Today was the day. Alistair’s three months of training were coming to a close. The light at the end of the tunnel was Brutus Caligoris, champion of the Church of the Holy Ones.
The day of the duel started like any other. Alistair was exempted from the most difficult portions of the training as to not exhaust him before the fight, but he still participated as much as he could. Pike advised that keeping his routine as normal as possible was good for the nerves.
Like all challenges against champions, the duel would take place in the town square. There was a large amphitheater that could seat over a thousand people. Such bouts were spectacles enjoyed by the entire Holy Ravine.
I’ve fought before trillions, if not more, Alistair thought. I shouldn’t be scared.
But something about those bouts on Faxor was different. This was more personal.
The last of his central fatigue from the final Steel Body trial had vanished. That was the closest to death he had ever come, both unlocking his body and mind. He was ready to face his opponent.
Alistair meditated in one of the private chambers, feeling the energy of all those around him. While he didn’t have his normal senses or powers, after feeling the flow of water over his skin for so long, he felt a certain attunement with all flowing energies. Perhaps he was drawing on something akin to life force. Whatever it was, he felt Pike approach him long before the man’s nearly silent footsteps became audible.
“Are you here to see me off?” Alistair asked, eyes still closed. His match was supposed to be in an hour, and it would take nearly that long to walk there. He had to get going soon, but he was dragging out his exit.
“You’ve put on some meat,” Pike commented.
Alistair looked down at his shirtless physique. It was true—the Steel Body training had taken him into another level of musculature. He wondered if on the outside, the system would dock his Agility or something of that nature. He was faster than his previous, depowered self, but it seemed crazy to think his true speed wouldn’t suffer consequences.
“I’m feeling invincible,” Alistair said.
“Are we getting cocky now?” Pike said. “What happened to the studious boy I started training?”
“Your personality rubbed off.”
“Master Ko Pao won’t be happy.” Pike jabbed Alistair’s gut with a weak punch. The him of before would have toppled over in pain. As Alistair was now, he felt a thud. “You’ve finally come into your own.”
“This is nothing,” Alistair replied. “You should see me when I have my powers. I could lay your ass out with one finger.”
“Still, I can’t imagine the man I saw walk in here winning against you now. Even if you were a hundred times as strong. You have a sturdy foundation now.”
Alistair smirked. Pike wasn’t capable of understanding just how powerful cultivation could make a person, but he wasn’t wrong in the sentiment. Something monumental had shifted within in him, and he couldn’t wait to see how the Pathfinder AI registered that on the outside. But for now, he had to focus on his upcoming fight entirely.
“Let’s go.”
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Pike led him out through a secret exit in the Silver Comet temple. Behind one of the statues of the past victors of the Dragon’s Equinox Festival originating from the sect, there was a rectangular passage dug into the wall. With his added bulk, Alistair barely fit inside the passage. Pike was an even tighter squeeze.
That was when Pike informed him of the true location of his duel—the underground arena. Silvanio had specially requested it. Underneath the town square ring, there was a smaller and more private subterranean fighting arena.
Alistair’s match would take place there, with only a couple of spectators. He wasn’t sure if that made him more or less nervous.
But he was also psyching himself out with false thoughts. It was one of those things where his body was in complete homeostasis, calm as a rock, but his thoughts swam. In a strange way, his true self was tranquil even as his outer mind wandered. In reality, he knew that he was prepared and was ready to win.
I will win.
An escort of Holy Ones led him and Pike through an underground section of their church. It was a dank passageway, barely lit by luminescent blue moss growing on the walls. The people leading him wore full-body starry night cloaks that covered their faces, giving off a creepy impression.
Alistair paid it no heed and walked with complete serenity. Pike’s presence behind him was like a warm ball of flame on a cold winter's evening. Feeling the connectedness of all things was the perfect calming mechanism.
One of the Holy Ones, who wore a robe with blue stars, took out a jagged knife. “The ceremony shall now begin,” he croaked out.
Pike had told him about this—the traditional Holy Ravine pre-fight ritual. His sparring and even duels back at the temple weren’t considered “official” fights, so he didn’t have to do it then. Alistair remembered the procedure just as Pike had told him.
He lifted his arms in the air, kneeling before the Holy One apostle with his head down. Then he brought his hands down and kissed the ground.
“Before the Mother of War, I bless this one. Let his heart beat with your song and calling, and grant him the strength of your greatest sun champions who trample the night away on this day and all days.”
The man raised his knife and gently brought it down on Alistair’s prostrate back, cutting his robes and letting them fall to the floor. The two attendant apostles stripped the remaining pieces of Alistair’s cloak, leaving him shirtless.
Next, the head of the preparers took out a bowl of a saturated red liquid. Murmuring quietly in indecipherable speech, he stood over Alistair and carefully poured the substance over his head. It was cool to the touch with the viscosity of milk. Like Pike had told him to, he stood up and let it wash over his body.
