Chapter 178: 168. Duelists (I)

Few people on Earth trained as hard as Jay’s Champions. Even the least physical Champion would put in time for basic hand-to-hand sparring before all of their other specialties, duties, and vocations they had to work on. It was a core component of who they were as magical killing machines. Their greatest advantage came from a tactic rarely anyone outside of the Protectorates would practice. By limiting their System with heavy willpower, they could handicap themselves to work on technique till exhaustion. The Champions took it a bloody step further to make sparring sessions feel as real as possible.

Even with limited Attributes, their earned Statuses remained. Killing blows were allowed since they couldn’t actually kill each other while at a reduced power level. They could only incapacitate each other once they reached a certain threshold of damage that matched with their self-limited Attributes. Obviously, Jay and his Champions pushed this to the extreme. They had gotten into a bunch of bloody and magical scraps with each other that would kill most people on Earth until they were dead-dead.

Jay backpedaled around the top deck. Every step accounted for the rock and sway of the ship as abnormal arctic winds battered against the weather diffuser barriers. He flipped backward over barrels filled with water or spare food. He bounced off magic cannons with runes inscribed around their black surfaces. And he flung himself from one rigging to the next as the sails hummed with magic energy above his head.

Jay stayed mobile like a monkey fleeing from a tiger. No matter where he went, Casey chased. Her ferocity breathed down his neck.

The crew up here gave the pair their space while continuing to work. Jay didn’t pay them much attention. It was the ship captain’s job to ensure everything was in good order, which left Jay time to monkey around unless he was killing things few people could kill. It also left Casey time to build up tension during the lull periods between the frantic magic action. So Jay did his best to prolong the inevitable or somehow overcome the unrelenting aggression of Casey.

It felt like more of the former.

Casey kicked off the mainmast while Jay floated through the air. She launched at him like a ball out of a cannon, her claws extended to find a purchase in flesh. Jay blasted out a magic field to catch her. He knew it wouldn’t work. It was more of a delaying action. Casey proved him right when she changed her attack angle and activated [Aura of Devotion and Perfection].

Some people slipped through the smallest of gaps in magic fields. Others attacked the magical meshing directly– which was harder to do. Silver, white, and gold energy covered Casey’s claws as she corkscrewed her body and tore through the meshing of Jay’s gravity. Good for her.

He dove during that split-second window. He hit the ground and lunged forward.

Casey crashed down like a fusion of She-Hulk and Cheetah. She was careful enough to avoid gouging the planks with her claws extending from her fingers and toes.

Jay twisted around mid-escape and pointed his tomahawk like a wand. “Tiniest Black Hole!” The embedded runes inside the tomahawk appeared with a purple flare, featuring tiny runic bands circling around the base of the handle. The spellcraft burned through some of Jay’s self-limited supply of Mana and created a teensy tiny aperture floating six feet above the deck between him and Casey. The air swirled around it like a whirlpool.

The [Fighter] didn’t pause for a second. She didn’t even go around! She grabbed a barrel mid-run, jumped into the air, and set her feet on it like she was going to surf the black hole. Jay’s spellcraft sucked the barrel past the point of no return. Casey lunged off like it was a step across a river, skipping over the Tiniest Black Hole without losing much speed. But she was losing a lot of Stamina to keep up with Jay.

Her blonde ponytail whipped behind her head as she manipulated her aura under the balls of her feet and did things few could ever imagine. She used her physical energy to dash across the ship, performed air hops, and gave physics a kick in the face to keep up with Jay. Somehow, someway, she ran across the air for short distances with only her physical energy– her anima. That had to cost a lot of energy.

Jay smirked. Today’s tactic was a new one. Run away until Casey burned herself out. She couldn’t keep this up forever. And she was too aggressive to take a step back and let Jay come to her. He could taste it. His first victory over Casey. Once her exhaustion set in, he would finally defeat her in a spar!

