Senior Brother took the first move. The wind that surged over his body accumulated onto a single point on his fist. He came at me like a hurricane to tear my body asunder.
I shifted my stats to dodge the punch while keeping my feet planted firmly in the ground. A quick shift into strength and body allowed me to withstand the blast of air that came in like an aftershock.
“I thought the respectful thing to do was allow the junior to make the first move,” I mocked.
“That’s only if you’re worthy of respect!”
Senior Brother immediately followed up with another flurry of blows punctuated by strong gales that ripped the valley bare. He would allow no breathing room, no opportunity for counter attacks. Even at maximum defense, the screaming winds eroded a portion of my scales away and the undoubtedly crippling attacks were just a hair out of reach. Tantalizingly close for Senior Brother to feel the satisfaction of putting me in a box.
But, there was no joy in the expression of my opponent to have me on the ropes. Scowling, yellow-brown teeth snarled from beneath the ratty charm that covered Senior Brother’s face. Mounting frustration as more and more ferocious attacks he delivered were barely dodged out of the way.
Faster. Stronger. Angier. However he attacked, I responded to perfectly with the same placid face the clone showed me.
There was a sense of tranquility that held close to my heart despite the fiery showing. Cold analytics had conquered my brain. What was he capable of? How much speed was required to dodge a punch? How much strength was needed to not be moved by the wind? What could I do with the rest of the points?
Slowly, steadily, I was bringing all of that data internally. I started with maximum speed and gradually worked down until I found the perfect number to keep the punches away from me. I started at max strength and slowly moved down until I found the minimum number to stay on my feet. Senior Brother was more than generous with the information, showing me different variations quickly as he too sought to find my limits.
He swung both fists at the same time, having them meet in the middle with a thunderous blast. The amplified wind blast exceeded my strength, killing my footing and sending me off the ground.
I unfurled my wings to stabilize. Senior Brother leapt from below to try to spear me. I twisted my body rapidly through the air to avoid the aerial attack. As the fists passed by me, I saw my opportunity.
My arm wound back and I gifted Senior Brother with the strongest punch that I had to offer. The fist connected directly with his chest and I felt the satisfying thud of knuckle against rib. Senior Brother was sent flying into the ground in a plume of dirt and debris. Satisfied, I quickly summoned [Burning Rain] atop the position that he fell and dove in myself.
I swung down on Senior Brother just as he threw a tar-covered fist to catch me. Our punches collided; the dissonance created a shockwave that sent both of us tumbling in different directions.
We rose at nearly identical times, rushed each other and met at nearly the midpoint between us, and struck each other at almost the same time.
But, none of it was perfectly the same.
Senior Brother was sent reeling backwards from my punch while I staggered a few steps backwards and kept myself upright. With that, we both had to accept the same truth. I was faster than Senior Brother and my punch was harder.
Of course, only I knew that it could not be true at the same time.
A roar left Senior Brother’s mouth as he ran at me again, pushed forward by the winds. Greater savagery and mana were infused into this newest onslaught. The form on the strikes were exquisite; the result of a man practicing the same moves for thousands of years. Though I knew the moves well enough to avoid my demise, the counterattack could not be careless.
Sweeping. Flowing. Endless. Currents of air followed Senior Brother’s strikes to create a swirling vortex around him. Roots and debris and plants bounced off my scales. Dust and dirt peppered my eyes, forcing me to blink rapidly to try to purge the irritants.
In this window, Senior Brother’s fist collided with my torso. I overcorrected and placed everything into defense to protect myself from the blow and did not get my strength back in time to keep myself grounded.
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A hand grasped around my right wrist and violently pulled me back into a follow-up strike. I accelerated to get ahead of the next hit. Speed converted into power converted into defense as my punch rocked Senior Brother before he did only slight amounts of damage back.
I switched back into strength, wrenching my arm free. I swung again, but the blow was deflected. By the time Senior Brother’s counter came, I was already safely out of the way again.
“These are not Master’s moves,” Senior Brother said definitively. “Where did you go and who did you learn from?”
“You are correct,” I replied. “These are not Master’s moves, but they are his teachings. His guidance brought me to a position where I could be this strong this quickly. It is the best version of myself. Are you at your best?”
