Chapter 204: Chapter Two Hundred Five

My opponent, as it happened, was ready first. I'd been worried that  we would need to wait, but apparently Alden had taken 'is here right  know' as unspoken criteria, and all of our opponents were on the  premises. I was glad not to have to wait for my big match. I was raring  to go at the moment, having more than recovered from any exhaustion from  my earlier training with Jessie's help on the elevator ride down here.  Having a teammate who could mainline pure life force into your body was  insanely convenient.

The guy I was fighting, Fang (and  wasn't that a boring name, I had to wonder how he had even gotten it,  I'd have thought it would be taken) was an average looking man with pale  skin, brown hair, and amber eyes with dark circles under them like he  didn't get much sleep. His expression was serene, which I wouldn't have  expected from a guy named Fang, but I could somewhat sense and aura of  danger coming off him, like I was looking at a predator.

"It's  nice to meet you, I think I saw you around at the party." I said  politely. Fang's expression didn't change, but he gave a slow nod. Not a  chatty guy. "So, any rules you want to make, special circumstances,  safe words? This is my first time in one of these so I don't exactly  know what the conventions are. I hope you can guide me through what  we're supposed to be doing for this match."

Fang stood  there, unmoving for a second, looking up and away ponderingly before  finally giving a slight nod. "Attack until one party calls stop, or  unconsciousness. Avoid killing blows." His voice was deep and rumbled up  from his chest, surprisingly growly for such a small man. I didn't put  him at more then five foot six, but he his voice made him sound like a  giant. It rumbled up from his chest like an eruption from the depths of  the molten earth.

It also stopped immediately after he  said that, clearly having decided that he didn't need to illuminate me  anymore. I shrugged internally, it was nice enough for him to bother to  start with. I didn't mind just starting. I turned to Alden, who was  apparently taking a position as officiator. He gave me a wide grin.  "Now, as you all know, officiator of the battle is a sacred trust. No  suspect calls are tolerated. I've proven my impartiality, but I wanted  to inform our fresh hire that I won't be going easy just because I bet a  chunk of cash on him. Understood?"

I nodded. "That's  fine, I wouldn't want it any other way. I take it his rules were all  there are?" I glanced to Fang. "Not that I'm doubting you, just want to  make extra sure I haven't missed anything. It would be a shame to lose  on a technicality I didn't see coming. I'd rather have as fair and even a  match as possible" I also didn't know this guy. No harm in doing a bit  of double checking.

When Alden nodded, I breathed a sight  of relief and did something I hadn't done in a long time. I activated my  overlay. I had let this particular tool in my arsenal rust for quite a  while since we arrived in Rajak. With all my new overt attacks it just  never seemed too useful. I preferred sneak attacks and overwhelming  force. I wasn't done though. Along with the overlay, I resonated my  Balam Skill, and the arrows shifted.

Suddenly I was  standing in a field of images of myself and my opponent, some red, some  green. Because they were, after all, my Skills, I could see that each  image represented one of my Balam forms, and I could tell what the  responses might be. I prowled forward, staying loose and ready to  attack, as well as keeping my eyes out for attack opportunities on Fang,  whose power I didn't actually know yet.

When I got close,  I spun off my front foot, back leg scything out in a sweeping whip from  low to high with my entire body behind it. Fang reacted by taking a  slight step back, which had been an option I prepared for, and I hurled  myself back into a flip off my feet as my kick came full circle and my  other one hit the ground, pressing my hands down for extra distance as I  brought both heels down in a smash at Fang's head and shoulders.

The  overlay was combining with my Balam Mastery to form a sort of  predictive textbook on how to use my attacks. It gave me lots of options  that I could use, and lots of potential responses, and using it was  letting me refine my technique in combat. My overlay, as I'd suspected,  was the perfect way to figure out how to string all my movements and  forms together optimally. It was going to take lots of repetition to  find the patterns that worked best, but then again, that was the whole  point of this fight.

My heels smashed down at Fang's face,  and I expected him to dodge. I did not however, expect him to pick the  least likely possible response and headbutt my heel while using both  hands to catch the other. I reacted with a cloud step, pushing off the  air to change direction just before he was able to wrap his hands around  my ankle. I landed a few feet away,and once I realized I wasn't going  to break his defense with the range I had, I reached into my coat and  drew my cane.

When he saw the weapon, Fang did something I  hadn't expected at all. He smiled. The smile started as a small, quiet  thing, but then it began to grow, his lips pulled back, continuing past  the point of natural possibility as he fece lengthened and shifted, the  action acting as the opening for a transformation as his visage twisted  into a muzzled furry wolf face. The rest of his body expanded and began  to fill in with fur, until the small man was gone, and I was looking at a  seven and a half foot tall werewolf.

