Street Cultivation, page 41
Rick resisted the urge to laugh. "Is that what you tell yourself?"
"Shut up, I'm not talking to you. I'm not here to talk to you at all, just beat you down." Mike advanced on the official, glaring down at the shorter man. "Come on, are we ready?"
The official sighed. "Yes, yes, I was ready at the appointed time. You both already signed, so you only need to have your witnesses sign, then you can begin. Can we at least be prompt about that?"
They needed witnesses? Rick realized that perhaps his view of challenge fights was shaped by movies and TV, where they probably skipped past such details. Glenn and Magnus moved up to the official, using a small blade to cut their thumbs and apply their marks to the paper. Before Rick could say anything, Melissa stepped up beside them. She cut her thumb with her teeth and applied her blood on his side of the contract, not dropping eye contact with them the entire time.
All the witnesses retreated to the sides of the arena and the limo floated a short distance away. There were no barriers at the edge of the arena, unlike in the Underground or the tournament octagon, so there could be potential collateral damage. He was glad that Melissa had started training, as she should at least be able to avoid injury.
His sister gave him an encouraging smile when he looked toward her, and Rick nodded back, but then he tried to set her out of his mind. He couldn't afford anything but pure focus for this match.
As everyone cleared away, Rick walked to the center of the arena. Mike walked opposite him, seething at him the entire time. Yet though the Birthrighter looked furious, it was a controlled rage. He wouldn't be flying off the handle and leaving himself open. No, it seemed like Mike had been waiting for this moment a long time, probably planning for it.
Rick reached out to get a sense of his opponent's generation rate and immediately regretted it. Mike felt like he was wielding over 200,000 lucrim, which was just too large a gap. Keeping his cool, Rick repeated to himself that lucrima portfolio mattered more than just a person's available power.
Unfortunately, Mike had a solid core in the center of all that lucrim. He wasn't like Rick's relatives, wasting any lucrim that came to him. It was impossible to sense exactly through all the power, but Rick thought that Mike had invested lucrim into multiple cores totaling at least 50,000 lucrim. Even by that standard, he was outmatched.
"I'm gonna enjoy this." Mike put a hand to his neck and cracked it in both directions. "You're going to be begging me to stop by the time this is over."
"Just so long as it's over." Rick kept his body loose, just staying alert in case Mike tried a surprise attack. "After this, your vendetta ends."
"Oh, it'll end. I'll pay you back for all the suffering you've put me through."
They stared at each other from opposite sides of the arena. Between them, the official raised a hand and then backed away from the center. "Alright, you can begin. As agreed, the match goes until verbal surrender or unconsciousness."
Mike let out a roar and rushed at him, a clumsy charge that Rick couldn't help but take advantage of. He dodged aside from the wild haymaker and delivered several blows into his opponent's side, not getting through his aura but softening his defenses.
A moment later, Mike's movement's changed. He lunged out, fingers almost reaching Rick's neck. Rick's instincts allowed him to jump away and evade them, but he realized that it was too late: lucrim were closing around his throat.
He started to resist it until he realized exactly what the technique did: locked his vocal cords. The skill had been so fast and light because it didn't do any harm, just prevented him from speaking. Rick's mouth opened silently as he tried to test it and he saw Mike smile viciously. So that was his plan - keep his opponent from surrendering.
Though he kept his face neutral, Rick actually found it encouraging. He didn't need to speak to fight, so he simply wouldn't resist the technique. All it represented was strength that Mike had wasted on overconfident cruelty, bridging another sliver of the gap between them.
Now that his trap was set, Mike stopped pretending to blunder into combat. Instead he dropped into a fighting stance, fists raised like a boxer. Before Rick could do more than prepare himself, Mike's aura exploded into a raging inferno and he rushed forward in a barrage of blows.
The strikes came quickly and aggressively, but the platform gave Rick a lot of space to dodge. He kept moving backward, ducking away from blows and forcing Mike to keep pursuing him. It might look like cowardice, but he could dodge all day, while Mike was burning lucrim with every strike.
