Chapter 136: Tiger Style
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"As you wish."
After saying that, Tiger's Beautiful Daughter shifted, and whatever lazy swagger she had outside vanished.
Li Hua's body dropped lower, her weight shifting to the balls of her feet.
For a second she just breathed in. Then her shoulders rolled once, her fingers curled, and her chi flared around her like heat coming off asphalt.
The world stuttered.
She came at me in a straight line, or that was how it looked at first. My eyes caught a streak of motion and my brain said, there she is.
My ribs disagreed. Her knee smashed into my right side like an explosion before the image caught up. I felt my armor-like flesh dent around the impact, and air whooshed out of me in a grunt. I swung reflexively with my top right fist, but she was somewhere else already.
Claws raked across my back. Not actual claws, but rather chi‑hardened fingertips dragging lines of fire along my skin. My shirt shredded and I felt warm wetness start to run.
That's not just speed… some sort of Movement Technique that allows her bursts of teleportation, maybe?
She circled like a cat worrying a bull, feet a blur of soft slaps on the arena stone. Her every move was tight. No wasted motion. When she kicked, she snapped it back instantly. When she punched, her whole body turned into it and then uncoiled into the next strike.
I tried to track her but Four Arms wasn't really known for his speed. I relaxed my eyes, trying to see movement, not details. My brain wanted to focus on the little red stripes of cloth and glistening skin but my training forced me to focus on lines.
She blurred again. For a half‑second her afterimage stayed where she'd been, and her real body was already sliding along my flank.
"Tiger Shadow Step," she said. Her foot drove into my lower kidney, and stars burst behind my eyes. "Too slow, demon."
I planted one lower hand on the ground to stop myself from pitching forward and swung the other three in a wide arc. One fist cut through air where her head had been. Another grazed her shoulder. It was enough to brush her chi.
She had an incredible amount of chi. It was strong and wild and it buzzed against my skin like grabbing a live wire.
Her counter came as soon as contact broke. A spinning back elbow clipped my jaw on the left side. Teeth rattled. I tasted metallic blood on my tongue.
The crowd roared with each clean hit. The Tiger section was losing its mind. Somewhere above, banners flapped and drums started picking up her rhythm.
"HAHAHA!"
I was enjoying this.
I could have turtled, I could just planted my feet and waited, cover my vitals and out‑last the barrage. But that would have bored the hell out of me, and it would not give Illyana what she wanted.
So I pushed forward instead.
I forced my legs to move through the ache and charged, but not in a straight line this time. I moved in a low zigzag, lower hands leading. She was faster, but she was not stronger. She knew she had to be careful not to get grabbed by me.
Every time she darted in to tag me, I made sure at least one fist was already coming back the other way.
We traded in inches.
Her foot flashed and a heel slammed against the side of my knee. I felt something pop and then slide back into place with a grind.
My lower right hand shot out in the same moment and brushed her hip. It was just a tap but it was enough to throw her balance a fraction off when she tried to vanish again.
She stumbled half a step.
Lovely. My upper left fist came down in a hammer blow where she would have been if I'd guessed wrong. It met empty air and a whisper of fabric as she twisted aside. Ah shit, she's so slimy.
Even so, it has been closed. Her eyes widened just a little. She wasn't untouchable and we both knew it now.
"Better when you struggle," she said.
She raised her hands in a loose guard. Her fingers crooked into hooked shapes, hers thumbs tucked, palms facing me.
Tiger claws.
Her chi surged again, far more focused this time. It wrapped around her arms and legs in faint striped bands. When she exhaled, the sound started in her belly and shook the air.
"This is my White Tiger Howl," she said, and then it out. The roar hit me a moment later.
It wasn't sound in the normal way. It was chi concentrated into pressure. My chest felt like someone had leaned an invisible weight on it. The shockwave rattled the ring. Dust jumped at my feet and my ears popped.
I dug my lower hands into the floor and let it wash over me. Four Arms' mass helped. If I'd been in a lighter form, it might have lifted me straight off the ground.
By the time it faded, she was already on me.
Her claws came in a three‑strike pattern. Firstly her right hand moved to my throat, her left across my chest, and then her right again toward the liver. The first raked across my collarbone when I jerked my head back. The second scored a line through the hard red skin, drawing shallow but very real blood. The third sank deeper into the soft spot between ribs… and then my lower right hand clamped around her wrist.