“Your end is near, Casey!” Jay laughed like an evil maniac as he ran along the railings and hopped over the heads of crewmembers. He completely ignored his Chance dropping to x1 CM. It didn’t matter. He’d won plenty of battles with low Chance.

Casey’s response was the usual. Stone-cold silence. Her eyes zeroed in on the prize with an icy blue glare. Her athletic and amazonian frame pulsed with physical energy while using her aura. She rocketed after Jay, taking to the air gradually with dashing steps. Jay threw another magic field in her path. As soon as she dodged, Jay threw a second and a third, reserving these for just this moment.

Once he caught her, he could send her up or swing her into a slam. But Casey was too determined to get caught. She vaulted through a gap in the first. She flipped through a gap in the second. Then she twirled into another gap in the third as she poured her anima down to her feet in a small blaze of silver, white, and gold. Jay juked aside when she threw herself into a tackle. He could see her Stamina plummeting. He was going to win!

Casey’s cat tail caught Jay’s monkey tail.

Oh no.

She hit the deck and brought him down for a hard slam. Jay grunted in pain. He was grateful that he chose Resilience over Poise when he’d dialed down his profile to [320 Applied AP] and very limited buffs. He needed that physical toughness to bounce back and raise his tomahawk in time to block a claw strike. She kept their tails locked together, ending the option for him to escape her. But she barely had much left in her Stamina while she was also down to [320 Applied AP] and limited buffs.

He parried her first strike easily. It had no Strength. He swung the axe and struck! Right into her ribcage. Blood spurted out. Jay ripped the axe free. Blood sprayed his face as he ducked under another pitiful swipe. He hacked into her thigh next, hobbling her. She was so tall. Most people were taller than Jay. He’d learned to chop them down to his height. Another claw swipe. Another miss.

Even with their tails linked, Jay found room to lean back and stay in the ‘pocket’ with her, on the edge of danger and victory. He sprung forward with a high kick for her jaw to change things up. The tired look on Casey’s face disappeared. Her eyes opened wide with the utmost of focused intention and insurmountable willpower. The fourth dimension shuddered. Jay panicked and used [Horizondancer], freezing Casey at the cost of his limited Mana.

He struck the kick on her jaw. He got both feet underneath him and swung his tomahawk for her neck. His temporal Skill ended a split-second too soon. Casey raised an arm and blocked the axe head with her gauntlet. She thrust a perfect strike into Jay’s chest, the tip of her claws shining with both [Aura of Devotion and Perfection] and [Punishing Paws of the Dancing Tiger Princess Who Rises Greatly].

Her thrusting hand cracked his sternum. It speared through his chest. There was no heart for her to take. That was long gone now after reaching Rank 4 with Kleo. Blood and gore and glowing particles of Mana and his affinity exploded out of him as her hand exited through his back, splashing the deck. She grabbed his spine. Then she lifted him up, opened her mouth wide, and took a bite out of his throat for a finishing blow.

Her fangs tore away half his neck with a look of savage ecstasy shining in her blue eyes.

Jay woke up a few seconds later after his System rebooted from getting incapacitated in the most grisly of ways. His neck had a big gory hickey where Casey had bitten. The hole in his chest closed up on its own. Jay sat on the deck with Casey standing over him, chewing on the meat she’d taken from her Commander.

She swallowed and licked her lips.

“Tasty,” she said.

“Weirdo,” Jay shot her way.

“I am,” she admitted, curling her toes until her claws dug into the boards. That was one of the few nervous ticks Jay had caught her doing. Other than that, Casey was very good at keeping her emotions hidden. Most of the time.

“May I be of service, Commander, Champion?” asked a Rank 3 [Battle Healer], a friendly guy in his twenties.

“Nah, I’m good.” Jay poked his tail through the back of the hole and out the front. He waved the tip at the [Battle Healer]. “See. Good. Besides, I can close it up with one of my Talents.”

“I can recover on my own,” Casey lied.

