Jasper broke out his massive grin "Because you would be fighting me."
Luke was taken aback by this revelation. It was definitely not what he had been expecting. He knew that Jasper would have someone strong in mind, but himself? "I thought that you said that you were done with fighting in the arena."
"I did. But you have caught my interest. It's clear to me that you are holding back. I haven't even gotten the chance to see what your ability is."
"If you are strong enough to fight off the waves from the central gates then I have a feeling I can't defeat you yet," Luke said ignoring Jasper's interest in his ability.
"Interesting so you aren't all confident, but I liked the 'yet.'" Jasper chuckled. "How about this, if you survive for 3 minutes against me you win."
"Wow, you have a pretty high opinion of yourself."
"Didn't you win that last match against Larry in far less than that? I know I can do the same to you. Anyway, are you going to accept the challenge or not?"
"I will," Luke said with a serious tone, which was enough for them both to consider the conversation over.
Jasper left and informed Luke that he could have a bit more extra time to prepare for the next round. Luke made use of it to check his new achievement.
*ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED*
[Indiana Escape] Hidden Bronze Achievement unlocked for avoiding a rolling threat (+2 to Speed)
It appeared that he still needed to defeat two more thorn bulls to get an achievement. Strangely, he also hadn't gotten an achievement for the tournament yet, despite the fact he had supposedly won it already. He was still learning the little nuances of how the system worked. Take his latest achievement as an example; it was yet another reference to a movie and a fairly random event. As he unlocked more achievements it looked more like the system had adapted to reward what he had done than having had every achievement already planned out. But Luke still couldn't be sure.
His rest time passed quickly and before he knew it, Luke found himself being called out to fight again.
Walking into the arena this time Luke was so focused he didn't even notice whether or not the crowd was there, which was impressive considering the crowd was louder than it ever had been.
He stared across at the opposite gate keen to know what they had in store for him behind it. Luke didn't get much time to think about the reveal as the moment the gate opened a creature ran directly at him. It was fast and Luke took a cut to his leg as he dodged it. The creature collected itself before coming in again.
If Luke had not been told about such a creature before he would never guessed what it evolved from. But the creature in front of him had once been a horse. Now though it looked more like it would have been at home in the time of dinosaurs. The hair that had once made it look so majestic was all gone and instead its skin had started to look much more tough, like that of a lizard. The eyes of the creature were large and pitch black, making a stark contrast to its pale skin. Its neck was shorter and it had horns that looked like a collar around it. The same horns were present on its four legs and tail. It was the spiked tail that had managed to cut Luke. It was a strong weapon in the creature's arsenal.
This creature was a significant challenge. Luke had never faced one even when he had been in a team. If they had seen one they had made sure to just run away, even if they had the creature outnumber 5 to 1. Despite this Luke wasn't going to give up just yet. He wanted to test himself against the thrasher, which people had started to call it.
The Thrasher ran straight at Luke, but this time the moment that it reached him it jumped and did a 360-degree turn in the air. It did this so that it could swing its pointed tail at Luke. Luke had no way of avoiding the blow, his only option was to attempt to block it with his staff. Luke was happy to see that even though it was just a metal rod the weapon was strong enough to take the blow without bending. However, despite the fact he was able to protect his body from taking a hit, thanks to the staff, the blow was enough to knock Luke back onto the ground.
With Luke now on the ground, the creature charged towards him. Attempting to stamp down on him with its sharp hooves. Luke danced to the left and right to avoid the attacks. If it hadn't been such a dangerous situation people might have compared the scene to something closer to a comical dance, than a fight. But, Luke knew that if he took even one attack full-on he would most likely die.
Pushing off with his staff and rolling to the side Luke finally had enough time to get back onto his feet. This time it was his turn to try and go on the offensive. He managed to take a swing at the creature's legs and the blow landed. However, the creature was strong enough that his "sweep the leg" technique failed to live up to its name and didn't sweep the thrasher off its feet. Instead, it only crouched down for a moment, but Luke kept pressing on with attacks one after the other. Thankfully, though no blow was deadly, each individual attack was doing steady damage.
For the next few minutes, the fight went back and forth, as both Luke and the thrasher took blows from each other. With both their red and blue blood getting mixed up on each other's bodies.
Luke was glad that he had managed to conserve most of his energy as this fight was using every bit of his pool of energy. In fact, he was worried that looking at the thrasher it was him who was going to run out of gas first.
Luke therefore decided to go on the full offensive and try something a little different. It was hard to fight the creature as all of its spikes prevented him from delivering blows anywhere safely. However, there was one place that had not changed since it had evolved; its back.
Using his "sweep the leg" technique, the creature once again crouched down as a reaction to the blow. This time, Luke leapt onto its back, and for the next minute, he clung on tightly as the thrasher did exactly that; thrash about in a relentless attempt to dislodge the unwelcome hitchhiker. Luke managed to hold on and eventually, the thrasher began to tire out, which was Luke's signal to move into the next phase. Using his staff he pulled the bar against the creature's neck in between the spikes. The chokehold was clearly effective as despite the tiredness of the creature it suddenly had a second wind desperate to release itself from the lock.
In the end, it was a slow and agonising wait as the creature slowly went off to sleep due to its air being cut off. The moment it did Luke was not so kind as to take pity on the creature even out cold. He delivered a brutal final attack with the staff to the creature's head, which immediately ended its life.
Luke at last took a moment to take in his surroundings. The crowd was going crazy, chants of his name were still ringing out. Getting caught up in the moment Luke looked over towards Jasper, who still had a beaming ear-to-ear grin. He pointed at him and mouthed "You are next" with a smaller smile.