“Why do you all look so excited?” Henry asked with an eyebrow raised. It was quite peculiar to see his women staring at him, looking excitedly and hungrily, but not in the usual sensual manner.

  “Why? Well, it’s because I have been looking forward to this,” Rayne answered with a smile that was tinged with devious intentions. Her tightly clenched fists only enhanced whatever scheme she might have prepared.

  “You are the strongest,” said Ani. “Stronger than everyone and everything I have encountered. A spar with you will be a great measure of my capabilities and potential.”

  “It is an honour to dispy your strength and might to your consorts, my dear Henry,” expined Sarynn.

  “And what about you?” Henry asked, his gaze moved to Yu.

  “Oh, me? I suppose I just want to see you as the bottom for once,” she answered, giggling. “To have you at mercy… it feels very thrilling for some reason.”

  “Well… damn,” Henry sighed.

  “Are you ready, dear?” Rayne asked, crackling her knuckles.

  “I should be asking you that. Do you need more time to discuss and prepare?”

  Rayne snorted. “No need. We have prepared enough. This won’t be too difficult.”

  “Dear me, am I being underestimated here?”

  “We shall see who’s being underestimated here.”

  “I suppose we will. Well then, I’ll let you have the first move.”

  “Fine by me,” Rayne said and shot towards Henry with a kick to the ground.

  “Gravity,” Henry mumbled.

  Rayne dropped to her knees and went grazing across the ground.

  At the same time, Sarynn leapt into the air.

  “Huh… now that I think about it, I haven’t seen much of how Sarynn fights.”

  Then, Sarynn conjured balls of water around her and unched them at Henry.

  “Curious,” Henry muttered and calmly projected his Spell Barrier that blocked all of the water projectiles.

  The mini barrage of water was quickly followed by boulders that were falling towards him, tossed by shadow tendrils.

  Henry shot the boulders down with Firebolts. The rocks exploded into bits and dust, forming clouds of smoke that enveloped him. “You smell nice as always, Ani,” Henry said and spun around, catching Ani’s bde that was aiming for his neck. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “As if you can be killed so easily,” Ani retorted with a grin.

  From behind, Rayne struck with a palm thrust, having broken free of Gravity as a result of the spell weakening from the caster’s loss of concentration.

  Although Henry’s concentration was lost, he did not forget about Rayne. He snted his head, dodging the thrust, and retaliated with a spinning kick.

  Rayne caught the kick with her waist muscles and her elbow. “Got you!”

  With her bde still in Henry’s grip, Ani hopped, twirled, and swung her foot into Henry’s face.

  Stuck in an awkward position, Henry had no choice but to rely on his breath attacks. A strong gust of wind spewed from his open mouth. The stream of high-pressure air struck Ani in the belly and she went sprawling across the ground.

  “How cruel,” Rayne mused

  “She’ll be fine. That amount of strength wouldn’t even give her a bruise, and I made sure to spread the contact surface wide enough to lessen the blow as much as possible.”

  “How kind of you, and that will be the bane of you,” Rayne said and tugged on Henry’s foot, but Henry didn’t even budge.

  “This is… awkward.”

  Rayne tried once more, but she couldn’t make him move even an inch.

  “You can hit hard, but moving a heavy stationery object is another matter.”

  “Screw you,” Rayne spat and threw a fist.

  Henry easily dodged the punch, but he leapt away in the next moment, narrowly avoiding an onsught of shadow tendrils. “I swear, you girls are definitely trying to kill me.”

  “We won’t kill you, Henry,” Yu assured with a devious smile. “We will just hurt you really badly, like how you have hurt us in bed.”

  Henry narrowed his eyes. “You asked for it.”

  “And now we are simply returning the favour.”

  “Oh, bull.”

  “Hope you didn’t forget about me, my dear.”

  Henry ducked just in time to dodge a torrent of water. “You shouldn’t have announced yourself, Sarynn.”

  “That was intentional.”

  Henry turned around, raising his arm just in time to block Ani’s bde.

  “Why do you block if my bde can’t wound you anyway?”

  “Getting hit in the face still hurts, even if no wound will be left.”

  “Good to know.” Smiling, Ani moved in with a flurry of attacks that were all aimed at Henry’s face.

  “Oh, you bi—” Henry had to manifest his wings to shield himself from the bde storm. “You’re aiming for my face.”

  “How about this? If we manage to strike your face, it will be considered our victory.”

  “Fine with me,” Rayne answered and lunged with a series of ferocious punches.

  “Oi, what about my input?”

  “Irrelevant,” Rayne said pinly, but her fists rained down on him fiercely.

  Henry was forced to use his other wing to repel the attacks.

  Shadows crawled across the ground, underneath all the tides of attacks. It crept behind Henry and pounced at him once they were close enough. However, lightning erupted from Henry and burned the shadows away. Even Ani and Rayne were forced to distance themselves from him.

  “Since when were you able to use lightning?!” Ani excimed.

  “For a long time ago. I just never quite got the hang of it, but thanks to Kierra, I think I have gotten much better.”

  Rayne clicked her tongue. “Another woman. Does your lust know no bounds?”

  “Oh, Rayne. Your jealousy is as adorable as always.”

  Rayne grimaced and lunged with both of her fists thrust forward.

  Henry blocked the strike with his wings, but the force behind the thrust sent him skidding backwards a few feet.

  “How’s that for being adorable?” Rayne scoffed.

  Henry shrugged along with his wings. “Still very adorable. You’re my woman, Rayne. I will never not find you adorable.”

  “I am so going to enjoy this when I finally hit your face.”

  Henry grinned. “Looking forward to it, love.”

