Flop! Flop!
Cane stared at his next opponent, absolutely dumbfounded. He was face to face with... a fish?
As he stared at the flopping fish, a pair of katars was dropped into his hands. Cane put them on and approached his opponent, ready to end the fight.
I guess my Innate Luck is finally starting to take effect, huh? Well, I guess it makes sense. After all, if you get bad luck in a previous round, good luck is guaranteed in the next!
Cane totally ignored the fact that he'd gotten bad luck twice in a row. He then stabbed into the fish's gills, causing the creature to die. Cane walked away, waiting for the next round.
"Hmm?" The next round hadn't been announced. That could only mean...
Cane whirled around in horror, just in time to see the fish he'd just killed morph and bend, grotesquely turning into a giant serpent. It leered over Cane's head, hissing and drooling at the mouth.
Oh sh*t. A serpent, huh? Cane had a particular dislike for serpents, because the last one he'd met turn out to be a terrible monster. The snake lunged forward, and Cane also leapt backward in the same moment.
Ever since that fateful day, Cane had replayed the memories in his head thousands of times over. How he could've helped, if he could've helped, what could he have done...
The thoughts plagued him, their deaths haunted him, and only the knowledge that he'd avenged them kept himself going. Even his first family - he still didn't know who had killed them, and that pushed him to keep going.
Thus, any snake would find themselves awfully disadvantaged when fighting Cane. Indeed, he'd begun instinctively dodging the serpent's attacks, relying on intuition, luck and warning signals that the snake unknowingly displayed.
Whenever a serpent lunges at someone, they must first pull their heads back. Otherwise, they can't accelerate fast enough. Their necks also tense, muscles at the ready for release. Sometimes, a snake will have a distinct pause in their subconscious movements - a sign that they planned to attack.
Cane was relying on his judgement of the enemy's body language to expertly dodge the bites of the snake. Luckily, it couldn't fly. Otherwise, Cane might have to be on the lookout for tail whips as well. For a grounded snake like this one, tail attacks were obvious and projected, which let Cane easily avoid them.
Unluckily, his weapon for this round was the katars. They were short - no longer than Cane's forearm, and forced into a forward grip. The short range meant Cane would need to wait for a perfect opportunity to strike, just like a snake.
How ironic, huh?
...
"The Painless Snakefish, huh? This would normally be a tough opponent for any contestant, but currently it seems like Cane is perfectly countering it! Now, some people might wonder - what is the Painless Snakefish?" The event host stopped his commentary to motion at the Chief Cleanser.
Seeing this, the gruff old man stood up. "The Painless Snakefish is a fish which feels no pain. Well, you might've been able to guess from the name. Whenever it's hurt by something, it'll morph into a snake, but the base form is just a fish. The more it gets hurt, the more powerful it becomes, changing forms as if in reincarnation paradise."
He peered down at the fight, which was basically just a dance battle. "Contestant Cane's best course of action is to kill it with one blow. Even though it doesn't look like he knows about the Painless Snakefish, it's obvious that his plan is the same."
The event host continued. "The Painless Snakefish is actually not from the creatures below our City, believe it or not! It's the result of a mutation from an experiment. The most dangerous part about it is how unexpected it can be - it's basically playing a pig to eat a tiger!"
As the event host continued chattering, the Chief was once again left to ponder.
Indeed, I've been having this thought for a while now. Cane is smart and powerful, with strength far above his rank and a scary level of adaptability. Plus, he can use a wide variety of tactics.
The old Chief stared up at the sky, pondering the future. When I die, I might make him the next Chief Cleanser.
He suddenly smiled and shook his head in a self-deprecating manner. But of course, that won't happen for a long while yet.
The fight below had caused a pile of loose rocks to shift and miraculously spell out the words "That's foreshadowing..." on the ground.
In the next moment, those temporarily formed words were scattered as Cane landed there to dodge another attack. No one else noticed.
...
Everyone always says that to subdue a snake, you should strike 7 inches below the head.
Cane dodged another tail whip.
Did they never think about what to do if the snake is massive!!!
