SUPERCHARGE!

Ryuna rushed towards Billy once again at a speed even faster than before, thanks to the effects of the Supercharge Install.

Her body moved at double time, allowing her to fire off more punches and kicks into her opponent than her previous attempts.

It was enough to make Billy’s stoic expression drop just a tiny bit. The clenching of his jaw, the veins pulsing in his head, and the rapid darting around of his pupils all made it clear that he was struggling to keep up.

His martial arts skills were undeniable, however, as he indeed managed to do just that. Even with the Supercharge Install enhancing Ryuna’s quickness, Billy was still able to break down the motions each of her attacks were going to take, and block or dodge them appropriately. Occasionally, he would get caught in the shoulder by a hook, or take a kick to the shin, but by and large, he managed to hold his own.

Ryuna herself was surprised (and begrudgingly impressed) by this fact, which ticked her off enough to make her put more oomph into her swings. She held back on fully giving into her outrage, however, as she knew she’d probably end up throwing a sloppy punch at his face and having him counter it once again.

While she didn’t exactly have a detailed plan of action at the moment, she knew she’d have to bring her own chi into the fray to break through Billy’s barrier. He’d made it very clear that he would not be the aggressor at any point in this duel; hell, the bastard would probably be 100% willing to stand still for an entire day waiting for Ryuna to attack first. Because of that, she needed to set the pace for the fight, and speeding things up with the Supercharge Install sounded like a pretty good idea to her.

Realizing it wasn’t going to be quite enough, Ryuna battered Billy’s arm away and leaped at him directly. However, rather than launch an attack at his face or torso, she instead opted to flip over him completely, kicking her foot off of his back to propel herself far behind him.

To her surprise, his ripple barrier hadn’t activated. Did that mean it only protected him from the front, or that it simply didn’t register her push-off kick as a threat, but would still activate when a serious strike was thrown at it? She’d have to test that out….

Both fighters were noticeably panting after that exchange as they turned back around to face one another. Billy was sweating more than Ryuna was, but again, with his chi well under his control, that fatigue wouldn’t stick around for very long, rendering that advantage rather null.

“Alright, I guess I gotta give you your props,” Ryuna said. “You’re pretty alright. You’re boring as hell to fight, but at least you’re not trash.”

Billy’s face remained unfazed, even as he moved his hands along his arms and wrists to help massage out the stings of Ryuna’s assault. The fact he didn’t speak one of his dry, dull responses did spark a faint flicker of pride in Ryuna’s heart. It was some sort of progress, after all. Chi could undo physical pain, but it couldn’t do much for mental exhaustion.

Perhaps throwing insults at him repeatedly should be her strategy, she playfully mused. Maybe she could annoy him into slipping up.

No, even if she thought that was a remotely realistic possibility, her pride wouldn’t let her take that route. She wanted a decisive win, with no room for doubts. Her previous match against Caedo hadn’t satisfied her own standards, regardless of how much fear her explosive chi outbursts had put into the hearts of those who remained in attendance.

The air around her began to grow warmer as the fading edges of her chi aura began to take a slightly stronger shape, dancing like the embers of a flame.

She was going to break through that barrier and beat his ass definitively and decisively.

Ryuna brought her hands up to her chest, forming an invisible ball between them. A deep, mechanical voice exploded out from within her, echoing around the room of the monastery.

ICE!

Billy tightened his fists, preparing for Ryuna’s next barrage. He’d known she was capable of using two Force Slots from watching her previous bouts, but the prospect of actually facing that fact in battle was not something to be taken lightly. He’d never faced an opponent like that before, and he himself was likely still a few years away from activating his own second Slot.

He took a deep breath, and mimicked Ryuna’s pose.

FIRE!

Ryuna began her sprint towards Billy, throwing out quick jabs into the air along the way. Each one launched a chunk of ice in Billy’s direction, forcing him to summon red flames to melt the shards away.

In the meantime, Ryuna adjusted her approaching path, coming in at an off-angle, using the blasts of flame and ice to keep herself out of Billy’s line of sight.

