…Decedent is an adult male whose appearance matches the reported age of 28. Body is unembalmed, well-nourished, hydrated, and not visibly deteriorated. Body is muscular and trim with prominent abdominals. Length measures 178 centimetres. Weight measures 73 kilograms. Body is cool to the touch after refrigeration. Rigor mortis is fully developed in the jaw and the upper and lower extremities. Dorsal livor mortis is apparent with a typical contact pattern…
…Cranium is symmetrically developed with thick, undyed hair gelled into a foreign-style hairdo. There is significant traumatic injury to the right side of the face. Trauma begins superiorly with the laceration of a depressed fracture of the frontal bone, through which herniated cerebral matter is visible. Visible trauma continues inferiorly through the orbit, zygoma, maxilla, and mandible…
…Nose is visibly deviated from the midline with dried blood collected around both nostrils. There is palpable crepitus of the nasal bridge. Eyebrows are intact. No apparent trauma to the left eye. The iris is an unusual, pale, honey-orange shade. Pupil is round, slightly constricted, and measures 3 mm…
…Copious blood is appreciated in the buccal cavity. Several minor lacerations of the right oral buccal mucosa correspond with maxillomandibular destruction. Intact dentition appears natural and without carries, fillings, or gum recession. Palpation of the neck suggests a fracture in the lower cervical vertebrae…
…A muscular abdomen is firm and absent of palpable masses or organomegaly. External genitalia, perineal region, and anus are grossly unremarkable. The upper extremities are muscular, long, and symmetrically developed. All digits of the hand are present. Fingernails of both hands are present and untorn. Fingernails are trimmed short…
-Henry Flower: How’s it howlin’, Betabitch? My minions claim I need to hear this.
-Alphamutt: Big bro Cripple…he’s dead...
-Henry Flower: Who?
…all digits of the feet are present. A plastic tag attached to the left great toe is printed with identifying information. Information includes the name “[Pending Approval]”, the English name “[Pending Approval]”, a special note of dual Canadian citizenship, and the Party ranking of [Pending Approval]…
-Henry Flower: Really? Oh shit. Hahaha. What exit did he choose? Self-knifing? Urban diving? The Ol’ Noose Finisher?
-Alphamutt:…
HAIDIAN DISTRICT MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE
NAME: [Pending Approval]
CITIZEN IDENTIFICATION #: [Pending Approval]
RANKING: [Pending Approval]
AGE: 28
DOB: 2022-7-14
SEX: M
RESIDENCE: Huangpu District, Shanghai
DATE OF DEATH: 2050-11-28
DATE OF EXAMINATION: 2050-11-28
GROSS ANATOMICAL DIAGNOSIS
--Blunt force injuries.
----Head and neck.
------Depressed fracture on the right side of frontal bone
--------Associated subarachnoid and epidural haemorrhage
--------Associated parenchymal laceration
------Right-sided Malar Complex fracture
------Right-sided comminuted fracture of the mandible
------Fractures of C4 through C7
--------Associated cerebrovascular injury with complete transection of spinal cord
----Torso.
------Collar bone and scapulae.
--------Left acromion fracture
--------Left AC separation
------Sternum.
--------Posterior dislocation with tearing of posterior capsular ligament
--------Angle of Louis fracture
--------Fracture of 4th sternebrae
------Ribs.
--------R1 through R10 fractured anteriorly
--------R4 through R7 fractured laterally
--------R4 and R7 displaced from sternum
--------L3 through L6 fractured anteriorly.
------Lungs.
--------Bilateral laceration associated with rib fractures
----------Notable perforation of right lung by right ribs 4 and 5
------Stomach.
--------Laceration of fundus by left rib 6
------Liver.
--------Laceration of right lobe by right ribs 7 through 9
----Extremities.
------Left arm.
--------Dislocation of humeral head from shoulder
--------Multipart fracture of humeral head
--------Abrasion of forearm
--------Displaced midshaft fracture of ulna
------Right leg.
--------Comminuted fracture of patella with chondral rupture
MICROSCOPIC AND TOXICOLOGICAL FINDINGS
[Pending Approval]
FINAL DIAGNOSIS
CAUSE OF DEATH: Blunt Force Injuries of the Head.
DUE TO: Descent from Great Height.
MANNER OF DEATH: [Pending Approval]
-Henry Flower: No matter, no matter. But I always knew he lacked perseverance. Just wish he’d killed himself a bit earlier. Would’ve saved me a ton of ass-pain…
SCARS AND IDENTIFYING MARKS: An 8cm, transversely oriented, curvilinear scar is present on the anterior of the right forearm, starting near the elbow. A 4 cm, vertically oriented scar bisects the left eyebrow. A black-ink tattoo on the left shoulder reads in ornate English script, ‘The goal of all life is death’. Miniature national flags beneath this spiral around the arm distally, crossing the elbow before stopping 8 cm down the forearm. Spiral appears to form an incomplete serpent. Flags number 64 in total. Flags do not correspond with any identifiable countries. No other scars, tattoos, or marks can be observed.
