Dee watched with interest as her opponent entered the arena. Apparently, the man was very popular with certain sections of the audience, judging by the elated screams of women with a certain level of maturity. It seemed the rather well-chiseled features and almost a little too beautiful facial features of the horned and blue-skinned man appealed to women that had some years under their belt. Or perhaps it was the fact that the man was wearing green robes open at the front, which revealed his impressive chest muscles and abs that did the trick. Either way, Dee didn’t quite see the appeal. Even Shunkaha was more impressive.

The hooved legs were a bit more interesting to Dee, but mostly in the academic sense of not knowing the race of her opponent. She had never seen a representative of this particular race. He looked almost like a crossbreed of a human and a demon of some sort. Such beings had many names and types, ranging from a more polite term Tiefling to a much less polite abomination. Yet this one seemed a little different. Dee could sense none of the chaotic mana so often seen in demons, even only partial demons.

What she did know, as it was made obvious by the man’s garb, was that he was a nature magician of some sort. The leaves stuck in his clothing and the gnarled wooden staff kind of gave it away. ‘Is he trying to play to a stereotype or something? If I couldn’t see his body filled with life and nature mana, I’d almost think this was a ruse.’ Dee commented to Croestia.

‘Don’t forget that you’re currently dressed like the epitome of a white knight yourself. There’s a fair bit of showmanship involved in this fight. I wouldn’t be surprised if those leaves were strategically placed there, instead of something left there by accident.’ Croestia replied with a chuckle.

For a moment Dee had forgotten her own garb and gave a small defeated sigh. The judges were busy explaining the rules, which basically boiled down to: don’t get the audience mixed in, killing is allowed but to be avoided when possible, and try not to wreck the whole arena. There were powerful magical defenses separating the audience and the large arena, but when dealing with low ranked immortals and those just below them at the ninth rank, such measure could only take you so far.

‘Remember, Nyx asked you to make it showy, so no one hit victory.’ Croestia reminded her. ‘Also, you might as well go fairly all out. Your skills will all change to a certain extent once you become immortal, so hiding their current level makes little sense. In fact, it might be useful to display them as a way to give the enemy false information.’

The latter reminder was not without merit. It was in Dee’s basic nature to hold back things to use as a secret weapon, even after all her trainers since the Zabaniya had tried to get her out of that habit. Especially the old man had tried to beat that habit out of her. She was better in that regard, but it was hard to change one’s nature. Still, it might be interesting to really let loose once in a while, and Nyx had asked rather politely. ‘So we’re expecting nature and life magic mostly. It might be a good chance to test your ability to resist magic in a rather controlled environment. Besides, it will play well towards my plan.’

She had thought of ways to make things theatric, and she had decided to take a page out of the playbook of the old man that used to get such enjoyment kicking her around. One of the most overbearing ways to defeat someone was to allow them to throw everything they had at you and just counter everything they had with seeming ease. That would also allow her to reveal a controlled amount of her own abilities without simply showing all of them. Reveal enough to show off and beat the opponent, but not much more. That sounded like a nice compromise solution between her trainers and her own habits.

‘About that. We never had time to discuss it properly, but…’ Croestia’s words were cut off as the starting signal of the match was given and Dee’s opponent quickly made the first move.

The opponent’s first spell was aimed more towards speed than power, but it still caused a veritable storm of thorny vines to suddenly appear and surround Dee in an attempt to box her in. It was doubtful the spell was really meant to defeat Dee just by itself, but it was still a powerful spell for something so quick. Dee was preparing to defend herself but noticed that the vines were all stopping when they got close as if they lost all power and started to rapidly wither.

“Well, that’s new.” Dee commented and looked behind her at the ninth tail glowing deep green.

‘I was about to mention that before we were so rudely interrupted. I don’t think it comes as a huge surprise but all that power you sucked from the Tree of Life made your ninth tail become like that. As the energy was a bit of both, I’m pretty sure it increases your resistance to both life and nature magic. Incidentally, thanks to all that power I could also improve my ability with those resistances, and they are now your strongest resistances with the possible exception of death. You now have a level of resistance to those energies that rivals very old and powerful dragons. Also, with you being so strong in death energy, that withering is what happens to the plants controlled by nature magic that you consider hostile. You’re the worst nightmare of this particular mage.’ Croestia explained. She had almost burst out laughing as soon as they had seen the enemy.

