Hudson scrambled onto his feet, disentangling himself from the arms and legs of the people he’d been knocked into. Luckily he had been cultivating at max tempo, and also braced for a blow. He’d kept his breathing going, avoiding a crushing blow, but his left collarbone felt an intense, sharp pain. If it had a hairline fracture he wouldn’t be surprised.

The S.E.C.T. members on the other side of the portal quickly hopped back to the safety of Earth, none the wiser about George’s attack on Hudson. The size of the portal blocked their view. The few non-S.E.C.T. members on that side also jumped through, escaping certain death from the silicate incursion.

Hudson’s breath hissed between his clenched teeth as he met George’s follow up attack.

When they had previously fought, George had been at the peak of Qi Gathering stage, and Hudson a raw neophyte. Hudson now stood at the peak of the Qi Gathering stage, where George had been… but George had cleared the next major stage.

Qi rolled off of George, like heat from a furnace. The differences in their cultivation were obvious. Hudson could feel a pressure – not even close to the pressure that the Sage had exerted – but still there was an aura extending out from George. A presence that said: you are weaker than me.

Hudson gritted his teeth and ignored the pressure around George to deliver a fast punch to his solar plexus. But not only was George’s cultivation at a higher level, he had significantly more qi to control. George’s technique to strengthen his body with qi was no longer limited to a single part of his body – it covered every bit of him from head to toe.

George didn’t move to block the blow at all, and Hudson’s fist struck George like an iron striking a gong. If he could knock George back through the portal, he and the rest of the participants could immediately follow after.

George’s feet slid back several inches, but was otherwise unaffected.

“You pathetic worm,” George said, smiling down at Hudson. His backhand took Hudson by surprise, snapping his head around knocking Hudson to the ground several paces away.

George was strong. Much stronger than before… and even worse, he was faster. Hudson hadn’t even seen that blow coming.

Hudson stood to his feet, bleeding from the mouth and nose. He spat a wad of bloody spit to the side. One of his teeth felt loose, and he reached up to wiggle it with his fingers. For some reason, losing a tooth set off his rage more than George messing with the formation, or landing a sneak attack, or even blocking his way home.

George remained unmoving, simply standing in the way of Hudson reaching the portal.

“What do you think you are doing?” Hudson asked. “Are you siding with the silicates now?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clara sneaking up behind George, while Cor, Vince and the other grasshoppers ran as quickly and quietly towards the other side of the portal as they could.

“Tsk tsk…” George said, turning around and pointing at Clara. She froze, several paces away. “Once a failure, always a failure.”

He moved almost too fast for Hudson’s eyes to follow, striking viciously at Clara’s head. Clara blocked, her forearm cracking under the blow, but to her credit she flowed with the strike, using the momentum to spin her torso around. A crescent kick followed her spin, connecting directly with George’s jaw.

The kick barely turned his head and didn’t leave a scratch. He began to counter with a kick to her torso, lifting his knee up, but at the last second, he pivoted and lashed backwards with his foot, catching Hudson trying to attack from the rear.

Does he have eyes in the back of his head too? Hudson wondered as he dodged the backwards thrust kick.

Back and forth Hudson and Clara traded blows with George. Every attack from George bruised muscle and cracked bone, even the ones they deflected, whereas nothing they had was even getting close to scratching George.

He wasn’t even bothering to block – just tanking their hits to dish out more damage of his own. The difference in power levels was too great, and it was infuriating.

Clara’s left arm was broken in at least two places, and she was having difficulty raising it high enough to block effectively. Hudson had been more effective at dodging George’s blows, but his collarbone was still broken and he likely had a few stress fractures of his own on his shins. It was only a matter of time – or George’s inclination – before they took more serious injuries.

George stopped attacking and began to laugh. It started as a low chuckle, but increased in intensity and volume until it was a mad cackle.

“Ah… this woman, from the estimable Baring clan, she understands… but you wouldn’t. Your growth is admirable, to be sure, but that is the whole point of these trials.” He gestured around him, spinning slowly with his arms outstretched.

