“Are you ready?” Jim took a deep breath when he heard these words from his opponent. In the past few weeks, Jim had many spars, mostly with Dave and sometimes Solaire to learn proper close combat techniques, but that was the first time he had a spar with swords.

Standing before him was Clay, an arming sword in his right hand and nothing in his left. Similarly, Jim held a machete in his right and a round shield in his left. No one really knew how to properly wield a sword so most of them just used their own style.

People like Solaire and Dave knew techniques with knives, but there was a big difference between a knife and a sword. For starters with a knife, you want to get as close to your opponent as possible, while a user with a sword tries to keep some distance, to properly use the length of the blade.

Speaking of distance, it wasn’t a big problem in the past, but now that he was facing a human Jim realized that the shorter blade of his machete could be a disadvantage. Until now the beasts Jim faced had to come close to use either their claws or teeth, which were always shorter than the combined length of his arm and blade.

The shorter blade was even advantageous as it was easier to wield and with the smaller surface and thicker blade able to produce more strength than a normal arming sword. The thickness of the blade also helped to withstand the burden of Jim’s superhuman strength.

The only time where Jim felt that his blade gave him a disadvantage was during the fight with Ray. In this fight, Jim was confronted with a rapier – a much longer and thinner blade than his own – and noticed here for the first time what a huge advantage a longer blade could provide. Jim missed countless attacks because he couldn't reach Ray.

Looking at Clay he was feeling conflicted. Jim still didn’t understand why he left and the reason why they had this spar was for a few reasons but the most important one was that Clay wanted to show what he learned rather than explain.

If you only considered strength then Jim was the strongest when it came to duels and with the help of his strengthening ability can surpass the limits of normal standards. In their discussion, Clay made it clear how dangerous the wilderness was.

He survived for two months in said wilderness and after Jim witnessed firsthand how Clay effortlessly avoided the attacks of the mantis he wondered how he would fare against him.

Thinking this Jim asked, “Is this an all-out spar or are there rules?” Smiling Clay replied, “Rules? We are talking about the wilderness. There are no rules. Either you die or survive.”

Getting annoyed at his confidence, Jim said, “Very well, don’t come complaining to me later.”

Hearing this Clay just laughed and began to walk towards him. Noticing this Jim grew tense, as he had a flashback of him doing the exact same thing with the mantis. Jim didn’t know how Clay did it but he was somehow able to avoid every single attack of the mantis.

Deciding to first test the waters Jim moved in with a wide slash to his chest, before he even finished his attack Clay moved to the right causing the attack to whistle wide past him, causing an opening on Jim's right side.

An opportunity Clay immediately took advantage of as he stabbed with his sword, stopping just before Jim's heart. “Your heart was just pierced and you are bleeding to death.”

Saying this Clay returned to his original position. Shocked by the ease in which he lost Jim was frozen in place. The fight ended before it even really started. He knew that it wouldn’t be easy but he never imagined losing so quickly.

It wasn’t even like he didn’t see the attack coming, rather he just wasn’t fast enough to react. Jim was barely able to reach Clay’s chest, while he could easily overcome the distance with one lunge, piercing his heart. This was the best example of how the longer range could be effectively utilized in Battle.

Jim felt safe because he was accustomed to the shorter range of beasts not expecting Clay to reach him in one move. Taking a deep breath and clearing his mind Jim focused entirely on the fight as the next round began.

Similar to the first one Clay started by casually walking towards him, with no proper stance whatsoever. This time Jim would play passive using his shield to wait for an opening. He came closer and closer and when he was only a meter apart he grew confused, as Clay didn't attack.

Suddenly he grabbed Jim's shield with his left hand. This took him off guard and while he struggled to get his shield back from Clay a sword came rushing from under the shield, piercing upwards to Jim's head, halting just before his throat.

“I just impaled your skull. Never stand on one spot and don’t be intimidated, often you not only battle with your body but also your mind, trust me I learned that the hard way,” said Clay while he returned yet again to his original spot.

The first death was understandable to Jim, but the second infuriated him. He didn’t even try, standing there like some idiot who didn’t know what to do. He slapped himself on the cheeks to clear his head, focusing on not dying a third time.

Having this in mind he immediately rushed to Clay the moment he returned. Seeing this Clay's expression didn't change walking towards him unchanged to the previous two times. This time Jim was aggressive and was making full use of his speed.

