A REAL fight broke out between Teras and Pecus, this time nobody cared about the rules or the consequences of the fight, it was simply a fight that would happen on any other occasion if Enyo didn't put some laws
"Think about what you are doing Pecus!" Teras calmly told him
"Shut the hell up, kid! When did you become sane enough to tell me what to do? Why don't you cry about your fallen squamates like you always do and get out of my way!"
Teras slightly smiled
Suddenly an air slash scratched Pecus's body, and at the same speed Teras launched himself at Pecus
He hit Pecus with a kick on the head followed by a punch in the stomach combing the punch with an explosion
"And who the fuck are you to disrespect everyone bitch? I'm trying to save your life here you low-life animal" Teras said as he glared at Pecus's eyes
'What's wrong with this kid? He has an even stronger aura than before' Pecus thought as he recovered from the attack
"I'm the man who is going to kill you! That's who I am kid!" Pecus said as he sharpened his long sword with his sharp beast-like nails
Pecus then charged at Teras exchanging many blows but not one of them caused any damage to each other
"What's wrong kid? Where are your sick tricks you pulled back then? Are you not able to pull them now that I'm fighting you for real?" Pecus asked with a smug smile
"What about you? Are you struggling with just my sword skills? I haven't even used anything else I learned yet! Don't tell me that's all you amount to" Teras said with an even bigger smug on his face
At this moment Pecus felt fear, it was the first time feeling fear while facing Teras, at the first days he thought "Winning this kid? Easy as cutting wood"
Who would have thought that the tree would fight back?
Teras rushed at Pecus with a pack of mana shields following him from behind
SLASH SLASH SLASH
Pecus barely managed to dodge/deflect the attacks but little did he know that the slashes weren't the main attack
The shield which had pointy ends hit him poking small holes in his body and also dealing a fair amount of damage to every point of his body they landed
After that, a mana-charged attack from Teras's enhanced mana blade came launching him away and making him crush into a tree
'If I haven't put up my sword to block that, I would have...'
Only the thought made Pecus have goosebumps
This moment of realization was interrupted by Teras's brand new skill, the long-range air bullets
At the moment the bullets made contact with Pecus he spat out blood from the pressure
"Calm down kid! If it is possible to win without killing him that would give you extra points!" Enyo yelled at Teras as she hid Tom behind her
'Now they are telling him not to kill me, have I fallen this low? Has this kid really improved that much that he pulls punches?' Pecus thought as his adrenaline started to raise
Right now he activated what beastmen like to call, the "Animal Instinct" a state where a beastman activates both his human side of an adrenaline rush but also activated his beast side, every animal has an instinct that allows them to exceed their limitation to live another day, that's the same thing happening now, an adrenaline rush mixed with that instinct
And with that being said Pecus started running up to Teras at an impressive speed, he was running on his fours holding his sword with his mouth
"Be careful Teras!" Enyo yelled when she saw the man running their way
When Teras saw him too he tried to shoot him down with air bullets but was unable to since Pecus dodged them by jumping left and right
CLASH
The two swords clashed with an incredible force producing a shockwave sending the ice that was created by the humidity which was on top of the grass flying like projectiles
The two men then swung their blades at each other even more violently but this time was different since Pecus was also using his hands to punch
'He is doing all this with his blade in his MOUTH?' Teras thought as he tried his hardest to fight back
But it was futile, the force Pecus had was incredible to the point where one big swing made Teras lose his dagger so now he was forced to hold onto his sword like it was his life, but that was a difficult task, punches were now landing on his chest making him weaker and weaker and forcing him to back down but if he did that then he would have lost
So the only option he had left was to use most of his mana to enhance his body so he can be able to match Pecus's speed and strength
This back-and-forth of attacks went on for quite a bit before Teras realized something critical
'My mana is running low! After all these fights I have fought I rarely had this issue, but I guess I never had fights that lasted this long either, the problem is what am I going to do?' Teras thought as he jumped back but Pecus followed quickly
Teras then let go of his blade and then kicked it with a lot of force at Pecus, surprisingly it scratched a big part of his leg but the thing was that Teras was now unarmed
When both Teras and Pecus landed Pecus started to slowly walk toward Teras, this time he looked smug even though his expression slightly changed, Pecus then grabbed his sword with his hand and used his paralyzing roar hitting Teras directly
'I will end this now before Pecus do something he will regret doing' Enyo thought
But despite all the damage that was caused to Teras he was standing and was clearly conscious
"You killed your daughter's bullies, right? I'm on your side! This may not be the best way to deal with it but seeing your little kid getting hurt by others makes you that mad, I can kind of relate, I mean it happened to me once, but doing this makes you the bad guy! And you knew that and accepted that! Right now both you and I are the bad guys, and we both know that there can only be one big bad guy in a story so I have to take that name from you, besides I'm the real monster here!" Teras said as the black aura Enyo so long anticipated to see again started leaking out of his body, well more like digging into Teras's body
Pecus felt a bit happy, not because he won because that's far from what is going on, but because he realized that in front of the person he was standing against was something eviler something more monstrous, something that is not considered a human, and for him is better to be half human than something entirely else
BANG
Pecus was launched and pierced into many trees
'That hit...'
