“I will fight him!”

Url, on the ground, groaned, “What’s he saying Incha.”

“Ummm, he said, umm, he will fight him.”

Oh right, the spirit elf can translate, it will be easier to talk to groups this way.

But this doesn’t seem fair at all, I mean, almost all my stats are in the thousands, and he’s a normal Chocobo, meant to be ridden, and I’m a war demon Chocobo, meant for battle.

“Son, do you accept my challenge?!?!”

A little cliche, don’t you think?

"You have been challenged to a sacred duel." "Would you like to accept."

Yep, dad is cliche.

"Duel accepted." "Your opponent is LVL (hidden for sacred duel) Shadow Chocobo." "Demand: Will leave the village for a month and come back stronger." "Would you like to make a demand?"

What no, I didn’t want to accept.

People start to make a circle around us.

"No demand set." "Would you like to see your chances to win?"

“500 equi for Shadowstealer.”

“1000 equi to Shadowstealer”

“3000 equi on Shadowstealer.”

They're betting on this, is that legal, whatever, sure, I’m stuck in this anyway, let me see the chances.

"Chances to win: 50%

What the heck does that mean, are we equal strength.

"Sacred duel starting in 5...4...3...2...1...GO!"

I activate mind acceleration and magic armor.

Then I see dad running really fast towards me, his shadow moving faster than he is towards me.

I jump to dodge his shadow, then he kicks me while I’m in the air, my magic armor nearly breaks.

I deactivate magic armor, then reequip it to get rid of the damage, dad is circling me while this happens.

He starts running towards me using the same tactic as before.

I use pepper breath thinking that its light will get rid of his shadow.

I run towards him to catch him while he is dodging the breath, but he dodges before I could get there and catches me in his shadow.

A purple haze flows out of his mouth.

It doesn’t catch me, but I suddenly feel ill, kinda like the snake's poison, but not as bad.

I feel kinda woozy, my vision blurs.

I try using recovery magic.

"Recovery Magic healed Poisoned lungs 96% recovery."

He poisoned me? But how, the smoke never touched me.

His shadow.

I try running away from his shadow, but dad runs at the same speed I do.

I feel like the poison is knocking me out, I will lose at this rate.

I run back and try to use flamethrower, my first attempt at the skill.

Fire gushes out of my mouth creating a stream of fire, making some of the villagers have to dodge.

Sorry.

But it is unsuccessful as dad dodges with the grace of an acrobat.

Dad then shoots lightning out his mouth and hits himself.

I stop in my tracks as I am unable to move.

He paralyzed me.

I look back at dad to see he isn’t moving either, did he paralyze himself as well?

He starts walking towards me, well that theory goes down the drain.

His shadow still attached to me he kicks me.

I go flying back in pain and then see him flinch.

“Dang kid, you need to up your VIT.”

What? Why do I need to up it?

“Since you had no way to know this, I will tell you, my sloth title gets rid of any need to level up, it’s the perfect title for me, it gets rid of any hard work I needed to do to fight, all I need is for the opponent to underestimate me and then I kick the crap out of them.”

Where’s he going with this.

“I have fought many creatures with this title, many dragons, many behemoths, but I have never lost, it almost gets boring, using the same strategy over and over, but I had higher hopes for you, you said you took an army all by yourself, I thought you could make me change it up a little, but no, your the exact same as everyone else, you underestimated me, and you lost. My title Sloth forces me to copy my opponent's stats.”

He’s never lost? How am I supposed to win against that, he has the same stats as me and has lived for more than twice as long, as well as being an affliction specialist.

I’m totally outclassed.

But has that stopped me before?

Who cares if he’s more experienced, who cares if he’s never lost, all that matters is that I win right here and right now.

I get up and notice I’m glowing red, that's new, dad backs off.

“Yes, give me the fight I dreamed of.”

His shadow is still connected to me, I activate shadow manipulation, our shadows touch.

I don’t know what to do next, so I think if I move I’m going to die.

He doesn’t even flinch.

“Too weak, not enough oomph.”

“Ok then, what about this?”