He leapt up to avoid another bite, and as the snake's teeth lodged into the ground, he ran down the snake's twisting back and off to the other side of the arena. Even moments like these were not optimal for attacking - Cane needed unhindered access to either the snake's eyes or throat, directly below the jaw.
Plus... who even uses inches?? It's such an outdated measurement...
Cane dug the katars into the ground just as the serpent broke free, and he scraped upward to send a wave of dust and tiny debris at the snake. It reeled, blinded and hissing in annoyance.
At that moment, Cane used Hidden Strength, designating the snake as his target. He felt his strength double, returning once more to the power of a full rank Warrior. Cane crouched, tensing his muscles and storing an immense amount of energy.
He waited for the snake to stop thrashing in the air, and when it finally calmed down to clean its eyes, he burst forward!
Cane sliced through the air like a bullet, reaching the snake in an instant. Cane's legs grappled onto the snake's body, securing himself against the snake so he could stab his katars into the eyes.
The Painless Snakefish instantly felt the new and uninvited presence of Cane, and it dropped into a death roll similar to crocodiles. Cane held on, feeling the rocks scrape at his back. Unfortunately for the Painless Snakefish, Cane's current durability was at the Warrior rank, which meant that the rocks couldn't hurt him at all.
Cane began to climb up the snake's body despite the constant thrashing and turning. Finally, he reached the head of the snake and stabbed one katar through the snake's mouth, from below the jaw. This kept the snake's mouth locked shut.
As the Painless Snakefish received this stab, it began to grow larger and stronger, but to no avail. Cane's second katar was already penetrating halfway through the serpent's eye, almost reaching the brain.
But then, the blade met nothing but air, and Cane began to fall.
In this split second of a moment, the Painless Snakefish chose to morph back into the smaller fish in order to escape the damage!
The battle had been won, but the war was far from over. And now? The Painless Snakefish would have to take on another blow without instantly dying in order to transform back into serpent form.
Even worse, it was already hurt and bleeding from the fight.
Cane didn't know this, of course, but he wasn't stupid. Both of the times his enemy took damage, it'd transformed. This could only mean that the transformation was based off of taking damage.
"Well, now all I need to go is kill you in one go, huh? Last time, I only targeted the gills." Cane sauntered over the the fish's flopping body, and held it down with one hand.
"This time, I think I'll just destroy your brain."
Stab!
...
"Cane Hunter has now officially passed his 8th round! At this point, he's already eligible for the final Tournament, isn't he?" The event host turned to check with an assistant.
"Yes, it looks like it! If he can win more rounds, he'll face off against an easier opponent in the first round of the Tournament." He displayed a diagram showing the 8 participants, who each had their names blurred out in order to create a sense of mystery. "The first round fights are determined by who did the best, versus who did the worst! This continues for the second best versus the second worst, and so on."
The Chief looked on with worry. He'd had hopes - though not too high - that Cane might be able to defeat the 10th round, and now those hopes seemed even closer than he could've imagined.
Despite Cane's abysmal luck, he'd managed to beat the 8th round with nothing more than a cut on the left arm, which was bandaged and healing. The other two from the South and East Combat Schools had directly failed their 8th rounds, and even Cane's own peers in the Northern Combat School could only beat the 8th round after sustaining quite a few injuries.
The event host sidled up next to the old Chief and smiled in a conspiratorial way. "I can tell you want to recruit him, right? Well, I'd just say - do it fast. The big leagues are calling for him."
Then, he continued to chatter and add commentary as if he hadn't said anything - analysing Cane's movements and tactics used during the fight, etc.
The old Chief only smiled,
You've got one more rank 2 left before the big fight. Of course, the 10th round is very special, so...
I think I'll do a little interfering when the time comes around.
Don't disappoint me, Cane.
...
Cane slowly unwrapped the bandage on his left arm, the shallow cut already scabbed over due to his healing speed increasing when he'd temporarily been a full rank Warrior.
Whew! 4 down, only one left. After that, I can finally face the 10th round.
I wonder... with my current luck, the final two hurdles might be a bit tough.