37. Victory

Alone I sat in a library, willing my spirit to adjust to the fluctuating spatial energies around me. It was the final step, and then I’d emerge and step out of the purification realm and onto the Bronze path.

After that, I’d be able to accumulate power rapidly, as the Bronze Path is mostly linear, so long as you’ve built the proper foundation. It would take me a while to fill the basin of the foundation I’d establish, wide and deep as it was. I’d be as strong as some golden cultivators when I reached silver. But that was the goal.

I had to be strong enough to take on an empire by myself.

I exhaled. I inhaled. I felt the subtle fluctuations in space-time that accompanied even the most stable storage items. I probed the corners of them with my Qi, and I focused on my understanding of the void .

I was close. Fortunately I had managed to convince the others that I would not need to make another public appearance until the award ceremony, having battled my fill on the strongest of the contestants and given the masses their spectacle.

I knew that I was missing Hien Ro’s journey as he navigated the finales of the tournament, but ultimately that wasn’t my path to walk with him. I had tried to explain, associating with him directly at this point would only paint a target on his back.

I focused on pulling apart the mysteries of space instead of the things which were out of my control. Once the tournament was over, I would vanish from the public eye, and that was when I could worry about my relationships with my friends.

I frowned. That was … a complication. I’d have to leave them behind eventually, so tightening the bond any further would only cause more pain in the long run. Should I not maybe …

I focused on the void instead of contemplating things which didn’t need to be contemplated right then.

~~~~~~~

Jumper landed on Hien Ro’s shoulder as they walked through the narrow streets of the city and began singing a sad song. Ro reached up to scratch the fat bird’s plumage; the thing was already larger than a hawk.

“I miss him too, but I understand why he’s hiding right now,” he told the spirit-bird, which had been sulking ever since Little Bug had vanished into the spatial ring. “When the tournament is over, we’ll head back to the mountain and—hey!”

The bird pecked his earlobe and flew off, circling the thermals until it was just a spec on the wind. Hien Ro shook his head and smirked.

Today was the day, he reflected. The final day of the tournament. He was nervous to fight the brutal Thaseus, but also eager for the challenge. He was famous, but he knew in a strange way that it was not a lasting fame. One day soon things would go back to normal, and--

“Ro! Hien Ro, there you are!” Yara shouted, coming up from behind him on the path to the coliseum from the place where they had been staying during their time in the city. The landlord had jacked the prices for everyone, but Little Bug had foreseen that and paid in advance to prevent trouble.

“What is it?” He asked Yara, wondering at the troubled sound in her voice.

“I cannot find my father, and I found this note,” she said, and she held out a letter.

The paper was stained with blood.

~~~~~~

Thaseus pushed against the Earth, and the Earth did not move. Some things were simply impossible to move, some things were impossible to stop.

Thaseus had fought many battles over the last few weeks, and he had amassed thousands of points. He would have amassed more but for the cowardice of his opponents, who would retire the moment they realized they were outclassed. Not all of them would, and Thaseus had grown adept at spotting the ones he could tease points from from the ones who needed to be taken care of quickly.

Everyone in the tournament feared him, but it was that fear that had held him back from first place. If he had a reputation more like Lukal Lukal, who, while skilled, lacked Thaseus’s ruthlessness and cunning, then he would not have had so many fighters retire from the tournament rather than face him.

He had fought fifty-two battles, Lukal Lukal had faced eighty-nine opponents. Thaseus was ahead on average points, but Lukal Lukal would win the tournament because average points don’t matter.

He continued doing push-ups, reflecting on the inevitability of his win today. He grinned. Hien Ro had not been mentioned in his original briefing, weeks ago now, when the then-top ranked names had been whispered in his ear. Those names were forgotten, but he would remember Hien Ro.

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Hien Ro would hand him the tournament.