The liquid was called the Burning Heart of War, a special tincture that had been used since the origins of the Holy Ravine for duels and battles. It accelerated the heart and dilated the blood vessels, improving athletic performance in addition to a minor psychoactive effect that increased bloodlust and willpower.
Also, it gave a slight red glow to the skin, which was pretty damn cool.
Alistair walked through the gate to the arena. The floor was a polished black stone that was surprisingly springy. Four stone posts formed a square, elastic rope wrapped around each side, enclosing a space around twice the size of a typical boxing ring. The square was slightly raised off the floor and there were no seats, so the few spectators that were there had to stand to watch.
Like the passageway, the only light was the glowing blue moss, though there was more of it, so it was easier to see. Still, Alistair estimated that the suboptimal lighting conditions were enough to register a loss of performance.
Silvanio was present, along with his daughter and a few more Holy Ones Alistair didn’t recognize. Pike was there, taking his spot alongside the master. Ko Pao and his granddaughter were present, along with Davnos and Jo Ran. Oliver looked even more pale than usual, though he smiled when he saw Alistair arrive.
And on the opposite side of the ring stood his opponent. Brutus Caligoris.
Brutus fit the descriptions. He stood close to two meters tall and with larger muscles than even Pike. He had a mane of some of the reddest hair Alistair had ever seen, with a harsh face that looked fitting on warrior of his caliber.
Yet all that was red herring. Brutus was definitely physically imposing, but Alistair was trained in the Steel Body. The Holy One’s advantage came in his deadly techniques and tricky movements, coupled with blinding speed. All in all, quite similar to {Psychopomp’s Discipline}.
With his red hair and glowing red skin, in the low light of the arena, Brutus looked like a devil. The moss cast long shadows in his creviced face, concealing his features. He glared directly at Alistair, who returned his gaze.
Alistair climbed the short staircase and hopped over the ropes with ethereal grace. He didn’t have to do that—Brutus ducked under the ropes like a normal person. But Alistair felt like showing off.
Silvanio stepped up onto the ring, holding his hands high. “My champion, Brutus Caligoris, faces the outsider, Alistair Tan, in single combat. If the outsider wins, he may make one request of me that I shall do everything in my power to grant. If he loses, he shall remain in the Ravine and serve me instead of the Silver Comet Sect.
“There is only one rule—no weapons allowed. The match shall continue to surrender or incapacitation. As always, there is the possibility of death too sudden for my intervention.”
Silvanio, despite his short height, felt like he was looking down on both Brutus and Alistair. He coldly glanced at them and let his hand fall, signaling the beginning of the match.
Brutus took a fighting stance, standing more side-faced than Alistair would have expected, like that of a taekwondo or karate fighter who primarily wanted to kick. With the red liquid suffused in his skin on top of his bulging muscles, Brutus looked more like an angry devil than a human.
Alistair took no stance. He wasn’t so arrogant to close his eyes, but he kept his hands down. He chose to feel the balance in the air, the tension in his opponent’s muscles. Reading the flow of power and the principles behind Brutus’s movement.
Brutus shuffled toward Alistair, looking almost comical in his extreme focus. Footstep by footstep, Silvanio’s fighter approached him. A pace was glacial. Only when he came within two body lengths of Alistair did he begin his attack.
With his superior reach, he shuffled forward with extreme explosive power, aiming a jab right at Alistair’s face.
Alistair read ahead of the blow, slipping it and stepping forward to throw a counter punch. Brutus disappeared.
The signature of the Holy Ones, Alistair thought. Hidden Under Heaven. His reaction time was ludicrously fast. Alistair would have difficulty landing his blows without reading ahead.
With those heightened senses, the Holy One apostles had the deepest understanding of the perception of attacks of any in the Ravine. That made them a natural counter against the Steel Body, which relied on tensing the muscles against attacks inside of one’s perception.
The Holy Ones used Hidden Under Heaven to perform a divine technique—Dispersion. It was often joked that they didn’t know how to use anything but Dispersion. Dispersion let one slip into their opponent’s blind spot with the slimmest of timings and otherworldy dexterity.
Thud. Brutus’s fist connected with the back of Alistair’s head, knocking him forward a step. But the punch felt more like a light sparring blow than a full power punch. Alistair had read ahead, predicting that the back of the head was Brutus’s target and applied the Steel Body to negate the damage.
The giant of a man instantaneously shifted gears. The punch did barely any damage, but still offset Alistair’s balance—owing to Brutus’s hefty 140 kilogram frame. Brutus took advantage of this and unleashed a flurry of tricky blows at breakneck speeds. He was a blur of movement, almost faster than Alistair’s visual dynamic acuity could process.
The huge Holy One moved like a man half his weight, dancing like a ballerina with precise arcing blows and turns. Alistair could barely defend the attacks—they were simply coming too fast. He decided to give up attempting to block them all and shifted to mitigation, tensing his Steel Body at the expense of letting more hits fall through the seams.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Brutus attacking power was lower than Alistair’s, but could never be confused with low. His large muscles employed picture perfect power-generating technique.