-Henry Flower: …would’ve shaved a couple mill’ off the mountain. Well, no matter, no matter. Hey, Rose, this might be awkward, but I am a man of my word, and my original wager hasn’t changed. If you win, I will slap his corpse.
…There is a visible loss of right cheek projection. Palpation of the zygoma evinces complete diastasis of temperozygomatic and frontozygomatic sutures along with an inferior orbital rim fracture. The right eye in association exhibits significant enophthalmos. Sclera of the eye is a dark red colour. Beneath an intact cornea the pooling of a cloudy-red liquid obscures the iris and pupil. A highly comminuted fracture extends horizontally from the right mandibular body at the level of the canine through to the right mandibular angle. Mandibular fragments containing the first and second bicuspids have been provided separately after retrieval by medical personnel. Other in situ fragments are distributed around the buccal cavity…
-Henry Flower: Hahahahaha! But, seriously, how are you holding up, little sister? I hope that frown you’re dragging about is a frown of celebration.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
-Alphamutt: I don’t know, big bro…it’s weird…I feel…deflated…angry?
-Henry Flower: Aha! A very mentally-stable reaction. The greatest part of you was hungering to be the one to do him in. Now, he’s deprived you of all resolution. What a cunt!
-Alphamutt: You, too?
-Henry Flower: I wasn’t joking about the slap - so long as you can sneak me in before the cremation. Hahahahaha!
-Alphamutt: Hah…
-Henry Flower: Anyway, ding-dong, another tyrant’s dead. Fuck him. Let’s duel!
Duel I, Septic Rose versus The Tyrant of Saana.
Septic Rose versus The Tyrant was the most anticipated series of the rookie competition. While no one expected the assassin to win—all hopes of her opponent losing had died several more challenging tournaments ago—the audience was anticipating drama. An explanation might finally be given for her deranged choice to steal her love rival’s face. If they were lucky, The Tyrant would double the physical torture no doubt prepared for the assassin’s punishment with one of his cruel-and-unusual monologues deconstructing her strategy and pointing out his immunity to it. Rejection? Actually, he’d already forgotten Silver Wolf because his next-level brain dwelled decades in the future when he’d coupled with an elite mistress selected via global application or, alternatively, a lab-spawned clone of history’s greatest romanticist, himself.
As it were, the first duel, a knife-only mirror match, seemed purpose-designed to frustrate any longing for such nonsense. Septic Rose chose the Catacombs arena, its underground passageways invisible to the audience. Then, shortly after starting, neither having swapped a word or greeting, both duellists activated stealth. That caused their respective streams to shut down in accordance with spoiler-prevention measures, and the crowd were left to ogle a black screen, to speculate on who was hunting who.
The new and the dim-witted might’ve given the stealth advantage to Septic Rose. As leader of The Garden of The Grotesque, she was an infamous assassin. Despite being a teenager, few players were more veteran in the role, for which she’d been groomed since the age of five by her older brother. A decade-long hitlist tallied several famous personalities, including a solo job on The Witchhag of Talbek, a Saana II demi-god.
Old-timers knew, however, that these achievements wriggled like ticks plucked from the fur of a dog compared to her opponent’s. Facing her was The Cripple, history’s greatest duellist, and in the era when he’d bestowed himself that title, an era prior to the modern fabrication of an ‘arena’, there’d existed little practical difference between ‘duelling’ and ‘assassination’. The distinction might truly only have been one of aesthetic verbiage – Person A pronounces a 1v1 ‘a carefully orchestrated murder’, while Person B pronounces it ‘toe-mah-toe’.
Occasionally, the cameras would fire up when both duellists had detected each other. Seconds later, cued by the audience's reaction, they would kill the stream by retreating and re-stealthing. These fragmentary shots often weren’t even sufficient to determine how they’d achieved detection, let alone the higher level information like who’d been setting up the failed ambush. Both had achieved the end-game of stealth, where a target’s location was deduced through a mix of spot checks, sensory boosts, and the mental tracking of Stamina pools, the best players rationing their invisibility with non-magical concealment.
Shouts for action began to pop up in the clueless stands. This noise grew into clumps. These clumps spread further into waves of bored irritation. Many suddenly regretted the absence of The Third Gate, re-gagged after her win. At least she’d had the decency to minimise dead airtime by cramming every second with joyous RP.
The longest shot of the duel would be its last, one vaguely-human-shaped silhouette stepping out behind another.
