Henry rose to his feet feeling like a man dying of thirst; he was weaker and all the wear and tear he had accumulated up until now. San was an epicenter of ki deprivation as she stood there smiling. Her sharp features made her elvish face take on a devilish glint. Her ability was so overpowered in this world of cultivators.

Usually, Henry wouldn’t care; he would suck it up and prepare for a fistfight. The problem was he had already fought three other people before her, and his ki was the only thing holding him together. He felt old wounds and cuts flare and reopen themselves.

Henry forced himself up from the ground and took his knuckle dusters from storage. Thankfully, he had a wisp of ki left and was able to grab some other stuff from there as well. If it was a fistfight she wanted, then at least he would be prepared.

“You and your siblings all have crazy powerful techniques; why the hell are you hiding here in the North,” Henry said, trying to catch his breath.

The air surrounding him was thin, as if the natural ki in it did not exist anymore.

“ We do not hide ourselves; we are forced to remain here because the Southern Cultivators are scared. There is some compact between Father and the Elders of the Martial Alliance.”

San seemed willing to talk, so Henry egged her on.

“What could the Southerners even do to Pops if he chose to break the agreement?”

“Absolutely nothing; that is not the point, though you do not break a contract that would incur a heavenly tribulation, and not even father can survive something like that.”

Henry slowly circled her; that's right. Keep her talking and try to find an opening, he thought.

“That doesn’t explain why yall can’t go down there and kick some ass.”

“We are an extension of Father; they know of us in the South through rumors and speculations. I see what you are up to, though, dear Brother. That's fine with me. I'll gladly answer all your questions.”

She smiled at him and matched his pace. Something was unnerving about her too-wide smile. Why was she so compliant in giving him more time to plot?

“You think I give a shit if you try to come up with some scheme? There is nothing tricky about my gifts. We fight, and one of us leaves this ring alive.”

She said this with such venom and vitriol that it shocked Henry.

She was closing on him when, with a burst of speed, she was throwing a kick at his ribs. He tried to dodge, but Henry moved just like an average person without his ki. The kick cracked his ribs, and he doubled over in pain.

She retreated to give him time to compose himself.

“My Brother Er was right; you are just a pretender. I don’t know how you tricked Father, but you will be a passing thought after today.”

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Henry was breathing hard, and it felt like he was slowly drowning. Every labored intake of air was followed by a white-hot lance of pain in his side. She was so fast, even without the use of ki. He knew that she had trained her body for this. Her thin frame belied wiry muscles. She was going to kick his ass till she was satisfied.

He needed ki even for just a moment. Something that she could not drain away fast enough to invalidate. He had six gold coins left that he planned to use for the next two fights. It would be dumb to plan, though, when he wasn’t even sure if he would make it out of this one alive.

She dashed in again, throwing two swift jabs at his head. Henry tried to throw a left hook as a counter, but she easily let it slip past her. Damn, he was so slow. Henry thought he didn’t realize how much he relied on his ki.

She was merciless, raining blow after blow at him. Some he was able to dodge, but most connected with frightening force.

Henry was a human punching back for San. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. He was broken and battered; his swollen face painted a picture of the violence that she had inflicted on him.

“You are pathetic; you know that using your little tricks to get your previous wins. You are no warrior, no conquer, just some charlatan with a rabbit in his hat.”

Stolen story; please report.

Henry palmed the six gold coins, struggling to remain conscious.

He knew what he had to do, but he knew that it would seal his fate if he did it.

That monkey-brained part of Henry’s mind screamed at him, saying he should concede, but another part told him to stop being pathetic.

He couldn’t just roll over to every challenge if he wanted power. He had to use everything at his disposal if he wanted not to be stepped on. The power was right there in his hand; all he had to do was use it.

The future be damned, Henry was battered and broken, and he wanted to make someone pay for it.

Draining all six coins at once, he felt the rush of potential energy course into him. The pleasure was maddening and intoxicating. At once, he felt San’s technique activate.