Yet his blows did not land with penetrating force. The loud noise that emanated from each punch was an illusion. They pushed him back with weight, bringing him to the edge of the ring.
What happens if I fall out? Alistair wondered. The rules didn’t mention anything about ringouts or penalties for getting ringed out. That momentary lapse in concentration led to a small decrease in performance in his Steel Body. A hard fist landed, and Alistair flew out of the ring and onto the ground.
Alistair panted, not from physical exhaustion, but from mental fatigue. It had not been an accident that his mind had idly wandered about. The Steel Body was not just a physical technique, but also one of the mind, requiring the utmost concentration. He had to precisely time each moment of impact, using predictions obtained from gazing into the fundamentals. That was not a straightforward task on the calculative abilities of the brain. Alistair was brought back to every difficult test he had taken in his life, amplified by the fact his life was potentially on the line.
His mind, seeking refuge from the intense load, decided to wander into aimless thoughts. Alistair hadn’t even realized. Subconsciously, even if it was only a little bit, he had backed down. That sent a chill down Alistair’s spine. Am I afraid of him?
A simple recollection of his thoughts said no, but the ego could easily be lied to, the central idea of cognitive dissonance.
A hand came down on his sweaty back. Silvanio’s voice spoke quietly. “If you are ringed out, you have ten seconds to get back in before you are disqualified. I believe I forgot to mention that.”
Alistair took a deep breath, centering himself. There was no need to fret. Not when he had trained so hard for this moment. He hopped back up into the ring, where Brutus waited for him with a wicked grin. The brutal man let out a howl of a beast, bearing his overlarge canines. Once again, he brought his massive body into a sideways stance, creeping towards Alistair like a fencer.
The assault began again. Alistair had an intuition that was coming. People tended to stick with what worked, only deviating when that failed. Perhaps it was a trick of the imagination, but Brutus felt even faster now, whirling his heavy limbs with lightning-quick speed. Alistair couldn’t even begin to fathom how one would throw the combination Brutus employed, but what he could do was to predict the moment of impact. That much was in his wheelhouse.
Once again, Alistair was pushed back by the weight of the blows. But this time, he didn’t let himself lose focus. He blocked what he could and took the rest with his hard body. Slowly, he ceded ground. Within ten seconds, he was at the edge of the ring once more.
Getting trapped would spell doom for Alistair quickly. Taking away half of his maneuverability by putting his back on the ropes would allow Brutus to throw more deadly combinations and increase his striking power. Even the Steel Body employed a great deal of letting the flow of force pass through oneself—the same way in which modern cars that crumpled more to increase the time of the impact.
Alistair felt his back touch against the ropes. It was now or never. Had he seen deep enough into his opponent’s intentions? Gathering up all of his strength, he suddenly burst into action, firing a punch straight for Brutus’s solar plexus.
The punch connected with a satisfying boom. Using his reflexes, the giant Holy One went limp at the last second, diffusing some of the power of the blow, but he still flew back and tumbled over.
Alistair had timed his attack perfectly. Even with Brutus’s explosive athleticism, he could only sustain an all-out attack for so long. Last time, Alistair had lost focus before Brutus ran out of steam, but this time, he found the exact moment where his opponent slowed down and punched him accordingly.
Shit, Alistair thought, knees wobbling slightly. He hadn’t been able to tense his muscles properly when intercepting Brutus’s last punch since he had to prepare his own attack. Alistair spat out a chipped tooth and some blood.
Brutus slowly stood up, his green eyes never leaving Alistair. He didn’t look fazed at all—in fact—he was smiling. The wide-eyed grin of a madman.
Oh, I understand now. He’s a berserker, Alistair knew those types. The ones that loved fighting more than life itself. The sanctity of a fight was sacred to them. They’d trade years of their life away for just a few seconds, where they traded blows with everything on the line. He was nothing like those kinds of people who had more muscles than sense. He wasn’t smiling like a madman as well. Not at all.
This time, Alistair struck first. He let out a burst of air, using his most linear attack—a right straight. Fancy moves were nice and all, but the Steel Body worked best with simplicity.
Whoosh. He poured every inch of his body into the attack while picturing him literally impaling Brutus through the chest with the punch.
Brutus was taken off guard by the sheer explosiveness. With his catlike reflex and speed, he turned his body at the last second. Alistair felt his fist tear off skin and flesh of his opponent, right where the punch should have landed. The majority of the momentum of his attack went to waste, deflected by Brutus’s contortion. Yet it was still a monumentally powerful blow, and the rest of the force sent the man flying away, though in mid-air, he righted himself by virtue of his consummate kinesthesia.