Which kind of  explained the whole Vitality regen thing. I mentally cursed at Alden for  burying the lead here, but I didn't really blame him. Based on the  first part of this fight, Fang might not have needed to actually shift  for most people, especially if he had a limited version of that regen in  human form. I wondered where all the extra mass came from, then just  wrote it off as Fantasy. I bet he could do other crazy werewolf shit  with Fantasy if he leaned into the stories too, but for the moment I  doubted it was relevant.

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It took me a second to decide how  to handle this, and I finally decided to use my poison fire. It was a  soft counter to regeneration, and would burn his energy more quickly.  Plus it would hurt which was distracting. Once that was done I triggered  Leaf on the Wind, because mobility was the only possible way I had a  chance at beating someone this big and based on what I knew about  werewolves, probably strong.

I was guessing this was a  racial ability, I knew that fairies weren't the only things around, it  was also possible to become a devil or monster. Werewolves weren't a big  surprise, though I hadn't heard of any before so they might have been  rare like vampires, or I might just be a frog in a well...and I was  distracting myself again. I shook off my wandering thoughts and decided  to put more energy into raising Focus, it was possible having it so far  behind Perception was the reason I was so easily distracted.

With  my attention back where it should be, I rushed forward at Fang, staying  light on my feet to take advantage of Leaf on the Wind. My cane whirled  as I pushed off, hurtling toward him in a long, low lunge that carried  me forward about fifteen feet right above the ground. As I came forward  the overlay showed his mist likely response, and since this was a direct  attack, it was easy to see what he would go with.

Knowing  what was coming, I waited until I got in close, then triggered cloud  step three times. I pushed off once sending me hard to the side, out of  his eyeline, then again pushing forward at a diagonal to appear behind  him, then a third time from the back to throw me forward at his back, my  cane lashing out at his undefended skull from behind as the quick  series of motions allowed me to slip into his blindspot through using  the cloud steps like a wall corner I was able to bounce off of.

Fang  was fast, but his reaction was still limited to what he could track,  and he didn't manage to turn around quickly enough to avoid the poison  fire can snash upside his head, sending him staggering forward as I used  the opportunity to follow up with a few attacks from behind, aiming my  first one at the back of his knee to unsteady him. Luckily the overlay  warned me of his coming attack (well, a dozen of them, were possible but  they all involved an attack to drive me away) so I was able to dodge  back in a smooth handspring and avoid the powerful werewolf claw attacks  as he spun.

Despite his absurd  size, Fang was also FAST. The werewolf had the speed of a striking  snake, and only a combination of my mobility and the overlay let me stay  ahead of him. Even that wouldn't have been enough except for the fact  that I had the healing burst from Jessie. I triggered it, along with  Afterburner, which amplified one of my moves massively. A five times  boost to Jessie's life energy pushed my physical ability to it's  absolute maximum and left me overflowing with vital power even as all my  energy usage until now recovered.

I  went on the offensive. I only had until the quintupled power of the  Vitality boost ended, which would be at most a quarter of an hour, but  that was plenty of time to immerse myself in the battle. I'd also  confirmed that unlike Mercy Kill, Afterburner would work on a healing  skill as long as I was the one using it. That would be useful  information in the future. For now I just flashed forward to attack with  the best combinations I could find in the overlay. My cane lashed out,  spinning between fingers to take advantage of the rotational specialty  of Balam.

I lost myself in battle. I  knew the energy wasn't infinite, and at fifteen minutes might not seem  long, but the amount of learning you can do with my level of Focus and a  perfect opponent to test every idea of concept on, as well as a guide,  isn't small, even in that limited amount of time. I flashed through  endless combinations, blurring through the air at the absolute maximum  speed my ninety seven points of Might could manage.

Fang  met me head on, obviously much more Vitality heavy than Might (which  made sense with a VItality multiplier for regeneration in his combat  form) but still stronger than me. But between my ability to predict  moves and make them myself with Leaf on the Wind I managed to avoid most  hits. He got in some lucky shots, broke a few ribs and left a lot more  bruises, but the poison fire was wearing him down.

I  didn't expect it to actually beat him, even if I lined up every shot  perfectly and joined the effects together in stacks. With his Vitality  that would never happen, but what DID happen was that each stack of  poison fire took up resources his body needed to heal. After fourteen  minutes, my lifeforce charge was about to run out, and I decided to end  things right then and there.

Flurry  of Blows, Mercy Kill, and a triggered burst of stored force I'd been  stockpiling through the whole fight slammed into his knee and shattered  it in such a vicious way even his regen would take a minute or two to  fix it. I looked to Alden, who accepted that I could have killed him  with that blow if I'd hit him in the head and declared me the winner.  Then the weakness hit and I fell on my ass, breathing heavy as the  lifeforce ran out and the backlash from Afterburner hit. I didn't mind  though, because I could feel one of my Skill breaking through. Balam  Mastery had just hit Lesser. Perfect.

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