The atmosphere of the arena had grown so quiet that you could practically feel the renewed tension in the air.
“Mark you, XJ-V,” Fai-Deng whispered as he nodded at the arena. “The arena floor favors my Brother. The dragon does not draw the same breath of fire in the cold. But for the Tiger, any plain is a hunting ground, no matter how wet.”
XJ-V and Feng-Lung spared a look at each other, while Fai took it upon himself to join the cheers of the other Tigers as they saw Kai-Thai enter the battlefield.
“Show them what our Sect is made of, Brother!” Fai howled.
His fellow Sect members followed his lead—most notably his students—and in no time at all Brother Kai had a chorus of young Disciples with his name on their lips. He even took a moment to smile up at his Brother and the rest of his friends, and XJ-V’s metal heart was softened. No matter how grandiose this moment seemed, Brother Kai still retained some of his good-natured humor.
But the same could not be said for his opponent. Mah-Jung stood waiting for the call to begin, watching each ice flake of snow at his opponent’s bare feet without even sparing so much as a glance at the crowd.
Even if you say that Mah-Jung fights with a handicap, XJ-V thought. Still, the battlefield can only equalize the power of warriors to an extent…
The Cultivator in XJ-V told him such a handicap was barely of much use anyway—the disparity in Qi levels between the two Disciples who stared each other down like hawks in the arena pit was strong enough that those seated near Brother Jung had to adjust themselves so they could get a proper viewing of the spectacle. For the Cianjie assemblage, things were a little more dire—they stumbled backward into the crowds on the rafters, wary lest the untapped energy contained within the Cultivator at their feet swallow them whole.
And when Ori’un’s signal to begin finally came, only then did XJ-V see the eyes of Mah-Jung move for but a fraction of a second.
They looked right at him.
“BEGIN!”
The battle started as most usually did—each opponent charging the other to test the relative strength of their foe, and allowing them to assess whether or not their rival Cultivator was holding back. Kai’s Drunken-Master style gave him a distinct advantage in movement, especially amidst the frozen tundra. He moved more like a snake than a tiger, his body disappearing against the snows and whipping up a cloud of dust to act as a smokescreen.
“The Tiger Stalk!” Ori’un cried out. “We’ve seen it before, everyone! But to see it executed with such unique grace, in a setting so unfamiliar to its user, is something else, something else indeed, my frien—”
At the explosion that suddenly erupted from the arena pit in the next moment, Ori’un’s voice was utterly silenced. The crowd heaved its collective lungs as Mah-Jung’s eyes flared with a sudden red glare of infernal power, and he brought his long-sleeved arms, extended his fingers, and, open-palmed, met Kai-Thai’s attack with an eruption of such incendiary force that the Disciples nearest the front of the crowd were sent flying back. Some of the Cianjie were entirely dispelled.
A cloud of roaring flame seethed as magma dripped from Mah-Jung’s hands and then fanned out in a supernova that released all the Qi energy built up in his body. XJ-V watched the sight even through his blaring sensors that told him the Qi levels being funneled through the Dragon Disciple’s open hands were powerful enough to melt his steel-plated skin. Even Fai-Deng stared slack-jawed as the snowy tundra before Mah-Jung simply disappeared in a storm of flame.
“By the Dao…” Feng-Lung mouthed.
XJ-V finally had to shield his eyes as the light of the 9th Level Temperer final began to recede. He watched a look of concern drape itself over Feng-Lung’s face through even the soot that now coated the boy’s features.
“Puh-puh-PUH!” Arha coughed. “What’s going on? Is this a battle or a funeral pyre?”
“You may be more right than you know, my dear,” Gira replied coldly. “What you’ve just witnessed was a perfectly executed ‘Aun’El’s Rebuke.’”
“The highest of the Earth-level techniques,” Feng-Lung agreed. “Even some early level Mental Masters have not managed to control such a powerful flame.”
XJ-V watched the face of young Feng cloud with disbelief before it gave way to a hopeless snort of laughter.
“To think you’d go this far, Brother,” he whispered, almost to himself.
“K-Kai?” Fai-Deng coughed as the rest of the Disciples recovered from the aftermath of the jarring heatwave they’d just experienced. “KAI!?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The smoke below was beginning to clear in the pit. Mah-Jung’s gently panting form stood perfectly still, his eyes moving with the precision of a vulture now—not a hawk. He was scanning the debris—the mud and soot-drenched puddle which was all that remained of the glittering snowfield. XJ-V could not make out any movement at all down there.
“Kai…” Fai-Deng murmured, fists flaring with his Lightning Claw. For a stomach-churning moment, XJ-V thought another duel was about to commence.
“Look!” Gira suddenly called. “Search not with your eyes, boys—look with the vision granted to you by the Dao!”
Among the columns of smoke still reaching up toward the uncaring sky, something started to shift. Something that glowed amidst the ruin of the pit only to those trained in the ways of Cultivation—a faintly pulsing, ethereal light could be detected if one peered hard enough.
Qi, XJ-V thought.
But not one associated with the life of even the most humble of peasants. The tiny glimmer was more akin to that of a small bird or marsh squirrel. Maybe even a wounded Huli.