Her [Aura of Devotion and Perfection] was great for defense or attack while scaling with her Conviction. [Punishing Paws of the Dancing Tiger Princess Who Rises Greatly] covered a wide basis of everything else she needed from bursts of speed, tempo, rhythm, intensifying ripostes, and more. Between those two Skills, Casey continued to live up to being the most talented duelist among the Champions. But she had her limits. She couldn’t naturally recover on her own. No real sustain. And her build was mostly solo. She needed a team built around her rather than her playing support for others.

“Take the recovery. It’s good for the healer’s levels.” Jay slowly dialed up the limiters. He couldn’t unleash his peak height of power. Or he would have to waste Mana using [Emotion Wave Stabilizer] to keep from scaring his crew that lacked the needed Conviction or willpower when [Devil of Gravity] was unleashed. But he got close to adequate, which could be felt.

“And you need to stop being so stubborn, Casey,” Jay added, the air wrinkling with his words. With a flex of willpower, he gently pushed down on Casey’s head with his Gravity Affinity alone.

Casey purred in delight from the weight of his power. Jay squinted. She was being stubborn to make him act tough with her on purpose.

“Fine,” she said with a toothy smile.

The [Battle Healer] did his job and moseyed on.

Jay floated off the deck a few feet and sat in the lotus pose. He used his [Channels Meditation] Talent, feeling for the different energies inside of him. The Talent focused on the regen of Health, Stamina, and Mana passively. Or he could meditate to intensify his regen for one Status. This was similar to Tim’s Endless Affinity, but Jay needed a space where he could meditate at peace, even if it was in between skirmishes. Tim’s Endless Affinity could regenerate one of the three main Statuses while he was fighting.

Despite knowing [Channels Meditation’s] main purpose, Jay pushed the boundaries since he was an [Exceptional Freak] and used the Talent as a window to view the internal energies inside him and examine them a little closely. There was a lot involved. Like layers of different nervous systems running through his body. He could see the lines of red that belonged to Health. Lines of yellow for Stamina. Lines of blue for Mana.

At his core was his affinity, a glowing purple ball pulsating with ripples of energy. It was not alone. Kleo lived within the same space that was his core. He couldn’t see inside of her space. But he could view the tidal flow of swirling fairy energy reaching out like a hungry whirlpool. He could sense without seeing that something else was in his core. Something solidifying, preparing to take shape. But it needed more energy. Or more time to grow.

Turning away from that, Jay could follow a silver and gold branch that split into many little threads that spiral into a ball. And within this ball of threading was a pinprick of golden white light– his divinity. It was not caged. It was staying within the border of its protection. Surrounding his divinity, his core of power, his network of energies, and more was the eldritch makeup of his body. It was an abyss without color. And it was dense. Very dense. It was also hungry. But in a different way. It sought to explore. It sought to fight. This substance was the stuff that made up his body. His flesh wanted a challenge.

Thankfully, it played nice with everything else. It didn’t crush and subsume all the other stuff– his Statuses, his affinity, Kleo’s home, Kleo’s secret project, Jay’s divinity, and the last thing that continued to avoid his full awareness. The place that harbored willpower. It was deeper than what his trick with [Channels Meditation] could perceive. He couldn’t even find it through the fourth dimension. The soul. He knew it was there. Everyone had it. And it came up as spirit stuff in death. But Jay struggled to find his. He figured it was inside his affinity. Hailey and Emily had gone in circles of research to link the affinity with the soul. Only Jay could truly dive into himself like this.

In his conclusion, the soul was well-hidden. Or it was submerged deeply inside of the affinity. So deep, Jay was not at the power where he could view it for all its splendor. He wondered if he viewed it, he might find more secrets of the Multiverse. Maybe those secrets could lead to manipulating Chance even more aggressively. The Chance Status didn’t have a representation in his body. It couldn’t be perceived like this by Jay. It was so aggressively fourth dimensional, to go inward felt like looking further away from the hidden depths of Chance. But Jay wondered if that was a trick. The soul. It had to have some answers. But no matter how long he looked, he couldn’t view it.