Questions had still loomed throughout as to how The Tyrant would overcome the difficulty with the Silver Wolf avatar that’d provoked his earlier forfeit. Most had predicted a goofy response like diffusing the weirdness through ironic gags or picking a spell-kiting strategy to avoid direct engagement. The knife-only agreement had eliminated most of these options, although silly possibilities did remain - The Tyrant could’ve just waited out the match and ordered his guards to execute her as a wanted criminal.
However—perhaps as a refutation against this love-triangle silliness, perhaps due to a psychopathic indifference—his actual solution would contain none of the conjectured timidity.
The Tyrant caught the imitator from behind. One arm threaded her armpit to wrap around her throat, and his head dug snugly against her ribcage as he wrenched her back and upwards. This wasn’t a hold from any arena art, the grip trivial to break when the presumed equality of muscular strength was in place. As it were, however, the avatar that Septic Rose had copied from Silver Wolf belonged to an ordinary girl. The Tyrant, intimately familiar with the author’s physique, exploited its vulnerabilities as he would anyone else’s.
With the lighter duellist’s legs dangling in the air, with her arms slapping through repeated failures, she would struggle pathetically, like a cat being stretched behind a dumpster until its neck snapped. Her captor held tight with indifference to any retaliation, and his dagger patiently explored her writhing body as it searched its favourite vital points.
…Sternum body is displaced from manubrium by a fracture at the Angle of Louis. An additional transverse fracture is present on the 4th sternebrae. Right ribs 1 through 10 are fractured anteriorly, with complete separation and displacement of 4 through 7 from the costal cartilage. 4 through 7 have additional lateral fractures. Left ribs 3 through 6 are fractured anteriorly…
The brief flashes of The Tyrant’s face behind Septic Rose gave a mild queasiness to those in the crowd who’d expected a comedy similar to The Third Gate’s duel preceding. Lurking in the dark had caused his pupils to dilate maximally. This, alongside his habitual flat expression, created a disharmonious trifecta with his rapid, decisive movements.
The combination unsettled those who’d never observed a human acting this way. For those who had, it was outright disturbing.
A few mountaineers might’ve recognised the condition from cases of summit fever. An afflicted party member would appear to register the worsening weather. “Be reasonable!” they might shout from up ahead. “We’ll try again next season! Turn back! Turn back!” Yet their body—compelled by motives deeper than these things revealed to merely float upon the surface of a person—would trudge on anyway, on into the storm’s thickening whiteness, on to become another frozen milestone to folly.
Or, for much more common experiences, the same dead-eyed automatism could be witnessed in rapes of impulse and street murders.
…Around fractured rib ends, there is extensive haemorrhaging and visceral lesion…
“HF wins!”
But The Tyrant—abiding nostalgically by the traditional duelling ruleset—didn’t stop when victory was announced. He stabbed on until the girl limply forfeited all motion.
…The left lung weighs 590 grams. Right lung weighs 630 grams. Both lungs have laceration and haemorrhaging in association with ipsilateral rib fractures. Right lung is notably perforated by the displaced ends of right ribs 4 and 5…
And then he stabbed a little more.
…GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT: Oesophagus is of normal course and calibre and is free of material. Mucosal surface is grossly unremarkable. Fundus of stomach has a minor serosal laceration associated with left rib 6 fracture…
And, to really secure the duel, just a little more.
…HEPATOBILIARY TRACT: Liver weighs 832 grams after haemorrhaging. Right lobe has multiple lacerations in association with the fractured ends of right ribs 7 through 9…
-Alphamutt: GG.
-Henry Flower: Are you crazy? Bro, that was terrible - your worst duel yet. You need to clear your head of whatever’s distracting you and concentrate on what’s most critical right now: staying in this tournament. Hahahahaha! Any plans around the service?
-Alphamutt: Gramps won’t release the news for a while...might change some stuff...
-Henry Flower: Smart on both fronts. Could you ask your family if they’ll squeeze the inner circle in? The others will want to give their respects. No need to worry about discretion, obviously. I won’t even inform them without permission.
-Alphamutt: Will you come?
-Henry Flower: Ah, you are crazy. Hahaha. No...hell no. If I went to a funeral every time a friend kicked it, I’d be booked year-round. Simon wasn’t even a friend.
Duel II, Septic Rose versus The Tyrant of Saana.
Thankfully, their second match wasn't so frustratingly concealed. The pair, in an homage to duels past, fought a samurai showdown, both dual-wielding a Japanese long and short sword. Recent initiates into The Crippleverse would recognise the asymmetrical combo from Miyamato Musashi’s martial art, Niten Ichi-Ryu or ‘The School of The Strategy of Two Heavens as One’. The Tyrant back in Saana II had lacked the patience to learn these weapons, but he had occasionally used them for stylistic finishers after his poisoned darts had taken effect.