‘Well, that’s kind of boring. I hope he has something else in his pockets.’ Dee replied not sure how happy she was about this. On one hand, she had kind of hoped for a worthy opponent but then an opponent like this allowed her to really do the showing off part. Still, she shouldn’t be too complacent.

The enemy mage had become a little shocked once he saw how little effect his spell had on Dee. Dee, in turn, decided to up the ante. She materialized a large claymore seemingly made of pure darkness and drew a large circle around herself on the arena’s dirt-packed ground. She then stabbed the sword into the ground in front of her. Her message was clear to both the enemy mage and the audience. She would not be moving anywhere from the circle during this match.

This brought a series of cheers and jeers from the crowd, as they either appreciated her little display or thought of her as arrogant. The enemy mage was too smart to get provoked by the little stunt. If Dee was silly enough to impose limits on herself, then that was not his problem. He had fought magic resistant enemies before, albeit not one with as powerful of a resistance as Dee seemed to have. There were ways around such things. He waved his staff which glowed bright green and enhanced his magical powers. He was also chanting a complex spell, which created two large green sigils on the arena ground.

Dee could recognize summoning magic when she saw it in action. It wasn’t a bad idea. While the summoning was nature magic, her resistances would do little against most things that could be summoned. She could try using her templar abilities to interrupt the spell, but this was interesting. She wanted to see what the mage could come up with. Both of the sigils suddenly rose up from the ground and a form seemed to be coming out of them as they rose. The two frames were almost large enough to count as giants as they were at least eight mel tall, without counting the large antlers on their heads.

“Forest Protectors?” Dee asked no one in particular. The two beings were humanoid in shape, except they seemed to be a mix of something plantlike that grew out from the forests and large giants. This was exemplified by the beards that seemed to be made of moss. Dee had heard about beings like this. Many of the more primitive groups on other worlds called them Forest Gods, as the beings were rather powerful and protected the forests under them fiercely. Hence the more common name, Forest Protectors.

The one closer to Dee swung down what looked like a mallet made from a tree trunk, but the strike suddenly changed direction as if it had hit a barrier, and then the large being was thrown back as if it had been struck by a large invisible fist. Which was exactly what had happened. The other creature chanted a small spell and a bolt of lightning struck down towards Dee. The thing about the Forest Protectors was that they also had their own magical abilities. A mage summoning creatures that also could cast spells, albeit simple ones.

Dee clicked her tongue. She could dodge easily, but that would require moving out of the circle she had drawn. Instead, she decided to take the attack and trust in her ability to resist it. While the lightning was dangerous to many people, Dee was also resistant to that element, as shown by one of her tails turning light blue and sparkly. That combined with Croestia’s magic resistance and her own newfound fortitude thanks to her transition towards immortality turned the lightning more into an annoyance. The lightning struck and was not pleasant, but Dee could rather calmly observe as the remaining sparks and streamers of lightning fizzled around her. A mage fully dedicated to lightning magic might be able to actually hurt her, but not a half-assed attack by a summoned creature.

“Ok, my turn.” Dee announced, and suddenly a metallic halo appeared above her head. She was planning on mostly relying on her psionics in this fight, and the halo was one of those things that were more useful when relied on often rather that something hidden for emergencies. She also got a sudden burst of inspiration.

‘I could throw several psionic weapons at the large creatures, or I could try something new. I haven’t actually tried making the psionic weapons really big and powerful instead of small and numerous.’ Dee thought to herself.

Suddenly an enormous blade of pure psionic energy appeared in the sky and fell towards the creature that had stumbled earlier. The large blade was actually bigger than the giant Forest protector, and easily cleaved the being in two. ‘Wasn’t that a bit of an overkill?’ Croestia asked a little confused. A significantly smaller blade would’ve done the job just fine. Why bother making it bigger than the target?

