‘I surrender!’ the ulla said desperately when its breaths were mere bubbling gasps, its windpipe partly pierced and getting increasingly crushed. Dominic’s Telepathy picked its words up clearly but he didn’t let go until the notification came through.

  [You have caused one of your opponents to abandon the Challenge. 1/4 challengers of May The Mightiest Win defeated. Kill or force a retreat from the others to win the Challenge.]

  Even once the surrender was formally acknowledged, he still didn’t step back, but for a different reason. Dominic briefly summoned a Healing Cloud, slowly pulling his teeth out of the ulla’s throat and waiting until the healing closed the holes he’d created before releasing it. Though the ulla’s health regeneration should have been able to take care of the wounds, he’d rather not take any chances.

  The ulla looked at him with wondering eyes, his movements finally calming down as it felt a reprieve from death and sucked fresh air into its burning lungs.

  ‘Call your people out of the fight,’ Dominic ordered him firmly. ‘You and yours have lost, death is not necessary.’

  The ulla hesitated for a moment, holding Dominic’s gaze.

  ‘Wait, does the Challenge work like that?’ Leo asked quietly in the back of their mind.

  ‘It does if the participants agree it does,’ Dominic replied with certainty, refusing to look away from the herbivore lying still on the ground in front of him.

  ‘Very well. You have won; I do not wish for more bloodshed between us,’ the ulla answered finally, shaking its head to release its horn from the ground. A pain-filled yelp from Nyx reminded Dominic that the Challenge wasn’t over.

  ‘Then I will speak to you further once this Challenge is over,’ he acknowledged before trotting off. ‘Until then, call off your followers and wait at a distance from the fight.’

  While his eyes took in the three beasts surrounding Nyx, he quickly checked in with Leo to see how the rest of the Pride was doing. Although they hadn’t discussed it, they had wordlessly agreed that Leo would pay attention to the Pride chat so that Dominic didn’t have to be distracted by it while fighting.

  ‘They’re managing well,’ Leo reassured him. ‘The insect-like creatures are a challenge due to their strong defences and how low to the ground they are, but now that the grass-eaters are withdrawing, the pressure is easing significantly.’

  ‘Any deaths?’ Dominic asked, fearing the answer. His fear grew as Leo hesitated. ‘Leo?’

  ‘A few,’ Leo admitted, then continued with fire in his voice. ‘And if you don’t want it to be any more, you’d better finish this Challenge as soon as you can.’

  He had a point.

  Nyx was clearly getting frustrated with the three beasts she was facing. Though they were coming off worse – while Nyx’s health pool was only down by a quarter, the trodil and wild dog’s pools were down by more than half – they were putting up a good fight. The trodil had activated Rage and seemed to also have something that reduced the damage of Nyx’s teeth beyond what his skin and fur should provide. The wild dog clearly had a movement Ability – it just moved far too quickly for it to be otherwise. It darted around Nyx and bit at her back legs, its teeth ripping through even her chitinous plates, though it did little actual damage to her flesh below. Meanwhile, the harash scurried around with surprising speed after how slow it had been in the beginning, biting whenever it could set its beak into her feet or legs and bearing her own attacks with no noticeable difficulty.

  In a battle of attrition, Dominic would definitely bet on Nyx – she was dealing more significant damage less often compared to the frequent but minimal damage her opponents were handing out to her. But he wouldn’t put any money on her winning the fight quickly.

  But that was what he was for.

  Using Camouflage, Dominic crept in slowly, his padded paws making almost no sound on the earth. Preparing his ambush, he sent his ally the knowledge of where he intended to attack.

  She acknowledged it, turning her back on him and striking at the enlarged and angry trodil. The wild dog took the bait, scampering around and biting at Nyx’ heels.

  Dominic struck immediately, Fleet Foot, Quick Strike, and Pounce combining to land an attack which knocked the wild dog off its feet and its health down to the merest sliver. He found himself abruptly grateful that he hadn’t added in a combo of Powerful Strike as he’d been considering – if he could get another ally on his side rather than just a dead wild dog, he would prefer it.

  ‘Surrender!’ he snarled at the wild dog, pinned under one of his paws, the massive limb almost a third of the size of the wild dog’s body.

  ‘I surrender! I surrender!’ the wild dog yelped frantically, gasping desperately for breath. ‘Don’t kill me! I surrender!’

  [You have caused one of your opponents to abandon the Challenge. 2/4 challengers of May The Mightiest Win defeated. Kill or force a retreat from the others to win the Challenge.]