“Of course I am!” Senior Brother spat before launching into another volley of attacks. His punches chained together to create unbridled violence with elegant patterns. Each word he said was accentuated with another attack aimed to put me down. “Everything I do. Everything I am, is the result of becoming one with the Master’s style. There is no one that follows him who can perform these moves better than I can.”
Though, despite the raging attack, I was still mostly unaffected. Each punch was dodged or deflected. I stifled my laugh. There was someone who was more perfect at Master’s attacks.
Control.
Without the mana infused wind that accompanied Senior Brother’s strikes, the technique that Control’s puppet exerted was of the same caliber. Each strike was mechanically perfect as well as unfeeling. Bizarrely, I felt the same mechanical constraints when I saw Senior Brother perform his attacks. Textbook; if I watched Master perform it, I imagine the form would be identical. But, in that thinking I came to a realization about why watching these perfect moves was manageable.
“Could you beat the Master with these moves?” I asked.
“Of course not!” He roared, not skipping a beat with his next string of attacks. “Why would I ever hope to try to defeat the Master?”
“Ah,” I replied with a knowing nod. “So that’s why you were never called up.”
Senior Brother treated it as a provocation. But, he could not push the moves to a new level. Confined to his own mental view of perfection, there was nothing new that he could show me from these attacks. Only a perfect recreation of a style better suited for the one that created it.
“What interest should someone like Master have in raising someone with no interest in surpassing them?” I continued, blocking an attack and countering with a heavy strike. They were growing more sluggish.
My hands came together in another combo. Senior Brother’s durable body ate the punishment gratefully before being spat out on the earth behind him. His chest heaved and he looked at the sky.
“What is your ambition? Don’t you want to be the strongest martial artist?” I challenged.
I flew high into the air before swooping down to smash into Senior Brother’s prone body. Something inside him looked shaken, something that I had to exploit to the utmost.
“Is that what you’ve always thought, Master?” Senior Brother said softly to the sky as my shadow grew bigger upon him.
I spun my body around to point my feet directly downwards. My kick landed directly in the center of Senior Brother. A rumble broke throughout the valley as he was cratered deep into the earth.
Quickly, I flew up into the air to avoid a counterattack. But, in the tranquility of the destroyed valley, nothing came for me. It was only then that I felt disturbed by the lack of wildlife. All that surrounded me was pure silence.
“Gave up, did you?” I said to the inert ground.
I landed near the impact site. While burying my victims would have been a convenient tool in my past life, I knew that I would have to dig him up and finish him off to get my reward.
As my hands touched soil, a blast of dirt
“I tried to be perfect,” Senior Brother’s voice rumbled over the silent valley. “I tried to show my sincerity by sacrificing as many of my other abilities that I could possibly get rid of. I lived on the mountain that you wanted, followed your orders, and venerated you to all that would listen. And now, I must learn that you thought of me as lesser for those very reasons? That I showed myself as someone unworthy of greater attention?”
Ghostly black fire coated Senior Brother’s hands. Immediately, the rigid posture he stubbornly stood in for centuries shifted to something that struck me as more natural to him. He stood on one foot and moved the other in a semi-circle before stomping it onto the ground.
“Fine, fine, if you want me to turn my devotion to serve you into a devotion to be your killer, I will show you my dedication.”
I felt cold beneath my feet and a geyser of black flames wreathed my body. I leapt out of the way and landed a few feet away.
Senior Brother was already there. He placed an open palm on my chest. A red glow emanated from the impact site. I struck out at him. He rolled and ducked beneath my strikes, keeping the connection as long as he could before a few fast punches to the head forced him back.
My body started to feel strange after I had managed to gain that separation like a bunch of cold water was forced through a needle sized hole in my abdomen. After a quick inspection, I saw that my mana was significantly lower. I looked towards Senior Brother to see that he looked, physically, much better than he did when he just unearthed himself.
Senior Brother smirked towards the sky; their attack was more a challenge towards the Master than something intended to defeat me.
“You’ve finally decided to be something fun. Too bad it won’t change anything,” I replied with a smile.
My mouth unhinged and a noxious green smoke spewed out from inside. Anything plants that had survived the buffeting winds now quickly withered and died. The smog passed over Senior Brother. His clothes frayed and his skin smoked from the corrosive vapor. He, too, was forced to move to another location to avoid a slow death.
It was the first time I had gotten to use my [Draconic Breath], one of the three evolutions I was able to claim before my fight.
“I have some more tricks to show you too.”