Chapter 102: Malric Vs The Other Hybrid

Narrator

Gasping, Malric dug his bloody fingernails into the wet stone, dragging his trembling upper body off the ground. He hauled one leg under himself, then the other, staggering up like a wounded beast. Blood ran down his face, blinding his left eye, but his remaining blue eye burned with fury.

He roared, throwing a furious, wild combination, a left jab, a right cross, a brutal roundhouse elbow.

Jax didn’t even bother to block. He absorbed the jab to his ribs with a dull thud, took the cross straight to his cheek, and let the elbow graze his collarbone. The blows left bruised, dark welts on his skin, but Jax simply stepped through the barrage

Jax’s hand darted through Malric’s weak guard, burying a lightning-fast jab directly into Malric’s broken nose.

CRACK.

Malric’s head snapped backward. Pain flared across his face, hot and blinding, as cartilage shattered completely. Before he could recover his balance, Jax slammed a spinning back-kick straight into Malric’s gut.

The force sent Malric sliding ten feet back across the bloody stone, his boots leaving dark streaks on the rock as he barely kept himself upright. He was wheezing, coughing up dark globs of blood, his face reduced to a swollen, crimson mask of agony.

Jax walked toward him with terrifying strides, wiping a drop of Malric’s blood from his own cheek.

"You keep getting back up," Jax murmured, stepping into striking range as Malric feebly raised his guard. "It’s almost impressive... if it weren’t so pathetic."

Jax delivered a brutal, downward hammer-fist straight to Malric’s shoulder. Malric’s collarbone snapped with a sickening pop, forcing him down onto one knee. Jax didn’t give him a second to breathe, he hooked a heavy, violent knee into Malric’s jaw, launching the prince backward onto his spine.

Malric rolled onto his stomach, coughing hysterically, his blood pooling beneath him on the stone ring. His vision was spinning wildly, the sky and the lake blurring into a dizzying streak of dark grey and red. He couldn’t feel his left arm anymore. His chest felt completely crushed.

Yet, as Jax stepped over his trembling form, Malric’s hand twitched against the wet rock, his fingers clawing at the stone as he tried to drag himself up once more.

Deep beneath the surface of the lake, the water was freezing and suffocating.

Aina kicked her legs frantically, her lungs burning as she searched through the murky green depths. Her hands brushed against fabric, and she grabbed hold of Keali’s jacket just as he began sinking deeper from the heavy weight of the point-sacks still slung over his shoulders.

She grabbed the leather sacks from his belt to lighten the load, and together, kicking with all their remaining strength, they broke the surface of the water, gasping for air as they clung to the stone platform.

Aina wiped water and blood from her eyes, looking up at the platform above. Malric was losing badly. He was stumbling backward, his face unrecognizable beneath a mask of crimson, gasping for breath as Jax closed in for the final kill.

Beside her in the water, Keali spat out a mouthful of lake water, his eyes locking onto the brutal scene above. He looked at Aina with a plan in mind.

"You take him on the left, I’ll take the right," Keali rasped.

Aina stared at him, panicked. "What?!"

"Come on!"

Working with desperate speed, they hoisted the heavy point-sacks onto their own belts, hauled themselves up and scrambled back onto the edge of the platform. Keali lunged forward, trying to tackle Jax from behind. It was a miserable failure. Jax didn’t even turn around; he simply reached back, grabbed Keali by the back of his collar while still maintaining his grip, and hoisted him effortlessly into the air.

Right before Jax threw him off the bridge a second time, Keali locked his eyes directly into Jax’s cold blue gaze.

"You’re dead but your soul is alive," Keali whispered quietly through bleeding lips.

Yeet. Jax hurled him backward into the void.

As Keali flew through the air, Aina rushed forward from behind, swinging a heavy leather sack of glass spheres with all her might, smashing it squarely against the back of Jax’s head.

CRASH.

Jax staggered forward, the impact throwing him off balance. He spun around, his hollow, terrifying eyes locking onto Aina. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Oh, no," Aina whispered, her blood running completely ice-cold as she froze in her tracks.

A few feet away, Malric was crawling across the bloody stone, his bleeding fingers desperately reaching out to snatch Jax’s dropped point-pouch. His fingers brushed the leather, almost having it, when his eyes suddenly caught sight of Jax turning his full, murderous attention toward Aina.

