Harem Tournament of Champions

"What?!" Solara glared at her, "coming from you, it sounds a little suspicious."

Alta shrugged and wanted to make a move forward when she stopped to speak. "Do you know the difference between us?"

"..."

When she got no response from her, she shook her head in disappointment. "You can't be trusted or relied on."

A crooked smile made its way to Alta's lips at the comment. "I can agree with that, and I could also dispute that just for this moment."

Shrugging her shoulders, she meant to state her reasons for such actions, "trusting a bit too soon or easily is the major cause of lots of downfalls. Yet I can make an exception if it means helping him with someone who would risk their lives for him and has his best interest at heart."

"Do you think you're the only one who got the feeling of something not going too well?" Alta challenged with a smirk.

For a moment, Solara was left stunned and too shocked to speak and at that moment she looked down at Zui in her arms.

Zui had not wanted to go any further, and her strange behavior could also make it dangerous for her to continue with the journey.

"If I do take your advice to return her, how can I do that without being spotted?" Solara questions, skeptical about the solution.

Alta snapped her fingers, and in an instant, a portal warped behind Solara leading up to the hallway of Hisha's bedroom.

"Does that ease the trouble?" She asks in hopes of proving a bit of her goodwill.

Solara stared at the portal for quite some seconds before snapping out of it. "This was how you had suddenly propped up in meretrix one at the time."

Not denying the fact that she had ambushed them at the time, she also reminded Solara of the fact that their time is limited in randomly helping.

Making up her mind, she stepped in and quietly laid her on the floor before stepping out–back and into the forest.

"Our time is limited, it's best to get going." Alta reminded as she pointed to the blood-marked pathway.

Nodding her head in agreement, she took the first step closer to the pathway. "Ready for a brief moment of adventure?"

*****

Deep into the forest,

Hisha had easily slashed his way through the vines to get quickly to his destination. The blood trail is his only means of tracking down his assistant.

[Proceed with caution, host]

HTC worried for the safety of its host as it placed a sweat-dropped emoji at the end.

Stopping dead in his tracks, he could see at a distance Loid being held on the neck and raised above the ground by Kritz.

Gad had been abandoned, lying unconscious for quite some time all for the sick game of Kritz.

Hisha tilted his head to how differently Kritz acted with blood on half of his face, his grin revealed his canine and a desire to kill in them.

[Task: Pacify Kritz]

Hisha stared at the user interface, feeling something oddly strange if the task repeatedly displayed what he had thought to be something possible to waver.

'He had seen blood on numerous occasions, but why does this look and feel different?' Hisha questioned his system on the difference he might have missed.

[An external force had been and still is involved]

HTC warned as it grew suspicious of the surroundings.

"Kritz!" Hisha called out before he could snap Loid's neck.

Drawn to the call, Kritz looked to his side and instantly dropped Loid.

Cough!

Cough!

"My lord!" Loid coughed out.

Kritz stood still almost as though batching some secret plan.

Tilting his head, Hisha thanked Loid and an unconscious Gad for aiding in locating Kritz.

Loid nodded his head and stifled his emotions, and crawled towards Gad to check if he was still breathing.

When he noticed Gad's chest heave, he pushed back and sighed in relief.

He used what was left of his Sux to outline Gad's body after he was ordered to take him away from the vicinity.

"Look at me!" Hisha yelled in a thunderous voice, frustrated by the eerie silence once the guards had left.

Doing as told, Kritz locked eyes with Hisha.

His red eyes glowed with unrestrained blood lust for a more powerful opponent. His pupils marked into a thin vertical line with a selected gaze on his face.

[Warning: Blood lust]

Whoosh!

Feeling it was the right time to act, Kritz charged with propelling speed at Hisha.

'So, it all boils down to a duel, huh?' Hisha shook his head.

Reacting just at the right moment, Hisha grabbed Kritz by the neck, slamming him onto the floor.

"I hope you get to your senses before you're brutally reminded of your past," Hisha warned Kritz who struggled to break free from his grasp.

Finally realizing why his system had given him such a task, he deduced it would be easy to overpower Kritz due to their differences in power scale.

There was only one way of accomplishing his task–convince Kritz that he wasn't the enemy or find out the external source and neutralize it.

"Kritz snap out of this! I don't want to hurt you." Hisha reasoned.

[External force approaching]

Temporarily distracted when he secretly examined his surroundings, he threw Kritz on a large tree covered by his Sux to prevent any damage to its bark.

Kritz was sent flying as his back crashed in on the Sux, slowly being sucked and held in place by Hisha.

Dusting his hands, he closed his eyes to focus more on the movements he might have missed while in a temporal engagement.

An unusual change in the wind's direction made him open his eyes.

As soon as he had opened them, he had to pull himself together the moment he was faced with a hooded figure at close range, from the clothing, he could rightly allocate the feminine gender to the unknown person.

The distinctive red eyes focused on him brought back memories that had been long buried in the original host's subconscious.

"Yoru!" Hisha growled with rage.

*****

A/N

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