Henry believed he was getting better at pushing back against the overbearing presence of his opponent, and to do so, he just… did nothing. No mana channeling, no skills.

  It felt counter-intuitive, but just like the Otodus sharks and their dreadful presence, the effect was something of a side effect. After having eaten enough of them to know that they had no intimidating skill, Henry had theorized it was just that the predatory Aspect within the sharks was so pronounced it passively inspired terror and fear whenever they went.

  With that in mind, Henry didn’t let himself over-think or worry. He didn’t try to control the voices of his Aspects–for a lack of a better word–within him that revolted at being pushed around and suppressed. He just refused to submit to the force trying to bear down on him, and the willpower acted like gasoline to his Aspects. Bolstering them.

  Somehow, Henry even felt like his reserves of conceptual essences were filling up faster as he stretched his arms under and around him. For this fight, he’d elected to grow his body so that his stomach and head were only slightly larger than the man ahead of him. He was large enough to have the mass to tank a few hits, but also small enough that he’d have room to dodge and maneuver himself in the limited space they had. And most importantly, his arms were long enough to easily reach half-way across the court.

  With his limbs tense and curled around him, he felt ready. All seven of his Octominds were primed. All but the one he had posted to keep an eye on Maurice.

  Then the announcer called the start of the fight.

  The sounds cut off, unable to pass through the barrier, but Henry knew the crowd had cheered, then progressively grew quieter as they waited for the battle to begin.

  Tevarius, with his left hand behind his back and his right holding the spear up at his side, stood still and waited. He looked casual. Relaxed. Confident.

  For a moment, Henry was tempted to throw a few words to provoke the man and get him to act a little more impulsively. He thought of goading him with a few words. Maybe implying cowardice or something of the sort. But honestly? He didn’t feel like it. He didn’t feel like talking at all, and now that he was meeting the man’s gaze, the rage was bubbling back to the surface. Unlike last time, Henry didn’t want to dwell on it. He was going to beat the man bloody, get this over with, then move and work on something productive.

  Turning his attention to his Octominds, he gave a few orders. “Work together. Hold off on disrupting his skills unless I ask. Bring to my attention anything that might come at us from a dead angle, and if something needs an Aspect boost for defense, do it. I’ll be the offense.”

  It had been nearly five seconds since the start of the fight had been called, and Henry finally made his move. The man didn’t want to take the initiative, most likely underestimating him, but Henry didn’t didn’t mind making the first move.

  Slowly floating closer, he pulled his arm back. The man still didn’t move, so Henry began layering the effects in his arm, and for good measure he applied the C-rank upgrade to the strike, increasing the mana expenditure to greatly empower one effect.

  He picked the accelerating effect for the boost.

  His arm tore through the air fast enough he felt the friction burn his skin, and he even had time to see the wall of sound part around the inky-black limb before it hit the raised elbow of the man. Right as the arm impacted Tevarius, Henry had the pleasure to see surprise for a moment before the man was blasted back, but unlike what Henry had envisioned, Tevarius hadn’t splattered against the wall. Instead, he was sent skidding, and managed to grind his momentum to a halt before he’d even reached the edge.

  Henry stared at the man as he pulled his arm back and channeled some healing into it. Tevarius had used some Aspect to weaken the blow, but it was neither Blood nor Blades. What had it been?

  Through his clone’s senses, he heard the crowd roar, but he tuned it out as the man leveled his spear and lowered himself into a less casual posture.

  “We break his skill to send a message. Don’t dispel it, I’ll stop it. If he moves, summon five illusions and have them spread and attack while I teleport away,” he told his Octominds as he began drawing from the Guarding conceptual essence of his class. Just a bit. He didn’t want to burn through the reserve all at once, but he was ready to use everything he had to smother whatever attack his opponent was going to throw at him. Especially if it was the same that had injured Henry a week ago.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The spear-wielder broke out in a run and leapt into the air, teeth bared, and the spear began to glow.

  Throw it. Come on.

  Henry didn’t know that much about martial arts, but he didn’t think it’d make sense for Tevarius to want to come too close.

  The man kicked the air and blurred downward, and in Henry’s vision, the spear seemed to enlarge dramatically, and that wasn’t because it was approaching him at an incredible speed. No, a gray, ghostly spearhead was rushing toward him, but thanks to his heightened perception and improved processing speed, he had plenty of time to react.

  “I got this,” he told the Octominds as he disappeared and reappeared a few yards up and to the side. Two giant arms charged with an imploding charge chopped down, one aiming at the spear shaft as it passed ahead of him, and one curved down toward the slowly turning face of Tevarius.

  A crack resounded in the arena, followed by a loud thud as the man crashed on the ground. Henry floated back down, distancing himself toward the center of the ring while Tevarius picked himself from the ground, blood dripping from his ear. The whole side of his face was red, and his right eye was blood-red, probably from the point blank implosion. Henry glanced down at the small cut on his arm, and with a pulse, he washed out the foreign Aspect and healed it up.

  Henry was surprised. Tevarius had somehow managed to twist in time to point the spear toward him, but he hadn’t been fast enough. Still, a bit of the edge had caught Henry on the arm, and if he hadn’t been channeling the protective concept, it might have taken his arm off.

  Good thing I have eight of these.

  Tevarius crouched and zipped forward once more, spear raised, only for Henry to disappear once more right as five illusions appeared out of thin air, swinging at the man as he dodged left and stabbed another. His spear ran through the illusion uselessly, and the man seemed to still for a fraction of a second before he swept the spear in a circle, summoning a jagged semi-circle of gray light. It spread out and began orbiting around him as he channeled his Aspects in the spear while his summoned construct tore through the illusions.

  Henry brought down the leviathan-club on the man with another accelerated Evershifting Strike right as Tevarius whirled and stabbed upward. The concept-empowered spearhead met Henry’s shapeshifted-bone and failed to fully pierce through, but the black leviathan tooth met the shaft and popped the skill surrounding the weapon like a bubble of soap.

  Tevarius jumped back, alarmed, and stole a glance at his weapon to find a sizable groove carved into the side of the shaft.

  One good hit and that’ll break, Henry thought as he patched the hole made in his arm-club while he approached the ground once more, arms curled and ready. He raised one of them, then, to the crowd’s cheers, he beckoned for his opponent to approach.

  ***

  The voice of the announcer rang in the arena, barely audible above the clamor of the crowd. “He’s matching him, ladies and gents! The difference in level does not even seem to matter! I do hope you won’t lose too much if you haven’t bet on our guest. Then again, this duel has just started and we’re barely three exchanges in, so who knows what will happen. One thing’s for sure though, this is clearly going to be one of the most memorable fights of the year!”

  Maurice watched attentively from the spot reserved for him near the lowest seats of the arena, and with all of his might, he resisted poking or speaking to the tiny clone perched atop his shell. Below him, Stormsong was just as focused on the fight as she hovered a few feet off the ground in her smooth, spherical orb of water.

  “[Why is he matching a high B-rank Maurice? What happened to you two?]”

  Maurice clicked his pincers in annoyance, and for the first time, maybe ever, he felt a bit bothered at being distracted from the fight. Then he paused.

  Was that what I kept doing to Henry?

  Maurice considered it for a moment, then dismissed the thought. “[We spent the whole week fighting monsters. It was fun,” he said. Then, after a hesitating beat, he added, “[You should come with us next time.]”

  The dolphin’s eyes rolled up for a moment, then she poked up with a spout of water. “[We’ll see.]”

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