The crowd was ecstatic, Ardlan showed promise with his outfit and if he didn't, well they could simply enjoy watching a human get beat up.
With his enhanced ray vision, he confirmed that his opponent was indeed a living creature with delicate insides as opposed to its rocky smooth outsides.
Primeboy's opponent was a walking boulder of a creature, it stood at seven feet with arms and legs the size of tree trunks, and it was oddly humanoid in shape. Its face was round and blank save for a sunken dark spot in the middle.
'Now is that an eye, an ear?' It didn't matter, he was going to clobber it the same.
Ardlan held up his fists, tightly clenching them, and he readied himself for a swift exchange.
The rock creature ran forward, causing loud thuds with every step. Ardlan had seen this coming; to be fast and large was an exception not a norm, and his opponent was as unimpressive as they came.
He remained in position, however, having his feet off the ground to give him more flexibility. The Bougwart closed in and threw an arm—a move he has seen coming tens of times, and Ardlan responded with a simple throw, utilizing the large creature's weight and momentum against it, and flinging it to a side of the pentagon.
BOOM!
"Martial Arts: Judo 101."
A spherical large force field closed in around them, keeping them in and protecting the crowd, and it sizzled and singed the bougwart.
It would have hurt, but the burly rock monster made no cry or groan of pain. The sudden impact had sent ripples across the field making it momentarily visible.
Ardlan steeled himself for another onslaught. He squinted his eyes in sharp focus, and held up his fists.
"RAGGHH!" It stormed, holding out both of its graspless arms.
"Unintelligent." Ardlan uttered, and zoomed sharply, striking a blunt upper cut on the creature's jaw.
The sudden blow sent the creature flying, shards of its shattered jaw flung, with some piercing into its face.
It fell with a loud bam, and for the first time, it showed distress. It did not wail, nor moan, instead, it writhed on the ground slightly, holding its round smooth hands on its face. It rocked itself on the ground; the pain had been too great.
"It has no organ to voice pain." Ardlan commented, and then looked at his knuckles where pieces of mashed up rock and blood stuck to.
He levitated higher, towering over the alien, halting once he felt his hair reacting to the field that was few inches off it
"Is this it? Has the Bougwart given up?"
"Boooo!" The crowd cried, they were not satisfied with the easy beat down, and they demanded more.
The bougwart however remained lying in pain, and the crowd changed its message.
"Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!"
"Oh please, I'm not doing that."
As if responding to the crowd's vitriol, the bougwart slowly got on its feet, and Ardlan could see clearly the injury he had inflicted.
It was like he had cracked an end of an egg shell, and the fleshy inside hung steadily, seeming to just be on the cusp of falling off.
Its inside was a pale pink, and it was an ugly sight. But Mark had experienced a number of equally disgusting experiences in anatomy classes that he wasn't shakened.
"I recall that fighters can resign in the middle of a match, save yourself and go."
The bougwart pushed in its soft jaw insides with a nudge from its flat arm end, and fixed its gaze on Ardlan.
"It doesn't understand me." He had spoken in the Imperial Celest tongue—the official language of a dozen thousand planets in over two thousand star systems. Either it was unintelligent to have grasped the dialect, its governor and officials were incompetent or it was not part of the empire.
'Could I…?' Ardlan looked at the field, hoping to grasp the nature of its overlapping wavelengths.
"Hmmm, that could lead to disqualification. Knockout is a common finalizer, they would have to settle for that."
The bougwart struck both its arms on the metal ground, and then jumped to meet Ardlan. He hadn't thought that the creature could be that bold after almost falling to a blow.
It threw an arm forward, and again, Ardlan caught it, redirecting its body and slamming it against the forcefield above. A surge of electricity ran through it and it spasmed violently.
Oddly enough, Ardlan didn't get hit by the wave of electricity, and he decided that the spandex he wore must have been a non-conductor. He released his grip on his opponent, and it fell once it did.
Visible electricity lines ran across it and it continued twitching violently on the pentagon floor for about ten minutes until it all stopped.
Ardlan had not expected that much electrical force from the impact, and he hoped the bougwart hadn't died just there. He slowly drifted to the still and blackened body, listening in intently.
Smoke rose from the rock creature body and though hope seemed to be lost, Ardlan's ears caught a sign of continued biological activity: Its small hearts were still beating though weakly.
"That will do." He said.
"Ohh oh ohh! What is this? We have a winner. Primeboy from Ganymede wins the match!" The announcer cried with delight, and the crowd cheered.
Above, in a veiled platform with a good vantage point of the pentagon were the top sponsors of the match, and with them were the gold twins. They conversed with one in particular, a creature defined largely by its large exposed brain sitting on two thin tentacles and a mechanical torso, a Hipemodron
"Your fighter shows a lot of promise."
"Of course, he's second only to us." Domitia responded as she filled the Hipemodron's cup.
"What would you wager on him? You know we have capable fighters. He may be strong but he very much appears to be a noob in tactical battle."
"We trust that he would reach the semifinals."
"Oh Oh! Such confidence, he must have more on his sleeve. 1.2 quint dolons if he does reach the semifinals."
"Deal." Domitia stretched her pale golden right hand and took one of the Hipemodron's tentacles.
"Deal."