Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

[Wave 5: Approaching: [Solar Lion Lv 102]]
Spirit Contract Functionality: Active
Core Usage: Disabled
Spirit Fusion: Required
Countdown: 00:10:00...

[Wave 5: Begin]

Archie barely blinked as the System Notification flashed in front of him before being replaced with another. The bodies of two Behemoths steamed behind him, their molten blood already cooling into black, twisted crusts across the arena floor. He shook out his arms in anticipation of the next fight.

Archie took notice of the sudden rise in intensity from the sun that came seconds before the arena's main gate began to open, revealing a massive lion the size of a minivan. It was incredibly muscular, visible even through its thick golden colored fur.

Its golden fur shimmered, each strand catching light like strands of heated wire. Across its shoulders, flickers of gold danced just over its fur, its mane reminded him of the solarfire Tim used back in the mine, the Salvoris Silver Mine.

Archie cracked his neck. "Hopefully, you put up more of a fight," he muttered.

The gate slammed shut behind the Lion with a seismic clang. Dust kicked up in a slow swirl around its legs.

Archie didn't wait.

He shot forward, his Reinforced Deepiron Thornback Boots cracking the scorched sand with every step he took. A snap of his wrist called Thornscourge Expansion out, vines spiraled and coiled into a gauntlet that wrapped from his elbow to knuckles, metal thorns glinting red-hot from the Behemoth kill before.

Ten feet.

Five.

Archie threw the first punch, feinting high.

The Lion ducked low, impossibly fast for its size, before twisting its large form to swipe upward with a forepaw the size of a red benchpress plate. Archie caught the edge of the blow with his arm, but the force launched him sideways, skipping once across the ground before he rolled back to his feet.

"Oh?"

The Lion prowled forward now, measuring him. Its eyes, gold slits glowing like flames of a forge, never left Archie's chest, up until it felt Archie's mana begin to transform into magma mana, from then it lunged straight at him.

Archie met it halfway.

The collision cracked the floor beneath them. The Lion's jaws snapped just past Archie's head, grazing the edge of his shoulder guard, sending bits of magma and ribbons of dyed metal flying. Archie smashed his knee up into the Lion's ribs, it staggered, but only slightly, giving him the opportunity to slam both fists into its flank, directly at where its kidneys should be.

Boom!

The Lion's side rippled moments after he began to release a deep and low growl. Its mane flared up, beginning to be flooded with Solarfire.

Archie reacted almost instantly by creating a mana platform below his feet and flooding his feet with mana and stamina to launch himself away from Solar Lion.

Just as he created a fifty-foot distance gap between them, the Solar Lion let loose a cone of radiant flame that scorched everything around it within a thirty-foot radius. The floor and everything around it caught flame instantly.

Archie skidded across another mana platform he created mid-air, twisting to kill his momentum as he landed low behind a pillar of magma Vul created when fighting the Stormblade Red-Eyed Reaver.

He barely had time to breathe before they began to shift once again, growing hotter with every second that passed.

Solar Lion was already tracking him through the smoke, its mane still spitting out veins of Solarfire like live wires. Each of its steps left burn marks, molten glass craters punched into the floor.

Archie gritted his teeth and tapped the left side of his neck.

He vaulted over the half-melted magma pillar, Thornscourge vines whipping around his arms with a snap, each thorn now pulsing faintly with residual magma mana. Embergrasp Gauntlets hissed as a third punch's worth of flame gathered at the knuckles, heat bleeding through the air.

Solar Lion turned toward him mid-step. The radiant flame from its maw hadn't even fully dispersed. Its mane flared wider, sensing him already on the move.

Archie didn't charge straight forward like how the lion expected him to.

He suddenly vanished from his sight.

Three short blinks, mana platforms snapping into the air beneath him with practiced fluidity. He closed the fifty-foot distance in seconds, angling down, fists cocked back as he rode momentum and gravity straight toward the lion's exposed flank.

Relentless Flurry activated the instant his first punch connected, which incited a barrage of blows that followed.

The blow landed beneath the creature's rib cage, right over the liver, magma-coated thorns digging in just before the next fist followed through to the lower spine. Each hit drew out bursts of radiant blood, hot and white, sizzling across Archie's armor and into his skin, but his wounds rapidly began to heal as Leeching Strikes of Fury leached away the lion's vitality with every strike he sent its way.

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Three, four, five strikes in less than a second. With each strike, Archie felt Hyper Impact gorge down on every sliver of energy his fists created when striking the lion. Embergrasp's flame turned from red to near-white. The heat blurred the air between them.

Then the Solar Lion roared in his face.

The shockwave its roar created sent a massive wave of sound and flame that destroyed the packed sand ground around it and slammed into Archie like a wrecking ball. His bracers caught most of it, Reinforced Bracers of Deflection storing the bulk of the blast as he twisted and absorbed impact. His boots dug into the sand floor as both bracers gained the sigil of a small sun atop them.

He didn't let it finish.

Retaliation surged through his core.

He twisted back in, driving his elbow, coated in Thornscourge, dripping molten magma created by the Spirit Fusion between him and Vul, as well as unleashing Igneous Deflection's Solarfire he'd just absorbed, directly under the Lion's jaw.

The impact snapped its head upward, and he followed through, launching a full-force rising uppercut into its exposed throat, releasing all the stored kinetic shock from Hyper Impact at once.

CRACKKKK!

A sonic boom erupted from the point of contact. The floor cratered deeper. The lion was airborne, lifted off its front legs for a second as its mane flared wildly, sputtering Solarfire in every direction.