In terms of odds, one could not have arranged a more favourable setup for Septic Rose. Swords were her preferred weapon, the girl once owning a Legendary of the type until a notorious treasure-hoarder’d stolen it. Swords for The Tyrant, meanwhile, were a weakpoint. Melee reached its fastest speeds in the mid-range, where one lived or lost as a function of their reflexes, and dual wielding worsened this due to its total reliance on dodges and parries. The Tyrant’s deficiencies in this area may have been reduced by his extensive studies of sword arts while developing A Thousand Tools, but they hadn’t been erased.
Septic Rose should’ve had a decent chance.
Alas, what fight the assassin might’ve offered had been spoiled by their first duel. It seemed she had been over-reliant on the Silver Wolf charade. After the disguise’s failure, after the merciless stabbing from her crush, she had no more spirit than a child beaten by their parent, her thrusts loose and off target, her parrying lethargic.
On the bright side, her underperformance would make the duel a rare visual treat. The Tyrant, relieved of any pressure, used her like a training dummy to exhibit multiple elaborate finishers, aborting each on the cusp of execution by desummoning his weapons in a continual flow of inventory replacements. Later expert analysis would identify these finishers as having been used by the assassin herself, plucked from her many foiled attempts in bygone years to ambush him. The Tyrant, with his savant memory, was thus replicating her attacks in a nostalgic, avant-garde sword pastiche.
Within the showboating and humiliation, the extended sequence had a poignant beauty. The girl’s affection may not have been reciprocated. However, through his imitations, his ‘homage’, The Tyrant gifted something that could be to a duellist’s heart more meaningful, a testament to the extreme depth of the impression left by his most loyal follower and her technique.
But these replications were merely the starting point, and he soon went beyond the assassin by flexing what could only be described as ‘experimental sword-jazz’. Septic Rose’s finishers were utilised like musical motifs during a bebop session, their sub-moves splintered, recombined, rehashed on higher numbers of juggled swords, augmented with out-of-mode additions like wall-running and near-death heal tricks.
Although obscure to everyone spectating, there seemed to be a cryptic humour interwoven in The Tyrant’s flourishes. The teenage commander and the teenage assassin, at first, exchanged sporadic giggles. These eventually progressed to full-blown belly laughter.
As the duel’s final minute neared, they stopped their play, and the assassin—purged of whatever in their first match had encumbered her—offered a radically improved performance. Her swords were lighter, freer, smoother, quicker. Although by no means close to it, she appeared to have moved a little in the direction of peace around her rejection when one of his lunges pierced her eyeball. She fell gently towards the soil, like a petal that’d clung on through a midnight storm only to detach when its flower shook it off to greet the dawn. Gently, with the raindrops still soaking her cheek, Septic Rose fell towards the teen’s extended hug, gently towards his terminating snip.
…associated with lower cervical fracture is rupturing of the vertebral arteries and complete transection of the spinal cord…
-Henry Flower: GG. At least take a month off. Don’t just quit. Fill the gap with more spiritually-nourishing substitutes.
-Alphamutt: GG. I’ll try, big bro…
-Henry Flower: And I better not hear later that you copied your dumb-ass sibling.
…Depressed fracture is localised primarily on the right frontal eminence. It has a vertical orientation and rectilinear shape measuring 4.0 x 8.4 cm. Multiple linear fractures radiate from the fracture’s main body. One prominent radiation extends in a superior direction towards the coronal suture, where it develops into a diastatic fracture with minimal separation. A second lateral radiation extends partway towards the temporal ridge. A third inferior radiation extends through the right orbital rim…
…Epidural and subarachnoid haemorrhaging is abundant with accentuation in areas surrounding the depressed fracture….
…There is global sulci narrowing and gyral flattening that is most prominent in the lacerated right frontal lobe…
…Frontal lobe of the right hemisphere has extensive laceration, congestion, and perilacerational haemorrhage in association with frontal bone fracture. Primary laceration of 5.5 x 9.0 cm traverses the superior and middle frontal gyri. The superior and lateral borders of this laceration extend subcortically and appear to be the source of herniated cerebral tissue….
-Henry Flower: Remember, ours is The Invincible Way. Hahaha.
-Alphamutt: …you either, big bro.
-Henry Flower: You can rest easy on my end - the funeral crap is just metaphoric. My main despair is really that this flesh will rot of its own accord long before the humanist duty’s completion. Lot of people still left to save…lot of people still left to…well, you know it goes. Hahaha. Peace out, young scrub! Maybe in the next cycle.
-Alphamutt: In the next one, big bro.