This time, though, something inside of Henry snapped. He felt an utterly foreign part of himself, an alien presence that refused to give up anything that it deemed as its possession. This presence strengthened Henry’s will. It shored up his resolve, and it sparked his desire to consume. He would be the one doing the taking. No one was allowed to claim what was rightfully his.

This was not the gold madness; this was something else. Whatever it was, it was working.

“What are you doing to my technique,” San shouted.

She ran at him, drawing a dagger hidden in her person.

Even with this newfound force, Henry could feel his ki trickling away. San’s technique was terrifying. He had to put her down; his will could not hold back her power much longer. Henry had all these new fancy techniques and shiny toys, but he remembered that there was one thing that was all his.

Henry could punch hard. He pushed every bit of his golden ki from his core to his fist. He could see the air crackle with power. San’s technique tried to contain the sudden influx of energy, but Henry’s ki was too potent, thick, and viscous. It was like oil as he concentrated more and more into his fist. San could not get a firm grasp on it.

San was no quiet observer as he channeled his ki. She punched, stabbed, and kicked him. He stood there stalwart as the mountain and immovable as the sky. The pain he felt did not matter now. All that mattered was winning this fight.

This punch was his; no stolen technique, legacies, or borrowed skill. This was a lifetime of blood, sweat, and tears, all packed into five fingers that enclosed into a fist. It was Henry's most authentic essence, not the many lies he had been entangled in since he was given a second chance.

He struck San as she stabbed him in the heart; the blade sunk deep up to the hilt. Henry did not care; he poured everything he had left into his punch.

----------------------------------------

There was a crack of lightning as a delicate hand closed around his oncoming fist, snuffing out his roiling ki.

“I think that will be enough for today, Brother Henry. Let us call it your victory,” said a pleasant, playful voice.

“Sister Yi, I was going to...” San said, but her words were cut off by two fingers placed over her lips.

“Had I not stepped in, Brother Henry’s punch would have wiped you from existence, no sass from you, little lady.”

Henry’s vision was blurry, so he could not get a good look at the female cultivator before him. Judging by how easily she could snuff out his punch, he assumed this must be the eldest of Fei’s offspring.

“ Hey, since I won and all, can you please take this knife out of my chest? Maybe get me a band-aid or something before the next fight. It wouldn’t be very sporting if I had to fight again.”

“Oh, that should be enough for today, I think, wouldn’t you agree, Er,” Yi said lightly, looking at the spiky-haired cultivator glaring at Henry.

“Yes, Eldest Sister. It would not be honorable to fight him in this condition. You should be grateful that my sister here is magnanimous; I would not have been.”

“So, is Pops okay with this? Last I checked, this was his show to run, not yours,” Henry said as coherently as he could.

He was losing a lot of blood, and the knife was still sucked into his chest. He had used all of his ki in that last attack, and his wounds were not knitting themselves back together.

“She speaks with my authority, Hen Ri, in all matters,” Fei said, walking over to the trio.

“Take this before you bleed out all over the place.”

Fei shoved a small vial at Henry, who drank it without thought.

“What, no snippy comments or rude remarks?” Fei asked, amused.

“I'm too tired for that shit, so if that's all, can I go pass out for a day or two?”

“One day, Brother Hen Ri, you will have one day to rest and recover, and then we will trade some pointers,” the girl said.

“So I’m not done, great fine, whatever, one day, then I get to kick your ass,” Henry said dismissively.

“Oh, I would like that very much, but you have to get through Er over there, and for whatever reason, you made him very cross with you.”

“Oh, porcupine head, he looks like a pushover.”

Henry started to walk over to the entrance to the castle.

“Oh Brother Hen Ri you drank that healing elixir quite fast, I would brace myself if I were you.”

“I'm almost afraid to ask this, but why?”

“No reason, just some friendly advice,” she said with a mischievous grin.

Henry was about to say something to the effect of xianxia bullshit or something along those lines when the pain hit him, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

“Told you to brace yourself,” Yi whispered as she caught him and carried him princess-style to bed.