There’s not all that much that can be said about Raika the Bloody.

The title has had more than one meaning over the years, and more than a few figures have trembled and laughed before it in kind. There’s been tales of her violence, of vengeance, of her bloodlust and how she falls to a crazed state amidst combat. She’s woven victory from corpses across a dozen battlefields, burned an army or two in her time. Nothing major, really, but above the standard, at least, and she held to this with pride.

Truth be told, while it’s not all she did with her life, not much would be held of note by any who would take her measure. Willful, powerful, and driven are all words easily applied to this warrior, but also easily applied to any cultivator. Some might say the qualities are intrinsic, and only in their quantity and application is there any difference between the wielders of Qi and in the pursuit of immortality. She was certainly not the least of their number, advancing faster than many, winning more often than she lost, but never enough to be exceptional. She did not have a great master, nor was she part of a sect beyond sects, nor did she advance through stages of cultivation as easily as the true prodigies. No, if anything of Raika the Bloody’s qualities might be said to be exceptional, it would be her determination, and in this her pride was better founded. Others might surrender when a duel’s outcome is clear, but she would only leave the arena broken or unconscious; others might try to think through or outfox a challenge, where she would simply put herself against it and through it until it failed or she did. Yes, if Raika could claim anything at all about herself to be truly impressive, it would be the fact that she never gives up.

As she falls hard enough to dent the earth, the floor painted in the red of her veins, she does take a moment to wonder if maybe she should have given up just this once.

It’s dismissed easily, of course; to give up here, even when it might be reasonable, would mean she could give up at the next most reasonable time, and wasn’t that just a slippery slope? No, better to stay true to herself.

Even if it kills me? She wonders.

Well, she thinks, if following my path and being my best self kills me, then that’s just how it’s gonna be. Better way to go than most.

“You dare!” booms a voice so loud she can feel her lungs vibrate. “You dare to stand here and make these ridiculous demands of your betters?”

She spits blood to the side, weakly enough that it ends up dribbling down her chin. “Nothing-” a cough, then another. Might be the busted ribs. “Nothing ridiculous about getting what I earned, senior brother.”

The man before her widens his eyes in shock before snarling down at her in what looks to be genuine fury. “I am not your senior brother, you worm,” he growls. “If you were to call me teacher, or master, or even most revered supreme, it would not be enough for the distance between us.”

She sits up a bit, looking at the ten feet or so between them. “If you say so, most revered supreme,” she says with a bit of a grin. In for copper, in for silver, as they say. “But it remains true, even if I’m a worm under your boots, that this worm fought and won. The promised reward is the fruit you now hold, and by the laws of this struggle, it is mine.”

This time it is not only the man before her who shows shock. A small protest, met unreasonably, is only standard before such an old master and arrogant youngster, but to address him again? All around them, clad in the vestments and bright colors of a dozen sects, disciples and the elders behind them both look at her like the blows to the head she’s experienced have left her entirely mad. Better that she speak gibberish, many think, than to say what she has now.

Judging by the look on the bearded face looking down at her, feigning madness might be the only way to go, really.

Oh well. In for a copper, in for a silver. In for a gold, as the case may be.

The man before her could be fifty, or a hundred, or a few hundred years old. Far enough into the process of ascension, it gets a little muddled. His ornate white beard is one of the few direct signs of age, but the skin beneath it is smooth and clear, tanned by the sun or by the man’s will. His eyes blaze a violent green, and his robes, forest-green and gilded with beautiful patterns of old victories and some kind of poem on one sleeve, make for a striking combination all throughout.

“If this master wants a gift worthy of his nephew, who are you to stand in his way?” the old monster thunders. “This clear spring blossom fruit may be beneath this old master’s gaze, but it is in my grasp, and you are not worthy to tell me what that grasp cannot take.”

“It might be beneath your gaze, old master,” Raika says, slowly sitting up, “but it is the sole focus of mine.” She drags her legs beneath her, standing and wobbling in equal measure. She’s never been hit that hard, and she can still feel the impact of the casual backhand in how her hands tremble and her heartbeat stutters. “While I understand this old master can grasp what he wills, would he be so cruel as to take from his lessers so unjustly? Surely you can find something more fitting to any prodigy of your own blood than such a measly thing, yet for me, it’s a crucial step to surviving my path.”

“And you think I care about your path?” the old cultivator scoffs. “Some nobody cultivator in some nothing tournament? You are lucky I didn’t simply kill you with my first strike. Take my mercy and begone from my sight, ant.”

He seems to be actually following through, too. He turns his eyes from her and starts simply walking away, the fruit vanishing from his hand with a headache-inducing shift of space, falling into whatever artifact he has. He doesn’t even seem to consider her, dismissing her as nothing except a faintly irritating memory.

Until she steps in front of him.

“Ant or worm,” she says, as respectfully as she can without breaking eye contact; “it would be a betrayal of self to be walked over by another. Please, old master, I ask that you leave me the fruit, and I shall do all I can to produce something equivalent or greater for your family.”

There is an audible shuffling in the arena. If the mortals hadn’t already run when the old master came crashing from the heavens above, they’d surely do so now at the sight of so many cultivators visibly stepping back from the center of the conflict.

He looks at her, entirely incredulous. Raika goes so far as to think she’s actually shocked him, a thought that makes her smile a bit.

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“Are you mad, child?” The old master asks, seeming genuinely confused. “You see the difference between us, and yet you dare to stand in my way?”

She nods, stepping back into a stance, slowly raising hands that still tremble. Her face, though, is calm, her gaze fixed on him. “Isn’t it the burden and joy of any cultivator, to face the heavens and defy them, master?”

He almost smiles at that.

