---
On the far end of the pit, his opponent awaited.
Dorian Slate was already out, standing tall in the flickering red gloom. His frame was bulky, scar crossed arms folded across a dented chainmail vest that looked too snug for comfort. His jaw was squared like a carved brick, eyes narrow and lifeless like stones shoved into a skull that had forgotten how to blink.
But it wasn't the man that made Zephyr's stomach twist but it was what crawled beside him.
The Gravelback Pangolin.
Two meters long from its burly snout to a tail covered in iron colored plates, the beast hunched low on squat legs, its body rippling with heavy muscle beneath scaled armor that looked like interlocked cobblestones fused with iron ore. A long pink tongue flicked from its beaked mouth, tasting the sand. Its claws dug trenches as it paced, leaving behind furrows like shallow graves.
Zephyr narrowed his eyes. Burrow type. Defensive. Hard to injure. It would take precision and strategy not raw power to win.
