926 926 Khan's Pride
Huntress Khan stepped forward and yelled at the guards on the large stone wall in front of them. “You, the scrawny being on the wall. Go fetch me your best warrior, I want a decent fight.”
The guards all looked around at each other for a second, clearly insulted at being called scrawny, but eventually, the smallest of them was sent to get the leader of the camp.
This Myceloid wasn’t quite as big as the leader from the last camp, but he was still a fine specimen of the species, standing a full head taller than his peers and looking quite capable of going toe to toe with a Line Mecha.
“Who’s that calling my boys scrawny? Your armour is so thin it might blow away in the breeze, so you must be right puny inside.” The leader shouted as he reached the wall.
“Well, we couldn’t send our biggest warriors here for some nobody camp commander. Come out here and give me a proper fight. I’ll show you what a real warrior fights like.” Khan retorted.
In reality, Khan was one of the largest Hunters, but compared to this species, they were quite lean and rather short.
The Myceloid commander laughed and hopped over the wall, moving the shotgun in his hand to a holster on his back and taking out a pair of hand axes.
“You hear that, boys? We found one who wants to challenge a Boss. This is going to be good.” He laughed.
Once he was close enough that their blades could nearly touch if both opponents reached out, The Commander gave Khan a toothy grin.
“I hope you know the rules. A challenge is a challenge. Only one of us walks away.”
Khan nodded. “It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.”
The twin axes of the Myceloid champion proved to be an incredibly deadly combination, and right from the start, the Hunter Suit was struggling to keep up. While this Boss wasn’t as large as the second in command that Nico had fought, the rippling muscles of its body proved to be hiding an incredibly agile physique.
“Oh, this should be good. Who would have thought that with a body like that, he would be an agility-type fighter?” Nico asked as Khan’s blade batted away another flurry of attacks.
“It just goes to show that we shouldn’t underestimate the hidden skills that these fighters possess. A mass battle doesn’t really let them shine, but one-on-one it looks like they have a lot of hidden skills.
It’s just a shame that we had to see them fall in such large numbers first before we had a chance to see them duel. It really built up a poor impression of them that they didn’t deserve.” Max agreed.
The duel wore on as both sides struggled to get the upper hand. The Myceloid was actually proving to be faster than the Hunter suit, while Khan was the more skilled fighter, and all of the wounds that they had inflicted on each other were superficial and quickly healed by the self-repair function of the Hunter Suit’s biomechanical exterior and the Boss’s innate healing.
None of the Myceloids minded at all, though. An even fight was a good fight, and they had brought out some sort of roast meat to snack on while they sat and stood around watching the duel go on.
They weren’t even cheering for their own side anymore. They cheered for every good strike, jeered and laughed at every misstep, and the sense of pure joy that they were exuding at the fifteen-minute long battle was rapidly improving Max’s mood.
It was just impossible to stay mad when there were so many happy thoughts in his mind, and Max had confidence that skill would prevail, allowing Khan to take advantage of a misstep to defeat her enemy.
For another hour, the furious duel wore on, and Max could tell that both opponents were beginning to get tired. Soon, the battle would be ended, he was certain.
Then, a smaller Myceloid with a long cape and a headdress of broken weapon parts stepped forward from the rest of the crowd.
“It is dark now. The rules say that a daytime fight is a daytime fight, and a night fight is a night fight. If you all want to keep fighting, you need to start over.” He announced.
The two combatants stepped away from each other, and Max could sense Huntress Khan’s confusion. This was supposed to be a battle to the death, were they really going to start over with the challenge just because it got dark?
The big Myceloid she was fighting nodded in agreement with the strangely dressed one and gave Khan a salute with his weapons.
“There is only one challenge per day, so come back another time if you want to see if you can win a night fight.” He declared.
“Yeah. Come back again. You lot started way too late in the day. We weren’t finished watching that yet.” Someone in the crowd roared, making the others laugh.
They weren’t joking, either. They were greatly enjoying watching the fight, and none of them had expected that the Hunter would be able to keep up with their Boss for so long that it would get dark.
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“Your axes are good weapons. I enjoyed this fight.” Khan informed her opponent with amusement in her voice.
“Your little blade isn’t bad either. It needs to be more choppy, though. You’ll never get through my hide that way.” The Boss retorted.
“Then I will bring a bigger one next time we meet.” Khan declared, then walked away from the fighting circle, where their battle had torn apart the earth and turned the region into a churned clay pit.
“Let’s go back to camp. I need to get a bigger sword, and we’ve fought enough for the day. My apologies for taking up all the time that we had.” Khan sighed.
Max waved off her apology. “Don’t worry about it. It was an incredible fight, and I’m not sure that even one of our Mecha can be faster than a Hunter Suit. That wasn’t going to be an easy fight to win no matter who issued the challenge.”