“Arthur.” Alyssia massaged her left hand as she called out his name, wincing as she did so. “If you don’t mind me asking, how high is your constitution? Hitting you hurts more than an Ironhide boar.”
“698”
Arthur’s reply was curt and straight to the point. He saw no point in hiding that particular piece of information from a woman who already knew so much about him. Not when she could probably read it all from his aura anyway. And seeing the look of astonishment flash across Alyssia’s face definitely didn’t influence his decision at all. Arthur was far too mature to take pleasure in something so childish.
“How the fuck did you get it that high?!” Alyssia asked incredulously, “Or is my identity just not working properly? Cos it says you’re only level 71. These system skills are shit at threat assessment.”
Arthur shook his head.
“Your skills working perfectly fine. My defence is just absurd for my level,” Arthur said wryly, “Which I still don’t get by the way. How the hell does constitution even work?”
He pinched the skin on his forearm.
“My body still feels the same, and I don’t think I’ve put on much weight since the system's arrival. At least not enough to warrant my now near-bulletproof status.”
Alyssia looked at him dully.
“Uh-huh.” She grumbled “You’re asking the wrong girl here. My study of the esoteric aspects of ether is only skin deep. I focused on the parts that let me hit harder.”
Arthur laughed. For a second he’d forgotten who he was speaking to and went all geek on Alyssia. Of course, something so minor as the fundamental laws of physics didn’t concern the Alverin woman. He doubted she even knew what they were.
He’d much rather speak of such things with Mathew. The game addict would at least give him an answer to every one of his questions, even if he pulled them out of his ass.
Arthur opened and closed his mouth until it started to function smoothly again. His saliva was pink with blood. Arthur could work with that. His worst fights had painted his teeth red and it seemed that his investments into constitution would prevent such things from ever accruing again. At least when he fought people in his weight class.
This time, Arthur got into a proper stance before doing anything else. Although it wouldn’t do much against someone who moved at twice the speed of sound, it was the main reason why he’d been knocked down in only two seconds. Muay Thai was geared more towards offence than defence, and so Arthur adjusted a little, tucking his chin lower and tightening his arms around his head.
Arthur now looked a little more like a grappler and he hoped that the slight changes he had made wouldn’t prove to be his undoing. Not that he thought it could make much of a difference but pebbles made mountains and fights were lost on less.
“Are you ready?”
This time, Alyssia was the one who asked the question. Arthur inclined his head slightly but kept his eyes trained on Alyssia. He wouldn’t make the mistake of inattention again. With his perception nearing 100 and the appropriate intelligence backing it, Arthur was sure he’d be able to at least see Alyssia’s movements.
Whether he’d be able to do anything about it, however, was a different question altogether. But Arthur was feeling confident. Maybe he was trusting his powers of analysis too much, but Arthur could already tell from the little he’d seen of the alverin fighting style that it was incomplete.
It was lacking a key component, something Arthur felt was supposed to be there yet had intentionally been left out. Unlike Muay Thai, whatever Alyssia was currently using was created around the usage of ether, the principle that one’s battle strategy should and would revolve around magic. That made sense on a planet where ether augmented everything, but magic had explicitly been restricted for this bout.
Arthur had no doubt that if that particular condition hadn’t been attached to their spar, the fight really would have ended in the first two seconds. It wasn’t that he was standing because Alyssia lacked a punch, he just wasn’t ready to face it and so magic had been excluded from their fight.
The green-skinned woman gleamed in the fake sunlight with a thin sheen of sweat and she stood in one of the strangest stances Arthur had ever seen. She leaned forward, almost as if she was a four-legged mammal instead of two. Arthur didn’t question it though. The slight sting that remained on his face had already taught him how effective it was.
When Alyssia finally made her move, Arthur was ready for it. The way her eyes involuntarily went towards her target, his left sternum. A punch or a kick? The placement of her foot suggested it was the latter. A small indention formed in the ground around her lead leg, as her right swung forward in a devastating arc of destruction.
With his 92 points in perception, Arthur could fully appreciate the attack, it was the perfect strike, flawless in execution, with no energy wasted in excess and no hesitation in delivery.
Poetry in motion.
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Those were the only words Arthur could think of to describe it, a sonnet that spoke of one's devotion to violence. And it was directed at him. Could he dodge it? Not a chance.
He didn’t intend to.
The full force of Alyssia’s blow struck him, but he’d already learned that his bones could more than handle the stress, so he allowed it to pass unobstructed. The kick that could have felled a birch tree in pre-system times struck Arthur at full force and the sound it produced could be heard all over the grassland.
Much like he’d expected, Alyssia began to immediately move her attacking limb back towards the ground. That was exactly the issue with her fighting style. For some reason, she never really pushed through with her attacks, almost as if she was more concerned with simply landing one on him than actually doing any damage with them.
Arthur had always been taught to hit through an opponent, not literally of course, but in such a way that if he ever missed a strike with his leg, his body would follow the momentum and he’d end up rotating a full circle to get back into his stance. It made sure that every one of his blows was delivered with maximum impact.