Dee was actually equally confused. She had not actually tried making the blade so large, or so deadly. The only explanation she could come up with was that her Domain was leaking over again. A Domain was after all supposed to improve all of the skills of the owner, which made it more versatile than a more specialized soul space and totem. Well, she was now feeling the effects.

The nature mage had not been idle and his next spell was just about to finish. In response, Dee made a slicing motion with her hand, and the enormous psionic blade rose from the ground and made a horizontal sweep to cut the other giant creature at the waist, bisecting the creature cleanly at the waist. The mage’s spell finished and suddenly a swarm of poisonous insects appeared from nowhere and started covering most of the arena. The idea was sound. If Dee used a large blade to cut big creatures, then throw in a lot of smaller ones. Dee would have no success killing them with the large weapon.

‘He realized it.’ Croestia commented gleefully.

‘Unfortunately he did.’ Dee’s psionics had something of a gap when it came to certain types of enemies. She could use her numerous psionic weapons that she could make explode against large numbers of smaller enemies, but they would lose effectiveness against targets this small. Or at least she would only get some of the insects instead of all of them. Her invisible hands would be too busy trying to swat all of them as well. She could create a psionic storm to remove most of them, but that would leave those insects powerful enough to withstand the storm or nimble enough to avoid it, so that was not exactly foolproof.

That meant she had to go for another well of power. She channeled the holy power inside her and a field of dark energy started draining the life from everything around her. This spell didn’t specify any particular targets; instead it targeted everything in range, which in this case covered most of the arena and all of the insects. The insects didn’t have all that much life to drain, which made them ideal targets as they died quickly, which was good since a field like this would be less effective against targets that actually had a lot of power. The downside of this maneuver was that she had just revealed her skill with darker holy spells. Not a big sacrifice considering anyone could find out her holy background even with a cursory background check, but still. She had just moments ago decided to mostly use her psionics and was not happy to be forced to go back on the decision. She was not happy.

Apparently her opponent was equally unhappy about the direction this fight was taking and decided to bet everything on his trump card. A surge of nature and life mana surrounded the man, and he flew thirty mel into the air. The power around him started to solidify and he was being surrounded by a rapidly growing something. It was certainly not a being that appeared naturally. It looked like a combination of a swamp monster and some sort of wicker man. The form was vaguely humanoid, though there were no proper features as the whole being was covered in sludge, dirt, and leaves.

The creature swung its building sized fist at Dee. The approaching strike was surprisingly swift and covered the entire circle she had drawn around her, making it sure she would have to dodge outside the circle at least to avoid the strike. “Don’t underestimate me!” Dee growled angrily. She was not about to lose in a contest of strength.

She applied all the holy power buffs that increased strength and had Croestia give her a full strength buff as well as fully powering herself with her psionic power. For good measure she also had several of the black pearls wrap around her gauntleted fist for extra weight. She swung her own fist to meet the enormous creature’s incoming fist, and the whole arena shook with the force of the impact as the two forces collided. To the shock of the audience, Dee had not moved a single centimel from where she stood, partially thanks to keeping herself in place with her telekinesis, while the arena in front of her had been devastated.

The ground and the fist that had been used to attack her had been annihilated. The only difference was that the fist was already rapidly growing back. That was the whole idea of the large being. It wasn’t very subtle, but was strong and damn hard to kill. Another large psionic blade suddenly materialized and swung at the gigantic creature. With a sickening squelch, it struck the muddy surface, which gave way to the sharp and powerful weapon. The problem was that the surface gave way on purpose. The soft and elastic surface absorbed and diluted the power behind the strike, and while the sharp edge cut deep and made a wide slice through the creature, the damage was immediately healed back.

“I see, so that’s how you want to play it. A battle of attrition, is it?” Dee had a wicked smile on her face. “Well, I don’t feel like playing by your rules.”

The large creature was not about to just stand still swung its arm at Dee again. This time the surface of the fist was covered in long thorns that seemed to be poisoned. She, in turn, made no move to strike back, instead she just stared at the creature’s head where the mage resided. As the huge fist approached, she lazily lifted a single finger to block, and for some reason, the creature’s attack was stopped like it had hit some immovable object. In fact the entire creature seemed to freeze in place. ‘Such theatrics.’ Croestia said with a mocking laugh.