Jay sighed as he exited his meditation, now fully healed. Looking down, he saw Casey sitting on a barrel in the same lotus pose. She was still Catgirl Casey, her ears turning back and forth toward the crew hulling stuff around the deck, the battering arctic winds striking the barriers, and the humming energy running through the sails to steer the flying ship. The barriers allowed some of the weather through, so their every breath came out as an icy fog. When they had stopped fighting, the air around their bodies wavered from the heat they gave off. They cooled down now. But Jay sensed another fight on the horizon. His flesh hungered for the challenge. Jay’s mind knew it was not a challenge he should entertain.

“I want to be more than this with you, Jay,” Casey said.

“No,” he replied.

“I can’t blame Brit for stepping in before I worked up the courage to ask you out on a date. In a lot of ways, she’s braver than me. But that doesn’t stop me from liking you.”

“Casey, I’m married.”

“I don’t think that’s enough to stop me from trying.”

Jay felt a spark of anger. “You punched me off a stage. And you hated me. You tried to get in my way with YoAnna. How can you turn around and start liking me now? What the heck is wrong with you?”

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“I am someone who seeks excellence,” Casey said evenly, unwilling to take the bait and get angry. “It’s built into me from the day I was born. I know it’s weird. Maybe even mental. I don’t care. I’m attracted to that. It’s who I am. So when YoAnna stopped being the standard for me. You became the one.”

“Fucking aye.” Jay shook his head.

He pushed aside all the times he and Casey gravitated toward each other. The dances. The spars. The closeness of their bodies while fully invested in activities they both enjoyed. Movement. Art. Achieving perfection. Progressing their interests. And there lied the kicker. Jay could see himself being with Casey in another life. But he had to push that aside.

“I’m devoted to my wives,” Jay said.

“I don’t care.”

“I’m going to have to push you into friendship, Casey.”

“I will fight my way out of it.”

“What do you expect out of this? To win me over? To have me end my marriage with YoAnna and Brit so I can be with you?”

“I don’t know.” Casey tilted her head. “All there is in front of me is the road to greatness. I take a step. It might hurt. But I’ll keep going forward. Everything will be as it should as I continue to step forward.”

“I’m not your standard of excellence,” Jay muttered. “Look at me. I’m… as close to villainous as anyone could get.”

Jay touched down, his tail low. All three eyes stared into the floorboard. Casey got to her feet and towered over him. She did the smart thing and kept her hands to herself.

“You are a greater hero than you think you are,” Casey said. “But that’s besides the point. I’m only sharing the truth behind my feelings. I won’t bottle them any longer. Perhaps nothing will change. But I will continue liking you as you keep being the standard.”

“Selfish.”

“Yes. I am.” She bent sideways with a smile. She looked happy. Less burdened. How cruel of her. She unburdened herself on him. And they both knew Jay was a little weak right now. He was desperate for his wives. And more.

Casey relented a little. “Did you like my anima techniques?”

Jay nodded stiffly, thankful for the avenue of escape. “You’ve gotten really good at that. Better than the other [Fighters].”

“They have affinities and spirits. They have many ways to cover weaknesses. I have no choice but to push the boundaries with what I have. I’m so limited.”

“That’s speaks a lot about your creativity. More than what people would give you credit for,” Jay said.

Team Magic R&D had conducted tests and cross-referenced the results with their research in the archives. Physical energy was the [Fighter’s] way to keep up with the more esoteric and magical classes. By manipulating the energy born from their large Stamina Statuses, they could cleave through flesh deeper than what their weapons should be able to achieve. They could overcome disadvantages in armor, range, magic, and many hurdles a [Fighter] could face.

