Chapter 50: Kai’s Shock

Jimmy raced toward Kai with a frustrated grunt, tightening his grip on the hilt of his sword in preparation for a decisive strike.

He’d simply had enough of Kai’s arrogance and pride, enough to want this fight over quickly, determined to make Kai feel exactly what it meant to stand where he currently stood, consumed by an emotion that had finally become too much to keep bottled up any longer.

The wyvern let out a loud, pained cry, its head snapping away from the heavy impact against the knight’s sturdy pauldron.

Instinctively, it swung its flailing, spiked tail through the air like a ship’s dragging anchor. The knight retreated quickly, leaping backward out of the weapon’s reach.

As Jimmy closed the remaining distance toward Kai, he spotted the slashing tail whipping toward him like an incoming club. He leapt upward, twisting his body out of its path with tight, controlled precision before landing cleanly and pushing forward again.

His steel clad boots rang out sharply against the platform as he finally reached his target, swinging his sword in a diagonal arc.

But in that brief sliver of time, Kai vanished.

A massive wyvern appeared suddenly in his place, roaring loudly before sweeping its tail in a brutal arc that caught Jimmy completely off guard from the sudden switch.

Jimmy was sent flying backward, landing hard in a rough, tumbling roll.

Meanwhile, Kai reappeared at his summon’s original position. Hard, green scales streaked with multicolored highlights spread across his arms as he raised them into a defensive block.

A front kick from the Dragon Slayer connected squarely, sending him skidding several meters across the cracked platform.

The referee’s eyes went wide, along with plenty of students scattered throughout the stands. A mix of reactions and sharp expressions rippled through the crowd as they watched the wyvern surge forward, stomping down hard toward Jimmy.

But then the Dragon Slayer appeared in its summoner’s place instead.

The knight raised one heavy, armored leg with a grunt before driving it upward, knocking the wyvern off balance and sending it staggering backward.

The knight raised its sword, lunging forward with a quick pair of slashes that scraped across the wyvern’s tough scales.

Several students reacted immediately.

A sophomore boy near the railing pumped his fist. "Wait, it actually cut through!"

"That knight’s a lot stronger than it looks!" a freshman girl beside him called out, leaning over the barrier for a better view.

"Those aren’t even deep wounds, though," a junior a few seats down muttered, more to himself than anyone else, arms folded as he studied the wound line closely.

The rumors surrounding true dragon scales were widely known throughout summoner circles.

A genuine dragon’s scales were said to rank among the toughest natural materials in existence, sometimes compared directly to diamond or the finest polished jade. Lesser draconic kin, wyverns, drakes, and wyrms among them, never carried quite that same level of defense.

Even so, it came as a genuine surprise watching the Dragon Slayer’s sharpened blade fail to bite deep into the wyvern’s hide, leaving little more than a handful of shallow scratches behind.

Or perhaps its wielder was simply holding back on purpose.

Either way, it was genuinely impressive watching the wyvern’s scales shrug off the weapon’s assault so easily, only reinforcing the idea that it might be edging closer to true draconic potential than anyone had assumed.

On the opposite side of the platform, Kai blocked a longsword slash from Jimmy directly.

Jimmy immediately followed with a sharp Spartan kick aimed at Kai, who dodged smoothly, using his opponent’s own momentum to carve out a fresh opening.

Then Kai drew in a deep breath. Flame poured outward from his lungs, streaking straight toward Jimmy.

Jimmy dropped into a roll across the platform to avoid the worst of it, though the flames still licked close enough to scorch part of his armor along one side.

Jimmy scowled, only for a loud, cracking bang to yank his attention elsewhere.

His knight summon had just been struck hard, launched more than ten meters across the platform by a brutal blow from the wyvern’s tail.

His eyes went wide.

The wyvern wasted no time capitalizing on its aerial advantage, climbing sharply before diving straight down and slamming the knight into the platform with a heavy, cracking impact.

"No..." Jimmy barely managed the word before another stream of Kai’s flame breath came rushing toward him.

He twisted deftly out of the way, though his reaction landed just a fraction too slow, and part of the flame still scorched across his side.

Gritting his teeth, Jimmy quickly recalled his knight summon, pulling it back before it could suffer any further damage.

The wyvern descended toward the empty spot where the knight had just been standing.

"Wait, what? Are you seriously..." Kai’s eyes narrowed sharply.

Another portal tore open, and a slender, long tailed mammal slipped out from within.

It resembled something between a ferret and a weasel, though built with a noticeably leaner frame and an elongated head lined with sharp fangs and narrow, slitted eyes.

Kai’s calm expression held for only a moment longer. Then his eyes went wide.

This was the Mud Ichneumon, a 5.0 Elite Tier summon.

A legendary creature pulled straight from medieval lore, the Ichneumon had long been regarded as one of the ultimate natural enemies and killers of dragons.

