Shen had learned one thing in their various battles: never give Uk'Gaar a chance to fight on his own terms. So he started with his Endless Rush, running close to the orc and thrusting his spear without stopping as soon as he was close enough.
Uk'Gaar had sacrificed some of his memories to remember a thing or two from his previous fights with Shen. The moment the boy stepped ahead, the orc activated his domain, and Shen's movements slowed down.
Still, the orc was supposed to get killed by mortals, and Shen had just reached that point.
For the past sixteen years, he definitely had lacked no nutrients, so he had a body as fit as possible for someone with crippled meridians. Yet, he had never trained before. When his meridians had been healed, he had woken up and walked around with ease, but he was nowhere close to having an athletic body. That meant any attack or move of his was always lacking in the power or speed department.
He hadn't noticed before, but now it was obvious that the Alliance’s removal of one’s body need for food also erased the need for sustenance for physical growth. His fights during the ten waves had strengthened him already and given him something akin to muscle definition.
The final boss had basically given him steroids.
He was constantly imbuing his muscles with qi and forcing them beyond their limits, and then the system was healing him. For a hundred times, he had done that, which was comparable to a hundred days of extreme training if he did it only once a day. In other words, he had basically trained for three months.
Well, not really. He wasn't doing dedicated physical fit training, and he also didn't fight for too long. But it was enough that now he did have the body of a martial artist.
So when the domain hit Shen, he didn't use his qi. Instead, he just pushed ahead with sheer muscle power. It still left him about only a little better than half as fast as Uk'Gaar.
He offset that with pure technique.
His spear was now a proper weapon in his hands rather than a stick, and he had also realized that the orc was very limited in his movements. Not being allowed to learn too much about Shen without losing other memories made him incapable of properly adapting to Shen's fighting style, even if he had access to his short-term memories. He simply couldn't react fast enough when something happened because he could only match his current fight with his past experiences. As similar as the attacks he was facing might be to others which his true body had faced in the past, they weren't the very same, and that small rift was enough for Shen to then fight Uk'Gaar head on.
So a non-qi-infused—but much better trained and battle-tested—Tipping Point redirected Uk'Gaar's saber without Shen's spear getting redirected. His thrusts pierced the orc’s skin more than a single inch, giving four or even five points of damage when hitting the orc's throat. His movements were fluid, and the enemy's saber never got even close to reaching him, even under the domain.
That lasted until a slash cut the orc's throat from one side to the other.
> Restricted Orc Warrior (F) — 99 / 200 | -10
Suddenly, Uk'Gaar's saber moved way too quickly and pierced Shen's body from shoulder to waist to the hilt, a little diagonally, barely avoiding crushing his spine.
> Health: 20 / 100 | -80
Shen immediately used all the qi he could to get back as quickly as possible. Uk'Gaar didn't follow, but he did get into a fighting stance for the very first time. He crouched, the saber's hilt held horizontally with both hands at head height.
The pain was absolutely horrible, but though the Guardian System hadn't said so, it also numbed it. Pain wouldn't be an issue in this fight, unlike his breathing, which was suffering considerably from the lack of a lung. He wondered if he would die drowning in his own blood or if the bleeding immunity would avoid that too.
He would learn while fighting; he had no time to think about that.
Shen stared at Uk'Gaar. Something had changed. He didn't know what, but to be honest...
He liked it.
That's what a final showdown should be like.
He grabbed his spear with both hands, got on a similar stance to the orc, and ran qi through his body. His speed, strength, reaction speed, everything increased. He was ready despite the lack of a lung.
They both rushed at each other at the same time, and the following battle was akin to a dance.
Uk'Gaar's saber flowed swiftly in both grand and short arcs. The orc himself seemed to flow with it, his feet barely touching the ground as he twisted and sidestepped, advanced and retreated at a perfect pace.
Shen's spear flowed like the wind, quickly, unbidden by obstacles, destructive when fast enough. The Feng Clan's Spear Art had a hidden name known only by those who cultivated it to a minimum threshold—or had access to all books in the main library: the Windstorm Spear Art. It wasn't a coincidence their best footwork technique was the Gale Footwork. They complemented each other just perfectly.
Saber hit spearhead repeatedly, always getting redirected without causing damage. No matter how much Uk'Gaar tried, no matter where he attacked from, no matter how fast he tried to move, his strikes never went through Shen's defense.
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Shen's attacks, however, were the opposite.
At a high enough level of martial arts, there was no halfhearted defense or deflection anymore; there was only parrying. Every time Uk'Gaar's attacks were foiled, Shen's spear bit a part of his body. Thrust by thrust, slash by slash, swing by swing, the orc's health points steadily fell. Point by point, he got closer to death.
Their fight was way too fast. Every attack Shen parried was less than a second away from each other. In twenty seconds, Uk'Gaar's health points had dropped to less than fifty. Rather than giving up, his attacks only became more efficient, his technique sharper, his strength higher.
He was giving his all.
And Shen met the challenge head on.
Hit by hit, he improved. Bit by bit, he learned. Strike by strike, he became a finer martial artist.
And at last, he struck at Uk'Gaar's chest with such momentum, such a perfect angle, such a great mastery of his spear, that the entire spearhead entered the orc's body despite its thick skin and pierced his heart.
> Restricted Orc Warrior (F) — 3 / 200 | -40
That was the end. The moment he took the spear out, the orc would die. Only the imbued metal was still keeping him alive, and even then, only barely.
Even as they looked at each other's eyes, Uk'Gaar's health points dropped by one.
Shen tensed, ready to finish the job if he was attacked, but the orc fell to his knees and lowered his head a little. "I lost."
The boy nodded. "You did. What was that at the end?"
