The goliath started slowly closing the distance between him and Martin like he didn't just receive a crushing blow.

- I think it would be easier for Martin if he were using some kind of blade - Will pointed out.

- Yeah. It seems that thing is quite resistant do impact - Adam agreed.

I just watched in silence from my spot, a bit worried despite the blessings I used on my friend. He was much stronger with them, but that still could not be enough.

The alien decided to attack again and charged, but Martin was prepared. This time he didn't counter, though, and decided to avoid. Goliath swung at him heavily, with incredible speed, but the German giant was also fast, and experienced enough to not allow any of those hits to land.

The exchange took a few seconds until he finally decided to swing widely to make some distance between the two of them. He wouldn't be able to keep up with the movement for too long, so that was clearly the best decision, but the alien wasn't gonna just let him go.

The alien rushed towards Martin, but he actually expected it. Measured the timing correctly and swung upwards, digging with his feet deep into the sand, and he delivered a powerful blow, sending the enemy flying. But that was just the beginning of his strategy.

He rushed after his opponent, and as the goliath finally git the ground, Martin was there, rising his morganstern high above the head, and bringing it down with all his might.

The impact shook the arena. We could feel it inside the waiting room as the whole underground construction trembled.

He didn't stop with just that and delivered the second blow, then third, fourth, and fifth. It started looking kinda disgusting, and the skin of the alien was stuck to the surface of his weapon and got pulled out of the flesh when Martin was rising his morgenstern for another attack. He finally stopped when there was not much left out of minced goliath.

- YES! FUCKING YES! - shouted Nil. - LETS FUCKING GO!

He jumped to the air, punching upwards out of the excitement. The battle was won, but it was just the first one, and the day was still young. Despite that, we were celebrating.

Hailwic started laughing as she wiped the tears out of her face. Boris hugged her. People were smiling, and nodding, and Will just grabbed drinks and started pouring them down, and giving them out.

- For Martin! - he shouted eventually, raising his glass.

People drank to that toast. It was another victory for us, despite the fact that we just lost Gavriil, who was an incredibly powerful individual. Even the vampire rose his glass to the winner.

Martin also celebrated in the arena, but rather shortly. He just rose gis morgenstern in the air.

This little bit of happiness was in complete opposite to the emotions on Zor'xal's face. I knew because I observed him carefully. He was clearly angry, and he immediately started whispering to one of his servants. They nodded and left to return very soon.

There was a visible pause in the flow of the event. The next opponent wasn't coming out, definitely because of the emperor's actions. The delay soon become the longest that we ever experienced. Normally it didn't exceed fifteen minutes, but then we were waiting easily for over half an hour, and nothing was happening.

- I have a bad feeling - Adam suddenly spoke, breaking the silence among our ranks.

He was immediately poked by Will's elbow and shut his mouth. We all felt the same, but nobody wanted to speak about this loudly. Whatever Zor'xal was preparing for us was definitely not good.

A couple more minutes later, the whole complex was shaken by something, and suddenly the other half of the arena slid open, making the sand fall inside. From underground a platform rose with a metal large metal crate, and by large I mean in a size of a building. Around twenty meters tall, and something close to that number wide.

It had holes inside, but those were too small for us to see what was inside. On top of that, I wasn't even sure if the holoprojection could display something that was inside of something.historical

Martin took a few steps forward to take a look, but since he kept leaning forward with his weapon in his hands, I could tell that he also couldn't determine what was hidden there.

Suddenly the box shook from the inside, and a strange clicking voice came from inside. I glanced at Hailwic. Her eyes were glued to the projection, as she kept holding tight a handful of the fabric of her own shirt. She was so worried that she was barely holding on.

And then the box opened with a loud gasp of the mechanism holding it in. Some kind of gas got released, rising a white cloud that for a short moment covered the whole thing. Then one of the halves in which the cage, because that's what it was, fell to the ground with a loud thud.

What was hidden inside took me by surprise. It was a large, demonic-like entity with dark red skin, dry and broke, with some orange fluid coming out of the cracks in very small amounts. It had horns coming from the sides of its head, and curving to the inside. A pair of wings, that were torn, and clearly couldn't hold the massive creature in the air.

Legs were also muscular and ended with hoves.

It stared at Martin for a moment, making that strange clicking sound, until it finally stopped and wailed, spreading its arms, and wings, while stretching the neck straight up into the air. So loudly, that our friend hunched over a bit, trying to cover his ears with one hand, which couldn't possibly work.

- Ok... Do we have any old dudes in grey robes? - asked Nil. - We could use on right now.

His comment was completely ignored by the rest.