The Moon Goddess' Chosen

427 A Monster’s monster

The Lycaon pack watched in anticipation as the two prominent warriors went head to head in a battle to see who was stronger and who was more suited to accompany the king on the harrowing Trials.

Caden was circling the ring, keeping a close eye on the werewolf mirroring his actions and panting with exhaustion. The battle had gone on for a while with neither of them seeming to land a decisive blow on the other.

The beta alpha’s eyes were trained keenly on the opponent in front of him.

As if staring into a mirror, Kyle the Hulking rookie alpha was also circling the ring, his actions a reflection of Caden’s footwork.

The two of them were currently locked in a stalemate, having broken this deadly dance of fists a few times before. Both of them had survived getting defeated by deadly blows by a wolf’s whisker.

As a result of their elevated combat expertise, none of them had been able to land a decisive blow. Knowing a blow was decisive in and of itself was turning out to be a difficult task.

Kyle was large and could take more of a hit than Caden had given him credit for while Caden’s healing wasn’t getting any slower. It was only when the duel had gone on for a while that Kyle had remembered a lesson on healing once...

‘A werewolf’s healing will double or even triple its normal rate depending on their will to survive and their determination to come out on top. It’s what makes a lone wolf so deadly,’ the lesson had come from none other than his mentor himself.

True lone wolves were rare, but the man had meant this term metaphorically. Werewolves like Caden, who often kept to themselves and shouldered their ambitions without expecting anyone else to help them carry the burden... that’s what the alpha had meant by a lone wolf. It was no doubt this man had incredible regenerative capabilities.

.....

Since this was a duel between two friendly wolves and not something that was as severe as honour or a mate, none of them was expected to use their claws or teeth to fight. They could tap into their insane reserves of supernatural strength, but that was about all the help they could get from their wolves.

In the first moments of the battle, the audience had noticed Kyle break his mentor’s ribs with a deafening round kick and they’d also noticed the miraculous healing speed that alpha Caden possessed.

After that incident, Caden had become more careful and in some ways, even more deadly, making it hard for Kyle to find an opening to make a decisive blow without risking his own skin.

Each of them ran simulations of what methods would be best to bring down their opponents, but the more the duel dragged on, the harder it seemed to get. Caden was armed with battle experience and the ability to instinctively predict all of Kyle’s moves with deadly precision. In addition to that, Kyle’s attack power wasn’t to be taken lightly.

From Kyle’s perspective, if he dropped his guard just once, it would spell his defeat by the end of this duel... and a boatload of paperwork for the entirety of the Royal Games.

During their previous entangles, Caden had gotten close to pinning him twice despite the difference in their strength and the sudden change in the cadence of the fight damaged his confidence severely.

Kyle smirked, “You’re being careful. It seems you’re starting to see who’s really the stronger one here. It’s important to know when you’re outmatched.” A hole in his confidence had nothing to do with his recently acquired arrogance.

“Oh, don’t get ahead of yourself, Rookie. I was only trying to see if you’d actually learnt something in the better part of the two years that we’ve spent together and offered you an opening. And you have been learning,” Caden spat back, “I’ll stop going easy on you now.”

Kyle chuckled at the comeback and sprung forward, breaking their endless circling motion once more and heading straight for Cole’s beta alpha.

Caden was quick on his feet and sidestepped again, dodging the man’s fist by a hair, this time though, Caden had put some thought into his movements and reactions, choosing to fight with more than just instinct but a bit of wit as well.

Kyle was shocked when the man stepped to the left and not to the right like he had done many times before during their duel... ‘Had that been intentional so he could use that against me at some point?’

The rookie alpha didn’t get the time to think through such questions as his opponent was still not done. To Kyle’s disadvantage, he was still stuck with the momentum of having missed Caden completely. His guard was completely down.

