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CC: Chapter 75
🕑 Added 2024-07-07 14:30:02 +0000 UTCXJ-V unleashed a barrage of Dragon’s Teeth to keep Fai occupied while he charged his next technique. His Tiger Brother ducked through two of his firebolts before crashing through the last one, his barren arm crackling with scintillating light as he charged to deliver a final electric punch that would end this duel once and for all.
XJ-V saw his body move through the sands like the real predator his Sect was named for, watching as the light of his own flame was reflected in the rampaging warrior’s eyes.
Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright…
“Is this the end for our Cog Brother!?” Ori’un jeered from above the gasping crowd.
The Planeswalker’s question was answered by XJ-V’s downward thrust that sank his fist into the sands and summoned forth a column of living flame that met the charging force of the Tiger head-on.
“An unstoppable force and an immovable object!” Ori’un cheered – his voice almost lost in the general gasps of surprise that issued from the audience no matter which Sect or world they belonged to.
XJ-V watched as Fai-Den’s fist seeped through his defense, gritting his metal teeth as more and more Qi dripped from his body to bolster each layer of infernal shielding that his opponent’s blazing fist was breaking through. He watched Fai inch his way closer with each new punch, until finally even XJ-V’s internal reserves were about to dry up.
The power at his chest pulsed, urging him to draw upon the deceased soul dwelling within.
But the Cog only smiled. He wouldn’t be needing a dead God to win, here.
Fai noticed it before he did; the ground beginning to melt beneath his feet. His stance beginning to falter, and the environment that had suited his lightning quick fighting style and supported his stealthy attacks began to change as the searing heat of XJ-V’s Flame Pillar destroyed any solid matter beneath him.
Fai attempted to backpedal, slipping, and sliding in the molten mush that the arena had become as he realized what the Cog’s gambit had been: his shield had not been for defense at all – it had been a means to literally melt away his opponent’s advantage on the battlefield.
Fai knew he had faltered when he saw XJ-V drop his shield and send his fist flying towards him for a keen strike that could have winded even the most iron chested of Cultivators. Instead of trying to dodge, the Tiger smiled and let fly his own jab, seeking to break the Cog’s metal hand.
And in the moment that both their strikes met, a supernova of light exploded in the center of the arena pit, throwing the entire sheet of molten sand into the air only for it to cascade back down into the lightshow in a dazzling spectacle that not even Ori’un could articulate.
In the aftermath, two warriors rocked back and forth, each one standing atop a thin circle of glass, both their feet singed in bearing heat that would have destroyed the soles of mortal men.
Smoke trails rose groggily from the limbs of the two men as they swayed like burning reeds in the still air, and the entire crowd grew so silent that their voices reached the ears of even the spectating Cianjie in their little corner of the colosseum.
“So, Brother,” Fai wheezed. “We face a problem: It seems neither of us can move the other.”
“It is a conundrum,” XJ-V agreed through still-clenched teeth. “Not even the heat of a dragon can knock you from this pit, Fai.”
Fai-Deng grimaced. “Then it seems that one of us shall have to yield.”
“Aye, Brother Fai. That seems to be the only way our spectators will ever make it home for supper.”
The crowd instantly regained its excitement. Cheers of good faith rocked the Colosseum’s venerable walls.
“Behold you the true spirit of Aun’El’s Gauntlet!” Ori’un screamed above them all. “Brotherhood amidst two rivals – two opponents equally matched and respectful of the other. Both wishing to gain the world and yet knowing the good man before them blocks their path!”
“By Yoma,” Fai-Deng grinned. “I do wish he would shut up.”
XJ-V smiled. “That makes two of us.”
He looked down at Fai-Deng’s ruined arm – the arm that was, impossibly, still crackling with the sinuous tentacles of sapphire lightning that spoke of the Tiger Brother’s power.
“You granted me this,” Fai-Deng told the Cog, raising his arm high so the whole crowd could see it. “You gave me this scar to rebuke me for my fury. I refused to have it healed because of my pride. But only now do I see that your light was a blessing when it tore through my muscles. Only through the light that runs through your metal veins could I become the man I am today. You were my teacher, Brother XJ-V. And now it is time for me to return your favor.”
As the Cog blinked through his exhaustion and surprise to see his humbled Brother offer him such high praise, a voice of derision suddenly cut through the crowd.
“Oh, quit with the lovey-dovey speeches, you heartbroken kitten! Get back to punching!”
The crowd laughed as Kai-That’s voice cut through Fai-Deng’s earnestness. XJ-V expected the Tiger to fly up to the spectator’s rafters and offer his ever jeering comrade a swift backhand right then and there. But, again to his surprise, Fai-Deng merely smiled and waved – not to his brother, but to his awestruck students, some of them mere children who could not take their eyes off him.
“Come, XJ-V,” Fai-Deng said. “Let us finish what we started.”
The Cog shook his head as he watched Fai assume his high stance again, readying himself, XJ-V knew, for a final strike that would commit all of his remaining Qi reserves. The Cog could see it in the warrior’s calm eyes – no hatred, no fear, nothing but the presence of mind to forge more than a simple victory out of this moment. The clue was in Fai’s words – this was no duel for him, not really. He had known he would never match the Cog long before he had entered the arena. Instead, this was something different.
Fai, XJ-V mused as he groggily watched the intricate movements of the Tiger’s blackened limb. Who are you really fighting for he-
His Brother’s strike flashed in the nanosecond before he could finish his thought. His black arm became a beacon of brilliant blue that was at once similar to and distinct from the light of Yuwa’s subjects. In the moment this light was directed at him under the watchful eyes of the entire assembly of Ramor-Tai’s Disciples, XJ-V perceived what the core difference ultimately was: purity.
And in a flash of radiance that rivaled their last, XJ-V brought up his arm to strike back, watching as something flashed through his being and Fai-Deng’s eyes lighted as he smiled.
Those who blinked at that moment would curse themselves for weeks in the tournament’s aftermath, for Fai-Deng went flying from the arena pit wreathed in a coiling snake of lightning just as bright as his own, slammed into the east block of the arena spectator’s rafters, and lay still.
In the center of the arena, XJ-V lowered his smoking fingers. He watched in mute fascination as little tinges of lightning crawled around them, telling him what he had just done to push the Tiger back even though his eyes, and all the analytical software attendant to them, would not believe the notion.
The attack he had just used to repel his Brother had not been at all what he had intended. He had watched, he had studied, and he had released every lesson his Brother in symmetry had beat into him since first they’d laid eyes on each other in the monastery they called home.
The only other person who seemed to have any handle on what just happened rose from the east rafters with a hearty smile, smoke trailing from his shoulders and debased arm. Apart from the frizzled state of his ponytail, he looked the very picture of health.
“A finer Lightning Claw I could not have summoned myself!” he cried as the crowd turned to watch him with unblinking eyes. “Every good teacher knows when to let his student graduate! Thus, I yield, Brother XJ-V. I have taught you the first of the Tiger’s tricks. Now, show the people of the Wasteland that we have not forgotten them!”
For a moment that seemed to stretch for an eternity, no one said anything at all. XJ-V merely stared, dumbfounded, as his Brother leaped back into the arena to congratulate him on a well-earned victory, lifting his metal arm with his own for all the crowd to see. Not even Ori’un could pronounce the verdict – high up in the grand pulpit with the Masters he was too busy laughing.
Only when venerable Master Yoma-Dur rose from his seat, a coy smile beaming under his bushy whiskers, did the crowd finally get to hear the result that would let them fly into a craze of spectacular cheers once more:
“Victor: XJ-V!”
