Personally, I had never learned a true stance, my fighting style was intended for children, and the only technique I’d mastered was a foundation breathing technique. I was so overmatched by the champion that he could kill me without breaking a sweat.
Fortunately, I’d planned ahead. I still had a chance.
The five dragons painted on the floor of the arena began to glow with vibrant colors. By the time my mother and I were five rows from the raised platform, the red and green dragons were already filled with brilliant light. When all five of the dragons were lit, the contender would be in for the fight of his life.
Both combatants watched the dragons and focused their breathing into smooth and even cycles. Every breath they drew into their lungs brought jinsei with it, and every exhalation expelled impurities from their cores and strengthened their bodies for the battle ahead. Even at this distance, the expansion and contraction of their auras was plain to me, as was the fact that the ghostly light that surrounded Hank was many times brighter and more expansive than Hau-Lin’s.
The crowd was thicker near the bottom of the rows of seats, and my mother and I had to force our way through ever-tightening knots of spectators who had no desire to give ground. My mother was a gentle woman, but I saw her hands jab into the sides of several people who wouldn’t let her pass. The blows, which seemed more like gentle taps than any punch I’d ever thrown, had just banished a yelping group of college kids when a gasp rippled through the crowd.
The last dragon had blazed to life, and the challenger and champion were surrounded by a circle of neon-bright spirits. The representations of the five sacred dragons who had formed the Empyreal clans were hungry for jinsei to be spilled, and they licked their chops with forked tongues as they prowled the edges of the fight.
In the undercity, the first man to strike is often the only man to strike. The challenger’s experience in street fights had taught him that lesson well.
With an explosive cry Hau-Lin thrust the jinsei from his core out into his legs. The burst of sacred energy pushed his muscles past their normal limits and hurled him toward the Resplendent Sun with astonishing speed and force. The instant the challenger landed in front of Hank, he squared his shoulders and unleashed a brutal uppercut.
Hau-Lin put his entire body and every shred of jinsei he could muster into that blow. Serpents of crimson light exploded from his aura and reinforced his arm and fist with strands of sacred energy that sparked and twitched with supernatural life. It was a powerful, beautiful attack, and I couldn’t imagine how the champion could survive its impact.
The Resplendent Sun didn’t try to block the attack or deflect its force. One moment his chin was a hairsbreadth from shattering violence, and the next he twisted his body away from the attack in a blur. The devastating strike that could so easily have shattered his skull instead passed by his chin with inches to spare.
Hau-Lin could only watch in horror as his all-or-nothing assault whiffed through his opponent’s aura with a crackling hiss, like a splash of water dropped into a red-hot iron skillet. The serpents of light around his arm and fist faded to pale ribbons as the jinsei he’d expended in the attack dissipated into the air. The challenger was twisted so far out of position, I knew there was no way he could erect a defense in time to stop Hank’s counterattack.
The Empyreal’s torso flowed back into position over his planted feet with a sinuous, predatory grace. His hands dropped until his knuckles were even with his hips, and the crowd went silent as we waited for the attack we knew was coming.
Hank’s left hand speared forward to strike under Hau-Lin’s exposed ribs. The perfect blow hammered the challenger’s core, and concentric rings of jinsei blasted out of the defenseless man’s body like a supernatural shock wave. The sacred light fueled the dragon spirits, and they whirled into frenzied flight to catch every thread of jinsei before it could fade away.
With the last of his sacred energy driven out of his core, Hau-Lin went limp. His knees buckled, his eyes closed, and he collapsed like an empty garbage bag. The seasoned fighter had thrown the most powerful punch of his life, and it hadn’t been enough to defeat his foe.
Before Hau-Lin’s body reached the floor, Hank’s other fist drove up into the challenger’s midsection. The strike landed with a crunch that echoed through the arena, and the power of the attack folded the challenger over the champion’s fist and lifted his feet a full yard off the polished wooden floor.
Hank unleashed a furious blast of fire-aspect from his core. It traveled through his torso and arm in a pulse of hellish power so bright it made my eyes water. Every scrap of power in Hank’s body poured through that punch and slammed into Hau-Lin’s core like a lance of white-hot lava.
Jinsei channels blazed like forked tongues of flame under Hau-Lin’s skin as the fire jinsei overloaded his core and rushed through his system. For a moment, every channel in the challenger’s body shone through his skin. The pure white life energy that filled those channels was driven out by the flood of fire, and Hau-Lin screamed in primal agony.
Dozens of the sacred life channels flared with a light as bright as a sun, then fractured with a sound like a hundred mirrors breaking and went dark.
My mother’s hand tightened around my wrist. We both stared wordlessly at the fallen challenger and tried not to think about how severely he’d been damaged.
A chill ran up my spine at the realization
