The face of the creature was easily triple his height, and it seemed impossibly perfect. It was a beautiful woman with tan brownish skin, the unnatural beauty reminding Mash of the auctioneer lady. The difference was in the body. It clearly belonged to a large feline creature of some kind. Though the large wings were something else. Each was bigger than a house, and the creature could only barely fly in the arena. Mash guessed that was the point. The arena acted as a container for the great beast, and Mash gaped trying to remember anything about it.

Nothing came, it was something he had never seen before. The referee started the fight, but he was too preoccupied to focus on anything else. Well, it looked like this fight was going to be blind, but Mash had one bigger concern. In the past, he probably would’ve just killed the thing without a second thought, but he saw an intelligence in the gaze of the being. When he killed the warden and the transformed people, he realized how much of his emotion he had recovered. It might have been the fusion with Priscilla, the prolonged use of the earrings, or any number of things that had changed since he last killed someone, he considered intelligent or human. After his recent advancement it felt like the lock that had been placed on that had been freed, and Mash was racked with emotion over the people he had recently killed. It tired him more than he wanted to admit.

However, he knew what a creature like this really was. A lost wanderer most likely, someone who had entered this world from another. Now, they were being forced to fight. It was one thing to kill the mindless monsters like the ants, but something like this felt wrong.

Thinking about Mash didn’t necessarily need to kill the creature, though he might get in trouble for what he was thinking of.

“Hello?”

The word came out hesitatingly as Mash was still unsure whether the creature could respond or not. Mash didn’t get a response he understood, a hiss leaving the creature’s mouth. Was that a type of communication?

Taking it in the best way possible, Mash tried to gesture for communication. It mostly involved waving his hand in the air and gesturing in differing ways. He spoke while doing them.

“I can’t understand you.”

It still hadn’t attacked Mash, so he thought it was going well, but this situation was clearly confusing everyone else. The audience had long since gone silent, the referee matching their confusion. Finally, he heard something or rather knew something. It was a similar gesture to the way Priscilla sent messages and told Mash the creature had some form of mind magic.

“Why do you not fight? All other humans fight.”

Mash let his arms fall to his sides as the message entered his mind. The response was both expected and somewhat disappointing. The creature’s perception of humanity was true for her but only because of the class system.

“Not all humans are the same. Do you want to fight? What about returning home or going free?”

A low hiss left the creature’s mouth, and the next message sounded much more sinister.

“Return home? No, I am too close to my next evolution, to my revenge. First, I will strike back eat my fill, and then leave. If you choose to help me, we can start now, and I will spare some of your brethren.”

Well, that was more violent than he expected, but he understood why she would be angry. Captivity for any length of time would make someone angry, he had much the same reaction when he was younger. That did make Mash consider something else though. Mash realized he didn’t know if the creature was an adult or a child of their species. Deciding it would be best to try and find another solution, he tried something else.

“I’m not the strongest person here, nowhere near it. Honestly, I’m not even sure if I can help you escape from here. Trying to- “

Mash cut off his words as a sudden headache racked his mind. Priscilla's message lodged itself within his mind.

“Fight her, she is trying to take control of you!”

That explained the headache, and Mash reacted quickly. He transformed into his Priscilla form, knowing that it would boost his mental capabilities. As the scales wrapped over his skin, the headache vanished, and Mash decided he would need to fight back. The creature had tried to take control of his mind, and that was not something Mash could ignore. A peaceful resolution was not going to be found here. That only grew more obvious as the creature's large paw slammed into the side of his body. He let the force carry him away from the creature forming his dragon replica around him. The wood grew faster than normal, mainly due to its transformed state. It felt like he was combining his monsters when he did this, and Mash couldn’t help but take advantage of the magic control.

As the wood grew around him, he let it grow beyond what he had in training. The feline creature was large, but within a minute he matched the beast’s size. He didn’t stop though there growing larger still as he lashed out trying to bite into the creature. An enormous wooden maw bit into the fur around the creature’s shoulder. Blood poured into his mouth, and a distinctly human shriek could be heard throughout the arena. The monster was thoroughly angry now, and a large force of wind crashed into his Mash’s side. Even with the diminished pain, it felt like a hundred nails had pierced his side. Each cut on his side was like another nail.

Mash quickly realized that it was a constant stream, the wind was trying to dig towards his real body. Consciously Mash formed wood over the cut sections of his body and layered it constantly to defend himself. Deciding he need to try and slow the creature down; Mash ripped a chunk of the creature’s shoulder off and pushed away from it. He swallowed it quickly, gaining far more strength than he expected. Without slowing down, He lunged forward again slamming his overly long-clawed hand down on the creature. They clung to the creature cutting deep into its body. It only grew worse as he grew more wooden claws, each cutting deeper into its body.