Dee had started stealthily attacking the mage’s mind a while back. She had simply not taken advantage of the fact until now. She was a psion after all, and all fights against psions ran the risk of getting your mind attacked if the psion had any skill in the mental field. Croestia’s mocking was quite correct in that Dee had frozen the mage’s mind and the creature's movements at the most theatric moment possible, making it look like just a single finger was enough to stop the heavy blow.

With the freezing of the creature, or more specifically the mage controlling it, the regeneration had also stopped. Dee sent a pulse of psionic force through the creature, easily shredding it since it was barely holding together as it was. The frozen mage fell towards the ground and Dee made a grasping motion and an invisible hand caught the mage by the collar of his robe and brought him to Dee.

“I’m pretty sure this battle is done.” Dee announced, and gave the man’s face a small smack for emphasis, while the mage gave no reaction. That showed Dee could do anything to the mage and he would not be able to stop it. That was enough for the judges. They declared Dee victorious in the fight to the cheers of the audience who had thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. Very often fights at this level happened with such speeds that it was almost impossible to follow, but the two this time had taken their time with everything. Dee’s victory also meant that there was now a successful challenger that would most likely go on to challenge those higher on the standings. That would mean more entertainment. Soon enough they got the news that Dee would be challenging another opponent once it could be arranged.

Nyx’s compatriots were busy collecting their ill-gotten gains while Dee walked off the arena. There were also certain people in the audience that were especially interested in her fight. First one was a group of three female warriors in a crimson armor. “She seems to be developing nicely. It’s hard to believe she’s the same little fox we saw just a few years ago.” The woman with a short red hair in a warrior’s cut said thoughtfully.

“You did well, forming connections with her, Anastasia.” The eldest dark-haired woman said. “She might become important later on. I’m fairly certain I sensed traces of a Domain. And not a small and barely born one either. She’s been developing one before becoming an immortal. Somehow.”

The two others looked at the dark haired woman in surprise. Anastasia had known Dee was special, but this still shocked her. Not that she would doubt her senior sister who had the sharpest senses among the trio and most of the Crimson Path. Only some of the dedicated hunters and trackers could match her. “They seem to be building a nice little alliance to deal with the incoming trouble.” She commented looking at the section occupied by the Four Winds.

“Good.” The red-haired woman grunted. “Saves us the trouble of having to warn them.”

“Well…it might have been a good way to build good will if we had given them aid, but this is not bad either. We should inform the leader. The little side project you have going on seems to be bearing fruit.” The dark haired woman said simply. She was an ally of the leader and this news might make the leader’s job a little easier. The problem with leading a group of fierce warriors like them was that their nature also created competition and internal struggle, even in the face of the incoming crisis. Crisis came with opportunity after all.

In another section of the audience was a group of almost identical Valkyries. “Found you!” Brynhildr declared.

“Found who?” One of the other Valkyries asked.

“The dark angel we talked about, remember?” Reginleif commented from the side. She also noticed to obvious similarities between the dark angel they had fought and Dee fighting in the arena.

“I don’t see any angels.” The same Valkyrie stated a little densely, though she could not really be blamed for it. She had not fought the dark angel and didn’t know what to look for.

“The fox that just won the challenge. She’s the dark angel. Obviously she can change her appearance.” Brynhildr stated firmly. The metallic halo, the psionic weapons, and even the dark pearls in Dee’s gauntlet were such obvious hints.

“Are you sure?” A fourth Valkyrie confirmed from the side.

“Quite sure. She wasn’t using her full power in this fight, but the signs are there.” Reginleif explained.

“If that was not her full power, then I can accept that you lost to her before.” The fourth Valkyrie said firmly. “It seems she is a member of the Four Winds. What was she doing in the forest?”

“It seemed the target at that time was a friend of hers. Besides, we were there. Maybe she was working as a mercenary of sorts too. She seems to have holy power abilities so she might have ties to the paladins.” Reginleif theorized.

“We will have to look into this.” The fourth Valkyrie decided.