I use mp manipulation to boost my shadow.

Then I see my shadow visibly push his back until our shadows are in the middle pushing against each other.

Neither of us are moving right now, just focusing on our shadows battling it out.

I put more MP into the shadow as I push his shadow back to him.

Now what? Well he puts status effects on his opponents, and burn is a status effect, so why don’t I try burning myself.

That’s totally logical, right?

I use flamethrower on myself and immediately regret it.

It burrrrrrrrns!!!

Dad flinches, but only for a second, he then attacks me and I nearly faint.

“How disappointing, my mate is a Fire Chocobo, and yet you thought I wouldn’t have fire resistance.”

He kicked me and I blacked out.

______________________________________________________________________________

Father’s POV

That fire burned me, he got me, but my Pain Immunity skill helped me face through it to knock him out, but now he is banished for a month, I guess I have to move him myself.

“Why in Ilragorn would you want to send him out in the woods fainted.”

“Trust me, I know his stats, he won’t die out there if he’s not stupid.”

“What happens if he dies.”

“Then he wasn’t strong enough.”

She uses pepper breath on me.

“Ouch, what the hell was that for, you know fire is my lowest resistance.”

“You didn’t tell him that.”

I think for a minute.

“Don’t worry, I’ll leave him in a spot he won’t be seen.”

“You promise?”

“On my title Sloth.”

I run off into the forest near a spot I know is safe.

The nest FlashFire and I made.

I got there in less than twenty minutes, having to use my own stats sucks, I only have around 500 speed and strength, low for my level.

I usually make Sholl my enemy and pretend to be chasing him.

It makes my stats go up to 800 which is Sholls speed, but I have never even seen a speed as high as Kwehzalcoatls, or as high as any of his other stats, his stats are insane, I would have lost badly if it wasn’t for my Pride title.

I look in the nest to find a humongous suvunkta staring at me.

It’s Suvunkilbub.

I fall backwards and drop Kwehzalcoatl.

Suvunkilbub catches him and flies away.

What am I going to tell FlashFire?

Wait no, I should copy Suvunkilbub’s stats and fight for Kwehzalcoatl back.

I look up and they are already gone.

“Well ----.”

I get back home, or what was home, to see that FlashFire is still there, waiting for me, guilt starts filling me.

I should start the conversation, to try to make it look less bad.

“Well, you se-.”

“Suvunkilbub took Kwehzalcoatl, right?”

My beak dropped, “how did you?”

“Suvunkilbub stopped here first, scaring everybody, but just left, my guess was that it was looking for Kwehzalcoatl.”

“What did Kwehzalcoatl do to Suvunkilbub?”

“Suvunkilbub named Kwehzalcoatl, I already told you that.”

“Oh.”

“Well, what do we do?”

“We can’t do anything but wait for a month.”

“But I was looking forward to looking at his progress every couple of days.”

“I thought you were just going to leave him in the woods and if he survived then you would fight him again and send him back into the woods to train?”

“Ummm, nice weather we have here.”

I then see a fireball in my face.

______________________________________________________________________________

Back to MC

The void is back, I see this way too much, but it’s different, I can see movement in the darkness.

Then a screechy, loud and high pitched voice said, “Ello Birdy.”

“Who’s there,” did I seriously just say that, that is the most cliche thing I have ever said, who the heck would actually answer to that?

“Me Weler, Goblin Divine beast”

You proved me wrong.

“We fight one month.”

“What if I say no?”

“Me destroy family village.”

That sets me up pretty well, who likes death.

“Sure, I’ll take on your entire army.”

“Wait hold on. Our entire army, are you insane?”

It was a different voice, more intelligent, but it came from the same spot as the other goblin.

“Quiet Dunga, me turn to talk.”

“No, you be quiet, this is a talking affair, now let's get to business, you said you wanted to fight our entire army, that is more than 2000 goblins, plus us, are you trying to die.”

“Not trying to die, but I will fight you, give me the time and place.”

“Mountain’s Big, 1 month.”

“He means Winged mountain range, North of your location, in about 29 days.”

“See you then.”