Arriving in range he ducked down slashing with his machete at Clay’s left leg, in the hope to take him off guard. To his surprise, Clay easily sidestepped this move, slashing down with his sword. “I just cut you back open, even if this doesn’t kill you such an injury would soon lead to death.”

This spar was never going to end with three battles and after losing the first few, Jim felt furious. If this was a real battle he would have died countless times, but eventually realized that he could learn a lot. His life wasn’t in danger and it caused him to be in control of his body rather than his other self. Jim didn’t give a name to the thing that takes over when he fights.

The people close to him knew that Jim’s abnormal fighting abilities came not from talent, but from this other self that took over every time his life was in danger, and even if this self was adept at fighting, his real self wasn’t.

He never wanted to rely on his other self but as the fights grew ever more dangerous he had no choice. He couldn't control when and for how long this other self takes over, he only knew that it triggered when his life was in danger.

Seeing this spars as an opportunity Jim made full use of them, fighting with Clay from morning till dusk. Time and time again he tried to take even a single hit at Clay, while his deaths grew ever more numerous. The things Clay could come up with to cripple him truly seemed endless.

“You lost an arm and would soon die.”

“I slit your throat open, causing you to bleed to death.”

“Good try, but a punctured lung will make it hard to keep fighting.”

“I just pierced your eye, sinking my blade deep into your skull, killing you immediately.”

“Okay that was a horrible idea, you just lost both of your legs, rendering your fighting abilities useless.”

***

At some point, Jim stopped counting how many times Clay explained how he would have died or been crippled. In all these fights he did not land a single hit. At some point, Jim grew so frustrated that he decided to ambush Clay, while he walked back to his original spot for who knew how many times.

But even this ambush failed as Clay was somehow able to sense it and avoided the attack by stepping to the side and with one smooth motion severed Jim's right arm. Additionally, Clay used his leg to let him trip, causing him to fall face-first to the ground.

Landing Jim’s heart was soon pierced by a sword, and he lost his life. At least that is what would have happened if Clay actually decided to attack him. Fortunately, this was only a spar and Jim just fell to the ground.

The hard fall took him back to reality, causing Jim to feel shame for his despicable sneak attack fully expecting to be lectured by Clay, but to his surprise received praise. “Finally you did something intelligent. If your enemy dares to turn its back, make use of it. There isn’t something like fairness out there, the main reason why we could even survive was because of such ambushes. You are a human, not an animal, use that head of yours not only your muscles.”

Hearing this Jim finally realized how stupid it was to uphold fairness when it came to fighting for your survival. They killed the mantis with an ambush after all and not in a fair duel, the gorilla Jim fought against also used dirt to obstruct his vision, wait...

Jim slowly stood up secretly scoping up a handful of dirt with his left hand. “You are right, it was stupid for me to hold on to something like fairness-”

Without warning Jim threw the dirt in Clay’s eyes, which he didn’t expect and due to their close distance wasn’t able to avoid. Not wasting the opportunity Jim moved swiftly and slashed with his machete halting just before separating Clay's neck.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Smiling wickedly, Jim said, “You just lost your head, killing you instantly.”

“HAHAHA,” Clay laughed wildly after hearing this. “You got me there, this is exactly what I mean, so you can use that head of yours after all. I think that is a good point to end this spar, so did you notice what I did?”

Obviously, Jim thought long ago about how Clay was able to avoid him so easily. At first, he thought it was similar to his own sixth sense that protected him from danger but as the battles accumulated he noticed one big difference between them.

Jim’s own sixth sense was like an instinct, something he couldn’t control, working only a short moment before the attack landed. In comparison Clay’s ability allowed him to sense the attack before it was even remotely close to him.

It wasn’t that Clay was unbelievably stronger than Jim, just that he was able to react way quicker than Jim could. It didn’t matter what he tried Clay always sensed it beforehand, having ample time to prepare.

This went as far as Clay being able to react to his ambush without even looking at him. When you consider all of this, how could Jim throw dirt without him noticing? What did he do differently from before?”

Jim thought hard about this question but didn’t come to an answer when he suddenly remembered why they were even sparring. Clay wanted to demonstrate what he learned… that's it!

“You used your aura to sense-” interrupting Jim, Clay put a finger above his lips whispering, “Not too loud. We are surrounded by people, not too many should know about this. Can we go somewhere where we can talk in privacy?”

