Stop Lefty, I told them, and the corpses sprinted off behind me, covering the three possible ways that Rata could get to me. Absorb any health he sends to Righty.
With that covered, I sent invisible Death Metal to my free arm and used my grip on Righty’s pipe arm to jerk him into the shield bashing of a lifetime.
His nose busted, spraying snot and pinkish blood. He scrabbled at me with his clawed fingers, but I upped my Ki-strength enhancement and clamped down harder.
“What the hell?” His eyes darted over my shoulder. “Where’s my healing, bro?”
“I’m trying, bro!” Lefty yelled back.
All the bros probably would’ve been funny if I hadn’t been sunk in oblivion, but I wasn’t feeling anything right then, amusement or otherwise.
The Right Rata’s health wasn’t coming. I could sense my Corpses soaking up everything Lefty tried to send him.
Righty tried to kick me in the balls, but Dead Reckoning warned me with enough time to slam a reinforced knee into the shot. His clawed toes crunched, and he yelped. A huge shield bash made his eyes roll back in his head. I caught him with the backswing, too, but he was already dropping.
Before Righty hit the ground, he disappeared.
The dual life points in Dead Reckoning disappeared, and Lefty’s doubled in brightness. So they were back to one Rata again.
I spun around and ran along the path that led to the whole Rata. The Corpse blocking that path shattered when Rata walloped it with an overhand pipe shot. With the supposed threat out of the way, the rodent-lizard saw me coming. He held out his empty hand, and the second pipe appeared. Instant lead escrima sticks.
He sprinted at me.
My other two Corpses were too far away to intercede, so I dropped their Miasma and tried something new.
I stopped in place, grounded my feet like Rali always did, then hurled an invisible Miasma-laced palm strike at the half-lizard, half-rat. It slammed into Rata’s chest, seizing up his muscles. His legs froze midstride, and he face-planted, skidding a little on the dirt.
Rigor Mortis, I thought.
I held my right hand in front of me and summoned the angel of death’s scythe.
My skeleton shifted, the layer of scythe ripping down my arm and into my hand. In Last Light, Last Breath, I barely felt the pain. The flesh and muscle melted away, and the scythe grew outward from my palm, huge black blade glinting under the arena lights.
It took a little maneuvering to get it turned the right way in such a small space, but after a second, I put the blade to Rata’s neck.
“Give up,” I said. My voice sounded hollow and echoey.
With slow, struggling motions, the half lizard half rat fought to raise his hands through the Rigor Mortis.
Dead Reckoning pinged behind me.
I didn’t have the room to spin around with the scythe, so I launched a Ki-reinforced back kick. It caught the second Rata in the gut. Before he could come at me again, I grabbed his life point with Dead Man’s Hand and held it in place. He wasn’t going back to his bro until they surrendered.
I pushed the blade against the throat of the Rata in front of me. His beady eyes bugged out.
“We surrender!” he yelled. “Let us go!”
“Yeah, stop, we’re done!” his parasitic twin screamed in agreement.
“Match!” the announcer crowed. “Winner—Grady Hake, two wins, one loss!”
I let the scythe flow back into my skeleton and stepped back.
Rata absorbed his twin back into himself, too, watching me warily. He didn’t get up until the maze walls had rumbled back down into the dirt of the arena floor.
That same feeling I’d gotten from the look on the jackal’s face when I defeated him trickled in through the oblivion, and Last Light, Last Breath dissipated. This time I recognized that feeling—it was satisfaction. I was stronger than they were; they realized that and yielded to me.
On one hand, it made me feel like a douche to think that way.
On the other hand, I kind of liked it.
Devil Corruption, Hungry Ghost said as I headed back up the stairs into the seating area.
Like from the scythe? I could only vaguely remember him saying something about that when I picked up the weapon, mostly because I’d been busy trying not to drown.
Death cultivator is not so sarcastic now that he wants answers, Hungry Ghost said.
Then like a dick, he went radio silent again, and no matter how much I bothered him, he wouldn’t talk to me the rest of the night.
Return from Seclusion
SINCE I COULDN’T SLEEP, Hungry Ghost wouldn’t talk to me, and Kest had told me ahead of time not to expect messages until she got to another planet with a HUD connection, I spent my time searching the hyperweb for info on Devil Corruption. All I found was references to old sword legend tropes, but without the jade book version of Ten Strikes Against the Hero, which could be read in about ten minutes, it was going to take a lot slogging through digital fiction archives on my HUD before I found anything.
If I could just talk to Rali, king of all sword legend otakus, he’d probably know all about it, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. The longer he stayed locked away avoiding me, the more ticked off I was getting about it.
“Never heard of Devil Corruption,” Warcry said when I asked him about it in the workout room. He let the weight bar drop to his chest, then blew out a breath as he shoved it up toward me. “Think it’s related to a Martial Devil?”
I thought back to the Bailiff’s ghost ape fail-safe. “I don’t know. How do you get one of those?”
“Usually by making a pact with one or trapping it in your soul.” Warcry slammed out another rep. “Ya never hear about it endin’ clean and fast, though. Live by the Martial Devil, die by the Martial Devil, yeah? Only somebody meaner’n they