Alyssia, however, did no such thing. Her blows were quick and accurate, but nothing more. The only comparison he could make was with a taekwondo competition where one was more concerned with gaining points than actually hurting their opponent.
All of this information flashed through Arthur’s head even as he stepped forward. He’d started the movement the second he’d seen Alyssia begin to launch her kick, but his underwhelming speed meant that her blow was well and truly delivered before he closed the distance between them.
He’d expected that.
And so had Alyssia it seemed. But that didn’t mean she’d be able to do anything about it. Her fate had been sealed the moment she’d launched such a telegraphed strike. Arthur moved his left hand downwards even as he raised his right to attack.
Not a punch. The thirty centimetres now separating them were nowhere near enough to generate any reasonable amount of force. Instead, he used the most famous blow Muay Thai was known for. A devastating elbow strike.
Two actions happened simultaneously. His left palm struck the top of Alyssia’s right thigh, which was still airborne from her initial strike and his right elbow rushed forwards at subsonic speeds straight for Alyssia’s head. He’d practised the motion thousands of times on a heavy bag until the movement had become engrained in his muscle memory. He’d trained it to perfection and it showed. His strike was flawless, from the build-up all the way to its delivery.
If anyone on Earth had been in Alyssia’s place, their skulls would have shattered and their brain matter would have sprayed in a fine pink mist in all directions. They would have died in seconds, anything less than 350 Constitution a paper barrier of impotence. Alyssia, however, was no ordinary woman, nor was she from Earth.
She had well over 500 agility, and no matter how flawless his technique may be, he might as well have been standing still in her eyes. Alyssia inclined her head slightly to the right, moving it forward an inch, and his elbow flew past harmlessly. His perception meant that he noticed her smirk of amusement as she did so.
Minimum movement for maximum result. The perfect slip, exquisite and refined to a knife edge with an infinitesimally small margin of error. Alyssia knew her mastery and so she smiled.
So did Arthur.
They were so close now, that he could feel the heat of her breath on his shoulder and smell the strange blend of wild grass and sweat she gave off. It was a primal scent, free from chemicals and anything artificial. An honest scent, filled with violence, excitement, battle-lust and tension.
Arthur’s arm, which was now positioned slightly behind the Alverin's head began to extend outwards until it looked like he’d actually thrown a right cross instead of an elbow. That's when he snapped it back, his open palm right into the back of Alyssa’s head.
Not as an attack, it was nigh impossible from such an angle, but rather as a means to lock her movements in place. 'If you control the head, you control everything.' His old teacher had given him that piece of advice on numerous occasions, and he’d learned from experience that it was true.
The second Alyssia felt his palm touch the back of her skull, she tried to duck under and step back. She failed. Arthurs’s earlier push towards Alyssia’s striking foot meant that it had reached the ground a fraction of a second faster than it should have. With a little more force too.
An error so small would normally mean nothing, but in a fight when the balance was everything, a moment of instability spelt disaster. Arthur’s grin widened when he managed to get his other hand around Alyssa's head, completing his clinch.
The standing grapple, where one uses their hands to control the position of a person's head to limit their range of movement. The moment Arthur’s hands met sealed Alyssia’s fate. She’d be hard-pressed to dodge anything when she couldn’t even move. Alyssia might be strong, but he didn’t think she had the required stats to escape his grasp when he had such a perfect hold on her.
This fight was as good as over.
He grinned.
The fight was not over, in fact. It lasted all of ten minutes, in which Arthur’s body was intimately taught the shape of an Alverin's fist. Those bastards had some sharp knuckles. Arthur lay sprawled on his back, drenched in sweat with Alyssia in a similar state beside him.
Unlike him, however, he doubted she had a single bruise on her ribcage. He’d learned the hard way that limiting Alyssia’s movements didn’t mean he’d be able to hit her. The damn woman didn’t have a spine, at least it felt like it. She’d contorted her body in ways that would have broken a human woman's back, more akin to a snake than a two-legged sapient.
A lucky blow to her lower shin had put an end to her antics, the only blow Arthur had landed in the entire fight, and Arthur had paid the price for it in a busted lip and an aching jaw. All in all, Arthur had performed far better than he’d expected. He’d even be so generous as to say that he’d won their little bout. Not decisively, but towards the end, he’d definitely gained an edge as Alyssia began to tire.
She'd been the first to collapse after all. Sure it hadn't been caused by any damage he'd inflicted, but she'd still fallen to the floor first, unable to get up as her stamina petered out to zero. He'd quite literally tanked his way to victory. It was a hollow win, but Arthur would take it nonetheless.
If she used any magic, though, I’d have died in seconds. Even a small metal stick. She'd get it through my eye faster than I could blink and my brain would've been mush.
Arthur reminded himself that the only reason he’d even stood a chance in the first place was because of the handicaps Alyssia had granted him. He wasn’t fool enough to think his crappy shadow bomb skill of a few weeks could in any way match the potential of ether arts refined through millennia of work.
That was what Alyssia was. The product of thousands of years of perfecting and innovating, until a young girl who loved battle had been born and made that fighting style her own.
She’s been taught by the best, comes from another bloody dimension and is twice my level. And I fought her to a standstill.
"Damn, I'm good."