Nodding his head Jim led him back to the house where he stayed and as soon as the doors closed continued their conversation, “How can you use your aura to sense others? I never thought that you could use it like that. How sensitive are you even to this energy to find so much about it in this short time? We had countless more people and didn’t find nearly as much as you did.”

Laughing Clay said, "You can't imagine how creative you get if death is this close. I experimented a lot with aura and after a lot of trial and error, I noticed that this aura is essentially just a small amount of energy that gets emitted outside. We are essentially constantly wasting a little energy by giving it to the atmosphere. After I realized that I wondered if I couldn't prevent that and after some training was able to do it, which caused my own aura to get thicker, as time passed."

"Wait, does that mean you could appear stronger than you actually were?" Jim asked with curiosity.

"I first thought so too, but it seems like our strength is not dependent on the thickness of our aura but its quality," replied Clay. "At some point, it was getting really hard to hold all of this energy, so I tried to stop entirely my aura from leaking, which was Chris doing long ago, but that is for another time. The point is that I was able to control this aura and thought of other ways to use it."

Finally understanding what Clay did Jim asked, "You can sense other auras way clearer as long as they are in your own aura, right?"

Happy that Jim understood Clay said, "This is exactly what I did and you know how good the effect is, but this has its own drawbacks. If someone has an aura they are easy to sense, but everything without an aura, like objects, are 'invisible' to me."

Understanding this, Jim remembered something, asking cheekily, “Do you know how to strengthen your body with your energy?” This was the one thing they found out on their own and was Jim's trump card. An ability that saved him countless times. They were also currently teaching others to use it, but no one came close to Jim when it came to using it.

“Of course I do,” replied Clay to Jim’s shock. “WHAT! How!? It took us weeks to find out how to replicate this ability with others.”

Smiling Clay asked, “Who do you think I am? Should I remind you who came up with the theory of this body strengthening of yours?”

“You did,” replied Jim grumpily before asking, “What is your experience? How long can you withstand the strengthening?” This was Jim’s last hope, no one could match him in maintaining and withstanding the side effects of this strengthening.

Thinking for a moment Clay said, “It depends on how much energy I use.” Utterly dumbfounded Jim asked, “What do you mean it depends?”

Confused Clay explained, “I mean if I use the energy sparingly I can hold on for several minutes, and if I push it to the limit I can go for about two minutes; two and a half if I really stretch it.”

Shaking his head in disbelief Jim asked, “Wait, so you want to tell me you can control how much energy you use for this strengthening?”

“Of course I do. I wouldn't be able to use it for long if I couldn’t control the amount that is used, wait…” Looking at Jim, Clay’s eyes widened. “You can’t control the amount?”

Slightly embarrassed Jim shook his head. Instead of mocking he saw Clay sinking deep into thought before saying, “It seems like my sense for this energy is rather extraordinary. I thought that you would be sensitive to it, considering that you were able to use this strengthening before even feeling aura, but it seems like you did it out of instinct rather than with control.”

Nodding Jim explained, “For me, it's really easy, I just have to think about it and immediately use this strengthening without really understanding how I do it. I know that the others take some time to activate this ability.”

“Interesting, I also need time to prepare,” replied Clay with a curious expression. “I have to undertake every step carefully and only after countless failures did I develop a sense for activating it without failure. It seems like you have no control but can use this strengthening incredibly fast, which is in the heat of battle a lot more useful. I may have greater control but need time to prepare this ability before using it, otherwise, I get a rather unpleasant backslash.”

“Okay that makes sense,” replied Jim, still amazed at the fact that Clay was even able to control the amount of energy used. “But there is one thing I don’t understand. How were you able to survive?”

Confused by the question Clay asked, “What exactly do you mean with that?”

“I mean you are strong, I experienced that firsthand and you found many innovations that helped a lot in surviving. But you didn’t have that from the start and it doesn't take much for a beast to kill a human. Besides, you couldn’t possibly avoid every single attack, so how did you heal your injuries?”

Now understanding what Jim meant, Clay said, “That is a hard question to answer. Many factors played into our survival, but the most important was Chris. To be specific our teamwork, our lack of fear, and our respective abilities all gave us a chance of survival. But like you said we could never avoid all wounds…”

Pulling his thick shirt made of various leather up, Jim saw the scar of five deep slash wounds running from Clay's chest down to his waist. The scar alone looked horrendous and Jim couldn’t even imagine what it looked like when the wound was fresh.

Gasping Jim asked, “How the hell did you survive such a wound?!”

