There was a slight pause, as if everyone was waiting on someone to make the first move, and then chaos broke out.

Punches, kicks, pushing and shoving – the inside of the ring turned into a fierce brawl. About half of the participants were caught flat-footed, unready and unwilling to fight. The other half, however, had no compunctions about attacking their fellow participants.

A woman with short blond hair tried to sneak up behind Hudson and push him outside of the ring, but he noticed her at the last second and stepped to the side.

She stumbled her knees while Hudson was knocked a bit off balance. Without even thinking, he turned towards the woman, set his stance and struck forward with a stepping side-kick. It connected with the woman’s chest, right below her throat, and launched her backwards and out of the ring.

Moderately shocked at himself, Hudson stared briefly as the woman picked herself back up and dusted herself off. She looked back up at Hudson with a very disappointed expression, but her gaze flicked away from looking at Hudson to looking at something – or someone – coming up behind Hudson.

Again without thinking, Hudson simply reacted and dropped to the ground. His would-be attacker sailed over him in a missed high tackle. Scrambling to his feet, Hudson repeated his side-kick maneuver, stepping his left leg behind his right first to close the distance and snapping out with his right foot. The kick took the man, who was built solid like a linebacker, high in the shoulder blades and pushed him out of the arena.

With a snarl of frustration, the man rushed back into the ring towards Hudson. “You…!” he snarled. Hudson backed up slightly, then heard a sharp whine and a snap. A dark absence of light morphed into existence briefly before disappearing. The man was gone, teleported away for breaking the rules of the Challenge.

Suddenly, Hudson felt a sharp pain over his kidney and he stumbled forward. Turning quickly, he saw his attacker, a gangly teenager with a slightly familiar mop of long brown hair, lying on the ground behind him. Another woman, black ponytail with rolled up sleeves and a serious expression on her face, was close behind the teenager.

“Vince?” Hudson asked the teenager struggling to his feet.

“That’s me,” he said. “Please don’t kick me when I’m down.”

The woman who had thrown Vince into Hudson was fast approaching to finish the job.

“Or while standing up, for that matter,” Vince managed to say before he took a snappy roundhouse from the ponytailed woman in the solar plexus.

The woman snarled in anger. “Jokers like you shouldn’t be here.”

Shouldn’t be here? Hudson thought to himself. I don’t want to be here! I was kidnapped!

He didn’t have any time to think further, though, as the woman turned her attention towards him.

Hudson took a quick fighting stance, and the woman paused before taking a fighting stance of her own. Then, to Hudson’s amazement and horror, she breathed.

She started a breathing technique and a quick “hyup” and a flaring of her nostrils. Dust from her powerful breaths swirled from around her feet.

And then in the blink of an eye, she kicked Hudson straight in the ribs.

The woman was so fast Hudson could barely follow her movements. She landed a front kick directly on his chest. He hurtled backwards and landed in the sand, wind knocked out of him completely. His chest groaned in pain as he rocked back and forth, trying to force air into his lungs.

As he struggled to breathe, he could barely make out Vince clinging desperately to the woman’s leg as she tried to kick him out of the ring.

He was panicking and he knew it. One part of him screamed he was going to die. One part of his consciousness urged calm, to stop panicking, and just roll out of the ring on his own before he was curbed-stomped into oblivion. A third part, fairly small but growing louder and louder, was angry.

Angry that he couldn’t breathe. Angry that he had been kicked into the dirt. Angry that he had been kidnapped, lost his job, and been taken advantage of by co-workers he had trusted.

Was he going to just lie here in the dirt? Was he going to wait for this woman to come and kick him in the ribs? Or was he going to try and fight back?

Rage built in his chest, and his breath came back in a whoosh. He kick-started his Engine Breath technique. Oxygen poured into his lungs, energy flooded his muscles, and he jumped to his feet.

Ponytail had Vince by the scruff of his neck and was busy punching him in the kidneys. Softening him up before she threw him out of the ring. Hudson kept the tempo of his breathing technique as he sprinted over and launched the dirtiest of low blows: a sweeping leg kick.

The woman and Vince toppled to the ground. Vince stayed down, but the woman hopped back up quickly, ready for a round two with Hudson.

She immediately attacked again with the same frontal kick, but this time Hudson was ready. She was fast, but not impossibly fast anymore. He hopped sideways, and her kick slid past. He tapped a quick one-two with a right and left straight punch to her body before hopping back.

He pulled his punches a bit, used to sparring and not sure how strong he was while using his breathing technique.

Unfortunately the woman was unfazed by the punches. She turned towards Hudson and tried a spinning side kick. Hudson raised his leg and blocked with his shin.

The kick was powerful, and it hurt. Hudson was used to sparring with equipment and for points. His opponent was clearly much more experienced with actual fighting, and not just sparring. She shrugged off Hudson’s body shots like they were nothing, while Hudson was now backpedaling away and hopping from the pain he received from a “block.”

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The only advantage he had was numbers. Theoretically, it was two versus one, even if Vince seemed a bit helpless and didn’t seem to know a breathing technique or any martial arts.

Hudson’s back foot hit something harder than sand, and he realized he had backed up right to the edge of the ring. He had nowhere else to go.

The ponytailed woman closed the distance cautiously. He wasn’t going to dodge out of the way and push her out instead; she was too careful for that.