Brutus skidded to a halt near the opposite edge of the ring from where Alistair struck. On his side, there was a bloody wound where Alistair’s fist tore off skin and flesh underneath. While the Holy One suffered no blunt force damage, the nature of the wound meant that it would not seal easily. He would be suffering constant blood loss for the rest of the match, even if it was in small amounts.
But Alistair wasn’t satisfied with a mere flesh wound. Even before he finished the follow through of his punch, he had already continued the attack. That was the way of pugilism—being on the back foot was a huge disadvantage.
He employed the tricky footwork of {Psychopomp’s Discipline}, distributing his weight in uneven intervals as he dashed toward Brutus. The possibilities of combat presented themselves to Alistair. While they weren’t actual physical manifestations in reality, like his precognition using Karmic sight, they were stronger than mere premonitions. Whether by some work of the Dao or his mental strength, he chose his best possible move—another right straight.
Alistair’s opponent wasn’t a champion for nothing. He was the weakest of them all—something Alistair found hard to believe, feeling his ferocious presence—but he still had a great command on the principles of fighting. Brutus countered with his own best move, a right straight. Two fighters, throwing punches almost in unison, exact mirrors of each other.
The sound of bone cracking filled the ring. Alistair’s bones.
Despite throwing his attack as a counter, with longer limbs and superior speed, Brutus’s punch landed first. Right on Alistair’s nose. Alistair’s head spun clockwise from the impact. Only milliseconds after, his own punch landed, but Brutus had used that infinitesimal amount of time to lean back with his neck.
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Alistair’s straight connected, but with half of the power of Brutus’s.
That was all a part of Alistair’s plan.
He took the blow, knowing full well of the consequences, to get one opportunity to take advantage of Brutus’s weakness.
As a counter, the Holy One’s punch had less weight behind it, so Alistair was still moving forward. The bestial man attempted to use Dispersion again, but they were too close. With his offhand, he delivered an uppercut to Alistair’s liver, but found the blow mitigated right away by the Steel Body.
Alistair grimaced in pain, but continued with his attack. He pressed his fingers into Brutus’s open wound, attempting to dig inside as deep as possible.
Brutus yowled in pain but refused to give in to the attack. Alistair had intended to use the gruesome move while grabbing the large man’s neck with the hand he just punched with to do a takedown, but Brutus was less affected by the intense pain than expected.
There was a split second of hesitation, where Alistair wasn’t sure how to proceed. His prediction had failed. This period was only around a tenth of a second, yet that was sufficient for Alistair to be caught unaware.
Shooting pain radiated in waves from his trapezius muscle. Blood flowed down his back and chest like a fountain. A wave of shock hit Alistair like a truck. Brutus had just bitten him like a wild beast.
Alistair let out a cry of pain and instinctively tried to push the madman away. This wasn’t a duel of martial artists anymore—but a fight in the wild. A dizzy thought reached his conscious mind. He remembered what Elerie had told him about Brutus. His nickname. Brutus the Biter.
While Alistair’s fighting instincts were generally top notch, the sudden burst of pain and shock at being bitten caused him to relinquish some of his training. Like Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
That in mind, Alistair had been through multiple life or death battles, many of them just as brutal as his current fight. However, the difference was the lack of his cultivated powers. He had grown so accustomed to them. They were always there as his safety crutch, always there when he needed the most. He felt vulnerable, naked even, without them.
Brutus seized the moment and relinquished his bite. He bear-hugged Alistair and suplexed him.
Alistair came crashing to the ground with a resounding bang. The full force of their combined almost 250 kilograms impacted his back. Because of the linear nature of the attack, Alistair was able to brace at the last second, mitigating some of the damage. But not all of it. He could feel bones fracture and internal bleeding.
Alistair refused to quit. His training had taught him to stay focused under the most dire of conditions. While still in flight during the suplex, he positioned his hand as best as he could.
The shock of hitting the ground temporarily disabled both fighters, if only for a quarter of a second. Alistair acted first, as bracing for the Steel Body prepared him better for the impact. He struck with that left hand to once again attack Brutus’s open wound.
Brutus yowled like a wild dog and pressed his weight down on Alistair, putting him in a squeeze of death. Alistair’s foresight backfired—he had predicted Brutus would jump back, yet those beast instincts propelled him forward.
Blood gushed out of both of their major wounds—Alistair’s left trap and Brutus’s side. Alistair tried to thrust his hips upward to make room to escape, but the Biter’s grip was like a vise. Despite being stronger than him, Alistair was in a disadvantageous spot. With his legs in between his opponent’s, being mounted was considered the worst position in fighting.
Heavy blows rained down from above. Alistair did his best to block what he could and mitigate the rest with the Steel Body. Each punch came down with the full ferocity of a seasoned warrior. Hard, biting fists that wanted Alistair dead.
But then, the moment that Alistair was waiting for came. All of his training was for this moment. He could feel it in the air. The fundamentals of martial arts aligning within himself. Pike had put him through hell for three months to open his eyes. So he used that sight.