Besides this huge claw wound, Jim spotted countless other scars, all from various claws and teeth. Clay's body clearly showed how many near-death battles he had. The question was how Clay could survive all these injuries. Jim couldn't understand it at all and it seemed like his expression showed this as Clay started to laugh. “I never said it was easy surviving out there.”

He continued to laugh for a moment before his laughter slowly ceased. “You know all of these factors I said played a role in our survival but most of all it was luck. I’m not surprised that no one in the villages survived this catastrophe. We had way better-starting conditions than most and still were barely able to hold on to our life.”

For a moment Clay grew silent, seemingly thinking about the past. “These past two months are like one big blur in my head and I experienced pain that I never thought I could ever withstand. Before this whole apocalypse I was scared of the smallest injuries and was rather sensitive to pain… no I still am. It’s just that I can’t allow myself to think too much about it. The adrenaline helps for once and the survival instinct is stronger than the pain. The past two months were truly the hardest time of my life and the most dreadful experience I ever had.”

Not knowing what to say Jim decided just to listen. “Chirs and I both lost our families almost at the same time. We didn’t really have anyone else left than us. This formed a weird situation where we tried to keep the other alive even if that meant sacrificing ourselves.”

Thinking about this Clay couldn’t help himself as a slight smile crawled on his lips. “It was really stupid, but it surprisingly worked very well and drove us into countless near-death experiences, and when death is so close you become very creative when it comes to preventing it.”

“This scar,” placing his hand on his chest Clay said, “Came from the very same bear I mentioned as an example. I barely survived the encounter and was able to heal because I was close to my fourth rank, using the transformation to heal my injuries. Chris actually was in a similar situation when he advanced to the third rank.”

Shaking his head, Clay said, “Anyway what I wanted to say is that I was able to heal most injuries because of this strengthening ability. If you use a lot of energy it breaks the limitations of your body, giving you far greater power in return for destroying your body. On the other hand, if the energy consumed is lower than the threshold to break this limit it instead has a recovering effect.”

Widening his eyes, Jim's interest was immediately piqued. A proper healing method was the exact thing they lacked. If others could replace this ability they could prevent a lot of deaths. “How effective is this healing?”

“The effect itself is nothing groundbreaking. It speeds up the process but if you normally wouldn’t survive a wound you still die. The real worth of this ability lies in its effect of providing this first crucial layer that prevents blood loss,” replied Clay.

Hearing this Jim almost beamed. Blood loss was in reality the cause of most deaths. After all, they could not replace it, and the less blood your body has the weaker your body becomes in about every aspect.

“But wait, if the effect of healing isn’t that significant how did you heal your injuries quickly?” Jim asked in confusion.

Tapping his forehead Clay said, “Right forgot to mention that I just ate a shit ton of food.” Now even more confused Jim asked, “Food? What do you mean by that?”

Shrugging his shoulder Clay said, “I mean it like I said it. You get energy from absorbing nutrients from food and healing uses a lot of these nutrients. With our current bodies, our self-healing ability and metabolism are not comparable to before. I ate whole beasts, stuffing them into me even if I was full.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Jim asked bewildered. Nodding Clay said, “Of course. I mean it doesn't taste great, but if your life depends on it you don’t care much about taste. There was a time when I ate ten kilograms of pure meat daily just to get the nutrients for all the healing my body had to do. Why do you guys not know about this?”

Thinking for a moment Jim said, “To speak the truth I think we weren't that desperate yet. I just assumed that if you eat beyond your hunger feeling you would just vomit it all out. There wasn’t a time where I was injured to such an extent that I would have tried that. We just didn't think that was possible. I mean that is common sense.”

Nodding Clay said, “You are probably right. I think everything in life we learned so far – our so-called common sense. Just throw it out of the window. If you see someone controlling fire with his bare hands you just have to accept that and move on even if that doesn’t make any sense.”

Hearing the reference to Solaire Jim couldn’t help but chuckle. “You are right. It seems like there's still much more to learn out there.”

“Yeah, we are like newborns that have to learn how to walk again. Then right now we are crawling at best,” replied Clay with a sigh.

Silence returned to the room before Jim asked, “So what are we gonna do now?”

Looking him dead in the eyes Clay said, “I will spar of course.” Not wanting to go for another spar Jim protested, “Why do we have to spar again? I already know how your aura works.”

Laughing Clay replied, “Who said I was going to spar with you…?”