Before he could complete his thought Teras charged at him again, he now also moved on his four, before punching Pecus in the face and making him crash to the floor, Teras was standing on the broken piece of the log that was still in the air watching Pecus like he was his pray
While Pecus was on the floor he used another paralyzing roar but this time Teras took it right to his face and was unfazed
"Scream for your life!" Teras said as the only bright color coming out of him was the crimson color he had in his eyes
Pecus the person that was a half-human, half-lion
He was half the king of the jungle but inside this jungle he was crowned on, his role as a king was suspended, because right now the only thing standing was a human, the king of the world and the most dangerous monster of all
Pecus cowardly crawled backward, away from Teras, but was quickly kicked in the face by him launching him at the area the fight broke out and in clear view of the fight from Enyo's and Tom's standpoint
Teras slowly walked up to Pecus
"He still has mana? He can still fight after all that?" He asked out loud
With no question, Teras charged at him, for a moment he stood above Pecus and the next moment his hand created a crater with Pecus's head in the middle
'My mana... Why is it going down so quickly?' Pecus wondered as he tried to stand up
'Huh? He isn't hitting me?' Pecus thought as he looked at Teras
To his surprise, Teras was shaking violently and blood was running down from his mouth
"It looks like your little student's brain went numb!" Pecus said as he hysterically laughed
Then in a flash, he tried to bite Teras's face off but to his surprise, Teras put up his hand to defend
"It will be a shame to lose your hand! Well, I guess it's better to lose that instead of your life!" Pecus said as he applied more force to the bite
Suddenly Pecus was grabbed by the neck and his air passage stopped in a flash
"Let's see who will last longer, my hand or you!" Teras said with a scary smile
'My mana! He is absorbing it...' Pecus thought as he looked scared into Teras's eyes
"Did you just notice I can do that?" Teras asked as if he knew what Pecus was thinking "Don't worry I just figured it out too! I get it, I GET IT! IT WAS SO SIMPLE!" Teras manically yelled
Pecus froze for a moment as his biteforce was reduced
But lucky enough for him Droe was charging at him with an axe in his hands
"I will save you, kid!" Droe yelled
He was unaware that Enyo and his son were watching and understanding everything that was happening
Droe came close to Pecus and in a flash Pecus slashed Droe's axe and was about to stab his head but in a flash, Teras let go of his neck and blocked the attack with all the remaining mana in his body
After Teras saved Droe Enyo quickly blinked in front of Pecus and kicked him meters away
"THIS IS THE END!" Enyo yelled at the top of her lungs
"He won! Teras won!" Tom said with a smile on his face as he hugged Teras
"He didn't, it was a tie!" Enyo said with a somewhat mad expression
"What? Why he totally won if Dad didn't attack..."
"IF... Only If Tom, Teras didn't win against Pecus yet, he will have his way another day..."
Enyo was bitter about the result of the fight too but she accepted it since she haven't seen Teras's full potential, until she was certain he reached his peak while training under her wing she didn't want to let him go
"Are you okay Teras?" Tom asked as he looked inside Teras's empty eyes
Enyo worryingly walked up to Teras and checked his pulse
"He has fainted..." Enyo said upon inspecting him
Teras fainted while standing
…
"Stealing mana? You can even do that? Are you sure you are not an angel dude? Whatever, you have to show me the next time we fight" A boy standing on top of a hill asked
---
"How? That's easy! Just do it to me if I go too overboard!"
---
"Why not do it now? Because if you do it now you will kill all the suspense! Why do I even have to spell it out for you"
---
"What is suspense? Well, you know... The feeling when you are seeing two animals fighting and you are betting for one of them to win in your head and you can't tell who wins? That is suspense, kind of..."
The boy explained everything quite weirdly, bizarrely even
---
"I don't know about you ***** but I'm sure you are an angel, a fallen angel that's right! You are the fallen angel of the kingdom!"
…
"Took you long enough to wake up... Two days to be exact..." Enyo said as she was sitting near the door
"How many days I have left to fight Pecus?" Teras asked with all the power he had at the moment
"About a week so don't think about fighting! You will fight and win the last day, I will be sadly missing out on this fight since I have been summoned by the Grand king and this time he isn't going to let me slide so I better go, anyway rest for now, the dark aura destroyed your organs for some reason it's like when you moved your organs ended up getting damaged, and the even weirder thing is that for that to happen you had to have a massive amount of mana pass through your mana vessels near the stomach area, meaning you overcharged? I don't know what to call it but that's the pretty much simplest version I could think of, apparently, all that damage was dealt with one move, so I suggest you stop using this black aura for a bit until you have it under control!"
Enyo explained everything to Teras and then started making dinner, it was night, one of the coldest nights of the year too
Teras stared outside the foggy window and stared at the moon without a thought in his head...