The hidden offense of the Steel Body reared its fangs. The small bones of the hand—the phalanges and metacarpals—were some of the weakest in the body. They were not designed for hitting hard objects. Even though Brutus had undergone conditioning training on his hands, there was only so much they could take.
Brutus’s fist came down once more, but Alistair intercepted the strike. He headbutted with all his might, striking the man’s knuckles with the hardest part of his skull. The Holy One’s fist shattered instantly.
Feeling the weight let off of him for a moment as Brutus reeled from his broken hand, Alistair upkicked him as hard as he could. He followed up the kick with a series of well-timed strikes. Each crafted from his experience as a fighter, designed to impact outside of his opponent’s awareness.
An elbow to the chin. A hook to the temple. A spinning back kick to the solar plexus. And finally, a flying knee straight at Brutus’s wound.
Brutus went flying to the other end of the ring and collapsed onto the ground. Alistair wobbled, looking at his downed opponent. His vision went blurry. The dozens of punches he had taken on the ground had taken their toll. He could feel that his consciousness was fading, but through concentration, stayed himself.
Alistair swayed back and forth, feeling a burning sensation within his chest. He glanced at his opponent, who was slowly coming to his knees. It would have been the perfect opportunity to strike, but he wasn’t in a condition to go for a sudden, lunging blow. If he messed up, Brutus would have an easy counter, and it would be over for him.
Brutus looked more injured than him after taking five solid, nearly unguarded strikes. The wound on his side was picking up in blood loss, forming a puddle on the ground. Alistair had a feeling the fight was far from over.
He already felt a marked decrease in power in his last punch, owing to the bite wound he received earlier. It dug into his muscle, limiting the power he could generate on his left side. Thankfully, that wasn’t his dominant side, and he shuffled forward and held up his guard as best he could.
When Brutus finished standing, he didn’t even look at Alistair. The mad beast had his head turned down, having gone completely silent—a far cry from before, with his constant growling. Alistair knew that was when an animal was at its most dangerous. Not when it was making a ton of noise and trying to scare, but when it was quiet and on the hunt.
Alistair measured the distance in between himself and his opponent. Like Alistair himself had in the beginning, Brutus did not put up a guard or even look at him, yet there was something ominous in his stance. Alistair did not dare move within in his attacking range, standing one-and-a-half body lengths away.
Brutus was gone in a flash. Alistair’s eyes widened as he realized what had happened, tensing his muscles as fast as he could, but it was too late. A meaty fist connected with his cheekbone and he went flying.
Shit, Alistair thought. At least he could still think. Brutus had sped up his Dispersion somehow and struck outside of Alistair’s perception.
A whirlwind of deft strikes came from every angle. Brutus looked like he was in three places at the same time. All the while, not making a single noise other than the sound of his fists’ impact on Alistair’s body. His eyes were completely blank.
Alistair’s brain was rocked from the first surprise blow, lowering his reaction time. Brutus continually sped up in his attacks and easily surpassed his previous speed.
So he was holding out on me before. It was wrong to call Brutus the Biter a brute because of his appearance—he clearly had well-practiced tactics and a strategic approach to the duel.
Alistair put up his left hand to parry a punch that he saw coming in advance. Yet the enemy’s fist burst straight through his guard and into his eye. Alistair cursed mentally as he realized that the wound near his shoulder had worsened and his left arm’s strength had significantly weakened.
Brutus leaped into the air with agile fluidity and caught Alistair on the chin. Luckily, he managed to brace for that attack, or it would have knocked him out.
Pain and the taste of blood rocked Alistair’s world as his head bounced off the floor of the ring twice. The blow was so powerful that he had skidded out of the ring. Fractured jaw for sure, Alistair estimated. Concussion as well. Decreased vision on the left side. Moderate blood loss from the wound on his trap reduced the ability of his muscles on his left side to tense. An uneven Steel Body that was at least half as effective as normal.
Alistair smiled. Why had he disparaged berserker types before? Even now, as he stood near death, he could feel he was the on the verge of improving. There was an invisible ceiling he was about to crash into. Brutus wasn’t the end—he was a mere stepping stone on a path to power.
He didn’t see anyone but the beast before him. When he climbed back into the ring, even that stolid-looking man looked up but for a moment. Alistair saw shock in those emerald eyes. Perhaps it was the price of a beast’s soul. It was against the laws of nature to continue to fight when defeat was inevitable.
Caution imprinted itself on the Holy One as he raised his guard. Brutus aimed to end the fight in the next few moves. This prey shouldn’t be allowed to observe him any longer.
Alistair put up his guard as well. He smirked as he heard the crowd murmur. Instead of his usual, all-rounder style, he had adopted the exact same position as Brutus, standing mostly sideways with open palms. The only difference was that he stood southpaw, while Brutus was orthodox.
For the first time in the fight, the Holy One spoke. “Is this a joke?”
