Below Zach on this arena was a girl with beautiful blonde hair, breathtaking green eyes like emeralds, a wonderful face with delicates features and exquisite cherry lips.
She was in a fight against a white fox with three tails, each one of them was bruning in a purple fire, it had black lines going from its ears, went across its eyes and finished at the base of its tails.
Zach could feel the power emanating from the two of them, he knew that each one of them could crush him in pieces with utter ease. 'They are almost at Oscar's level but should be a little less powerful, they should be peak rank 2 being.' Zach was impressed because the girl seemed to be a bit more older than Zach, about 15 or 16 years old.
'Why would I help her ? Even if I could do something, I am not sure if she will be grateful enough to not kill me after this fox is dead.' Zach would certainly not be stupid enough to help her for nothing like this. 'I will just stay like this and enjoy this fight, maybe I will be able to reap the benefits without efforts.' He smiled looking at the ongoing death fight below him.
It was a heated fight, she was using light and plants to attack this fox, she was launching spears of light and roots to try to stab the fox but to no avail, it was nimble enough to dodge every attacks. Each time it had the opportunity to counter attack it would spit a fire ball, the girl would block it with a wall of roots or would just dodge it.
'At this pace, they will just exhaust themselves before any of them die and from what I see she is aware of this and it doesn't make her happy.' Zach could saw the girl's face darken a bit more with every second that passed but he saw more, he saw that in addition to the helplessness there was also a great anger on her face. He was curious about could cause this much anger.
The fight went on like this for another 15 minutes, exhaustion was obvious on the two, the girl was sweating profusely and the fox was panting even more than at the start of the fight. The girl was about to put all she had left in a last attack but at the last moment she canceled it and jumped back.
She finally noticed something that she hadn't seen before because she was too focused in this fight, she wasn't alone, there was a boy at the stairs that was watching them and from what she could see he seemed to have been there for quite a while.
She didn't knew him so she could not risk to be in a very weakened state just after killing the fox, it was too dangerous, the boy could take advantage of this time of weakness to deal with her. What's more she wasn't certain that even if she went all out the fox would die because even if it was exhausted it was in a far more good shape than her.
She decided to play it safe and jumped back and retreated, she was currently going back up towards Zach and the stairs, the fox didn't follow her but it didn't stop attacking her, it was lauching fire ball again and again.
It made her retreat quite difficult, she had to block or dodge every fire balls, because she was retreating the fox was already out of her attack range but she wasn't out of its attack range so it profited of this.
She stayed in this tough spot for 10 minutes before reaching the small plateau, Zach could the anger in her eyes and there seemed to be steam going out of her ears and nose. She was taller than Zach, about 1 meters 67, he had to look up to see her beatiful face, though this time she had an expression that didn't fit her graceful face.
She took a deep breath and said in a dry tone "What is a weakling like you is doing here ?" Zach laughed in his head she wasn't in a state where she would have the upper hand against him so he knew that the haughtiness was a show but if she put everything she had left against him he wasn't sure to survive so he didn't do the hard headed one.
"I ended up here by luck or misfortune I don't know. And you what are you doing here ?" Zach responded. The girl was taken aback not expecting the boy in front of her to ask questions as she knew that her cultivation was a great deal above him.
"Nothing to do with you ! Why didn't you come to help me when you saw me fight against this fox ?" After regaining her calm she ignored his question and asked him another question.
'She is a pretty annoying one.' Zach rolled his eyes and answered "Why would I, I don't know you and from your behaviour I'd say I was right to not help you, be happy that at least I didn't try to help the fox." When she heard Zach's reply she was dumbfounded. 'Who on their right mind would help a beast killing someone they don't even know ?'
"I ... I ... am so .." She was stuttering when Zach interrupted her "You are what ? You come out of nowhere and play the arrogant one because I didn't do anything while I don't know you, and it's still the case, and you expected me to come help you like that out of goodwill or because you think you deserve everything you wish ?"
Once again the girl was dumbfounded and she could not reply to this, she opened and closed her mouth again and again but no words came out of it.
Never somebody talked to her like that and now that she was in the wild she started to think about what the boy just said to her and unfortunately for her she came to the conclusion that he was right.
She could not expect everyone to do what she wished when she wished even more so when she was in the wild. "You are ... right, I am Zoe." She looked down and said in a low voice. 'Whoa ! I didn't expect her to only be a tough one on the exterior but to be this fragile in the inside.' "That's better Zoe, nice to meet you, I'm Zach." He responded and extended his hand to make a handshake.
Zoe a bit taken by surprise took a few instants before extanding her hand and shaking Zach's one. She then ask about a topic that was more important. "What will you do about this fox, will you help me ?" Zach looked in her eyes and said calmly "Even if I wanted to help you defeat this fox I would not be able to."
Zoe looked troubled after all this talking from him she expected him to ask something in exchange for his help but he simply refused to help her. "Why can't you help me ?" She asked.
"I am too weak, I saw your fight even if I help you it won't change anything." Zach didn't trust her enough yet to tell her about his internal injury. However sooner or later he would have to trust her because otherwise he would be either trapped there for an unknown time or die to the fox.
"Is that so ?" Zoe answered in a doubtful tone with a look of suspicion. "That's true, I swear. When will you recover completely ?" Zach inquired and he could tell that Zoe didn't believe him, not for even a second. "I will be as good as new in about 2 days." She said plainly.
"That's good then while you are recuperating why don't we talk otherwise it will be boring." Zach suggested, Zoe gave him an odd look when he said this. "Don't you fear that I will just kill you when I'm healed ?" This was a point Zoe was curious about.
"Why would I ? I saw that you were about to go all out against the fox and even you doubted that it would be enough so if you manage to make me help you, even if it's only to be a cannon fooder your odds to defeat this fox will increase quite a bit." Zach dissected the reason why she would not kill him and replied to her like it was nothing.
This time her jaw could be seen on the ground, all he had said was right, she needed him even if he was only a cannon fooder, it made her start fearing this young boy which didn't not seem to be older than 13. "Who are you ?" This time she asked not because she was curious or to make the conversation but because she felt that he could be a threat.
"Me ? I'm just a friend of Delp from Kartelion." After hearing Zach's response she was confused, if he was a friend of Delp, he should have helped her when she was fighting against the fox, she felt that there was more than this as for why he didn't help her.
What Zoe didn't know was that Zach truly didn't help her because he didn't want to, even if he hadn't an internal injury he would have done the same and enjoyed the fight from afar.
'I have 2 days before she will drag me to fight this fox, in this time I have to know her more and maybe gain her trust.' Zach was thoughtful, he knew that when she will recover even if she didn't kill him she would drag him in the arena to make diversion.
To survive he had at least 1 thing out of 3 to do, heal his internal injury, improve his physical cultivation or gain her trust.