Chapter 86

  Breakthrough By Fury

  Apparently, the best way to rapidly evolve your Skills is to have been poisoned for a while, have your body slowly wither in on itself. Then get healed and try using your Skills that were apparently held in a form of stasis, while rotting only to then be let free.

  The fighter, Lefty something went wild. While anyone with eyes could see that he was technically more proficient than his opponent, it wasn’t until he was fully healed. Well had his rot healed, he still had signs of rot, but those could be fixed in time. But that didn’t matter, all that mattered now was that he was smiling.

  Everyone always says, don’t push the calm people to their breaking point, but apparently Lefty’s opponent Adonis something didn’t listen as he thought he was in for an easy doubling of his money.

  What happened next was a master class in second chances.

  Second chances and what can happen when someone held back for years finally gets a chance to shine brightly. And shining brightly is just what Lefty did, literally and figuratively.

  Glow.

  While Adonis might have had the bronzed body of a god, Lefty’s body began to glow and form before our eyes. Raising his right fist, he clearly focused his earth energy into the arm, but it was clear that this time something was different for the fighter. While before he could barely send any energy into the arm, this time energy flowed like a flood caused by a collapsed dam. What had been held back before came rushing forward and coating his entire arm and fist with not just rock, but solid stone. Stone that glowed with a faint golden hue.

  A sickening crunch erupted as Lefty crashed his fist forward, despite Adonis seeing the massive fist and clearly trying to slide out of the way, his actions weren’t enough. While he fortunately managed to avoid a direct attack, the glancing blow was enough to send the speedy fighter spinning.

  Sliding out, Adonis spun to a stop and got up but just stared on in slack jawed horror at what was happening before him. For there in front of everyone, Lefty’s right arm pulsed and thrummed with power as living earth energy began to course through his arm, causing his veins that looked like deposits of rare metals to pulse as they continued to pump blood into the still stoney arm.

  “He’s evolving!” Markan, who normally stayed silent during these matches shouted. Mr. Yi just nodded in agreement, while watching and scanning the crowd around us. Hearing them, I glanced left and right at Markan and Mr. Yi both but then focused back on the ring and tried to see what they actually meant. It was clear that a physical change was happening to the fighter’s body, but I couldn’t tell if this was just from a Skill evolving to a higher tier before my eyes, or if there was something else at play.

  All I could do was watch, as a body that had been held back for so long suddenly erupted with strength. This might be the equivalent of a three-hundred-pound man getting weight reduction surgery and suddenly being able to move around like they were twice as powerful as before. At least that is the connection that my mind made to try to understand what was happening. For it was clear that the infection that had lingered in Lefty’s body for so long had held him back.

  What we were seeing now was a testament to his personal will and perseverance. Seeing him, my mouth started moving on its own, finding more words to fill the moment and to add to my only half completed song from earlier. A song that I began as a simple means to deliver energy more directly, but now that I began the process, I can’t get the song out of my mind.

  I imagine the song to be a wound up and knotted string within my mind, and all I need to do is unfold the string, smooth out the knots and then I will be able to see the beauty of this song. A song that has but one perfect version, and all I can do is hope to get it to be close to its true capability.

  “Take my dreams and help them to unfurl

  Just give me a chance to shine, and I’ll blind the world.”

  More words to this song come to me, like puzzle pieces that can be moved or altered. I know these words fit with the main song I sang earlier. An incomplete song that is still stuck in my mind and unwilling to be forgotten until it is sung once in its entirety.

  As this happens, I can feel a faint burning itch beginning deep in my chest. On instinct I reach up to scratch at the spot, a reaction that is seen by both Markan and Mr. Yi who both turn to face me.

  “You okay?” Markan asks.

  I just nod, trying to understand why they are suddenly both so concerned about my scratching, they both look at me, then share a glance with each other. Again, there is some form of unspoken communication going on, one that seems to speak volumes of ideas with but a glance. Then they both nod to each other, before Mr. Yi turns away, and scans the crowd for threats. Markan glances at me curiously, before he too begins scanning for threats again.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The only thing that makes it creepier is that they both now seem to be synchronized with when they stop looking at the crowd and then take a glance at me. Well not just me, but my chest. Which might normally be creepy, but after spending the past few days with both of them, I know that is not their intention, as they have never done that before.

  Still, it is creepy for them to take synchronized turns scanning for threats then turning back to glance at me, before going back to their actions.

  I look down, trying to see if I spilt something, or if there is some blood that I somehow missed, but nope, nothing. The robe is still as clean as the last time I used Trash to get rid of all the blood stains. So why are they now glancing at me? Also, why is this burning sensation seeming to get worse.

  Now that I have the thought in my head, I cannot stop thinking about just how weird my chest feels, and the weirder it feels the more I want to scratch it for some unknown reason.

  “Enough!” Referee Kam calls out, his words pulling me back to the fight. Glancing up, I see that I messed up, as Kam is throwing a now half rock covered Lefty from the downed Adonis.

  Fortunately, my body begins moving on its own, running up to the stage. Though this time, the battle is a lot different. Similar one-sided ending, but different ultimate result as Lefty still seemed to be dealing with a steroid fueled rage. Getting between Lefty with his excessively large and imposing right arm. A right arm that looks like a meat mallet, with Adonis’s face and body being the apparent meat that was tenderized.

