As Degritone entered the arena, he saw a large, blue, gorilla-like being standing in the center of the arena. It had the first name plate Degritone had seen since the System update, though it wasn't underlined: Champion lv21. The Champion had scales instead of fur, wore full plate armor over its large frame, and had long claws protruding from its fingers.

As he took in the Champion, he heard loud guitars accompanying, "Venatum, in celis. Infernos sacramentis." He recognized it as Fist by Fist.

Ah, Music must be back, he thought. Interesting that she came back before Chuuni. He shook his head and continued walking toward the Champion.

As he entered within 10 feet of it, Degritone activated a 300 Stamina Guard, 2000 Stamina Bastion, Haste, Energize, Recuperate, and Swordsman's Territory. Seeing it not react yet, Degritone continued approaching until he was in range for Bloody Aura and Vital Presence. He used both on the Champion as he cast an Empowered Omen of Famine. As soon as he did, he saw the Champion moving to stab him in the chest a second before it did and tried to jump out of the way, but the prediction followed him unerringly throughout his movement.

The Champion appeared before Degritone with its claws piercing through his armor like a hot knife through butter, the only thing saving Degritone from having his heart pierced being the System enhancing the body's durability based on his current Health. The force of the impact made him almost fall backward, even through his 1531 pounds of knockback resistance, and brought his Health down by over 5000, even through his ridiculous amounts of damage reduction and the 2049 Bastion shield.

Degritone cast an Empowered Omen of Famine, returning half that health, before attacking with an Empowered, Omen of War-enhanced slash up right. The Champion responded by punching through Degritone's sword and into his face, snapping the weapon and sliding Degritone back a few inches. As Degritone worked on reforming his sword, he cast Revitalize on himself, restoring his health to full. When Energize ran out, he cast it once more.

The Champion, however, did not let up, sending strike after strike into Degritone. Sometimes it used its claws, sometimes it used a fist. Each time, each blow blew off a more than 7000 chuck of Degritone's 45119 Health. The blows were too fast to react to, especially with Swordsman's Territory informing him of multiple hits per second. He lost track of which one was coming the soonest and simply dropped the Skill so he wouldn't have information overload.

As fast as he lost Health, Degritone kept himself at full through Revitalize's large heal. His sword fully reformed, Degritone brought up his left arm and manipulated some spikes onto the armor, facing toward the Champion, just in time to receive a punch. The blow shattered his armor and turned his arm into a shower of gore, but Degritone sprang unto action just as the blow made contact, surrounding the Champion's fist in Mana and instantly regrowing his arm through a Revitalize.

As the Champion brought that fist back, Degritone was pulled with it, and he got the first clean slash off on the Champion this entire 8 second fight, though it didn't appear to do anything. If Empower had done full damage, it would have dropped his Stamina to zero. It reduced his Stamina by just under 600. He felt the Champion grab hum around the torso and begin yanking him off. With Knockback Resistance keeping him from being moved without his permission, he had enough time to get off another three slashes off before his Mana finally shattered, during which time he also recast Omen of Pestilence and Omen of Famine.

Seeing that Degritone was hard to throw, the Champion simply pummeled Degritone between its hands. Accepting this position as it let him get slashes off, Degritone got one hit in for every four that hit him. With the need to Revitalize more than once every 2 attacks, Degritone's Mana was running out at a prodigious rate, even through his 64.4 Mana per second regeneration, thanks to Spirit of Vitality and Energize.

Twenty seconds passed as neither the Champion nor Degritone accepted that no change in state was happening. Degritone knew he had to be doing some damage because Empower still took Stamina when he landed a blow, but he also knew he couldn't keep doing this forever. His Mana Regeneration simply wasn't up to the task of activating a 50 Mana Skill 6 times per second. He may have only gone through a third of his Mana throughout this entire fight, but he knew he couldn't last longer than the Champion. It simply wasn't taking any visible damage.