“Within the history of S.E.C.T., there has never been anyone who has advanced to the Foundation Building before my age. And now that I’m at this stage… the sacrifices, the indiginities… the hard work. It has finally paid off.

“You can’t even scratch me with your pathetic attacks,” he gloated.

“The fight’s not over yet,” Clara said, glaring at him between her fists.

“It was over before it even started,” George replied.

“I swore I would take you down, and I will,” she said. “Your cultivation may be higher, but your path is crooked. You steal from your peers, absorbing treasures and resources not meant for you. You hide in the shadows, using a sigil of invisibility, to strike at those weaker than you. You even summon the silicates – the enemies of all other life – to fight your battles for you.

“Your path is weak, and we will show you how weak you are,” she said, spitting on the ground in front of George.

George’s face was a mask, completely devoid of emotion, but hints of rage leaked through in his voice. “I had intended to allow you a… fighting chance, to spend your life in a greater service, destroying as many of the silicates as possible before your ultimate and predictable demise…but I am now reconsidering that decision.”

Hudson tried to think calmly. Making him more angry wasn’t going to help them. George was too strong, and if he hadn’t been going all out before, he certainly would now.

A large tremor – much larger than the previous ones – rocked the cavern, shaking dust and rocks loose from the ceiling. They were all knocked from their feet to the ground, even George, reminding everyone about the silicates working their way through the rock above them towards the rich sources of qi in this chamber and in the trial area beyond.

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Hudson caught Clara’s eye and nodded towards the portal, hoping she understood his meaning.

As much as Hudson wanted to beat George bloody and leave him behind for the silicates to feast on, they didn’t need to actually defeat George at this point – they just needed to get past him, and leave him behind. None of the other participants that were left in the cavern and knew about the fight going on – besides him and Clara – were even close enough in strength to survive toe to toe against George.

At least he and Clara were keeping George distracted while the portal was open so that the other participants had a chance to escape.

As if reading his mind, George looked over and saw Cor leading the charge for the other side of the portal. Clara tried to take advantage of his momentary distraction by sweeping for his legs with a low kick.

There was a surge of power from within George, and his technique flared brighter. He lifted his left leg up, allowing Clara’s kick to pass underneath. But when her kick struck the calf of his other leg, it was as if she had struck an immovable pillar.

George’s left foot came down, stomping Clara’s shin and breaking her leg with a sharp crack. A quick snap forward with the same leg connected with her sternum, sending her careening backwards.

No! Time slowed to a crawl as Hudson saw Clara’s bones break. They’d barely hung on two versus one, but now George had taken it up a notch.

Things had taken a desperate turn.

George lowered his hands and straightened his shoulders, as if to set his foot down and turn around, but Hudson saw the feint for what it was. He expected a different move from George, one much more aggressive. More arrogant, and confident in its power and execution – a move he’d seen before.

Hudson slid his feet forward on the rough ground, squaring off against George and opening his fists, as if to lunge forward into a grapple. He concentrated on his sigil of Rooted Strength, and when George executed a backwards, no-look horse kick again – just like Hudson predicted – he took the blow right in his chest.

His ribs creaked but held. His Engine Breath technique hiccuped, then roared back to maximum tempo, unperturbed by the force of the blow. The force of the kick threatened to knock Hudson backwards, off of the dais and into the depths of the cavern, but Hudson had grasped George’s leg with his outstretched hands, clamping down with the strength of a tree’s roots.

George tried to pull his leg back, but failed to withdraw from Hudson’s grasp.

“Ugh!” George said. “Release me, you fool.”

Hudson only tightened his grip in response, firmly fixing his sigil in his mind and pushing his breathing as fast as he could. His fingernails dug into the silvery qi armor around George’s leg, scratching into it like steel rubbing against steel.

George bent his trapped leg at the knee, and kicked backwards with his other leg. The blow connected with Hudson’s face, knocking his head back, but Hudson didn’t let go of his grip. Another kick, this time to the chest, but Hudson just took the punishment.

The first of the grasshoppers had finally reached the portal on the other side, and jumped through.