  ‘Good.’ Dominic told it, once more drawing on Healing Cloud to take the wild dog’s health pool out of the danger zone. He then gave the canine the same instructions that he’d given the ulla before him. The wild dog agreed willingly and scampered away fearfully with its tail between its legs, apparently grateful to just get away with its life.

  A moment later, Leo let Dominic know that the remaining wild dogs were also pulling out of the other fight, grouping together to lick their wounds on the sidelines.

  ‘The females have the fight well in paw. Though they’re struggling to cause any damage to the hard-shelled harashes, they’ve found a way of limiting their damage by tipping them into the pit the elves made,’ Leo informed him with a hint of humour. ‘The remaining canines don’t stand a chance.’

  ‘Try not to kill them,’ Dominic hurriedly said in the Pride chat himself. ‘Hopefully they will be allies. Don’t take risks yourselves, but if you can just hold them off until we either kill or force their leader to surrender, it would be better.’

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  ‘Can we use the obstacle you used in the fight with the spider?’ Sekhmet asked him directly. It took Dominic a moment to work out what she meant.

  ‘The shield? Yes, sure. If you can,’ he added, unsure whether it would work if someone else triggered it, but was also pretty certain that the Challenge wouldn’t let him do it on the Pride’s behalf. ‘Pull close together before you try.’

  [A member of your Pride wishes to invoke Pride Defence. Do you agree to this use?]

  Dominic quickly consented, feeling a sense of draining a moment later – apparently it wasn’t just those the shield covered who would lose their defences – which he should have remembered. A moment later, a pained yelp from Nyx made him realise that she had probably been affected too and was caught unaware. A ticking timer appeared in his vision – the time until the shield would forcibly break, he guessed, even if he hadn’t seen it there before. It started at five and a half minutes, but the seconds ticked away faster than normal, sometimes being lost in handfuls instead of one at a time – the effect of being attacked, he had to guess. Time was of the essence.

  Returning his full attention to the fight, Dominic leaped straight into the air as his Spatial Awareness informed him of a moving rock right near his left back foot. The harash’s sharp beak sliced a stinging scratch into the back of his paw, but his quick reaction had done him well.

  Still, the harash wasn’t the focus here – its troops were neutralised for the most part. No, his next target needed to be the trodil leader.

  Stronger and faster thanks to invoking Rage, it had clearly increased the Ability to a much higher level than Dominic’s – not only was its speed and strength increased by a greater percentage than Dominic could hope to achieve, but it was obviously not as lost in the ‘rage’ part either. That at least gave him some hope for the future. Despite its bloodlust, it fought with intelligence, using its speed to avoid Nyx’s attacks and its strength to land nasty bites, for all that it didn’t seem to have any Ability like Rending or Tearing Bite enhancing them.

  Of course, Nyx could have taken it down with her Sonic Attack, and she made it pay with her Vibrating Body whenever it sank its teeth into her. But she’d understood what Dominic intended with this Challenge and had therefore been doing her best not to actually kill her opponents.

  Dominic would have to be careful with it too. He understood the frustration written in every line of Nyx’s body. Killing opponents was one thing; trying to preserve their lives and force a surrender while they had no such self-imposed limits was another.

  ‘Freeze the harash in place, would you?’ Dominic asked Nyx. The ameshek agreed with wordless relief, turning quickly to let out a quiet, almost crooning version of a Sonic Attack – obviously tuned to pin the tortoise-like creature down without doing much to affect its health.

  In return, Dominic took her place in the dance with the trodil leader.

  ‘Your allies are gone. Your pack members are dying,’ he projected to the canine, dodging fluidly out of the way of its next attack. Fast and strong as it might be, Dominic was faster and stronger – even without engaging any enhancements. ‘Surrender now; join me and live.’

  It didn’t respond, only increasing the speed of its attacks even further. Dominic struck out at it with a claw-filled paw, though he didn’t add any enhancements to the blow, the base attack of his claws was as much as he would risk at this moment in time.

  His swipe struck the trodil right across the face, perfectly timed to divert its attack into the dirt instead of Dominic’s face or shoulder. The surface he impacted, however, was far harder than he’d expected – it had felt more like he’d struck a granite boulder with his paw instead of a creature made of flesh and blood.

  Still, the attack had been diverted. Dominic took advantage of it to leap onto the trodil, bearing it to the ground with his greater weight and strength. The trodil resisted Dominic’s attempts to keep it pinned, pushing back and doing its best to slip out of his grip. Rage gave it enough increased power to actually hold the possibility of doing so.

