The stag stomped on him. It was a hoof the size of a dinner table descending with the force of a collapsing building.

  And thus, Theodore didn't bother to dodge. Standing there with his arms spread wide and letting the massive beast drive him into the dirt was surprisingly fun. Being in partial slime form was proving to be interesting.

  He was basically unkillable.

  The world went dark, then wet, then surprisingly his vision widened.

  He was a puddle on the ground. The stag snorted. Pawing at the ground likely confused why the crunch hadn't sounded like bones breaking. It lowered its antlered head to sniff the residue.

  Theodore waited until the nose was close then shot a tendril of slime straight up into its nostril.

  The beast reared back, shaking its head violently. Slime retracted, hardened, and stacked upward. Bones snapped into place, flesh knit over them, and within seconds he was standing again.

  "Round two, you oversized!"

  The antlers hit him dead center.

  Theodore felt himself scatter like a dropped bucket of water.

  Aw man.

  He splashed against the beast's forehead, dripped down its muzzle, and pooled around its hooves.

  The stag froze. It looked around searching for the enemy. Stomping the puddle furiously it moved sniffing about trying to find him. Theodore flowed way. Realizing the futility of fighting a liquid, the stag gave a frustrated huff and trotted away. Looking for something that would actually die when killed most likely.

  After all Theodore had been annoying it for quite a while now.

  Theodore just lay there. A puddle of translucent blue-ish goo in the underbrush. Recovering his mana. In this partial slime state his body burned through mana a lot. As always it was surprisingly comfortable, not needing to hold up a spine. No need to breathe.

  A finger poked him.

  It went right into his surface and swirled around.

  "Fascinating," Freya said.

  Theodore rippled. He didn't have a mouth right now so he tried to vibrate the air to speak, but he was not skilled enough to do that. He had to form a mouth. He concentrated, bubbling up a small mound on the surface of his pool.

  "I'm resting."

  "It really is bizarre. You have no organs." Ignoring his protest and poking him again. She lifted her finger, watching a strand of him cling to her skin before snapping back into the main body.

  "I am the peak of evolution," the puddle burbled.

  "You're a snot rag on the forest floor, Theo."

  "A dangerous snot rag."

  Freya crouched down, resting her chin on her knees, staring at him with genuine bewilderment. "I still cannot believe this is your reality. I would imagine most would want to harden their bodies, turn their skin to iron or dragon scales. You decided to become… this."

  "It makes me immune to blunt force trauma."

  "If I had a bucket, I could kidnap you and you couldn't do a thing about it."

  "Uh… I would bite you?"

  "With what teeth?" She poked the little mound he was using to talk. It wobbled indignantly. "How are you thinking? Where is the thought coming from? If I separated a piece of you, would it have its own thoughts? Would I have two Theos? That sounds like a nightmare."

  "I don't think it works like that. Also, rude."

  Theodore decided he had been a puddle long enough.

  Drawing inward the slime rising up surprised Freya enough she leaned back as he took shape. Legs formed then a torso, then his head.

  "It works," Theodore said. "The stag couldn't hurt me. It's a perfect defense against brute force."

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  "Until you meet a fire mage who boils you. Or an ice mage who freezes you into a statue. Then they just shatter you."

  "It doesn't work like that. Anyway, the stag is getting boring. It gave up too easily."

  "Congrats, you annoyed a wild animal until it left."

  "A win is a win. Well, I've wasted enough time. I should probably go back, gotta fight in the match."

  ***

  To be honest with you, I thought I'd get paired with Peter or one of his other "friends" if I wasn't paired with Garrett or Caleb or Jason, not Victoria." Theodore nodded at Victoria's scowling face in the distance as he talked with Freya.

  "Peter got eliminated." Freya informed him.

  "Wait really?"

  She rolled her eyes. "No."

  "Aww."

  "He was banned from the tournament. After the second event he grew more feral and I don't know what took over him decided to attack some people participating in the tournament."

  "The organizers didn't like that I take it?"

  "Yep."

  "I see."

  That was… unexpected. Or expected perhaps. He was kind of disappointed. Peter would've been a fun guy to fight. He was a bit psychotic, sure, but he would've been a fun guy to fight.