Once he had finished his set, he stood and picked up his weapon. A sword that was more like a hammer, its blade dull and designed for crushing more than cutting. It was heavy, half as heavy as he was, but he picked it up and worked his way through a kata, feeling his muscles come to life. He was sweating, but it was a good sweat.

He would give Hien Ro his best, and he would finish this battle a champion.

When he finished the kata, he dropped the sword. It hit the ground with a thud and did not clatter, too heavy to rebound. He felt better, and although he wished he could bring his favored weapon with him onto the arena floor, as he had when he had fought Po Guah’s apparition, he would obey the tournament rules.

No weapons. No killing, No crippling.

Boring, boring, boring.

But as he stepped onto the sands of the coliseum, he heard his name wash over him as it was chanted by a thousand tongues. He grinned. This was something that he had been looking forward to. The recognition, the acknowledgment of the masses of his superiority.

That they were cheering for his opponent even more feverishly mattered not, they would cheer his name when he was victorious.

He stepped forward to shake his opponent’s hand, as had become a tradition at some point during the tournament for reasons nobody could quite place. Po Guah did that, he realized. That was the reason, they were aping that monster.

It was fine, it gave him an opportunity to look his opponent in the eye.

Hien Ro gave him a defiant expression, one filled with anger. That was good.

“Try to last the entire match,” he told the younger teen. “I need the points.”

“I know,” Hien Ro said. “Damn you.”

They took their places in the corners of the arena. Tornolai, who was once more judging the match, was silent for once until the gong rang signaling the beginning of the match.

Thaseus dashed forward, raising a fist to crush his opponent. His opponent stood to meet it, and Hien Ro was blown away.

Some things were immovable. Somethings were unstoppable

Thaseus was unstoppable, and Hien Ro was but a minor road block in his way. He would crush him, and he would extract the points he needed from the match, and he would be crowned victor.

It was as inexorable as gravity.

~~~~~~

“Something is wrong,” Po Guah said, watching the final match of the tournament in the box seat with the vipers and sycophants who had been trying to tease out his secrets over the last few weeks. “There is something off in Hien Ro’s aura.”

Tonilla frowned, but she placed an arm on the boy’s forearm and attempted to reassure him. “I’m certain that he’s simply—”

“Never mind,” Po Guah said. “I see the threads of fate and it is not my place to interfere.”

Tonilla shivered, because for just a second the boy’s eyes had gone white. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard of them doing that, but it was surprisingly disturbing to witness. Like a venerable ancestor looking at her life and judging her unworthy.

Then the attention was back on the match as Thaseus beat Hien Ro around the sands of the coliseum in an utterly one sided fight.

~~~~~~

Thaseus was laughing. So much for a challenge. Hien Ro had so many openings in his combat that the older teenager wondered how it was that he’d come so far. His fist connected with the boy’s solar plexus and Hien Ro went flying, gasping, landing six feet away.

“Two points!” the judge called.

Thaseus walked forward, giving the other boy time to recover, just to smash him in the head with a roundabout kick. He dashed forward this time and …

Why wasn’t Hien Ro fighting back?

He paused, recognizing finally that something was wrong. The fans continued to shout, but some of them were jeering.

Hien Ro was better than this. It was almost like he was just fighting to feed Thaseus points. But who would …

Suspicion filled Thaseus at that moment, and he shot a glance towards his family’s box seats. He walked forward to where Hien Ro was recovering from the beating he got.

“You are better than this,” Thaseus said in a voice that would not carry. “Why do you not fight back?”

“Coward,” Hien Ro said. “You’re a cheater and a coward. Adan Pocef has nothing to do with this tournament, yet you kidnapped him and hold him hostage and—”

“Lies,” Thaseus whispered, but he knew the truth. The lengths that his family would go to in order to win. But why bother, when he had been so close to victory in the first place.

He punched the down teen once more, and the boy fell unconscious. With the coup de grace delivered, he had scored thirty points, putting him into first place. He walked off of the sands of the coliseum for the last time as the crowd shouted and screamed.

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