“Look out behind you!” Hudson said, pointing behind the woman.

“Amateur. Coward. You’re a cultivator and you stoop to such tricks? Pathetic,” she growled and stalked forward.

She was within striking distance and lifting her leg for a side kick when Vince tackled her from behind at a full sprint. Hudson dove to the side, out of the way just barely, and Vince and the woman both landed outside of the ring.

“You owe me one,” Vince said to Hudson. He studiously ignored the ponytailed woman he had knocked out of the ring

She stood up next to him, threw her arms out, and screamed a primal scream of rage just inches from his face. Vince didn’t respond and coolly brushed sand off his shoulders.

Hudson surveyed the ring. He was shocked to see that almost two-thirds of the participants were knocked out. There were about ten or so participants left, including himself.

The remaining participants were all spread out around the ring, in fighting stances and warily facing each other.

One of the men closest to Hudson glanced over at the ponytailed woman screaming in rage.

“Did this mouth-breather knock you out of the top ten, Clara?” he asked.

The ponytailed woman took a few breaths and replied, “Yes. Don’t underestimate him; he has a cultivation technique and he fights dirty.”

These people know each other? And I have a cultivation technique? What are they talking about? Hudson thought to himself. He glanced around the ring, making sure no one was trying to sneak up behind him, and noticed all of the remaining participants were staring at him.

“Wait a second. Do all of you people know each other? How? When? What are you doing?”

No one replied.

Four of the closest participants remaining in the ring converged on Hudson’s location. They boxed him in and forced him back to the edge of the ring. There was no way he was going to win a fight four versus one, so he decided to just give up and step out of the ring, rather than risk more bruises.

After he was pushed out, the other participants did something very curious. All of the tension went out of each of them. They stood up straight out of their fighting stances, and gathered near the edge of the ring. There were even a few high fives and congratulatory back-slaps going around.

“Hey,” Vince said. “How come they’re not fighting? That ain’t fair.”

Clara looked at Vince angrily, but didn’t respond.

Hudson walked over to where Clara and Vince were standing. Many of the other participants who had been knocked out, bruised and beaten were also muttering amongst themselves.

“Clara, was it?” Hudson asked. “No hard feelings, hopefully. Vince and I, we were just trying to do what the director told us to do.”

Clara looked at Hudson for a few seconds, and then nodded.

“Do you know all of those guys?” he asked, pointing at the remaining participants. Strangely, they had all paired up with each other, and were busy playing rock, paper, scissors. The losers would then step out of the ring, and the winners would go play rock, paper, scissors with another participant who was left.

“Yes,” she said. “Who are you, though? And why are you here? You shouldn’t be. There are only supposed be ten chosen from within the S.E.C.T. families.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Hudson. And yes, I don’t think I should be here. I certainly don’t want to be here. I was kidnapped – poisoned by some old woman, knocked out and the next thing I knew I woke up chained on a bus-train next to Vince here.”

Clara looked at him strangely. “So you are not with S.E.C.T. already? Your parents or master didn’t nominate you to participate in this trial?”

“No. My parents have no idea I’m here. They probably think I’m dead. And the same with my karate-sensei.”

She shook her head. “So you are a mouth-breather.”

“A mouth-breather? I breathe through my nose. What are you talking about?”

Clara burst into laughter. It was incongruous to Hudson. She had been screaming angrily not just one minute previously, and now she was laughing. She was probably laughing at him, too, but he wasn’t even offended, it seemed so strange.

“What’s so funny?” Hudson asked.

“So we call people who aren’t in S.E.C.T., who can’t master a breathing technique to start their cultivation, we call them mouth-breathers,” she said. “The common people. The dumb masses. The sheep we protect from the wolves. Like this rooster-head right here.”

She glared over at Vince. “Ugh. I can’t believe you knocked me out of the first Challenge.”

The last two participants were going at it hard and fast. Both were breathing furiously, and while Hudson couldn’t tell the details of the technique, he could tell they were using a breathing technique, and that it was different from his own.

Hands flashed – both showed rock. Again – both were paper. Again – both rock. Their hands were moving so fast it was hard to follow. Hudson assumed they were using rock, paper, scissors to decide who won without fighting with their hands and fists. He had no idea why they were doing that, nor did he understand why they were using a breathing technique while doing it.

Finally, they decided a winner and one person remained in the ring. Director Ix’s voice echoed through the ring.

“Congratulations to the winner of today’s Challenge trial, who will receive 10 trial merits. For the remaining top ten participants, each will receive 5 trial merits. For those who did not place in the top ten, but did participate within the rules, you will receive 1 trial merit. For those who broke the rules, 0 merits are awarded.”

This Director Ix really seems to like their rules. Hudson thought that it seemed almost… childish. Or simplistic at least.

The pony-tailed woman Hudson and Vince had fought – apparently named Clara – walked over to join the rest of the group that had forced Hudson out at the end.

Hudson did a quick count, and including Clara, there were ten of them. The rewards for the Challenge had been much greater for the top ten. That didn’t seem like a coincidence. Since Vince had knocked out Clara, Hudson had been number ten, and he had received five trial merits instead of her.

No wonder she had been angry – she had lost out on making the top ten. But how had she known that would be important?