After a while, my HUD buzzed with the ten-minute warning.
I glanced down at the locker room doors. Out of nowhere, I felt like I was steaming in a sauna, and I could smell blood and the minerals from the soaking pools. I swallowed hard. I really did not want to go back in there.
Kest read the message over my shoulder. “Don’t you need to go?”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “There’s stairs over there. They surely won’t care if I stay out here until my bout’s called.”
The last ten minutes went by in no time.
“Next matchup,” the announcer yelled like she was trying to hype up the eight or ten people scattered around the stands into a Superbowl-level frenzy, “Yoki Shinzu, eight wins, four losses, versus Grady Hake, zero wins, one loss!”
“If your submission strategy fails, go for blood,” Kest said, tapping the amber pendant through my shirt. “And don’t get hit.”
I nodded. “Got it.”
Versus Stone Jackal
I MADE IT TO THE CENTER of the arena floor before the locker room doors banged open.
Out stepped this huge gray bipedal jackal, wearing a white skirt covered in stone chainmail and stone bands around his enormous biceps and wrists.
If I hadn’t already known which affinity this Yoki guy had, Steroid Spirit would’ve been my first guess. He looked like one of those animals with that double-muscle syndrome, except he was the size of a grizzly and walked upright.
I almost started cycling Miasma to my muscles to hit the speed boost, but caught myself. I needed a Spirit cloak first or Biggerstaff would disqualify me before the match even started.
I took a deep breath, trying to drop into oblivion like I’d practiced.
Nothing happened.
“Fighting in...” The announcer took an extra-long dramatic pause. “Boulder field!”
The jackal, Yoki, grinned, showing a dog-smile of long white teeth.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
The arena rumbled underneath our feet. I stumbled a little and had to flounder to stay standing as the ground shifted and rocks from fist-sized to slabs as big as school busses pushed up out of the dirt.
Instead of throwing himself at me like most fighters I’d seen so far, Yoki waited a second to see what I’d do. When I didn’t immediately jump at him, he started slowly walking my way. Rocks shifted and clacked together under his feet.
“C’mon, c’mon,” I whispered, shaking out my hands and shoulders. I took a deep breath and tried to drop out again.
No sudden wash of nothingness or emptiness.
Yoki broke into a lumbering run, purple tongue hanging from the side of his mouth. The Coffee Drank jitters morphed into a hive of wasps buzzing around in my guts.
Now would be a great time for the Spirit cloaking to kick in, I thought, backpedaling away from the oncoming freight train of jackal.
Death cultivator must focus, Hungry Ghost croaked.
I stumbled over an ankle-twister. I’m staring down a dude who could smash my head like a rotten peach one-handed. It’s a little hard to focus.
Yoki crossed the line where Dead Reckoning would usually ping an attack. He swung a huge fist at me. I tried to jump out of his way, but without the Miasma-assisted reflexes, I was too slow. His punch caught me on the shoulder. I rag-dolled head over heels, bouncing along a wide sloping boulder.
I scrambled back to standing, pain throbbing through my shoulder. Yoki hopped his huge bulk onto the boulder in front of me. I put my fists up. He grinned wider. His watermelon-sized fists came up and clapped together.
Something moved in the corner of my vision. A basketball-sized rock shooting toward my head. I ducked under it.
A bigger rock blindsided me, crashing into the side of my right knee and knocking my legs out from under me.
I tumbled off the boulder onto a bunch of smaller rocks, banging up my elbow and left side. The place where the Nameless had stabbed me under my floating ribs flared up, screaming at me for redamaging stuff that was still healing.
Crap, I need Dead Reckoning! I gritted my teeth and staggered to my feet in the shifting pile of rocks. I’m gonna get killed out here without my Spirit.
Does Death cultivator fear dying here? Hungry Ghost asked.
The huge sloping boulder I’d just gotten knocked off of shifted, making a grinding noise on the rocks around it, then came off the ground.
Yoki stood underneath it, holding the huge stone over his head and eyeing me.
I’m more worried about getting smashed into human marinara sauce, I said to Hungry Ghost.
But the jackal didn’t move. He just watched me. Waiting. Patient, like Warcry had said.
I clamped my elbow to my screaming side, like that would hold it together, and shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet. My eyes strained, watching for the slightest twitch. If it even looked like Yoki was going to throw, I had to haul tail the opposite direction.
Hungry Ghost can help Death cultivator. Death cultivator has only to ask.
All right, get ready.
I feinted right. Yoki’s huge arms flinched, muscles winding up for the throw.
I shot left, running for all I was worth. After a month of using Ki-speed enhancement, it felt pathetically slow.
Yoki let out a bodybuilder grunt as he launched the boulder. I planted my foot and did a hard pivot, sprinting back toward the jackal.
The boulder soared overhead, blocking the light around me in a wide oblong that was getting wider. I wasn’t fast enough. I was going to get crushed.
Help me out, please! I thought desperately at Hungry Ghost. I need Ki-speed or this fight is over.
The boulder field and yelling spectators disappeared, and I was in a lavishly embroidered tent. Incense smoke hung in the air, blunting the scent of sweat, roasted meats, and
