Jean rushed through the ruins, wind sailing past his ears as purple light flowed around his body. His gate lay open, and he fed more aether into it as he ran. Eliza flew beside him, her ethereal body glimmering in the night. They needed to reach the center of the ruins quickly. He was already behind, and judging by the sounds coming from the temple in the distance, the fight had already started.

"I sense fate itself bending its will against us." Jean huffed out in short breaths, though he had no lungs to breathe.

Boom.

The ruined buildings of the complex rose up around him, casting him in shadows as a dust cloud exploded out of the center of the complex. He saw a small figure shoot up into the air and a giant gray fist rising into the sky. Jean focused on running faster and fueling more power into his gate. Whatever was happening, he needed to be ready to act the moment he was on the scene.

Curses were odd abilities that could be inflicted on a person at any point in their lives across the Erth. Curses granted powers to manipulate the user's body or the world around that body and allowed the user to use powers that might be deemed unnatural. He did not know what powers Benbeck possessed nor the abilities the rest of his crew might have. However, curses could run the gambit of being useless to being overpowered.

Jean's own curse allowed him to manipulate spectral energy and summon the spirit of his deceased wife. Those two things alone weren't ordinarily possible, even in a world where ships sailed between islands in a sea of darkness. Even his time and work as a scholar left him a little more knowledgeable about curses than the average person. There was just too little known about how they worked.

Thump.

His thoughts were a distraction, and that was the problem. He noticed the shifting in the wall one moment too late. As he ran, the wall to his left bent. Jean threw himself to the side, but it was too late. Metal bent and rent under the force of the strike, and he threw up his arms to protect his face.

Boom.

Jean slammed into the wall, landing flat on his back. If he had had any lungs left, the wind would have been knocked out of him. Instead, a dull pain cracked down his bones as he dropped his hands and focused his eyes on where the attack had come from. A fist stuck out from the metal, shining dark black in the night. Jean slid down the wall, catching himself on unsteady feet.

"A twist in fate." Jean spat. "Apologies, my friends, but you'll have to wait for my assistance."

The fist flattened into a hand and bodily slashed down through the metal and to the ground to part the gold walls open. The hand cleaved metal and stone, and Jean had to be impressed. It would either be a feat of strength or part of his opponent's curse, but no ordinary person could cleave metal and stone in twain with his bare hands.

"Come out then, unless you're afraid of a fight," Jean said as he drew one arm out in a straight line in the air and allowed Eliza to wrap around it.

"You're lucky."

Crack. Errn.

The hole bent down as a massive man, the one with the mustache from earlier in the night crouched down and stepped out from the hole. He cracked his knuckles as he looked down on Jean. Jean couldn't help but crack a smile. While he knew the situation was dangerous, it was no different than any other he had faced. The man might be strong, but that didn't mean he was guaranteed to win.

"I take it you were sent to stop me from reaching my friends," Jean said.

"I was," the man said, adjusting his footing and holding his fists up. "Our boss saw through your boss's plan. You're about to know why our crew is the most feared group in this quadrant."

Jean sighed, shaking his head, and looked over at Eliza. Her hollow black eyes stared back at him, but she gave him a slight nod.

"You say your boss is superior to our leader, but I think that's too funny to be true," Jean said, chuckling.

"You can laugh all you want, bone man." The man flexed his muscles as he stared Jean down. "But the reality is we would have beat you back at the village if it hadn't been for your sniper. You're a bunch of whelps in an arena too big for you."

Jean couldn't help but continue smiling. He shook his head as he gathered more air and filled his gate with aether. It was good that the man was confident. He would need that confidence if he wanted to survive a fight with Jean. Jean let his teeth show as he widened his smile.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"You think you know us," Jean said. "But you know nothing. You won't stop me here, nor will any of your boss's plans stop the rest of my friends. We're fated to win here and take you all down."

"We'll see about that. Straight Punch."

"Spirit Step."

The man launched forward as a blur, one of his hands extending out in a hard punch at Jean. Jean released the aether he had gathered, his feet blurring as he made his own counter to the man's move. He reappeared behind the man's head, already throwing Eliza out his arm and into a kick as his vision cleared.

Boom.

What should have been a solid first hit slammed into the man's head, and the ground shook around him as Eliza's kick connected. However, the man didn't move the slightest under the assault. He did not bend or break. He just stood, his arm extended where Jean had been, unbroken.

"Hah." The man turned his head, Eliza's skeletal foot still pressing into the side of it as he looked back at Jean. "I think I can have fun with this."

He reached out with one hand, grabbing hold of Eliza's foot with a hard grip. Jean's eyes widened as the grip took hold. While Eliza wasn't entirely aetherial, grabbing hold of her was no simple feat. A normal person couldn't just touch her. It took a strong will to grab hold of the aetherial energy that composed her body.