She charged in with a diving kick aimed at his upper back. If it connected, then she could confirm that his ripple shield only protected him from the front. If it didn’t, then she could confirm that the shield only protected him from serious attacks. Either one would be helpful to her, although if one were to ask her which she preferred, the answer would be fairly obvious.

At the very last instant, Billy was able to catch on to Ryuna’s ruse, twisting his head around to spot her, a blessing granted to him by the enhanced chi auras provided by Master Kirin.

His instincts guided his hands not in a natural defense against Ryuna’s kick, as she surely would have broken through it with the power she wielded, but instead in a circle around himself. Red fire spewed from his palms, igniting the floor around him and creating a circular wall of protection.

Ryuna’s foot hit the fire wall, which immediately sent scorching pain up her body.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Gritting her teeth through the temporary pain, she summoned a chunk of ice on the bottom of her foot. It wasn’t much, and wouldn’t last long, but it would do for now.

She flung her arm below herself, guiding her chi aura towards the floor in one hard wave. When the chi energy rebounded and pushed back at her, she kicked off of the ice chunk at the exact same time, propelling herself high up into the sky.

While Billy’s fire wall covered him on all sides, it wasn’t a proper dome, leaving the top wide open.

Ryuna twisted in mid-air, repositioning herself to get a good shot high above where Billy stood in wait, unaware of where she was.

Pale blue frost energy coalesced in her palm as she pulled her hand back in a wind-up. Once satisfied, she flung the frost ball down directly through the ring of fire.

The instant the frost ball made contact with Billy’s arms, it exploded out and solidified into thick ice, locking his hands together and dropping them down to the floor, leaving his back vulnerable to the sky.

“Gotcha, you son of a bitch!” Ryuna roared as she flipped forward and brought her heel down in a deadly chop to the center of Billy’s back.

WHAM!

Ryuna’s heel slammed right into Billy’s spine, with no blue chi ripple to be found. The force of the kick was enough to momentarily stun him, causing the fire ring to instantly dissipate.

The floor beneath his feet splintered into several thick cracks, and a blast of force from the impact zone shot out in all directions, forcing the crowd of onlookers to shield their eyes behind their arms.

Billy’s face thudded against the floor with enough force to bounce his entire several feet up and away.

Ryuna stood tall in the center of it all, a wide smile cracking open on her lips. That had confirmed it; his back was vulnerable at all times. That was her way to victory.

Off to the side, Master Kirin’s own face bore a satisfied grin. “Very good. Focus it into one act. One goal. Just like Billy does.”

With a groan, Billy pushed himself off of the floor. His face and chest were covered in bloody scrapes, though they were already beginning to repair themselves via his chi.

“There’s a little taste of what you’ve been missin’ out on!” Ryuna called out, an obvious jovial energy in her voice. “Always rejecting it and handing it back over to me. Rude, much?”

Billy moved his hand to his cheek in order to gaze down upon the blood staining his fingers. “That was….quite an impressive attack.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Taking a breath, Billy returned to his defensive stance, keeping his eyes on Ryuna. “However, this fight is not over yet.”

Smirking, Ryuna replied, “Might as well be, now that I know your back’s wide open. It’s pretty lame I can’t punch you in the face, since that’s my favorite, but I can work with this.” She clenched her fists as faint yellow embers began to dance in her eyes. “Whatever it takes to win this thing.”

Billy knew he didn’t have long before Ryuna unleashed her next attack, so he had to think quickly. While his strategy of keeping on the defensive and countering with his chi ripple would remain his primary plan, he knew he’d have to try something else in order to maintain that balance.

Ryuna was a true menace to battle against. Although she was cocky and lacked proper chi control, she was undeniably strong and fast, and had good combat instincts on top of that. And despite being so young, she already had access to both her Heart and Body Slots, and she appeared to have a wide collection of Installs at her disposal, too. A true prodigy.