According to legend, whenever an Ichneumon crossed paths with a dragon, it would roll through thick mud, coating its entire body before letting the mud harden into a natural, protective shell, functioning almost like a crude but effective suit of armor against a dragon’s attacks.

Shielded behind that hardened mud casing, it could slip past a dragon’s strikes, creep in close, and strike directly at the throat to finish the kill.

Plenty of old medieval bestiaries recorded the same mud coated hunting strategy being used against other dangerous reptilian creatures as well, not dragons alone.

The reveal sparked a mixed wave of reactions, particularly among the juniors in the crowd, several of whom clearly recognized the old mythology behind it.

"Wait, that’s an actual Ichneumon?" a junior boy blurted, sitting bolt upright in his seat.

"Isn’t that supposed to be, like, a literal dragon killer in the old stories?" his sophomore neighbor asked, turning toward him for confirmation.

"He brought a whole separate summon just to counter Kai’s wyvern specifically? And his a dual summoner!" a freshman girl two rows down said, half to herself, clearly impressed despite not fully following the mythology being discussed.

A junior girl near the middle of the stands leaned toward her friend, eyes narrowed with interest. "Okay, that’s actually clever. Most people just throw raw power at a dragon type and hope for the best."

"Guess he actually did his homework," her friend replied, watching closely.

The arena’s mood thickened with fresh tension.

Kai’s eyes widened with genuine, unmistakable shock.

And that reaction alone was exactly what Jimmy had been hoping to see on his face all along.

Jimmy rolled clear and rose back to his feet with a confident smile, hands resting easily on his hips.

"Told you I was your bane come through. Told you you’d end up paying for everything you’ve done. You really shouldn’t have been the one underestimating me here," Jimmy said, before lunging forward with a gauntleted fist already swinging.

The blow forced Kai backward, barely managing to dodge the rapid flurry of punches following right behind it.

On the other side of the platform, the Ichneumon’s fur began coating itself in thick, slick mud, the material spreading across its entire body before hardening rapidly into a rough, protective shell.

This was one of its innate skills, a genuinely unique technique compared to most other summon types out there.

The wyvern advanced with heavy, ground shaking steps the moment it spotted a fresh target, having briefly lost track of its original opponent.

With a sharp roar, it beat its wings hard, generating a powerful gust that kicked up thick clouds of dust and disrupted the surrounding battlefield.

The force of the wind knocked the Ichneumon momentarily off balance, lifting it briefly off the ground and handing the wyvern the perfect opening to press its aerial advantage.

The attack succeeded in disrupting it, but the Ichneumon quickly regained its footing mid air, twisting with the practiced ease of a falling cat before landing cleanly on all four legs.

Several students gasped aloud.

"It actually landed clean!" a sophomore girl near the front exclaimed, half rising out of her seat.

"That thing’s balance is honestly kind of insane," the junior boy beside her agreed, shaking his head slowly.

The Ichneumon surged forward immediately, moving with the fluid, swift grace of a striking serpent, its long tail whipping wildly through the air behind it for balance.

Its jaws clenched tight. Its eyes locked firmly onto the wyvern. There was only one clear, singular intention behind its approach now.

The throat. Exactly like in the old stories.

Kai’s eyes darted between his two summons, quickly calculating the danger closing in from opposite directions at once.

Jimmy hadn’t given him a single moment to breathe, let alone properly coordinate a defense, and now the Ichneumon’s mud hardened shell was closing the gap fast, low to the ground, weaving in a tight, unpredictable pattern that made it nearly impossible to track cleanly.

Someone near the front row grabbed the railing with both hands, leaning so far forward his friend had to tug him back by the sleeve. "This is actually terrifying. I didn’t think summoner battles looked like this in real life."

"Wait until next year, when it’s our turn," his friend muttered, though he didn’t look away either.

Behind them, a sophomore boy chewed nervously on the drawstring of his hoodie. "If Kai actually loses this, that’s going to shake up the entire ranking board. He’s supposed to be a lock for top three atleast."

"Nothing’s ever really a lock," the girl beside him replied flatly, arms crossed. "That’s kind of the whole point of watching these."

The wyvern let out a frustrated screech, wheeling hard in the air as it tried repositioning itself between its summoner and the approaching Ichneumon, but the sheer speed of the smaller creature made it difficult to commit to any single angle of defense.

Every time the wyvern adjusted, the Ichneumon simply shifted its own line of approach, weaving low and fast, refusing to give either Kai or his summon a clean read on where the next strike would actually land.

Kai gritted his teeth, forcing himself to focus. Whatever came next, he understood one thing clearly now. Jimmy hadn’t walked into this match unprepared at all. If anything, he’d planned for exactly this outcome from the very beginning.

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