"FIGHT!"
Jade's opponent didn't hesitate. The moment the command left the referee's lips, the man moved with the kind of explosive speed that suggested he'd been holding himself back during the positioning phase, waiting for exactly this moment to unleash everything he had. His body blurred as he shot forward, covering the first twenty meters in less than a second, and there was something odd about the way he, faster than simple enhanced speed should allow.
Jade's eyes tracked the approach with analytical precision, and within two seconds he'd identified what he was dealing with. The man's pupils had an unusual quality to them, slightly dilated and unfocused, as if he was seeing something beyond the physical stage. Some kind of precognitive ability, Jade guessed, or perhaps enhanced perception that let him predict optimal movement paths. That would explain the confidence despite the massive ranking gap—the man thought he could read Jade's movements before they happened.
It was actually a decent strategy against most opponents. If you could see where someone was going to move, you could position yourself to counter before they even started. Against someone relying on technique and tactical positioning, that kind of predictive capability would be devastating.
But against Jade, it was meaningless.
The distance closed rapidly and Jade remained perfectly still with his hands relaxed at his sides. He wasn't being arrogant or trying to make a statement. He simply didn't need to move yet. His opponent was fast and probably quite skilled at using his perception ability to maximum effect, but speed only mattered if you had the power to capitalize on it, and from what Jade could see, this man's physical capabilities were solidly in the B-rank range
Ten meters out, his opponent's pattern shifted. The straight charge broke into a zigzag that probably looked random but was actually quite calculated—each change in direction designed to make prediction difficult while maintaining forward momentum. His eyes remained locked on Jade with that strange unfocused intensity, pupils dilating and contracting rapidly as his ability fed him information about probable outcomes and optimal striking angles.
Five meters. Three. His fist was drawing back for what would undoubtedly be an impressive punch enhanced by all that momentum and whatever physical boosts his talent provided. The muscles in his arm were coiled tight, and Jade could see the exact moment when his opponent committed fully to the strike, every ounce of speed and strength channeling into a single devastating blow aimed at Jade's center mass.
Then Jade moved, and the entire dynamic shifted in the space between heartbeats.
He didn't dodge or block , his hand simply came up in a casual gesture that looked more like he was reaching to adjust his hood than defending against an attack that could shatter stone. His fingers spread slightly, palm open and relaxed, and when his opponent's enhanced punch arrived with all its accumulated force and speed and predictive calculation behind it, Jade just... caught it.
The sound of impact was sharp and clear—flesh meeting flesh with enough force that spectators in the nearest sections actually flinched. But Jade's hand didn't budge even a millimeter. His arm didn't buckle or bend or show any sign of strain. His entire body remained perfectly still, as if he'd just caught a ball someone had tossed to him rather than a strike that could have caved in a normal person's ribcage.
For a single frozen moment, nothing happened. Jade's opponent stared at his captured fist with an expression that cycled rapidly through confusion, disbelief, and dawning horror as his brain struggled to process what had just occurred. His ability had presumably shown him the punch landing, the impact driving Jade backward, maybe even the hooded fighter stumbling or going down from the force. Instead, he was completely and utterly stopped, and his ability apparently had no reference for how to handle that scenario.
His pupils contracted suddenly, then dilated wide, then contracted again as whatever perception talent he wielded tried desperately to recalculate the situation and failed to find any outcome where this made sense.
Jade's fingers tightened slightly, the force not enough to break bones, but enough to make his point abundantly clear—and his opponent's face went white as pain flooded through his hand and up his arm. The carefully constructed confidence crumbled like wet paper, replaced by the cold realization that he'd made a terrible mistake in thinking his ability would be enough to bridge a gap this vast.
"I surrender!" The words came out in a strangled gasp as the man tried and failed to pull his hand free. His voice cracked slightly on the second word, and there was genuine fear in his eyes now as he finally understood exactly how outmatched he really was. "I yield! Match over!"
The referee's response was immediate and decisive, her voice cutting through the arena's noise with practiced authority. "Match! Winner: Participant 847,392!"