While Billy was about as skilled with chi manipulation as one could be at his age with no prior training, he was actually somewhat lacking when it came to Installs and the use of his Force Slots. Thus far, he’d only been able to cultivate three Installs, and his application of all of them was fairly basic. Something about them had simply eluded his understanding and mastery, a fact which contributed quite heavily towards his decision to focus on his chi channeling.

Ryuna could bust out any number of Install combinations on this next attempt, and use them in a multitude of ways. Using his own Fire Install as a defensive tool against her Ice one had been as direct a counter as he could likely manage, and it hadn’t been enough to stop her.

He exhaled slowly from his nose to control his breathing. He would have to use his Art — the Spirit Flooding Palm. While his Install skills left a lot to be desired, an Art could more than make up for that deficiency, especially one as powerful as his own.

Ordinarily, the Art worked by forcing the user’s ULTRA Force particles into the opponent with enough force to discharge the opponent’s particles out the other side. However, with the chi enhancement provided by Master Kirin, Billy had been able to use his chi instead of his ULTRA Force in his battle against Hai Tien, and the Art became exponentially more powerful as a result.

He narrowed his eyes, focusing on Ryuna. The only issue was, with how wild and powerful Ryuna’s chi aura was, the Spirit Flooding Palm could prove incredibly dangerous to her, and everyone else in the room.

And, in the worst case scenario, her chi could potentially be too strong for him to expel altogether….

EARTH!

But he didn’t have time to think about it any more. Ryuna was ready, trading her Ice Install for an Earth one. He opted to shift his own as well.

METAL!

The Metal Install could help him break through whatever constructs her Earth Install led to, though it certainly wasn’t a full counter pick by any means.

Ryuna stomped her foot onto the floor, creating a pillar of rock beneath her that launched her high into the sky. Billy kept his eyes on her, searching for any signs of what she was planning to do next.

His ears barely caught the shifting of the floor to his side, and his instincts urged him to step to the side and avoid the sudden stalagmite aimed for his back.

Knowing she would try to dive in on him during this time, he flung his arm upward, summoning a pair of metal chunks into the air.

It took just one kick to destroy the projectiles, but that had been enough to shift her mid-air momentum, forcing her to drop back to the ground further away from Billy than she’d have liked.

No matter. She pounced on him like a lion, throwing out powerful kicks and backfists. Billy kept up with them as well as he could, but the sudden appearance of a chunk of earth beneath him caught him off guard, and he stumbled.

Ryuna immediately spun around in a half-circle towards his back. As she did, she conjured up a curved wall of rock meant to hold Billy in place while she aimed for his back.

But Billy kept his cool, and thrust his palm towards the rock wall, sending out a blast of metal ULTRA Force particles that shattered the structure to pieces, allowing him to retreat and keep his distance.

“Somebody’s scared,” Ryuna teased.

Billy’s brow furrowed, but no words escaped his lips.

That was more than fine with Ryuna; just further proof she’d taken control of this fight. She was on fire, and clearly had an upper hand when it came to brawling. Truly, the only wild card was Billy’s ripple shield, and she’d already figured out how to work around it.

The air around her began to crackle and sizzle as her chi aura became just a bit more prominent in form and color, a fact which sent tingles up and down her body. She could feel herself gaining more and more control over it. Her confidence and trust in it was growing stronger as well.

That must have been what Master Kirin had lectured her about, she thought.

“To control it, you must control your own spirit. Your spirit is unstable; pulled along in multiple directions, unable to find its place and achieve its goals.”

Just focus it in one direction, Ryuna told herself with a roll of the shoulders. Tell it what to do. Don’t think about anything else.

She closed her eyes, and guided her breath throughout her body. Heat permeated through the air, accompanied by a deep, low rumble that echoed around the room.

The eyes of almost all others glanced around in a multitude of directions, like prey listening for the sounds of their predator. Billy, Brise, and the monks and defeated competitors in attendance.

Master Kirin, of course, had no such reaction. Instead, the old woman simply bowed her head. “Almost there, Ryuna. Keep at it.”