And the light was quickly fading.
As members of the crowd began to cry out in worry, the Core Regulators at the apex of the arena worked their silent techniques to finally clear the smoggy black dust from the arena, and everyone saw what had become of Kai.
He lay at the very edge of the pit wall, large pieces of the ancient stonework surrounding him. His face and limbs were black as onyx, and his chest was exposed—it was almost as though Mah-Jung had torn a hole in him that had stopped just before it pierced the Cultivator’s skin.
“By the…Dao,” came a voice—Fai-Deng’s once again. Though XJ-V had to actually look at him to make sure his senses weren’t deceiving him. The voice he’d heard had simply been tinged with too much sorrow.
“Kai!” the Tiger roared again and, ignoring his Brothers as they tried to hold him back, he leaped to the edge of the arena and shouted down at the decrepit form of his Brother. “Get up!”
No response. Nothing but the gradually fading light of his Brother’s Qi signature answered him.
“It…Arha doesn’t think it looks good…does it?”
“KAI!” Fai-Deng bellowed. “What did I just tell you? GET. UP!”
This time the Tiger launched himself into the arena proper—something that would have normally caused the tournament Masters to intervene. Even the Regulators flying high above looked to the viewing pulpit where the three judges of this competition were seated, their eyes wide open as they awaited an assumed command.
But no such command came. And Ori’un’s voice had turned strangely mute…
“DAMN IT!” Fai-Deng screamed as he held his Brother in his arms. “Wake up, you piece of shit! You hear me? Wake up or I swear I will drag your spirit back to this realm from the other side. Wake up and you can tell me all the shit jokes you want. On my honor as a warrior of our Sect, you’ll never hear a complaint from me again! Wake up and—”
“That’s…a…promise.”
Only Fai-Deng heard that voice at first. But from his position, XJ-V’s auditory sensors had managed to pick up the faint signal that had emanated from the fallen warrior’s dust-addled throat.
“T- COUGH that’s got to be the…the greatest sauna treatment I’ve ever…had,” he wheezed, sitting up in his Brother’s arms and ignoring the total disbelief mixed with fury that painted his face.
He looked the still-waiting Mah-Jung dead in his eyes and flashed him a black thumb’s-up.
“I commend you, Brother COUGH Jung! The village girls will love my new black stripes. Accept my…my yield…with…a Tiger’s thanks!”
“You…” Fai-Deng grimaced. “…you are an idiot, my Brother. A Dao-damned IDIOT!”
XJ-V was the first to burst into laughter, followed by the rest of the colosseum. Their joy leaped with even greater intensity than Mah-Jung’s flames, and when they beat their hands in uproarious applause, XJ-V got the feeling that it was meant for Kai-Thai alone.”
“Uh…VICTOR!” Ori’un finally shouted above it all. “Mah-Jung of the DRAGON!”
The statement was like a curtain call for Jung, who loosened his posture, bowed to his opponent, and then took his leave without much fanfare—again, not even deigning to look upon the roars of the crowd, or the antics of the two Tigers who were at each other's throats once again.
“Phew!” Arha breathed. “Arha was almost worried there.”
“Indeed, child,” Gira concurred. “How about it, my Cianjie friend—was that a fight ‘worth watching’?”
“I-it was…okay, ma’am,” the humbled spirit replied. “…just, well, it was over a little too quickly for my tastes, wouldn’t you agree?”
While the spirits began squabbling amongst themselves, XJ-V spared a look at Feng. He’d noticed his Brother was the very last to join the applause, and his expression was one of sharp focus—focus rooted on the gate that Mah-Jung was disappearing through.
“I suppose it can’t be helped,” he sighed. “He is the strongest among us. No doubt about that…”
“But not the smartest,” XJ-V noted. “Did you notice how little Qi reserves he had left in the wake of his attack? He committed everything he had to that explosive strike. Had Kai-Thai survived, he would have had little strength to perform the attack again.”
“Mhm,” Feng agreed.
“But I did not take Brother Mah-Jung for a betting man,” XJ-V continued, sniggering as the Cianjie above began arguing about their ‘losses’ on this match.
“No,” Feng agreed. “Mah-Jung is not so uncouth as to play his trump card this early. Unless…the spectacle he just unleashed wasn’t for his opponent alone.”
XJ-V nodded as he looked with his Brother upon the pit’s desolation.
“You imply he wanted to show us just how powerful he is.”
“Exactly,” Feng said. “He wants us to see what he’s capable of. He wants to see how we reacted to his strength.”
Only then did XJ-V recall the dark look his Brother had shot his way just before the battle commenced. It was entirely possible Mah-Jung was seeking to find the Cog within the crowd, and it was also entirely possible that he’d sought him out again as he delivered the single blow that had beaten his opponent into submission.
“Well,” Feng said. “I suppose it’ll be a problem for the Disciple who fights him next.”
XJ-V was starting to feel that strange knot of anxiety in the pit of his metal innards again.
“Who will his next opponent be?”
And Feng-Lung, without dropping his boyish smile, gave the Cog his answer:
“Me.”
***
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