As his back got closer to the edge, Rick tried to edge to the side. Mike countered aggressively, his footwork getting markedly faster. No matter how Rick tried to evade, Mike penned him in, herding him closer and closer to the corner. Soon his back was almost up against the spire.
Rick activated Bunyan's Step and flashed to the side... and saw Mike's fist flying at his face.
Instinct made him bend backward, the fist almost grazing his nose. Rick tried to counter with a kick, but it was easily blocked because he was so taken off guard. Had Mike managed to keep up with Bunyan's Step with raw lucrim alone? His reaction time shouldn't have been good enough, yet he must have noticed Rick using the technique during the tournament and been prepared for it.
With his balance ruined, Rick wasn't able to dodge back so easily and Mike attacked with renewed fury. For the first time Rick had to directly block an attack, wincing as he felt the impact vibrate through him. With his defensive core vastly improved, he could block a lot of blows like that, but they would still hurt like hell.
Mike smirked and kept attacking, certain that he would soon be victorious. Yet as the aggressive exchange of blows continued, Rick found himself speeding up. His opponent attacked with great power, yes, but it was nothing like the ferocity he had experienced when Teragen had struck him so many times in a single instant. Compared to that, his mind could cope with this, and he was gradually adapting.
Finally one of his kicks landed, hitting Mike's shin. His opponent only winced slightly, his aura mostly protecting him, but that wince delayed his barrage of attacks. Rick delivered an elbow to his stomach with all the force he could muster.
It hurt his elbow, but he was glad to see Mike stumble backward, clutching at his stomach. His eyes were open wide, shocked that he had actually been injured. Rick should have used that moment to press the attack, but his body refused to react, having pushed itself to the limit keeping up with the aggressive melee combat. So he just stood there, recovering for the next attack.
"You little shit..." Mike straightened with a growl, and the look of hatred in his eyes confirmed for Rick that the next attack would be soon. "You're a decent brawler, but that's all you are. You have absolutely no chance!"
Mike began to lift into the air, and though Rick was trying to play everything cool, his eyebrows still shot up. That Mike could fly wasn't too shocking, but the way he was levitating... his aura shifted to green and a pair of glass-like wings extended from his back.
Without warning, something rushed at his stomach. Rick had no time to register it, he just automatically countered with his knee. The impact sent a shock through his entire leg and he dropped back, only then catching up.
Sweeping away, Mike soared higher into the air, hung suspended for a moment, and then flashed down with the same blinding speed. Rick had his guard high and managed to deflect it, but his forearms both ached. He couldn't keep fighting like this... if Mike could really just pull out a skill like this, then Rick wasn't sure there was any way he could win.
"You like that?" Mike floated back up, raising his arms to either side. "You have no idea the resources I have access to!"
Something in that stuck in Rick's mind. He had little time to think about it, but the next time Mike swooped at him, he managed to dodge to the side. Mike's third attack missed as well, as Rick began to catch up to the speed of his new technique. It was fast, but like his Bunyan's Step, it moved mostly in single rushing movements. Mike couldn't react fast enough to change course in the middle of them.
Irritated, Mike floated down until he almost touched the edge of the arena - then he flashed forward, his wings scraping the arena floor. Rick managed to dodge the charge, but one of the wings clipped him, sending him tumbling to the ground.
He heard mocking laughter as he scrambled back up, but Rick found himself having to resist the urge to smile. After experiencing multiple attacks, he had finally understood his intuition earlier: Mike was attacking more simply and formulaically than before. Not just because it was difficult to react at that speed, but because he wasn't familiar with it.
As Mike levitated to the ground again, preparing for another charge, Rick braced himself. It would be a risk, but he could do this. This skill was just something Mike had purchased, not an art he had spent years training. Though it might have great power, there would always be limitations in how he used it.
When Mike swept at him again, Rick activated a Bunyan's Step the instant after, the two of them flashing toward each other faster than they could react...