Alistair was not joking in the slightest. He had observed the Holy One fighting style enough that he thought he had a good grasp on it. Copying moves after only seeing them a few times, especially the nigh-physical impossible moves of the Holy Ravine—it should have been impossible. Should have being the operative words.
But Alistair felt something deeper at work. The Dao of the Fist was closer now than it ever was before, as he was on the brink of defeat. But when he embraced it, or the Mother’s Presence, as the Raviners called it, it was different than when he did it through the Dao Node.
Obviously, it was far weaker, but that wasn’t the difference he was talking about. When Alistair looked at the way the Pathfinder AI’s system of Deepenings and Widenings and Dao Nodes worked, he couldn’t help but feel a small sense of artificiality. It was like the system was hand-holding them. A streamlined method designed for producing a large number of decently powerful fighters.
Now, he breathed the Dao of the Fist.
It was just like that state he reached while in the final training to achieve the Steel Body. Pike had told him that even prodigies could not enter that mental state at will. It came fleetingly, choosing to bless in inscrutable ways.
Did that ever stop Alistair before? Would he bow down to the laws of common sense? Or would he burst through the doors of fate with reckless abandon?
Tranquil Mind. That state he achieved after the cleansing fires reached their zenith. The loss of ego, death of attachment, and absence of strong emotions.
Brutus used Dispersion and disappeared into Alistair’s blind spot. A jumping front kick came out nowhere, heading straight for Alistair’s head. Brutus’s eyes widened as his opponent disappeared.
Alistair copied Dispersion. Imperfectly, since his body didn’t have its reaction time and neural limiters removed. But with Tranquil Mind, he reacted without thinking, improving his reaction time. Not to Hidden Under Heaven’s limit breaking, but far enough to pretend. Alistair realized that if you combined the Hidden Under Heaven and Tranquil Mind, you could reach even higher heights, but thankfully, Brutus seemed to not be capable of that.
Brutus caught his counter with his palm and backstepped twice. Once again, his movements were filled with caution. He looked at Alistair with uneasy suspicion. A thought crossed his mind. Did that man really just use Dispersion after seeing it for the first time only a few minutes ago?
There was something disturbing about Alistair’s serene expression. It was as if he didn’t have a care in the world. To live or die, such things were no object to those in Brutus’s impression of Tranquil Mind.
Perhaps if the Biter had a bit more experience, he should have realized that Tranquil Mind could not perform miracles—it was impossible for Alistair to copy the Holy One’s moves with real weight behind them.
Brutus acted with far too much apprehension. Since he believed Alistair’s arsenal of techniques was larger than it really was, he crossed out too many of his own moves.
In an evenly matched fight, the winner only needs the smallest edge to seize victory.
Alistair kept up the act which was not entirely an act. He moved like a leaf in the wind, adopting the manner of the Holy Ones’ style. Quick, biting, and fluid. He threw a snaking finger jab to the throat. When Brutus dodged, Alistair acrobatically flipped into the air into a 760 tornado kick.
The Holy One put up an arm to block the kick, but it had far too much power behind it. Alistair knew that he broke Brutus’s forearm bones the instant his shin landed. The large man skidded back a few body lengths from the impact.
Alistair remained expressionless as he put up his hands, once more imitating his opponent’s side-facing style. The fury in the beast’s eyes was evident, a far cry from his silent hunting mode he was in earlier.
With a burst of air, Alistair disappeared from sight, using Dispersion once more. He was getting the hang of things now. His Dispersion would never be as good as the Holy Ones without undergoing the Hidden Under Heaven trial, but he didn’t need perfection, he only needed good.
Brutus countered with his own Dispersion. It was the absolute fastest strike of the day, perhaps the fastest attack Alistair had ever seen a human without cultivation perform. Brutus was a prideful man. He would not let his opponent one up him in his own style. Not now, not ever.
Time seemed to move in slow motion. Alistair was far too slow to enter Brutus’s blind spot. Alistair’s attack was simple—a sidestep into a left hook. The only thing that made it special was the use of Dispersion.
Meanwhile, Brutus aimed a straight punch right for Alistair’s face. A good martial artist took advantage of his opponent’s weaknesses. He aimed for Alistair’s left side, where both his vision and muscles were affected. He chose a punch instead of a kick to maximize the chance of landing, knowing that he had a limited window of opportunity.
Alistair took the blow. It was a powerful punch, molded from over two decades of harsh, inhuman training. He clenched every last muscle in his body, squeezing water from a stone.
Then came the real reason he switched to a southpaw stance—it was his natural stance as a right-handed grappler, at least for the style he specialized in, which relied more on throws than leg takedowns. Alistair quickly grabbed Brutus’s arm and tossed him over his shoulder.
Brutus came crashing to the ground with a resounding slam. The floor of the ring cracked underneath him from the power of the impact.
