I winced when the hot water hit all the cuts and scrapes covering my arms and chest. Tiny bubbles started popping in the damaged tissue like hydrogen peroxide cleaning dirt out of a scratch. The bubbles pushed out splinters and shards of glass, which were carried away with the current.
I looked over the edge of my pool to see who was going to get the splinters, but the water drained into a hole in the floor. Maybe they cleaned and recycled it through the pools again. Hopefully they cleaned it.
After a couple seconds, I ducked under the water so it could pull the glass out of my face and neck. By then, the sword wound in my back had gone numb. Maybe the water had healed it the rest of the way.
When it felt like all the glass was out of my face, I came up and relaxed back against the side of the pool, thinking over the bout that put me in here.
Disqualified, probably as soon as I’d started cycling Miasma to my muscles. Why hadn’t they called the fight then? Had they wanted to give the Ylef a chance to break his restriction, too? Either it was the speed or the hammers. He hadn’t seemed as fast as he’d been at the Wilderness Territorial, but he also hadn’t used his hammers until the very end of the fight, so it could’ve been either.
Whatever was going on with that, one thing was for sure—I had to figure out a way to cloak my Spirit.
Or find a way to get around using Spirit at all.
I shook some water off my arm, then leaned out of the pool and grabbed Hungry Ghost out of my pants pocket.
You knew how to use the scythe, I said to him. Did your other Death cultivator—Sheigo—find a Heavenly Weapon like it?
Past Death cultivators found and lost a great many things while in possession of Hungry Ghost. Hungry Ghost is always watching, always learning.
You said the scythe doesn’t use Death Spirit?
Heavenly Weapons do not use any type of Spirit, Hungry Ghost agreed. They operate on the will of the possessor.
Which meant Biggerstaff wouldn’t sense my Spirit if I used the scythe to win fights. Definitely a technicality, but I was okay with winning by technicality.
I needed to find Rali. Aside from my shields, I knew exactly zero about weapons, but he was an expert in at least one—the staff. The scythe was basically a staff with a huge blade on one end.
I looked around for a towel and realized the other two fighters who’d been in the soaking room when I climbed into the pool were gone. Maybe I’d been soaking and talking to Hungry Ghost for longer than I realized.
The towels were over in a niche along the far wall.
Water rolled off me as I stood up. I grabbed my clothes and work boots, holding them away from my body and trying not to drip on them too much as I headed over.
Death cultivator should be cultivating, Hungry Ghost said. Fresh Miasma fills this place.
I stopped dead in my tracks and switched on Ki-sight.
Clouds of turquoise Death Spirit floated up from the rock pool in the far corner where one of the fighters had been. I took another step and stretched up on my toes.
The dude was facedown in the water, his alien blood turning the water churning in his pool green.
Someone grabbed my shoulder and punched me just under the left ribs. Once, twice, three times, lightning fast, before I managed to trigger Death Metal on that arm and shove it in their way.
Glass shattered against my shield. I spun around, bare feet gritting in the bloody shards, ready to fight.
Then the pain hit. Three deep wounds just under my floating ribs. Air flowing where it shouldn’t be. Blood pouring down my side and dripping onto the wet floor. I slammed onto my knees, weakness and hot and cold pain radiating from the holes.
Those body shots hadn’t been punches. They’d been a knife.
The Nameless Ylef backed up a step, sending sparkling Glass Spirit to his fists. Two more knives took shape, one with a triangular blade made for punching holes that couldn’t be stitched up and the other with a curved edge made for slicing.
“Dick,” I sputtered, blood bubbles popping in my throat and mouth. I dropped the Death Metal shield and sent as much Miasma as I could pumping through my side, trying to stop the bleeding. The water on my skin turned to ice as the tissues frosted over.
“Your friend the Bailiff sends his congratulations on your affiliation,” the Ylef said. “And he hopes you’ll save him a seat in hell.” He lunged, the curved knife going for my throat and the triangle blade going for my heart. “Glory return to the lost and nameless ones!”
It wasn’t anything like when I died the first time. The Ylef wasn’t some meth head going for Gramps, and I wasn’t jumping at him to stop him. But everything seemed to slow down, just like it had then.
I threw out Dead Man’s Hand. Felt like it hit a wall of glass. The Ylef’s life point was glowing just beyond that, lighting the whole thing up like the filament of a lightbulb, but I couldn’t grab onto it, and he was still coming at me.
Moldering Bones! Hungry Ghost screamed, blasting the how-to into my brain.
Dead Man’s Hand turned into a scouring rain of Miasma. The wall of glass around the Ylef’s life point clouded and warped like it was aging a hundred years in a heartbeat. Moldering Bones wore down its smooth surface until the glass wall crumbled into sandy dust and blew away.
The Ylef grunted