And his elbow connected with Mike's neck.
The blow sent the Birthrighter spinning end over end, and when he struck the arena, his aura and wings shattered. Mike struggled to his feet, clutching his throat. It looked like his windpipe might have been broken, and Rick hesitated for a moment before deciding that this was no time for mercy. His opponent had too much lucrim left for that.
When Rick attacked, Mike managed to fend off the first few blows before Rick began connecting. But he only dealt two strikes to the head before Mike's aura exploded, back to blood red. The burst of it sent Rick sliding back across the arena.
It took him a moment to struggle to his feet, stunned by the overwhelming aura. When it became a conflict of raw aura versus aura, his opponent's lucrim would always come out on top. Still, as he struggled to his feet, Rick decided that it had been worth it to land those blows.
Though Mike was still clutching at his throat, something had changed. He was no longer panicking, and when he pulled his hand away, his throat appeared to be intact. After coughing a few times, Mike looked up and gave him a bloody grin.
"You see that? I can heal whatever you do to me!"
But his boast had the opposite effect, since Rick could feel just how much lucrim Mike had drained in order to heal the injury. Though he still had more than enough to fight, he couldn't keep healing injuries like that forever. If the fight extended to the point where they both had little left, that was when he'd have a chance.
When Mike rushed at him again, this time Rick didn't back away. He met the other man blow for blow, deflecting his attacks until he finally broke through with a blow to the chin.
Though Mike fell back, he barely staggered, landing a wild blow to Rick's chest. The force of it sent him spinning backward, nearly falling. Somehow he managed to regain control, turning his spin into a kick that forced Mike to retreat a step. But he was off balance and his opponent was coming again...
Rick got his fist into position and used a Bunyan's Step to throw himself forward with more force than he could normally manage. His blow struck his opponent's chest and he felt the flesh give way... but Mike didn't fall back. Something about his aura had changed, something that resisted the impact.
Mike lashed out, grabbing one of Rick's arms. He tugged him closer, aiming another blow for his face. Rick barely ducked beneath it, turning the movement into a shoulder ram. Yet this failed to budge Mike as well, and his arm was still grappled. Before Rick could find a way out, Mike's knee hit his stomach, sending him staggering to the side, only to be jerked back for another blow.
It wasn't a conscious decision, yet Rick found himself thrusting a hand forward, his fingers jamming directly into his opponent's eye. That finally made Mike cry out in pain and stumble away, though Rick collapsed once his arm was released.
He got to his feet painfully, watching Mike as he clutched his eye. The wound was healing, drinking in another large quantity of his lucrim, but Rick didn't feel like that was a victory. Not only was he unable to heal his own injuries, this new art was a problem. It was more subtle, somehow preventing Mike from staggering from attacks. Though it felt like it drained considerable lucrim, which was why he hadn't used it earlier, that was no comfort when it nullified Rick's primary strategy.
Though he tried to come up with a solution, Rick couldn't think of one. He didn't have any trump cards that could deal with this or any hidden potential to unlock. Instead he fell back as Mike began attacking him again, roaring in rage and yet still not getting sloppy.
The gap between them was just too wide. Rick fell back from the heavy blows and missed his opponent's kick when it struck out at his ankle. Rick's leg buckled, but he'd barely even dropped to one knee before Mike smashed into him, driving him to the ground.
Suddenly he was on his back, Mike looming over him and raining down blows on his face. On instinct Rick raised his arms to defend his head, but the repeated attacks were turning his arms into a mass of solid pain. And it was just going to continue, since his opponent still had enough lucrim for the continued aggressive attacks.
Even as he defended himself, Rick experienced a moment of clarity: his only chance was to use his new skill now. He hadn't wanted to do it like this, and knew it was a risk, but if he kept enduring this barrage of blows, he'd be defeated before he ever got a chance.
So he drew the core containing his sister's flame into his hand, then drove it into his opponent's stomach.