Alistair fell on top of his opponent. He hadn’t been able to mitigate all the damage. The only reason he succeeded in his throw was because of Brutus’s already injured fists. With the Steel Body employed at the moment of impact, Brutus’s other fist instantly shattered. That reduced the damage Alistair and gave him an opportunity to perform the throw while Brutus was in pain.
Alistair’s knees gave out, and he fell on top of Brutus. The accumulated damage took its toll, even through the Steel Body.
Alistair’s body automatically moved. The mad dog writhed beneath him, trying his damnedest to escape. Alistair wouldn’t let him. With every ounce of his strength, he held Brutus to the floor. There wasn’t time to perform a submission or throw a punch. Brutus would break free. Alistair’s body needed a few seconds of respite to recover its anaerobic capacity.
Alistair held him down tight. This gave room for Brutus’s sharp canines to tear into his skin like tiny daggers. The Holy One acted like his name, reverting to his primal instincts. Alistair’s flesh was nothing more than a tender steak for him to tear into, if that was what would give him victory.
At that point, he couldn’t hold Tranquil Mind any longer, letting it fade. He hadn’t reached its true zenith, the incredible pain flickering through in bits and pieces. Adrenaline flooded his system. He was verging on the edge of unconsciousness. But he kept holding on. He would die before he let go. He simply rejected the idea that Brutus could challenge him in a contest of strength, despite the man’s size.
Next came the final piece of training that he had mastered directly from the venerable Ko Pao. The ultimate technique of the Steel Body. According to the master, the truest strength of the Silver Comet Sect’s method was not striking, but grappling. When squeezing one’s muscles with the hardness of the Steel Body, it was possible to contract them so hard that they became stuck. While in this ossified condition, his limbs would clamp down with inhuman strength.
Brutus tried everything to escape. He was a trained fighter and the Holy Ones style was no stranger to ground fighting. But it was to no avail. His beast-like snarlings fell on deaf ears. Even those quieted down after over a minute.
All the while, Alistair did nothing. He did not try to throw a punch, or an elbow. He did not try to stand. He did not try to make an attempt to strangle. He simply pressed his weight down in as efficient a way he knew how, continually thwarting Brutus’s attempts to escape his iron hold.
Fundamentals That word echoed in Alistair’s mind, soon centralizing as an impossible to ignore thought. What made a martial artist better? Was it strength, agility, or constitution? Or was it something deeper? He couldn’t deny that being faster and stronger and more durable was an enormous advantage. But the Dao of the Fist was not Alexandra’s Barbaric Rage.
And so he clung on. Another minute passed. Brutus was no fool—he understood now that Alistair was trying to tire him out while expending the least amount of energy himself. He stopped trying to escape, laying low and catching his breath.
At the very moment where Brutus had his guard down the most, Alistair struck.
Or did he? No, Alistair merely fainted a strike. It took almost no energy to continue the hold, since his limbs were literally stuck in place like a bad cramp. Brutus heaved like a fish trying to get back in water. He had attempted a trap, intending to get Alistair to strike so he could off balance him in that exact moment.
Sweat and blood dripped down Alistair’s back and chest. Now that the situation had calmed down more, the aches and pains were starting to set in. His left shoulder burned and wailed, and refused to move properly. His eye was swelling to the size of an orange. Not to mention how many times his face had been wailed on earlier.
Alistair knew the toil of grappling from his training sessions, but this was on another level. His clenched arms burned with lactic acid buildup. He could only stop squeezing when his muscles ran out of energy.
He was glad there wasn’t a crowd watching. They might have booed.
Another minute passed. Brutus had slowed down, and no longer as a mere ploy. His stamina was almost gone now, but Alistair had the exact same problem. The two of them were locked in a battle of survival.
Brutus didn’t try any large moves, but he still constantly made microadjustments, striving for a superior position that he could leverage into his escape. It was still too dangerous to go for a strike, in Alistair’s opinion.
The breaking point came another minute later. A drop of blood glided down Alistair’s chest. The Steel Body’s clench loosened as his cells literally ran out of juice. Suddenly, he found himself without a solid hold on Brutus. It was a small difference—just a bit less friction in between the two of them. But it was enough for Brutus to pounce.
In a fraction of a second, he shot up. Not up vertically, but against the ground, which at that point was extremely slippery. Alistair lost his grip immediately.
Brutus rocked his weight backward, performing a kip up to get to his feet as fast as possible. Alistair was already there and met his ugly face with a solid punch—at the same time Brutus kicked. It was an impressive feat of athleticism, kicking on one foot at the instant he jumped, but Alistair didn’t have to time to appreciate that.
The two of them collapsed at the same time. Then, it was a matter of sheer willpower to see who would stand first.
They got up at the same time. Alistair forced his limbs to obey, dragging himself to his feet. Brutus was a blurry mess in his vision. However, the Holy One didn’t fare any better. His balance was severely off and he could barely stand straight.
And they both attacked once more. With how slow they had become, and how much their reaction speed had been reduced, both Alistair and Brutus couldn’t dodge each other’s blows. It became a grueling slugfest.