Degritone once again wrapped his Mana around the Champion's punching fist, but released himself as the fist was pulled back, allowing himself to land awkwardly on the ground and slide a few feet before he could right himself just in time to get slammed into by the Champion. The Champion finally got a strike in that broke skin on Degritone's torso just before he was about to use Revitalize back to full. The fist came back steaming from Degritone's Acidic Blood Skill, but that very quickly dissipated.

Degritone dodged his first attack of the whole fight as he leaned under a blow. The Champion, expecting to have hit the equivalent of a brick wall, got off balance and Degritone delivered his first unassisted clean hit of the fight, an upward slash into the crotch of the Champion. It, as has been the case this whole fight, had no visible effect. An elbow slammed into Degritone's back and given his current posture, he was unable to keep himself from falling to the ground.

Degritone decided to try Swordsman's Territory once again, and closed his eyes. He felt so many attacks coming, but he could barely sense a difference in intensity of them. Rolling away from the most intense of them, he heard a loud crunch as the ground where he was just laying was turned into sand.

He quickly got up, eyes still closed, as three attacks landed and he dodged another, allowing him another hit. Slowly, over the next 47 attacks, he went from dodging one attack for every four launched to only one attack landing for each six launched. Suddenly, there was a lull in the attacks and he could feel the the Champion gain a determined look.

For the next multiple seconds, Degritone was beaten so quickly that he couldn't even stabilize himself after each attack, slowly being pushed back. As his Mana nearly zeroed out, Degritone allowed himself to be launched into the arena's wall, leaving a dent in it, and Degritone fell to the arena floor on his butt. He looked to his left to see a gate. He began scrambling toward it to hopefully lift it and escape.

"Dolores"

The Champion began sprinting toward Degritone as he began moving.

"Et deus"

It jumped and brought its claws down on Degritone just as he got his fingers under the gate.

"REEEEEQUIIIEEEEEM"

A bright flash to the right of and slightly above Degritone nearly blinded him as a tall humanoid covered in thick armor appeared, flying toward the Champion. It appeared to be about to throw a way too obvious punch, its right elbow at ear height, left hand out.

"Bastards," the figure landed its punch square on the Champion's neck, sending its entire body crashing into the ground so hard it rebounded as the figure fully lands, "saints," then they kicked the Champion up to shoulder height, "and sinners," and sent it flying with another devastating right straight.

The figure blurred as it dashed to catch up with the flying Champion, "We," before catching its bulky arm and pulling it in for an uppercut to its stomach, sending it a couple feet in the air, "all," where they bring down both hands onto its head. It catches itself before it's fully flung to the ground, "a," only to be staggered by a right hook directly to the jaw, "wait," immediately followed by a left hook, sending it reeling.

"The," before the Champion had time to lose momentum, the figure sent a right straight into its chest, sending it flying once more. "Night," they blur again, this time sending a left straight into its chest, accelerating the Champion. It hit the wall opposite Degritone, "fist," whereupon its stomach is smashed by a gut punch.

"By," an uppercut sent it scraping against the wall, "fist," allowing the figure a better angle at its center mass. "Sac," the figure sends a right straight, "ri," followed by a left straight, "lize," followed by a left straight. The Champion's skin tore with the final left straight, bleeding for the first time this fight.

"Or," the figure punched up, going below the start of the Champion's ribcage. "Strike," it attempted to grab the figure, but they retaliated by smashing its head back into the wall, where a sickening crack was heard. With the next two hits of the base drum, the figure grabbed the Champion by the head and smashed it against the wall before uppercutting it once more.

The figure then smashed the Champion's elbows and knees with the next four base drum hits, releasing four explosive cracks with each hit, both cracking the arena wall and turning the joints into bloody pulps. For the last two minutes and seventeen seconds of the song, the figure's arms were blurs as they sent a punch with a slightly upward trajectory on every strum of the guitar and beat of the drums.

During the slow bits of the song, each punch sent another crack through the wall, and each beat of the snare drum during the guitar solo sent a shock wave out that Degritone could feel in his chest. On the final, "Fist by fist," the punches were once again sent alongside the words. The first punch turned its chest into a pile of gore, the second decapitated it as its neck was turned into a pink mist, and the third disappeared its entire head, bringing down the wall where it was pinned.