Malric froze.

From the sidelines, cutting straight across the mental bond like a jagged lightning bolt, a frantic voice echoed inside Aina’s head:

Get out of there, Aina! RUN!

It was Roiner’s voice, ringing with panic. But Aina couldn’t move. Her feet were cemented to the bloody stone, paralyzed by the terror radiating from the monster standing before her. Jax raised a clawed hand, a sadistic grin stretching across his stolen face as he lunged toward her for the kill.

Before his claws could touch her skin, a bruised, bloodied blur exploded from the side.

Malric launched his entire broken body between them. With a fierce, desperate roar, Malric pushed directly into Aina’s waist, sending her flying backward off the edge of the platform to splash safely down into the deep water below.

Jax stumbled back, letting out a dark, mocking laugh as he looked down at Malric. "Oh... so you have a soft spot for the girl, do you?" Malric spat a glob of blood onto the stone, pulling himself up onto his knees. "How... how do you know..."

"I’m not blind, prince," Jax sneered. "Enough of this," Malric growled, his voice dropping as he began to shift.

Deep beneath his skin, a sickening sound echoed across the platform, the violent, agonizing cracking of heavy bones breaking and realigning. A true Alpha wolf rising to the surface slowly with every cracking bone. Jax’s smile vanished. His arms folded tightly, his blue eyes narrowing with cold malice. "Not today. I don’t think so."

In a display of sadism, Jax moved with blinding speed to disrupt the shift. His fingernails instantly elongated into thick, jagged, obsidian-like claws. Before Malric’s bones could fully lock into place, Jax lunged forward and buried his claws deep into Malric’s upper arm.

Because Malric’s bones were soft and malleable during the agonizing process of shifting, the flesh offered zero resistance.

Riiiiip.

The sound of tearing muscle and skin made the entire crowd scream in horror. Jax literally pulled the flesh and tissue right off Malric’s arm, shredding his skin with a smile. With grotesque, cruel strength, Jax violently twisted and reshaped Malric’s bleeding veins and bone fragments to his own twisted accord, reshaping his entire body randomly and there was nothing malric could do cause he was still mid-shift in a state between man and wolf.

Gasps and terrified shrieks echoed from the viewing stands. Several noble students threw up on the grass.

Jax didn’t stop. He raised his blood-soaked hand, his long claws gleaming in the sunlight, and locked his terrifying gaze onto Malric’s face. "I didn’t really want to do this part," Jax whispered, his voice dripping with venomous glee. "But someone... wants this."

With a sickening lunge, Jax drove his hand forward, burying his sharp claws straight into Malric’s right eye socket.

"Aaaagh!" Malric screamed, a sound of pure, ungodly agony tearing from his throat.

PA-CHING! PA-CHING! PA-CHING!

Emergency whistles screamed frantically through the air from every corner of the lake. Senior instructors sprinted across the stone bridge, their voices roaring in unison: "STOP! MATCH OVER! STOP THE FIGHT!"

Jax ignored them completely. He didn’t stop. With a sickening squelch, he wrenched his hand back, holding Malric’s bloody eye in his claws. The crowd recoiled in absolute horror, screaming in revulsion as Malric or what was left of him in his deformed shape collapsed backward onto the stone, clutching his ruined face in a pool of his own blood, gasping weakly as Jax prepared to break him piece by piece.

Before Jax could bring his claw down for the final, fatal strike, a sudden, heavy weight slammed violently into his back. Jax grunted, staggering forward from the unexpected impact.

He whipped around, his claws raised to slash, only to freeze.

Standing soaked to the bone and shivering violently, was Aina. She had hauled herself back up onto the platform from the water. In her hands, she was holding a heavy, overflowing sack of point-spheres she had managed to snatch straight off the unconscious, forgotten Max and her teammates while swimming up.

She slammed the heavy leather bag right down onto Jax’s chest with a trembling sob.

Jax looked down at the bag that hit his chest and fell to the ground. Then, he looked up at Aina, his jaw tightening slightly annoyed as the official emergency buzzer wailed across the valley.

"Oh... come on," Jax hissed bitterly.

Above them, the grand scoreboard flared to life, flashing a brilliant, blinding gold.

WINNER: TEAM FANG.