George attempted another tactic. He leaned down and punched his hands into the rock floor, then lifted his legs, taking Hudson up into the air with them.

As Hudson’s feet left the ground, he felt his hold on the sigil fade away and half of his strength leave him. He let go before George could slam him into the ground upside down. He sailed through the air to land in a sprawl next to Clara’s crawling form.

Most of the grasshoppers had made it through the portal – it only took a few seconds, and Hudson had delayed George enough. Cor was last in line, either because he was the slowest or because his stubborn pride wouldn’t leave anyone behind. Another face Hudson recognized – Schuyler? or was it Skillet? – was one step ahead of him and half-carrying someone else under his shoulder.

George burst around the edge of the portal, sprinting at inhuman speeds to try to prevent at least a few of the others from going through.

Cor’s eyes widened as George jumped for them, hurtling through the air at a speed that would almost certainly crush him into a fine paste. He did the only thing he could and dove head first, pushing the pair in front of him down to the ground and into the bottom edge of the portal. They disappeared with a sharp, eletrical sound.

George’s fist passed through the air above them, but the danger wasn’t over yet. He pivoted in midair, aiming an angry stomp below him. Cor stretched his fingers out for the edge of the portal, and George’s foot passed through the space that Cor’s head had occupied a fraction of a second before.

George landed on the far side of the platform, letting loose an eerie howl of rage. His vocal chords danced up and down from low to high pitched in a strange warble.

“No! We have allowed these…bugs! these worms! to escape,” George howled in anger again.

Hudson had heard something similar. It wasn’t the same as Sal’s screams, but it was similar enough that it gave him goosebumps.

George stopped screaming and turned his head towards Hudson and Clara.

“Still two bugs left though,” he said, walking back towards Hudson and Clara. The quick change to a surprisingly calm voice was unnerving. “The survival of witnesses changes our plans, but things are still well within our plans.”

Hudson was on his feet in front of Clara. She was conscious and scrambling forward towards the portal, but unable to walk on her broken leg.

George looked at the portal briefly, then asked, “Director Ix, how much longer will the portal remain open?”

In the middle of the fight, Hudson had forgotten about Director Ix. Why wasn’t he stopping George? Clearly what he was doing was against the rules of the trial, and weren’t they technically still in the trial?

“The portal will remain open for an additional three minutes and thirty two seconds, unless containment is breached and the silencing formation rendered inoperable.”

“That is plenty of time,” George said calmly as he began walking towards Hudson.

“Director Ix! What are you doing? George is breaking the rules of the trial!” Hudson called out in desperation. If the Director was there, why wasn’t he doing anything?

There was no answer from the Director.

“How pathetic… but yes, please continue to scream for mercy,” a smiling George replied instead. “Opening this portal to Earth is taking all of the director’s little remaining power. They have none to spare to save weaklings such as yourself… and if they shut the portal down to save you, they wouldn’t have enough energy to open the portal to Earth again.

“Do you not recall that their reserves of maseki are completely gone? I believe you were the architect of that little plan, and yet you have no idea what else would happen after depriving the director of the resources they needed to effectively administer the trial? Tsk. Tsk.

“The Director must follow their silly little rules… But you only have yourself to thank for making them powerless.”

“So you waited until the portal opened to attack, knowing that Director Ix wouldn’t be able to interfere after,” Hudson said, figuring one thing out, but something still didn’t make sense. “But why did you mess with the formation? I get attacking me. But why make it so the silicates find this place? Is that what the voices in your head told you to do?”

“Plans inside of plans…And there is no proof of my involvement” George cocked his head and frowned. “But you say ‘voices’... what do you think you know of the sacrifices I have made for my power?”

“The portal will close in three minutes,” the muted voice of Director Ix chimed. “Breach of this cavern facility is expected within ninety seconds. Immediate evacuation is required.”

“Never mind – what you know, or how you know it, matters not. Your end draws near. And I,” he paused, smiling wildly before continuing, “or rather…we… would be most pleased to deliver that end ourselves.”