A pedestal grew out of the ground near the wall opposite where Degritone entered the arena. On it rested a bulky red belt.

As the song wound down, the figure turned toward the stunned, and by now fully healed, Degritone and began walking. After the drums finished reverberating, the figure dissipated into mist, which continued its movement toward Degritone. He stood up, eyes wide, as he says, "What just happened?"

He looked a apprehensive of what was now the mist cloud and began walking toward the pedestal, keeping an eye on it. After three seconds of silence, the theme of a really cool bird began playing and the mist transformed into a little girl with short, white hair; big, green eyes; and a smooth, white one piece dress that ended about 3 inches above her knee and somehow stayed about 2 inches away from her thighs, but no shoes or socks. Degritone stopped at that. "Music?" he asked.

She nodded her head, which prompted him to ask, "How did you get out before Chuuni?"

She responded by projecting an odd, indescribable shape into the air in front of her, which Degritone could somehow see in its entirety, including the back side and other parts which should be hidden by its geometry. He immediately understood, which just confused him more.

He understood that Chuuni had, in fact, been the first to figure out how to cross whatever barrier was keeping them separated, but he'd wound up in Music's portion of his soul, rather than reality. Chuuni then went on to release Music, though the process was slow, and, at first, only resulted in the ability to communicate again, which she used to start playing.

What confused Degritone, however, wasn't what she made, as it was simply the visual representation of how his brain stored memories, but how she'd been able to create the structure in reality so quickly and how he was able to interpret its meaning as if it was directly inside his brain.

Shrugging that off for now, he asked, "So, why'd he send you out first? I would have figured he'd be gunning for a real body before trying to get you out."

From above and to his left, Degritone heard, "It wasn't intended," in the same voice as Shadrow's voice, specifically his voice, as modified as it is, in the SayMaxWell remix of Spider Girl.

Degritone turned to look at the speaker and he saw himself, but as skinny as he was during high school, wearing a black, stiff-looking cloak that doesn't cover his front half from the collarbone down with arms and a hood, wielding the sword that Yuuta from Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai used, and standing on the edge of the arena. "Chuuni?" Degritone asked.

"Yyyyep," Chuuni said as he jumped down to the arena floor. "I didn't mean for Music to be released first, but," he shrugs. After a few second silence, he continued, "As I was in her portion of your?" He looked over at Music, tilting his head, "Our?" Then he shrugged, "Soul at the time, my work released her first. This time, there was only one direction to 'dig,' so it was definitely going to get us out."

At the word "dig," Chuuni released a memory packet as Music did, though his was far more crude and did not convey anything meaningful. After he had developed the ability to actually speak, Chuuni's skill with memory-speak was significantly reduced over the years, let alone now, when he had to put effort into bringing it into reality alongside encoding the actual message.

Music finally reached Degritone and he bent down and picked her up, lightly squeezing her butt. She chopped his forehead, but lightly smiled. "Anyway, how'd you do that?" He then mentally sent a memory packet at where Music used to be in his mind, encompassing the fight, the fact it was awesome, and the fact that he was incapable of visually damaging the Champion during his whole fight.

Music responded by sending him her race and its relevant skill.

Avatar of Music

+200% Mana regeneration

+50% Mana regeneration from stats

+100% Mana from stats

-20% Health from stats

-50% Health regeneration

-10% Health regeneration from stats

Emit Music Skill

Musical Form Skill

Base 1 Health

Base 10 Health regeneration

Base 15 Mana

Base 50 Mana regeneration

Base 1 Stamina

Base 10 Stamina regeneration

Musical Form lvX

While your Emit Music is active, you take the form that a majority of creatures that have heard the song before associate with the song.

While in Song Form, you gain flat stats based on the total level of all listeners, distributed as your Song Form dictates, as well as relevant Skills. These Skills' levels are equal to your Emit Music's level.

If you fall below zero hit points while in Song Form, you revert to your normal form and this Skill becomes unavailable for a period of time.

1+Level = 16 stats per level of the listeners

86400-Magic*2 = 81304 seconds of Skill unavailability