So far, only [Fighters] could manipulate their anima to such a degree, and this required an aura Skill of sorts. But these manipulations were usually limited to the aura’s power plus some extensions of their energy to coat their weapons for more damage or other effects that ate physics for breakfast. Add in their affinities and what could be gained from having spirits– something that was only achievable by Champions who didn’t have familiars– and [Fighters] weren’t so disadvantaged despite [Mediums], [Mages], and [Crafters] having so many tricks.

Everybody was also wise to [Fighters] having the best Chance Status cheats. More so than [Mediums] sometimes. Those Chance Status cheats were for extra plot armor to increase their rate of survival, which was the opposite with [Freaks]. A [Freak] with extra Chance Modifiers used it for something outrageously offensive. And suicidal. It was probably a good thing [Freaks] didn’t have Aura Skills, or that would be unfair for [Fighters].

So as much as Jay trained with Casey, hoping to unlock the secrets of Aura Skills, he knew he wouldn’t get it. The closest he could get to aura stuff was [Martial Gravity Superiority]. But that relied more on magic. There was the Sword of Comedy, but Jay doubted the aura of the sword could be manipulated as meticulously.

Part of these sparring sessions was learning to understand Casey’s mind frame and the forever rising ceiling Casey placed over Jay in combat prowess and aptitude. Despite all that she lacked, Casey continued to win every duel against every Champion. She had never lost a spar since the day she’d lost the commander seat because of Frank.

She always found a way to win. Even if that meant pushing her anima manipulation further than all the other [Fighters] to get past her lack of an affinity and animal spirit. It was almost painful to stand here in front of her, knowing she was the hardest working [Fighter] he knew, and fail to figure out what she needed to acquire her affinity. What would satisfy a girl who sought excellence and looked at him as the standard?

“You’re screwed up in the head, Casey,” Jay said after some thought. “You need to be locked up in a special looney bin. It’ll be a fun place. The doctors and patients are the same.”

“That’s the Champions, Jay. We’re our own doctors and patients.” Casey purred. “I wouldn’t mind you being my doctor.”

“I’m going to spritz you. Stop being bad.”

“I am a bad girl, and I like being wet. How can you stop that, Commander?”

Ugh.

She was lucky Brit wasn’t here. YoAnna was more passive about this. Jay figured Brit was more assertive. He imagined a Brit versus Casey episode would come to fruition if things with Casey didn’t chill. It wouldn’t be a spar, either. Brit would go all out.

“You need to stop, Casey,” Jay warned. “If Brit catches wind of this, it would be a Hell Circle worth of pain.”

“I don’t care.”

Jay shuddered. The fourth dimension shuddered. Somewhere in Africa, a vision of his holy wife entered Jay’s head. Brit was frowning. She caught wind of Casey’s trifling from the other side of the planet.

Oh fuck.

“Hey, Brit, babe, my beautiful wife. I got this. I totally got this. You should focus on what you’re doing,” Jay said into a wormhole. The vision of Brit gave him the coordinates he needed to project his voice. The distance was of little consequence when using gravity.

Jay watched his wife’s full lips move as she talked. He wanted to kiss her like the first time. And the last. He wanted to explore her again. And he wanted her to be of service to him once more. It was a struggle to push his wants aside and focus on reading her lips. Then the vision cut off, leaving an impression.

Fury.

Righteous.

Fury.

“You have two options,” Jay said to Casey, feeling like a ghost of a man. “When Brit sees you again, you either kowtow at her feet. Or prepare for a beating. Then she will make you kowtow and more.”

“I’m not kowtowing to another Champion.”

“Then it’s a fight you’re asking for, Casey.”

“If I beat your wife, will you go on a date with me?”

“No.”

“I’ll still beat your wife, anyway.” Casey smirked. “It’ll be satisfying if it’s in front of the other one, too.”

“I never thought I’ll meet someone with anime levels of ego like mine,” Jay said. “Are you sure we can’t be friends?”

“We can’t.”

“Are you super sure?”

“Very sure,” she growled playfully.

Damn. He would have to ask again after the dust settled from the Brit versus Casey showdown.