The creature bit him in his neck, though her teeth couldn’t get through all the wood. The beats of wings could be heard, and the creature leaped upwards. Even with his size and strength, Mash was carried with it into the sky. Mash worried for a second that they were going to do some serious damage to the city. At their size, they would be able to destroy streets and buildings without notice.

It didn’t come to pass as they both collided with a barrier of some kind and rebounded towards the ground. Neither of them had gotten very far off the ground considering their size, but the impact with the ground still shook the building. Mash guessed that it did more than just that, but it did something else too. The impact separated the two of them large spikes of wood lodged into the creature’s back where his claws ripped off. It was not a pleasant experience for Mash, even if he consciously knew that no real damage had been done. It was as if his nails had been torn off, and even subdued, the pain stung. Ignoring it he tried to bite the creature again, letting more wooden blades sprout from his wings as he tried to close them around the creature.

His wings got deflected by the creature's own, but his bite had landed. A hiss was followed by a powerful force of the wind, and one of his wings tore off his back as they tried to catch the wind. Mash could feel his neck stretch from the exertion, but he managed to hold by reinforcing the wood there. Something else happened when he did that though, and Mash took full advantage of hunt activating. Faster than he had managed before he slammed his claws into the creature, locking it in place. Before the skill activated his physical strength was relatively comparable to the monster, but now he dwarfed it. Mash heard bones crunch as his clawed hands held the creature in place.

It continued to batter him with wind, and the improved stats helped him resist the storm. The noise though struck him. It was loud and felt like he was really at the heart of a storm. Mash didn’t hold back though, and spikes grew from his body piercing the creature’s body. Not wanting to keep the creature like this Mash strove to end the fight quickly. He ripped out another chunk from the monster as he pulled his head back. Mash swallowed quickly and commanded Priscilla to form lightning. She had been reading his thoughts and acted quickly. The humanoid face of the monster was contorted in rage, and Mash knew that it had grown too vindictive to surrender.

Mash opened his mouth again while continuing to grow his entire body larger. When he was using the imitation skill, he had to grow the whole imitation rather than a specific part. He didn’t stop growing even after the lightning left his mouth in an attack that resembled what Priscilla had used before. The lightning struck the creature and strands of lightning lashed over its body and his own hands. His hands stung from the attack, though it was much worse for the monster. The lightning had struck its humanoid face and burned into it. However, as life left the creature Mash felt the rush of a level up before collapsing onto the ground.

Mash was pleasantly surprised to see that he didn’t lose his consciousness. Perhaps it was the change in the skill or maybe one of his other skills. Either way, he was able to stay fully conscious as he laid unmoving on the charred remains of the monster. His dragon imitation didn’t dissipate, and he still felt connected to it too. Immediately he started his recovery, hoping that he could at least dismiss the transformation before the announcer finished yelling.

“Can you believe what you just saw? Is he just a bronze rank with that kind of power? Well, I certainly can’t believe it and I saw the fight. I mean he literally transformed into a dragon, and the lightning. I think even the castle shook from that attack. What about the size of his creation and the amount of wood he formed? What kind of class does he even have? Does he not have any mana costs? Truly, a monster. Though definitely not a little one.”

The announcer sounded excited and the shouts from the audience told Mash they thought the same. The announcer continued though and prattled on and on about the fight. Was he stalling for Mash to leave on his own? How did he know?

Shaking his head Mash realized that he regained enough energy to dismiss his transformation. As the wood around him decayed, Mash quickly pulled out a change of clothes. He knew his clothes would rip and had prepared for it. Mash managed to put on an extra pair of pants by the time the wood decayed around him. His jacket was on the floor somewhere and Mash wanted to go get it. He remembered where it had landed, and it probably hadn’t moved much. The real problem was getting down. He didn’t have enough energy to form a wooden creation and he was on top of the creature. With his improved stats, he figured the fall wouldn’t be able to do real damage to him and leaped off.

Impacting the ground caused his legs to wobble, and he fell to one knee. Nothing was seriously damaged though and he pushed himself back to his feet. The imitation hadn’t fully decayed yet, and Mash could still see the wood crumbling around him. It only took a few moments to find his jacket. It was missing a sleeve. Mash guessed that it had gotten caught on something and then tore off from the sudden movement. Mash still put it on, even if there was only one sleeve. After that, he trudged back towards the moving platform. There was still cheering and shouting, and before descending, Mash really looked towards the crowd for the first time.