There is a moment, then, where she thinks she may have charmed him.

Perhaps, in a better world, or if she had met a different beast, that might have been the case. As it is, she’s not quite that endearing, and the thing standing before her, ageless and arrogant, isn’t nearly so human.

She blinks, and it hurts. It hurts to blink. Then she falls, and that hurts more, parts of the wall she was embedded in falling on top of her. She sees him as she falls forward, and he hasn’t shifted into a stance; from the looks of it, he just pushed her.

She can feel her ribs grinding as she gets up again, slower than last time.

His eyes are even wider now, as she refuses to stay down or fall unconscious.

Maybe, she thinks, she should stay down. If he can prove he’s wrecked her shit enough, easily enough, he can save face, offering mercy to some idiot too greedy for her own good. The narrative would shift, from an arrogant old monster taking from those beneath him, to one merciful enough to allow the survival of an uppity worm.

Nah, she thinks. I can still stand. So I should.

She doesn’t see the third blow, either. One moment her face hurts, and the next, part of it doesn’t anymore; her lower jaw, to be precise. Then she feels the pain higher up, and realizes it must be because it’s dislocated, nerves pinched, teeth shattered. Another backhand, then.

Three teeth hit the dirt when she spits this time, dribbling again. She doesn’t make it all the way back to her feet, but the effort is enough, and a foot lands on the side of her knee, and the pain there is excruciating as something pops and cracks and then makes a grinding noise that’s worse than both.

The next time she tries to get up, she has to keep all her weight on her left, but at her cultivation, it hardly takes more than a few toes to hold her weight. No big deal.

He took her shit. Something she fought for, something she can advance with, something she suffered for, and now he wants her to give up.

No.

She loses track of the blows. She knows he is toying with her; how couldn’t he? In what world could he ever fight her as an equal? In what world was she ever going to win?

In what world was she ever supposed to cultivate? To fly, to blast fire, to punch through boulders? She was born to die, and every step beyond that has been something the universe claims is wrong. At least that’s what her teachers tell her. She believes it enough to use it, at least.

If life is suffering on the way to death, then to stay alive is an act of will.

She doesn’t know how she gets to her feet. There’s gaps in her memory, most from around the points of impacts, but some seem to encompass whole wounds. She can’t feel her left arm much at all, just the fingers, and her breathing is raspy. Her eyes are swollen, and her right leg can’t really move anymore. There’s even more of her blood painting the sand now than before, some of it from cuts where she thinks she almost dodged. While she can barely see, she can smell the copper of her suffering.

But she can still stand. So she does.

The old monster walks forward, taking her by the neck. She cannot break his grip. She doesn’t try. He drags her close, hateful eyes, like green fire, like a forest, like an ocean made of sharpened leaves, burning in what’s left of her sight.

“You are the single most determined suicide I have ever met,” he snarls. “Time and again I spare you, lest this master be accused of bullying his lessers. Time and again you spit in the face of my gift.”

She laughs, though it comes out all wrong. This isn’t bullying? She marvels.

“I acknowledge your strength, worm,” the old master snarls, loud enough to be heard. “You have a cultivator’s heart. A pity you have no other qualities of one.”

Hmm.

Yeah, fuck him.

He flinches back, blood in his mouth. He opened it loud to yell, and even half-blind, it’s a wide enough target to spit into. He spits to the side, shock burning in his face, heat flushing his cheeks, hand raised to strike and end her entirely-

And she sticks her left thumb, from the arm she purposefully didn’t move, purposefully let him think was limp, directly into his eye.

Now here’s the thing; cultivation raises the density, toughness, and vitality of every part of one’s body, without exception (at least, if done right). That being said; an eyeball ten times tougher than a normal eyeball is still an eyeball, and ten times tougher than jelly is hardly as noticeable as ten times the hardness of bone.

Her own skin, bones, or muscle aren’t ten times as tough as when she started. His eye may well be a hundred times tougher, old monster that he is. But a finger, and a nail, are not as soft or as delicate as an eye.

The figure she can barely see roars, actually screams out his surprise and pain, the sheer affront and impossibility of being hurt here crashing on him. The hand raised to strike grabs her by the wrist and tears, throwing her arm away with a rainbow of blood splatter following it.

It’s fine. She couldn’t feel it anymore anyways. So she grabs his shoulder with her other hand and pulls herself closer, and bites at his other eye.

She doesn’t quite get the whole orb, but the taste of vitreous jelly is a juice as sweet as she’s ever had.

There is another blank spot. If she survives this, she is going to be so concussed.

The figure before her is barely visible. She is on the ground again, and she can feel the dirt blocking up the blood flowing from her freely. But she can still feel him shift when she laughs. It’s a weak, ruined thing, bubbling with a punctured lung, with blood loss, with pain and a throat half-crushed, barely able to hold air let alone laugh. She laughs anyways, choking on it.

“I…” she chokes. Stops. Starts again. “I win,” she gurgles.

“How’s that, demonic filth,” the old master says. His voice is slow. Quiet. Maybe he’s in shock too. That’d be nice.

“Didn’t.. Break me,” she gurgles. “Big as you… lil as me. Broke my… pieces. Beat me. Coul- couldn’t. Break me. Never-” a gurgle. She almost stops breathing, and shifts, panic overriding pain long enough to cough. “Never gave up,” she whispers in red bubbles.

He kneels down. For a moment, she actually sees him again, through swollen eyes, through bruised orbital bones.

“This old master is known as Feng Gui,” he whispers to her. Only to her. “Remember it, and see how long that victory lasts.”

Then he hits her in the stomach, behind the stomach, behind her body and above it and below it in one strike and she feels something break, shatter, disintegrate entirely and then Raika the Bloody is no more.