  It was unfortunate, the third event was drawing toward the end. The brackets were small enough he was actually interested in looking at the names of his opponents now, thus how he found out about Victoria being his opponent.

  ***

  The referee checked both fighters, raised a hand, held the tension for a heartbeat, and chopped it down.

  As he thought, there wasn't going to be a back and forth between them. She disliked him way too much for that. Not that her dislike wasn't justified.

  A lance of condensed frost was upon Theodore's throat the moment the match started. He kept his eyes wide. Cleaving the lance in two before it could touch his reinforced skin. The two halves of the icicle whistled past his ears. Interestingly, she was pretty fast in fact she was much faster than the others he'd fought so far.

  Ignoring the failure of her opening, she was sliding across the arena floor on a path of ice she conjured beneath her. Finally someone who didn't scream their attack names like a toddler presenting a drawing to a parent. Staring at him with that frigid gaze. It was refreshing.

  Theodore leaned back, dodging a blade of ice. How cold, but [Mana Reinforcement] currently circulated through him.

  [Mind Division]. Activation came as naturally as breathing after many days of practice. His consciousness fractured, splitting into three distinct primary partitions, which then frayed further into dozens active threads. Time marched on at its usual pace, but his processing speed skyrocketed making it seem slowed to a crawl to his perception.

  Predicting her slide before she completed the step he dodged out of the way already having sliced her with her own ice shard he grabbed before he realized. Even so she managed to mitigate the damage somewhat interestingly enough. She was actually very good.

  She possessed genuine skill. So he let her show him her all, as he wanted a good fight and it wouldn't be fun if he ended it right at the start. Changing tactics, she formed a gauntlet of jagged ice over her right arm and tried to take his head off.

  His fist connected into her ribs but a sheet of ice had materialized over her side the instant before impact. His knuckles shattered the outer layer, but the force was dispersed. How fortunate for her he hadn't even used mana to enhance that strike of his. She grunted when his vastly weak punch connected anyway sliding backward her eyes widening a fraction.

  "You are sturdy." Theodore noted aloud.

  She slammed her palms onto the ground.

  Theodore jumped before the forest of ice spikes erupted from the stone floor where he had been standing. He landed on the tip of one of the spikes, balancing on one foot looking down at her.

  "A bit rude," he said.

  Victoria scowled. Got cracks in your icy facade didn't I. Theodore repressed a smile as she swept her hand upward, and the spikes elongated, shooting toward him like seeking missiles.

  He kicked off, flipping backward through the air. While inverted, he fired three [Mana Bolts]. Explosions of pure mana kicked up dust and debris as the [Mana Bolts] hit the ground rather than the woman in question because she dodged out of the way.

  She remained unfazed and charged. Now this was a fight. He landed and met her charge. He relied on his hands. [Severing Aura] coated his hand. She grit her teeth realizing what he was doing and the frost around her deepened. The temperature in the arena plummeted. Frost began to crawl up his legs as he instinctively felt what this was.

  It was everywhere. A [Freezing Aura]. A contest of auras was it. She was trying to override his personal space with hers, forcing the environment to reject him. His movements grew sluggish for a fraction of a second as the joints of his human form fought against the creeping paralysis of the cold.

  Cute.

  The frost on his legs flaked away, and the air around him flickered as [Severing Aura] created a no-fly zone for her magic.

  He walked toward her. She sent a wave of frost. He cut it. She fired a volley of ice darts. He slapped them out of the air, shattering them before they could make contact.

  He was enjoying this and she was frustrated.

  "Die!" she shrieked.

  Finally, some emotion. A swirling vortex of snow began to coalesce above them. Visibility dropped to zero. He stood in the eye of the storm maintaining a sphere where her [Freezing Aura] couldn't touch him. She was panting, her arms trembling with the effort of maintaining such a massive construct. She looked like she'd won, expecting him to be ripped apart.

  He reached out with his mana and seized her storm. It was a tug-of-war, her will against his. He wrenched control away from her. Victoria stumbled forward as if a rope she pulled suddenly snapped. The storm above them froze in place and then flattened against the ground.

  "You… That's my..."

  The temperature crashed under his command and in the air above him, ice began to form. Spears. Javelins. Lances. Needles. Spinning slowly in the frigid air. Ten. Fifty. One hundred.

  Two hundred.

  "Dodge," Theodore advised.

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