"Got you."
"...!"
I yanked.
She rolled with it, twisting midair to flip instead of being yanked face‑first into my fist. Her body arced, spine bending more than it should have, and her free leg snapped out to smash into my jaw as she used my own pull to add momentum.
My teeth clacked together hard enough that I heard one crack. Her ankle slipped out of my grip as she completed the spin, landing in a low crouch a step away, breathing a little harder now.
Blood dripped from the lines on my side and back. It steamed faintly in the air.
She licked a bit of my blood off her knuckles and smiled widely. "Got me? Hah, you wish. You bleed well though," she said. "Good color."
"Thanks," I said, spitting a red streak to the side. "You hit like a truck."
"You shouldn't compliment your opponent mid fight, that's pathetic."
"Is it now," I scoffed.
I rolled my shoulders again. The joint in my knee complained, but strength flowed back in quickly. Four Arms could take punishment.
She's not bad. My thoughts were sharp under the haze. No, she's really good. Speed, strength, technique, and timing, everything wise. If I let her dance all fight, I'll lose on points even if I never go down.
Right.
I shifted my stance.
It was time to change strategy.
Instead of pushing in again, I planted my lower feet wider. It annoyed me a little to play defensive, but oh well. My center of gravity dropped a little. My lower arms came up to guard the centerline, my upper arms spread slightly, hands open instead of curled into fists.
An invitation.
Li Hua's eyes narrowed. She saw the change and the trap. Her weight shifted from one foot to the other, testing.
"I thought you liked charging, but you turned out to be a coward," she said.
"I've seen your combos. This is a change of strategy, not cowardice."
She laughed once, short. "You are pathetic and weak. So called demon."
She darted in, but this time I didn't try to swat her out of the air as soon as she moved. I let her close. I waited until she was fully committed.
She went for the leg again, trusting what had worked.
But this time, at the last instant, I stepped into her instead of away. My right lower arm swept down to catch her kicking leg at the calf. My left shot toward her shoulder, hand open.
She tried to twist around it. Tiger Shadow Step flared again, her chi dragging her sideways in that jarring blur. It saved her from a full body grab, but not from contact.
My fingers caught her upper arm just above the elbow.
Her chi met raw strength there.
Hot and wild energy surged along her tendons. I tapped into my own chi, or at least I tried. I wasn't sure how much of it worked given my lack of control, but I did feel a little tweak. My chi felt heavier, running through Four Arms' frame like magma in rock.
For a heartbeat those two currents crashed.
Then I tightened my grip. The effect was instantaneous. Her body snapped sideways from the clash in trajectories. Her foot never got to my knee. Instead, she was half‑horizontal in the air with all her momentum twisted. Her balance had broken.
My upper right fist came down in a tight arc and smashed into her ribs.
I felt bone give under the impact. The sound was ugly, a wet crack under the crowd's roar. The hit launched her across the ring in a ragdoll tumble. She hit the floor on her shoulder, skidded, and rolled twice before she dug her claws in and arrested the slide.
The Tiger section of the stands howled. Not in victory this time. In outrage.
Li Hua pushed herself up on one arm, breathing hard. Her left side didn't move right. Bruising had already started to flower under her skin in ugly purple.
Yes, she was fast and strong. But size mattered. Her little frame could only have so much durability.
She looked down at her own chest and laughed. "There it is, that incredible strength. Your fists aren't pillows at least."
"This is just warm up," I said.
We went again.
She no longer tried pure hit‑and‑run. The next exchange was jagged and dirty. She aimed at joints more. My ankles fingers, and even my throat. I blocked with lower arms and hit with upper ones, trading grazes for heavy blows.
Her special moves kept coming, but she wasn't arrogant enough to tell me their names now.
There was a flurry where both her hands streaked toward my eyes, chi gathered at her fingertips in shimmering blades. I crossed two forearms in front of my face and felt the energy bite into the tough skin there, carving shallow trenches. Another sequence had her plant her hands on the floor and spin into a low sweeping kick that cracked against both my ankles at once.
My shins didn't like that at all.
But each time she hit, I made sure she paid. Even glancing hits from Four Arms hurt in ways normal fighters didn't walk away from.