"Let's see how far your spirit can fly," the man said, pivoting on his foot and swinging his arm into a hard circle over his head.

"Eliza!" Jean tried to hold onto Eliza's skeletal hand, but she was ripped from his grasp.

The man whirled her in a circle, spinning her faster and faster until she became like a whirlwind above his head. As he reached the apex of his speed, he let go, sending her flying off into the air and away from the fight. Jean immediately reached out, summoning her back toward him with his outstretched hand. However, the momentum carried her, and it would take precious seconds for her to return.

The man wouldn't give him that time. Jean dropped as a punch came for his head, catching himself on his hands before pivoting his body in a circle. While he and Eliza were dance partners, that didn't mean he couldn't do a solo number. He threw a series of three kicks out at the man's abdomen, catching the man with a bony kick up his abdomen.

However, the man didn't even flinch.

"Straight Hammer."

Boom.

Jean kicked off the wall, throwing himself to the side as a fist came down for him. He rolled along the ground until he hit another wall. He had a moment to roll himself back onto his feet and saw the man rise from the ground, stepping over the small crater formed around his feet.

"You're a strong one, aren't you." Jean smiled as Eliza returned and began to wrap herself around his shoulders. "That kind of brute force isn't something just anyone can do."

"They call me Armstrong for a reason." The man narrowed his eyes as he took on a stance again. "My mom always said I might as well put this big body to use."

"So, you choose to fight for a kidnapper and murderer?" Jean asked.

"Benbeck is the greatest of all of us." Armstrong grunted, his fingers cracking as he opened his palm. "He has a plan to get us to the New World. All that matters to me is that his dream is fulfilled. Anything else isn't worth the weight I carry in these arms."

Jean could respect that determination, even if this Benbeck man struck him as the more despicable.

"You're working for him because he has a plan." Jean chuckled. "What do you do if someone with a better plan and a dream comes along?"

"What are you yapping about?" Armstrong took a deep breath, and his muscles bulged. "Straight Punch."

"Spirit Step." Jean disappeared as the man crashed through the air where he had been.

Armstrong's outstretched arm slammed through the wall where he had already made a hole. Jean reappeared in the air above Armstrong as his arm crashed through the hole, and he extended Eliza down with a swing as his feet tapped onto the wall for only a moment.

"Spirit Battement," Jean said as Eliza's leg blurred into a flurry of kicks.

Crack.

Eliza's legs slammed down into the man in a series of several hard kicks. For a second time, Armstrong didn't budge under the force of the attacks. Jean quickly withdrew Eliza from him, jumping off the wall and vaulting through the air so that he could land on the ground. This time, he didn't let Armstrong grab hold of Eliza, but he was still far from solving the problem.

"You're built tough, aren't you?" Jean asked as he turned on Armstrong again.

Crunch.

Armstrong pulled his hand out of the widened hole in the wall, turning on Jean and taking on his wide-legged stance again. Jean noticed that there appeared to be no change in his body. It was like his entire body was built of hard steel. Nothing seemed to penetrate the man's skin, even with Eliza's kicks.

"Is it your curse to be nigh indestructible?" Jean tried to poke again. "Or are you thick-skinned?"

"Hah." Armstrong shook his head. "I've just been hit so much my entire life, I hardly notice it anymore. My body's as tough as my name. If you want to get past me, you need something stronger than those toothpicks on the corpse that you keep around your neck."

Jean let out a low whistle. That was a harsh turn in the insult game. He wasn't even sure he had a good response to it. If this were a battle of wits, Jean would have been on the losing side. Thankfully, this wasn't a game of insults but a fight between the two men. Jean just needed to figure out how he was going to get through Armstrong's thick skin.

There was a technique among the Military Police called the Path of Grit, and Armstrong's thick skin seemed similar. It made the user's skin as hard as iron and allowed the person to soak up damage as easily as a sponge soaked in water. Jean would need to break through his defense to break Armstrong.

"A nigh impossible feat for bone to crush iron," Jean whispered as Armstrong's muscles bulged for another attack.

"Straight Punch!"

Boom.

Jean dodged away again, keeping his eyes on Armstrong as he slammed into the wall. The metal wall was nothing under the strength of his punch. Jean frowned, noticing that crashing through a metal and stone wall did nothing to damage Armstrong either. Nothing seemed to be able to break through the man's defense.

There was nothing else for it. Jean couldn't just stand and fight to win. He needed a plan. For that, he needed a change of venue. Fighting in the tight alleys of the ruins wasn't good enough. So, instead of continuing to fight the man, he took his next best option. Jean turned away and ran.