  To prevent it escaping, Dominic struck with Quick Strike, setting his teeth around the back of the trodil’s neck, pinning it in place. His teeth felt as though they were pressing against stone even as his tongue tasted fur and skin.

  The trodil thrashed around, Dominic’s teeth not penetrating whatever was enhancing its skin to protect against his bite. He tightened as a response, slowly increasing the pressure of his jaws. He was pretty sure that he would be able to bite through the trodil’s neck, enhancement or not. And, frankly, he was willing to find out if this stubborn trodil wouldn’t surrender before he did so – the timer for the Pride Defence shield was less than a minute. If this obstinate creature wouldn’t submit in time, maybe its second in command would once it was dead.

  Perhaps the trodil sensed his thoughts; perhaps he even communicated them accidentally in the same way they had spoken before. But even in the middle of Rage it proved itself to be able to have some sense remaining.

  ‘I surrender!’ It growled angrily.

  [You have caused one of your opponents to abandon the Challenge. 3/4 challengers of May The Mightiest Win defeated. Kill or force a retreat from the others to win the Challenge.]

  When Dominic carefully released the trodil, it curled into a ball and shook even as it bared its teeth and growled at him aggressively. It was obviously forcing itself to stay true to its word of surrender, even though Rage hadn’t yet run out.

  Dominic didn’t heal this one – it was too urgent for it to go and call off its pack and it wasn’t as critically injured as the other two had been. Just in time – he forced the shield to drop as soon as it was down to the final three seconds. The trodils which had been attacking only got in a couple more blows before their leader called them off. A third part of the army dealt with and now licking their wounds grumpily on the side lines.

  The final leader didn’t take too long to deal with either. Nyx had done an excellent job keeping it in place. Though she’d started with her Sonic Attack, she’d evidently decided to change tactics – to just standing right on top of the harash.

  Dominic was impressed by just how strong the harash had to be – it wasn’t able to move, but Nyx was also leaning a good portion of her weight on it with both her front paws firmly braced on its back. Even then, it was trying to shift, its legs scrabbling around it desperately.

  At Dominic’s request, the ameshek stepped back. Dominic, inspired by what his Pride had been doing with the rest of the harashes, hooked his paw under the edge of the harash’s upper shell and, before it realised that it was free, flipped it onto its back.

  He was relieved to see that, however insectile its carapace appeared to be, underneath it looked more like the tortoise its beak resembled. It had eight legs which were shaped in an odd mixture between an insect’s and turtle’s. The oddly fluid way it glided across the ground was thus explained. Its head was rather flat in comparison to a tortoise’s and its beak was actually sideways like some mandibles rather than the usual top and bottom. But it had scaly skin and clearly bled red if the small injury his claws had caused were anything to go by.

  It was definitely an odd-looking thing, but not something that Dominic had a squish-on-sight reaction to. Fortunately.

  ‘Your allies have all surrendered. You’re the last. Give up now, give up later, or die. Those are your choices.’

  The creature looked like it was concentrating hard, its wrinkled flat lump of a head still. The next moment, Dominic leaped back instinctively as his Spatial Awareness alerted him to something flying at his head.

  Looking at where it landed, Dominic saw a puddle of a quietly sizzling greenish liquid. Incredulously, he looked at the creature.

  ‘That’s supposed to be my trick!’ He ignored Leo sending amusement at him in the background, the lion now relaxed that the threat facing the Pride members had been reduced to just tipping the harash back into the pit as soon as one managed to crawl out. Dominic focussed on sharing Healing Cloud with Saffron so that that she could start healing everyone up along with Isis – with any luck, she’d be able to gain a level in it and keep it.

  ‘Last chance. It’s surrender now or die,’ he told the harash still rocking from side to side, evidently trying to tip itself back over. Standing over the creature, he let acid drip from his own mouth, the caustic fluid sizzling with much greater intensity on the harash’s partially-armoured underside than the small puddle still lying in the sand nearby.

  ‘Very well,’ the harash answered, sounding slightly pained even as its rocking took on more of a writhing. ‘I am clearly outmatched. I surrender.’

  [You have caused one of your opponents to abandon the Challenge. 4/4 challengers of May The Mightiest Win defeated. ]

  [Congratulations! You have won the challenge: May The Mightiest Win. Would you like to see your rewards?]

  here!