Caden was changing the flow of his actions to throw Kyle’s predictions off. Without wasting any more time, the seasoned warrior followed through with the smooth footwork and form that had been trained into his bones and that allowed him the time to deliver a full-force kick to Kyle’s exposed torso in the next fraction of a second.

In a matter of seconds after Kyle had launched into an attack, the colossal beta alpha was soaring towards the ropes. The pain of getting his stomach kicked that hard screamed through his gut so loud that dark stars started to dot his vision.

The rookie alpha gritted his teeth and turned his back on the elastic ropes, landing neatly in their embrace. ‘He’s good... really good... but how? No, I have to focus,’ there was no time for Kyle to have such thoughts. ‘I’m not staying behind on office duty...’

Kyle used the push he gained from stretching the ropes outward to fly back in through the air and deliver an unexpected spear to Caden’s gut. The beta alpha was a second too late to evade him and had the wind knocked out of him.

The two men went flying shortly before crashing in the centre of the ring. Roars erupted from the crowd of pack warriors that had been watching this happen. This was exactly what Caden had been hoping to avoid all through their battle. A wrestling match with a beta alpha as massive as Kyle wasn’t a good way to go about winning this duel.

“Damn you, boy. You won’t get the best of me,” Caden complained as Kyle tried to restrain him. With the wind knocked out of him, Kyle had the upper hand while Caden was disoriented. Kyle got to work restraining his mentor. He flipped him so he was facedown and grabbed his arm with the intention of twisting it till the man surrendered.

While Kyle wasn’t skilled in this part of combat, he had grown considerably stronger than the boy that Katie had taken under her wing. Kyle was even considered stronger than the other beta alphas, but this was in terms of brute strength.

In battle, this wasn’t the only factor that would guarantee victory which was why determining who would win this duel was so hard to do. Against Kyle’s strength, Caden pushed himself up with his free arm, throwing the man off him before he could completely loop his arm behind his back.

Kyle landed on his feet a few meters away from Caden before dashing forward. The rookie had finally seen it... an opening. Caden was still disoriented and Kyle wasn’t planning on allowing Caden any time to regain his composure.

The rookie alpha lunged for him a short second after hitting the ground, with his fist aimed for Caden’s face, ‘I could...’

The thought was cut short when Caden shifted slightly, but in a very calculated movement that meant the difference between a clean hit and a complete miss. Kyle, having not expected it, met the full force of an uppercut from the King’s beta alpha, “I said, don’t get ahead of yourself.”

The crowd picked up again with a loud roar... This was more entertainment than anyone in the whole room had been hoping for. Even after all the times that these two had sparred during their training. It had never seemed this competitive and the fights were never this impossible to predict.

“He’s doing well, isn’t he?” Jason’s voice broke the king’s focus on the duel.

“Oh?” Cole broke out of his trance from watching the fight and turned to his other beta alpha. Jason wasn’t in the ring anymore, but no one had noticed him leave the ring. The fight was far too enchanting to allow them a minute to blink.

“Yeah, he is doing well. I’ve heard rumours...”

“Oh? What about?” Jason stood next to his alpha and turned to face the duelists with amazement in his eyes.

“They say he’s even stronger than you.”

“It was one arm-wrestling match, Cole...” Jason huffed. The king raised a brow at him.

When it was clear the king was not buying his fake excuse, he sighed. The blonde turned back to the match, “Yes, he is stronger than me but his technique in a fight is still too unrefined to actually defeat me in battle. With a little...” Jason stopped talking when he watched Kyle deliver a deadly right hook to the side of Caden’s face.

Jason’s hand unconsciously flew to his left cheek where a slight burning sensation made itself known to him.

The pain from his comrade rippled through the connection he held with him as a beta alpha giving him all he needed to know that it hadn’t been a simple hit. Caden, without any more strength left, collapsed at Kyle’s feet and fell to the ground in a heap. He was unconscious.

Jason muttered more to himself, “I guess a monster can only have a monster for a servant.”