Jade released his grip without ceremony and his opponent stumbled backward, cradling his hand against his chest while his face twisted with pain and shock. Medical personnel were already rushing onto the stage before the man had finished retreating, their movements efficient and professional as they moved to assess any damage. The fighter didn't resist their assistance, just kept staring at Jade with wide eyes while mumbling something incoherent about "couldn't see it, didn't show up in any of the reads, how is that even possible."
The entire exchange from start call to surrender had lasted exactly four seconds.
In the commentary booth high above the arena floor, Marcus Thane let out a long, heavy sigh that carried across every broadcast feed in the empire. It was the sound of someone confirming something they'd already known but had perhaps been hoping would prove incorrect. He activated his microphone and when he spoke, his voice carried a mixture of resignation and professional assessment that suggested he'd been expecting exactly this outcome.
"And there we have it," he said, pulling up statistical data on his display with practiced efficiency. "Four seconds from fight call to surrender. Participant 847,392's battle round average was thirty-eight seconds across one hundred matches, and we all wondered if that would hold up in round three against presumably stronger opposition." He paused, studying the numbers with the kind of focus that came from decades of analysis. "The answer appears to be that it doesn't matter who he faces. The result is the same."
Adira's voice joined his, and she sounded almost apologetic as she addressed the trillions of viewers watching across fifteen galaxies. "To be honest, I kind of saw it coming. No technique activation, no flashy displays, just pure power that makes conventional combat essentially meaningless." She pulled up replay footage showing Jade's casual catch of the punch that should have been devastating. "And look at this. He didn't even bother dodging or deflecting. Just reached out and stopped the attack like you'd catch a projectile someone tossed you."
"The interesting detail," Marcus added, zooming in on the moment of impact, "is the complete lack of visible strain. His arm doesn't buckle. His posture doesn't shift. And there's no indication whatsoever that stopping that punch required any effort on his part. That suggests his physical capabilities are so far beyond what we're seeing that these matches aren't even making him try."
"His opponent had a precognitive talent," Adira noted, pulling up the fighter's profile. "Advanced perception that let him predict optimal movement paths and combat outcomes. Against most opponents, that's a tremendous advantage—you can see their moves before they make them and position accordingly."
"Against participant 847,392, it was completely irrelevant." Marcus's voice carried a note of professional fascination beneath the resignation. "Because it doesn't matter if you can predict someone's movements when the fundamental power gap is this enormous. The precognitive ability probably showed him exactly what would happen, and he charged in anyway hoping the prediction was wrong."
"It wasn't wrong," Adira said quietly. "It just didn't account for the possibility that raw physical power could be this overwhelming."
On the stage below, the personnels had completed their initial assessment and were helping Jade's opponent off the platform. The man was conscious and coherent, just deeply shaken and nursing a badly bruised hand where Jade had gripped him. His precognitive ability had apparently stopped trying to process what had happened, his pupils returning to normal size as he gave up on finding an explanation that made sense within his understanding of combat dynamics.
The referee stood near the stage edge, watching the medical team work with an expression that suggested she was processing her own complicated feelings about what she'd just witnessed. She'd been standing less than ten meters away when Jade caught that punch, close enough to feel the displacement of air from the impact, close enough to see the absolute ease with which he'd stopped an attack that should have required real effort to handle.
She'd called hundreds of matches over her career and developed good instincts for gauging power levels and threat assessment. Those instincts were screaming at her now, telling her that the hooded fighter from Nexarion was operating on a completely different scale than anyone else she'd refereed today. The four-second victory wasn't impressive because it was fast—plenty of matches ended quickly when skill gaps were large enough. It was impressive because Jade hadn't actually done anything. He'd just stood there and stopped his opponent's best shot with such casual ease that it looked like a training exercise rather than a tournament match.
Something told her that four-second performance had been Jade being gentle, and if he ever decided to actually hit someone instead of just catching their attacks, the medical team was going to need all the help they could get.
The crowd's reaction had evolved through several distinct phases over the course of those four seconds. Initial excitement when the match started, building anticipation as the precognitive fighter charged forward with obvious confidence, shocked silence when Jade simply caught the punch without apparent effort, and then an explosion of noise when the surrender came so quickly. Now, as the implications sank in, that noise was fragmenting into thousands of separate conversations as people processed the battle they'd witnessed and tried to figure out what it meant for the tournament's future progression.
...