Archie let out a brief exhale before he charged toward the lion.

His boots struck the hardened sand ground covered in warped glass shards with as much force as he could muster, the still-airborne Solar Lion catching only the briefest glimpse of the oncoming strike before Archie closed the distance. He twisted low, cutting under the lion's arcing forelimb, then drove a searing hook into the creature's exposed abdomen.

The Solar Lion grunted just as its paws slammed down, anchoring its massive body, but Archie was already out from underneath it.

Another strike came from him, this one a spinning elbow, cracked against the lion's shoulder, the impact buckled its stance for a second.

But that was enough.

Archie surged forward, vines from Thornscourge Expansion coiling tightly around his forearms, drawing strength from the energy created from the Spirit Fusion between him and Vul.

His knuckles beneath his armor looked to be made out of pure magma as he leaned in and unleashed a brutal flurry of blows into the lion's ribcage. Each strike fueled with magma-infused mana, the thorns digging deeper with every connection.

The lion roared while simultaneously rearing back, trying to reposition itself away from Archie.

But Archie refused to let it escape his grasp.

He didn't give the Solar Lion time to breathe. A snap of his wrist sent a flare of magma trailing across the vines, igniting them as they whipped forward. The barbed coils latched onto the lion's flank, and he propelled himself forward.

He spun mid-air, Embergrasp gauntlets glowing white-hot, and slammed both fists into the side of the lion's head just as it turned to counter.

The blow rocked the beast sideways, its mane scattering Solarfire in a chaotic burst all around it. Archie hit the ground, skidding with control, boots biting into the scorched arena floor as he twisted around, never letting up momentum even as the Solarfire pierced through his shoulders.

The lion was staggering.

Its breaths came heavier now, shuddering through its massive frame. Solarfire flickered wildly and unevenly across its mane, no longer the steady burn from before.

Archie didn't wait for it to recover, forcing Vital Metabolism to burn through most of his resources in order to quickly seal up the wounds caused by the Solarfire that managed to pierce through his magma-infused form.

The lion lunged one final time, jaw wide, its radiant fangs gleaming with light so intense it warped the air around it.

Archie met it, step for step.

He ducked under the lunge at the last instant, the lion's fangs cleaving through the air inches above his scalp. As their bodies collided, Archie twisted with every ounce of force his fused body could conjure and slammed his fist up into the lion's sternum to break its rhythm.

The blow snapped the Solar Lion's body backward. Its paws scrabbled for traction against the molten glass beneath them, Solarfire crackling in ragged pulses from its mane.

It snarled.

Archie's mouth curled back to show his teeth.

The two locked eyes.

The air between them thickened.

"Vul," he growled across their shared link, teeth bared as heat curled off his skin like a second atmosphere. "Close your hearing. Now."

There was a flicker of confusion from within.

"Why?"

"Now, Vul. Trust me."

Vul relented with a begrudging grumble, muting his auditory perception down to a pin-drop focus. He rolled his metaphysical eyes, only half-prepared for Archie to let loose some war cry louder than normal.

And then, they both roared.

The Solar Lion's bellow boomed through the arena, a vortex of radiant flame and sheer soul-pressure. Solarfire surged from within its core in response.

But Archie's Primal Roar did not get swallowed.

It drowned everything around him.

A sound that was born not from his lungs, but from the deepest seat of his being, roared out from within him.

Even dulled, even filtered through the shell of their fusion, Vul staggered, not physically, as he resided within Archie's very own soulspace, but his own soul trembled.

For the briefest moment, Vul swore he wasn't fused with Archie anymore. He was standing bare before a massive being that struck him with immense fear.

What is that? Vul thought, stunned, as his very own core trembled.

The Solar Lion froze mid-motion.

Its primal instincts overrode its instinct to kill the man in front of him, the beast shaking visibly under the weight of a presence that did not belong to a mortal man.

But it was too late.

Archie's fist was already cocked back.

Still roaring, still radiating soul-deep dominance, he drove the final punch into the Solar Lion's chest, directly into its core, in a corkscrew of magma-infused force.

The Solar Lion's eyes widened. Its mane fluttered once more in a last flicker of Solarfire… before dimming. Its Solarfire mane slowly sputtered out for a few seconds before it collapsed to its side with a deep, seismic thud that echoed through the arena.

*[Solar Lion Lv 102] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*

Vul slowly began to open his hearing back up, still shaken.

"…what was that, Archie?" he said, voice more cautious than curious.

Archie exhaled hard, letting his shoulders drop, Thornscourge Expansion uncoiling around his arms like relaxed serpents. "Primal Roar," he muttered, flexing his jaw to get rid of the sudden soreness around it. "Didn't think it'd hit you that hard, sorry."

"No, that was on me for not fully closing my senses," Vul paused. "I did not expect… well, I just didn't expect that to come out of you."

The arena suddenly became filled with the sound of clapping as two more System Notifications appeared in front of him.

[Wave 5: Completed!]

Class Selection D-Grade:
You have successfully passed all Trials for selecting Spirit Brawler of Nature as your D-Grade Class.
TRIAL 1: BONDING RITE ✔
TRIAL 2: COMBAT GUANTLET ✔
Reward: Spirit Brawler of Nature as your D-Grade Class
Do you wish to accept your Reward?
Time Remaining 00:10:00

Before Archie could answer, Vul spoke up as he left Archie's soulspace, which in turn deactivated their Spirit Fusion. "Say, Archie…"

"Yeah," Archie answered, his gaze flickering away from the System Notifications and to Vul.

"Do you want to extend our Spirit Contract?" Vul asked.