  As I get in, Mr. Yi is the first to go to a slightly confused Lefty who shakes his head and seems to clear his mind of his rage induced psychosis.

  “I, I’m—” Lefty begins, a look of panic filling his face as he looks to see what he did. His right arm and entire right side of his body still bulging beyond capacity with his earth energy.

  “It’s okay,” Markan adds, also inserting himself between the near manic Lefty, who looks down and has the look of someone who realized they just committed a murder, or close to one. “What you need to do is focus your evolution now, before it takes control of you.”

  “Right,” Lefty begins, and tries to focus, but before he can tears form in his eyes as he looks down and truly seems repentant for letting his rage take over him.

  With Markan and Mr. Yi taking care of Lefty, I begin focusing on the patient before me. Placing my hands on him, I begin healing, only to realize that my energy feels like I am trying to pour it into a broken vase. Realizing that I am missing something, I pause and begin to try to look around the body.

  “What’s wrong?” Kam asks, dropping down to help me.

  “I don’t know,” I reply, then going on a hunch, I begin gently moving my hands under Adonis’s back, and I quickly find the issue is as I feel cold clinging moisture grab hold of my gloves and seep through. Realizing that there is an issue, I turn to Kam.

  “We need to roll him on his stomach,” I say as my experience from my past life comes back to me. Working with Kam, and Markan who came over to help gently roll the patient over, I saw not one but two different broken ribs poking out from around the same right lung. With the gaping puncture wounds, it was clear that he was losing a lot of blood, which explained why it felt like I was filling an empty sieve. I debated with myself for half a second, before I decided to reach up and push the bones back into place.

  There was a sickening pop sound and feel, as the bones popped back into place. Once there, I began healing the wound on the outside and sealing the bones back together. Somehow the lung remained undamaged, likely due to the amount of magical residue within the lungs themselves, creating a tougher coating of protection. I assumed this might be a predominant finding in most speed-based fighters, that use magic to enhance their movements as the lungs would no doubt need to be hardened to help with such actions, but this was all conjecture on my point at the moment.

  Still, I was glad that I didn’t have to deal with draining lungs, though the brittle bones did make me question if there was a trade-off with the powers. Stronger organs to facilitate rapid respiratory circulation, with lighter bones to also help with movements. It made sense, the same way birds make sense, but I’d have to see further.

  For now though, we were out of the woods on the damage, there was just one problem, there wasn’t enough blood. While my Streamline Healing* seemed to be great at knitting bones and muscles back together, it didn’t seem to be able to help with blood creation. Or at least not with the amount of blood needed for this particular patient.

  Realizing the issue, I felt my mind reach for a cure and was surprised when I found the cure standing right there. I had done all I could, but it was clearly not enough as I still needed more. My mind went further trying to figure out how I could get the bones to work harder to create more erythrocytes for oxygen, leukocytes to fight off any infections that might come from this, and finally thrombocytes to help stop any further bleeding from occurring. The thoughts coming to me, as this would be important not just for this instance, but in multiple events in the future. That’s when the system seems to recognize my need and hit me with a choice.

  ***

  (Markan)

  Who would have thought that Howard “Lefty” Lowitski was a raging psycho? Well no one, the man was salt of the earth, and generally calm as a boulder, but apparently the Adonis kid got under his skin.

  While Markan was aware that the Adonis made it a habit of targeting injured veterans and reveling in their pain and discomfort, it had never been an event needing discipline. He had always been one to toe the line of what was acceptable. Going just far enough to cause pain and lord it over the weak, but never going so far as requiring him to be banned. When asked, he apparently always noted that he was just drumming up excitement, but that would only go so far. This was why, everyone was happy to teach him a lesson.

  The fact that the person teaching him a lesson was calm and normally stable Howard was a bonus as it was clear that it wouldn’t go too far. That is until you take into account the fact that he started to evolve, becoming one with his element right there and the fact that he was in the middle of a fight that was personal and it went downhill quickly.

  Fortunately, the healer that they have is like a seasoned vet. Seeming to instinctively know what to do, how to look for an injury. Identifying that there was a possible puncture wound on the back side.

  Just how pissed off was Howard that he punched his opponent so hard that the force caused the bones on his back to shatter and explode outwards. While Markan had heard of people evolving to a semi elemental state, he had never seen one directly. Though it was clear that this is what was happening to Howard. Everything was there from the rapid infusion of an element to a limb, the fact it seemed to permanently alter the form was a sight to behold. While the swelling should go down within four hours, it might still need to be monitored at the end of the night.

  Shaking his head, Markan found his thoughts drifting back to the overall effectiveness of the General’s Foresight and her ability to predict where and how far to push certain assets.

  Which only made him weary, as she had already foretold of a greater threat to come. One that would result in a lot of deaths. Looking around the crowd, Markan continued to scan, looking for any signs of the possible infiltrator, or their intended targets, but so far he could not find anything out of the ordinary, which only added to his fears. Especially, as today was a day that the General was already making every prediction possible.