It felt like a kaiju movie, with both combatants throwing powerful blow after powerful blow. Then they would both recover, disengaging for as long as they could, then go right back to exchanging punches.
It was all according to Alistair’s plan. His opponent’s fists were already broken beyond repair. How long could he hold out?
That simple concept wasn’t coming to fruition. Instead, it was Alistair who was the one who was falling behind. Brutus attacked with reckless abandon, seemingly not caring that the bones of his fists were getting even more pulverized. Soon they would be powder.
His tide of strikes was unstoppable, pushing Alistair back with each punch. Panic started to set in as Alistair realized he was going to lose if he didn’t shake things up.
His mind danced from idea to idea in a frenzy, but he couldn’t focus properly with the constant barrage. Why couldn’t he see the intention behind Brutus’s attacks? That was the crux of the issue, even beyond his apparent inability to feel his hand injuries. It was like before each strike, Brutus shifted his position, but in a completely unpredictable manner.
Shit, shit, shit. Merely “trying” harder wasn’t going to cut it. The desire to win was stronger than ever, but you couldn’t just out believe your opponent to win. That wasn’t how a real fight worked.
“That is, unless you have me by your side,” a voice called out from within him. Dev’rox. “I’ve seen you fight far tougher enemies than this, brat. Do me a favor and not die here. I’d rather not dissipate into soul death because I attached myself to an unworthy fighter.”
Alistair gritted his teeth and spit out blood. Dev’rox’s mind acted as a soothing presence. His wisdom of age was like a refuge that he could calm down beside. This fight was winnable. He only had to figure out one thing.
When reading the intention behind an attack, he needed to understand the limitations of his opponent. Therefore, he was misjudging something about Brutus’s capabilities.
A wild punch knocked out one of Alistair’s teeth. He almost fell to the floor, barely avoiding a follow up kick that made a whooshing noise as it cut the air with immense speed.
What is it? What is it? Alistair felt his brain work in overdrive. The world moved in slow motion. Brutus drew back his fist, preparing an arcing uppercut.
Alistair observed every aspect of Brutus’s being. The sweat that fell down his forehead. The large gash in his side that oozed blood. The snarl on his face. And—
Suddenly, Alistair found his concentration out of whack. He barely managed to sidestep a thunderous uppercut that surely would have knocked him out. But now he had all the ingredients to victory.
Brutus was using Dispersion before every attack, not during. In such a small way that Alistair hadn’t even noticed it until he was looking at every granular action. Right before Brutus struck, the man would make the smallest preparatory actions. In a way Alistair did not fully understand, these actions were capable of distracting him for a moment. His understanding of Dispersion was incomplete, despite managing to copy it for a brief period.
Still, despite seeing the secret, Alistair wasn’t able to adapt right away. It was a slow change. Each sequence of moves, he saw a little more. And in each sequence, Brutus slowed down a small amount. Finally, the stamina drain from when Alistair had him on the ground was taking hold.
The key was moving before Brutus moved. Staying one step ahead. Seeing the path of his opponent’s Dispersion, Alistair launched a punch that collided head-on with Brutus’s fist.
There was a sickening crunch as Alistair’s hardened knuckles squashed that fist like butter.
Even then, the mad dog did not relent. He stepped forward to punch with his other fist—Alistair intercepted once more, reading the Dispersion ahead of time and striking with perfect timing. The sturdiness of the Steel Body held up, and he clenched his muscles taut to the utmost degree.
Brutus’s other fist collapsed like the first. But he did not stop, even though defeat looked imminent. In a final burst of rabid energy, he increased his speed.
Brutus the Biter unleashed all of his latent vigor in a flurry of blazing blows. Caution was thrown completely to the wind; he threw a combo of punches with his destroyed hands. They were pitifully weak, unable to land with even a third of their usual power.
Alistair parried and parried and waited for the last attack that he knew was coming. It was obvious, if you thought about it. A bite.
Despite how absurd it sounded, Brutus’s neck felt like it elongated and soared straight for Alistair, the madman’s enormous, sharp canines aiming directly for the jugular.
Alistair let out a burst of air. It had all led up to this. If Brutus’s bite landed, he would die.
A shockwave emanated from the ring. A man collapsed to the floor, unmoving.
Standing with his head high, Alistair was victorious. The last punch connected, a simple uppercut counter that he threw with all his might.
With all the damage Brutus had taken, that was enough. He lay flat on his stomach at the other end of the ring. The invincible mad beast had finally been put down.
Alistair would have basked in his victory, but he felt dizzy. He met eyes with Silvanio, whose face was expressionless as always. I wanted to see a little annoyance on that mug. Master Ko Pao, on the other hand, was beaming with pride and happiness. Most of all, Pike grinned with smug knowing. Of course, his apprentice had achieved victory. That much was always obvious.
Alistair closed his eyes and let the pain fade away. He was going to be hurting for the next few days.