  Rayne lunged at him once more. She drove a fist straight into Henry’s wings, which he used to defend himself with. From behind, Ani moved in with a wide cut. Henry conjured his tail and parried the bde. Barbed tendrils of shadows rushed at him from both sides. Henry summoned two panes of spell shield, one on each side. The shadows crashed violently into the panes. Though the translucent panes cracked like gss, they also bent like metal.

  “Gravity,” Henry whispered.

  Rayne had anticipated this, but she was still not fast enough to move out of the spell’s range and grasp. She felt her strength submitting to the ground as an unseen force pulled her along.

  Ani was faring worse in this aspect. The spell instantly pulled her to the ground, smacking her knees with the concrete tiles.

  The shadows around Henry dissipated. They re-converged in front of him, in the form of a drill.

  “Well, that’s clever.”

  “Thank you. Now, eat this!”

  Henry didn’t think the shadow drill would pierce his skin or hide, but he dodged anyway as he had no intention of getting drilled. He leapt into the air as the shadow drill tore into the ground where he had just been standing. Shivers crawled down his skin as he lingered in the air. His gaze went to Sarynn, whose cheeks were puffed up. It looked absolutely adorable, but he knew what was to come was the opposite of adorable. Lurching forward, Sarynn belched a stream of high-pressure water at him, much like his very own Jetstream Breath, but instead of air, it was water.

  “Jesus fuck christ!” Henry excimed as he steered himself out of the water jetstream trajectory with his wings. “You too, Sarynn!?”

  “Is it so surprising? I have to pay you back for all that you have done to me in bed.”

  Henry frowned. “You’re holding a grudge over such a thing?”

  Sarynn giggled. “Of course. A woman has her own pride after all.”

  Henry gnced over to Yu, who was smiling wryly and awkwardly. “So, you’re the culprit.”

  “Are you done frolicking?”

  Rayne’s voice stole Henry’s attention. What he saw made his eyes go wide.

  With Yu’s help, a broken-off chunk of the stage was brought before Rayne, who then unched the piece of debris at Henry with a kick. The chunk broke off into smaller pieces as they shot towards him.

  “I’m gonna die if I don’t start taking them seriously.”

  Henry shot down the debris pieces in succession with Firebolts. Immediately after, a rge chunk of boulder was flying towards him, tossed by Sarynn. He forgot just how physically strong Sarynn was as she was always in her slim human form. If she wanted, Henry had no doubts she could even lift the entire stage. Henry shot down the boulder with a concentrated firebolt.

  Ani broke out from the dust and smoke as the boulder exploded into pieces with her sword thrust forward.

  “Clever,” Henry muttered and swatted her away with his wings, but she didn’t fall far as shadows had acted as her foothold, allowing her to make another lunge towards Henry. “Oh, come on!”

  Ani made another thrust. Henry swatted her away once again. And again, the shadows stopped her complete descent to the ground. She unched herself at him once more. This time, she was not alone. Rayne was creeping up on him from behind.

  “You all have to stop aiming for my six,” Henry grumbled.

  “Cease your quibbles,” Rayne scoffed and thrust both of her fists at Henry.

  “Cease your hostility, then,” Henry retorted. He twirled as the fists reached him. Instead of striking his face, the fists cshed with Ani’s bde. The two ended up repelling one another.

  “This is impossible,” Yu mused. “You’re just full of cheats.”

  “As much as I hate to admit it, my defeat is not unattainable by all of you. You haven’t even given it your all.”

  “Right back at you, Henry. You’re still treating us like a bunch of fragile teapots with your theatrics.”

  “In that case, allow me to up my theatrics.” Henry assumed his humanoid dragon form.

  “Ah… maybe I said too much.”

  Sarynn nodded. “Indeed, you have. But at least things are finally getting interesting and serious.”

  Rayne clicked her tongue. “You should have done this from the start.”

  “Oh, my dear sweet Rayne. You have severely overestimated yourself. Perhaps it’s time I put you in your rightful pce.”

  “I would like to see you try.”

  Henry smirked and unleashed a piercing roar. A torrent of fmes burst forth from Henry’s agape mouth.

  Rayne couldn’t help but widen her eyes. She didn’t expect Henry to use this ability on all things. She had no means to defend herself against such a devastating attack. Fortunately, she was not alone.

  Sarynn swooped in in her true form, the Azure Serpent. She wrapped around Rayne without constricting her and repelled the fmes with her own breath attack, a torrent of water bst.

  As the fmes and water cshed, the area exploded into clouds of steam and vapour. From within the thick clouds, a radiant crimson glow grew rger and rger as the fmes gradually overwhelmed the dwindling water torrent. Sarynn was no match for the fmes of a true dragon.

  “It’s time for you to shut your mouth,” Yu cried and sent her shadows after Henry.

  Ani also made her move.

  The two went for Henry while his focus was on Sarynn.

  Instead of stopping his breath, Henry turned his fmes towards Yu, spraying his fmes in a wide arc. Yu’s eyes turned as wide as they could upon seeing her shadows getting incinerated into nothing by the fmes. She felt the touch of death. She heard its voice, beckoning her soul. However, no such premonition came true. The fmes disappeared before reaching Yu.

  Henry smirked. “So, you’re finally showing yourself, Kierra.”

  “Couldn’t let you kill your own woman, could I?” said Kierra as she appeared from the trees that surrounded the sparring area. “What if I didn’t decide to show myself? What then? Are you going to kill her?”

  “As if my woman could be killed so easily. Besides, I had confidence that you would show yourself.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you’re not as heartless as you believed yourself to be, Kierra.”

  “What makes you think I had such a deprecating opinion of myself?”

  “I’ll answer that if you can y a scratch on my face.”

  Kierra snorted. “I can see why your women are so eager to take you down, you arrogant son of a bitch.”