A backhand clipped her jaw, and blood sprayed from her mouth in a fine mist. One of her front teeth went with it, flashing white against the black floor before bouncing away.
Her head snapped sideways and she blinked, dazed for the first time. Her footing went sloppy for half a step.
I did not let her recover.
Something grumbled in my chest. It wasn't just battle focus anymore. The memory of the elder's voice saying "Limbo's whore" rose up hot in my head.
Illyana would've never let it slide, but she had to swallow that insult in this neutral city. I recalled this girl's pleased little smile while the old man had said it.
This one's an annoying bitch. My vision tunneled, not in a loss‑of‑control way, but in a very clear narrowing of priorities.
You poked the wrong goddamn nest.
My lower right hand grabbed her wrist as she tried to strike again. My upper left clamped around the back of her neck. While the other two punched.
The first blow landed on her cheekbone. I felt it crack, sharp and brittle. Her head snapped sideways, eyes unfocused. The second came from the other side, slamming into her jaw. Something gave with a horrible grinding pop.
Her knees buckled, but my lower hand held her up by the arm. She couldn't fall. Her body hung there, half‑supported and half‑broken.
I hit her again.
My upper right fist slammed into her nose. I felt the cartilage shatter under the blow. Blood burst out in a sudden fountain, splattering across my knuckles and chest. It ran down her lips and onto the floor in heavy drops.
The crowd noise started to blur at the edges, like the volume had been turned down. All I heard clearly was the wet impact of bone and flesh and my own breathing.
Li Hua gurgled something that might have been a word, or just a reflex. Her free hand clawed weakly at my forearm.
I tightened my grip on her trapped arm and twisted.
Her shoulder joint went past its natural range. Ligaments strained, then tore. The sound this time was like someone snapping a branch wrapped in wet cloth. Her scream finally punched through the fog. It was a raw and high sound, cutting through the arena.
The ref took a hesitant step forward, then stopped himself. The Crane Mother had not intervened. The crowd was frozen between horror and fascination.
My lower left hand moved to her other wrist.
I yanked her off the ground fully, holding her in front of me by both arms like a stuffed toy.
Her legs kicked once, then dangled. Blood dripped freely from her nose and mouth now. Her beautiful face was a ruined mess of swelling and red.
"You wanted a story," I said, more to myself than her.
Then I brought her down.
The slam shook the ring.
I drove her back into the jade with enough force to crack the floor under her body. Dust jumped, rising in a small cloud. Her back arched from the impact and then flopped. For a sick second I thought she might have died.
She twitched.
Good. Alive.
My grip on her arms never fully let go. I hauled her up again. Her head lolled. The left side of her body didn't seem willing to answer commands anymore.
I could feel eyes on me from every direction. Tiger elder, boiling with anger Illyana, a cold, bright point on the edge of my vision. Somewhere high or below, the Crane Mother, her expression unreadable.
One more.
I slammed her down again, slightly off‑center this time. Her right leg folded under her at a bad angle. I heard, and felt, something in the shin give with a crack.
The scream this time died halfway out. Shock was catching up to her.
The ref finally rushed in then, shouting something about submission. I barely heard him.
Li Hua lay on the cracked stone with her arms bent wrong and legs twisted. Her face was swollen beyond recognition. Blood pooled under her head and smeared across her teeth, a pink froth when she tried to breathe.
Her eyes were still open.
They met mine, glassy but conscious. There was pain there. And under it, a tiny spark of defiance that hadn't gone out yet.
When I smiled, the ref scrambled to put himself between us, hands up toward me just in case. His fingers shook.
"Winner!" he shouted, voice cracking. "Tetra‑Man of Limbo! Match over!"
For a long heartbeat, nothing happened.
No cheers and drums followed. Just the sound of Li Hua's ragged breaths and the distant hum of the city.
Then someone in a far section started to cheer. It spread in a strange wave, rolling over the stands. Tigers screamed curses and rage. Other sects roared approval. Some faces just stared at me in pale shock.
I didn't raise my arms towards them. I shot a look towards the tiger elder, who glared at me.
Then I turned away from the broken little tiger on the floor and slowly walked back toward the tunnel I'd come from. Each step left faint red specks on the jade.
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