Uk'Gaar smiled, and blood fell from his mouth. It seemed the injury was worse than Shen thought. He lost another health point, only one remaining. "I gave up on some memories to properly learn from this fight so I could beat you." He shook his head and opened his arms wide. "This is the result." His arms fell to his sides. "When my true body comes for you, tell him of this."
Was that a threat? Was it a dishonor to defeat someone's Incarnation, so the true body would come for revenge? "Why would your true body look for me?"
"Because of this," Uk'Gaar said, then spit blood at Shen.
The martial artist quickly took his spear off of the orc's body and dodged the incoming projectile, but it followed him. He struck it with his spear, but the blood just split itself into two streams and kept coming until it hit his forehead.
Shen quickly rubbed his forehead to get rid of it but found nothing. Had his skin absorbed that blood? What would that do to him? He sat at once and meditated, moving his qi through his entire body to find it, to no avail.
The blood seemed to have disappeared.
When he opened his eyes, Uk'Gaar had already turned into motes of light and disappeared.
Only a notification and a blue box waited for him.
----------------------------------------
"War," a guttural, deep voice said. "War never changes."
The orc warrior was standing beside another on top of a mountain, both of them wearing black plate armor, their helmets stored away. Below them, their tribe's younglings were fighting another tribe's younglings, all of them almost naked. They had to refine themselves through potentially lethal battle to become true elites, just like the Rising Star beside him.
Uk'Gaar snickered. "Stupid. Every war is different."
"But it always brings destruction and despair, doesn't it?" Tuk'Url replied. "I found it smart myself, and I'm pretty wise. My third mate says so every time I tell her she's pretty, and my fourth mate agrees with the third when I tell her I'll buy her a new jewel."
"Stop wasting time with games and females. Train instead."
"A new world was just integrated into the Alliance and you know I enjoy checking new cultures. Speaking of which, they depict orcs as stupid brutes.“ His voice was filled with the pain of the misunderstood. Below, the younglings killed each other with abandon. “I checked, and a damn elf has been living on the planet in secret for a couple hundred years. The asshole manipulated public perception to make his race look cool and ours dumb."
Uk'Gaar’s only reply to that was a grunt.
"See!" Tuk'Url said with mock excitement. "Such an eloquent conversationist! You, Uk'Gaar, are the epitome of elegance! We should just go exterminate them all for their prejudiced views!"
Uk'Gaar kept quiet for a moment, but Tuk'Url kept sending sideways glances his way with an excited smile. The former sighed and asked, "You're too happy. What happened?"
"Oh! You noticed! Thanks for asking!" He took a recording crystal from his inventory and a holographic image hovered over it. It showed a strange humanoid, probably the newly integrated race—they were called humans, right?—fighting...
"What?!" Uk'Gaar roared with such ire that the battle below stopped at once, everyone frozen by the domain he released by instinct. About half of them fainted. He reined it in, and they returned to their bloodbath even more frenzied than before, believing the outburst to mean he had found them worthy. He lowered his voice, but it was still furious. "Why is there an Incarnation of mine in the Guardian Tutorial?!"
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Tuk'Url said with mocking surprise. "Remember that time we drank the Hydra Poison Brew? Well, we had a little bet, and you lost. You gave me your Soulstar Saber and donated a drop of your blood essence to the Guardian System."
"That is not funny," Uk'Gaar growled, but his anger had decreased a lot. That was annoying, but of no consequence if the Alliance hadn't acted behind his back. "I asked you if you had seen the saber before, but you denied it. It’s an heirloom that I was saving for one of my children. Give it back."
"Stop wasting time talking and check the hologram better. See? I gave it to the tutorial too, so unless you want to buy it back, forget about it. Keep looking." He nodded to the recording. Not too long after, the human refused the saber in favor of extra training. And he trained a lot. "I helped create this version of the first stage, and I told them someone would abuse it to get free training. The idiots just limited it to a hundred attempts before the trainee lost some potential AP."
"Heavens help me," Uk'Gaar said with growing despair. "You know I promised not to take an apprentice before I kill my treacherous last one. Please don't tell me my Incarnation..."
He trailed off as the recording showed his Incarnation giving the boy the ultimate mark of acknowledgement, its own blood essence, what kept it alive. The Incarnation would be no more.
There were all kinds of Incarnations, but the one the tutorial created was a spotter. They were supposed to both stop the unworthy from getting extra rewards and to find exceptional talents for further training. And when providing blood essence to the tutorial, one also agreed to take any talent their Incarnations found worthy as apprentices.
"You knew what that means," Uk'Gaar's skin was positively white. "My children, all the great powers I refused... You... You turned me into a dead man."
"How would I guess the Alliance would find a new planet about to get erased from existence so quickly? Or that they would actually have a talent that would attract your Incarnation? The one you have at the Champion Hall has acknowledged no one yet, and it's already been what, three hundred years?"
Uk'Gaar could say nothing to that.
"Also, I told you your plan would backfire. Just go kill your traitor apprentice quickly and change the order of facts a little so it looks like you accepted the human after that. No one will really investigate."
“I can’t take him as an apprentice. I know nothing of the spear."
"We know someone who does, don't we? The Soulstar Saber didn't forge itself. Go ask her for help." He paused for a moment. "But before that, do you remember when you promised my firstborn would become your first apprentice when you started taking them again? I'll let the matter of the Incarnation go, but Tuk'Yarl should be arriving in your house any time now. Take good care of him."
Uk'Gaar growled, but he couldn't kill his sworn brother for what was effectively a minor prank. And to be fair, he had been getting some reputation hit for leaving the apprentice who betrayed him alive for so long, not to mention the tuition he had been missing for refusing new apprentices. It might be a good idea to deal with it, after all.
So he turned and left; he had a mess to fix.