The strike didn't seem to do much at first, Mike simply grunting and then landing a blow directly to the face. Rick's vision flickered painfully and his defensive core shuddered. For a moment he thought the fight was lost... but then Mike grimaced in pain and clutched at his stomach.
Forcing himself to push just a little further, Rick lunged up, landing an elbow directly to his opponent's face. After that he collapsed and needed to slowly pull himself back up, but Mike fared even worse.
The Birthrighter was stumbling to his feet, staring down where he covered his stomach with both hands. It was more than shock in his eyes, it was as if he'd never felt anything like it before. His aura, already drained by excessive technique usage and constant attacking, began to flicker. From the sidelines, Melissa pumped a fist happily.
"You... what did you do?" Mike stared up at him in horror.
In response, Rick merely tapped his throat, pointing out the silencing technique.
As he'd hoped, Mike roared and attacked him again. But though the Birthrighter was still able to launch powerful attacks, his concentration had wavered. Rick stayed purely defensive, dodging away when he could and turning aside blows when necessary. This time, he didn't let himself get pinned to the side of the arena.
The flame kept burning inside Mike's core before it eventually went out. That had been what he would have expected - it would have been nice if it could keep burning away his opponent's lucrim forever, but he'd predicted that it couldn't last. Used this way, he wasn't sure if it had actually been a debilitating blow. Still, it had been worth it, to escape sure defeat.
On top of that, his opponent's lucrima was in bad shape. Mike kept attacking aggressively, apparently not realizing that the lucrim that powered him to such levels were running out. Rick was exhausted too, but he was used to fighting with no strength.
Finally Mike went too far, lunging in an aggressive attack that his strength could no longer back up. Rick deflected it with one arm, surprised at how light the blow felt, and slammed an elbow into his opponent's throat. Not a devastating blow, but enough.
Mike staggered a step back, automatically beginning to heal the injury... and finding that he didn't have the strength. His eyes went wide and he started to evade, but not fast enough. Rick closed on him, dealing a brutal series of blows to his torso and face, battering him backward. With each one, he could feel his opponent's defenses weakening even further as he struggled to pull himself together with less power than he'd ever experienced before.
"No!" Mike drew on the rest of what he had left, his explosive aura pushing Rick back, and lunged forward in a kick to the stomach.
Rick caught his foot. Not using his full defensive core, simply blocking the physical blow. He saw Mike realize in horror that he had nothing left, not even enough lucrim to reinforce his body. With only his remaining cores, he was little stronger than an untrained human.
Keeping his grip on Mike's foot, Rick lunged forward and brought an elbow down on his opponent's knee hard enough that he felt the leg snap.
Mike released a scream of pain and clutched at his leg. Though Rick's instincts told him to keep going, to beat his opponent until it was over, he held back to catch his breath. He had taken himself to his limits and he couldn't afford to get overconfident.
"I... I surrender! I surrender!" Mike thrashed backward, scrabbling over the ground to get away from Rick. His cries of pain dissolved into blubbering as he desperately called out his surrender repeatedly.
Though Rick watched him without expression, he had to admit that he felt a flicker of satisfaction at that. Maybe it wasn't the disabling injury he'd wanted, but he knew that Mike would remember this. For the rest of his life, no matter how much lucrim he drowned himself in, he would remember what it felt like to be powerless, what it felt like to lose to someone weaker than him.
Thinking that Melissa should be celebrating the victory as well, Rick turned toward her... and saw Glenn and Magnus advancing on him, auras kindling around them.
Rick tried to curse, though no sound came out. They weren't much weaker than Mike and fighting two of them at once would have been impossible even at his best, much less drained like this. Though the official objected and started to get in their way, they sidestepped around the man. Did they plan to injure him while they had a chance and damn the consequences? As Rick tried to summon enough strength for another Bunyan's Step, he didn't think he would make it...
"That's enough." The voice rang out with such clear authority that everyone stopped. Mike's father stepped from out of the limo onto the arena. Even without his aides following him, the sheer aura he radiated was intimidating. "Don't be sore losers, boys. Go."
