his body.

The two individuals at their flanks each had a medium sized shield held by their right arm (for the one on the right) and one held by the left arm (for the one on the left). Both also had a semi-blunt looking mace in their free-hand.

Their builds and appearances were much more normal compared to the two at the front. In fact, they looked like siblings from Alfred's perspective. The one on the left was a man with a light brown, well kept beard and a short, well combed hairdo. His hazel eyes gave off a secure radiance. He was not short by any means, probably reaching 1.85m tall with an athletic build, but he looked small compared to their companion at the front.

The one on the right was a rare female slave. Alfred had seen a few around, but none in the slaughterhouses, be it a kid or an adult. Her light brown hair was in a ponytail, and she had a long face with similarly shaped and feeling hazel-eyes to the man on the left. She stood not much shorter than her "brother" at ~1.80m with a matching-athletic build.

The team's unusual choice of weaponry and the unique two individuals at the front gave Alfred the feeling that they had set up knowing their opponent would be that… monstrosity. He wondered how that was possible, but he left those questions for later.

Once the group was gathered in their formation, they crept forward slowly towards the creature. When the group began to move, the man with the daggers, now known as "Fox", almost vanished from Alfred's sight behind the towering man in front of him, now known as "Goliath". The two behind them made sure to stay close, but not close enough to hinder either man in front of them's movements (the man will be referred to as "Lefty", and the woman as "Righty").

Alfred activated a max tier 1 HSM to make sure he could use it throughout the duration of the fight.

The group only got a few steps in before, suddenly, the monster vanished. Alfred's eyes widened, and he pushed his HSM up an entire tier to the maxed out 2nd level.

That slowed time just enough for him to catch the blur that had appeared on Righty's side.

'Holy Sh-'

"*Booomm!!~~*"

Alfred's thoughts were cut off by the inevitable sonic-boom created by the sheer speed of the creature, as well as a loud "Clang" that resulted from metal hitting against metal. A small smoke cloud had formed from the shockwaves, but it dissipated in a gust of wind as Alfred noticed the blur appearing on the backside of Lefty.

Despite Alfred having HSM up at the maximum of level 2, an unusual scene unfolded. Abruptly, the man with the shield was facing the other direction. It happened so fast, that he managed to fully block and resist the impact of the creature. He had no time to counter-attack, as it suddenly appeared again in a blur before Goliath.

"*Booomm!!~~~*"

Again multiple sonic booms and impacts resounded simultaneously around the arena, kicking up debris. Goliath hadn't budged one inch from his position despite the great force that had slammed into him.

'How did they- no, is that monster testing them? Is it even a monster at all? Gahhh!'

The creature's face gave another -what Alfred assumed to be- smile whilst the clear substance dripped from its teeth. It then crouched down low, and darted off again. This time, no sonic boom occurred, and it was instead speedily circling the group, creating a dust-cloud around the arena. Said dust-cloud stopped at the narrow opening Alfred and the other slaves were peeping through evenly, as if blocked by some force-field.

Now, Alfred could barely see the events unfolding inside.

'It's trying to distract them!'

Alfred's revelation was of no use to the group, but their silhouettes, despite their vagueness, gave him the sense that they were confident in surviving such a tactic.

As one, the whole group did a simultaneous rotate plus a dash into the trajectory of the creature. Even though it was going fast, the action didn't trip it up. Alfred saw it change again into a blur, dash towards the middle of the room, and change directions instantaneously before launching itself towards the center of the group.

Just before it reached the edge of the group, Alfred saw something mind-boggling. Goliath seemed to slide across the ground in a circular motion around the group and intercepted the creature by smashing his shield against its entire body, almost going fast enough to become a blur himself.

The sound created by the two's impact shook the entire stadium, and the resulting shockwaves cleared up the dust cloud.

The creature's ragdoll smashed into the side of the stadium, but it quickly got to its feet. This time, it didn't resume its mad dash.

Alfred could notice a wide and vertical dent that appeared along the frontside of its body and face on top of a few of its back antennae being bent, but that was the extent of the damage despite how violent the impact was.

He couldn't help but to widen his eyes at the scene that had just happened in front of him.

First, there was the completely absurd speed, nimbleness, and endurance of the creature. Each time it sprinted seriously, it fully cleared the speed of sound and beyond, becoming hard to see even in a maxed out level 2 of HSM while still being able to comfortably survive a faster than sound impact. Second, the techniques of the two "siblings". They seemed to be able to change the direction they faced so fast that Alfred outright couldn't see it happen even with the same maxed out level 2 of HSM. Then, there was Goliath's freakishly fast rotation that seemed almost fake.

Suddenly, Cysandoth, who Alfred had all but forgotten about, calmly materialized next to him

"Öthe," he whispered, "they're masters."

Alfred turned and stared blankly at his master. 'The fuck does that explain?!?'