Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (knowledgeable books to read .txt) 📗

from some old Western. I shivered. It was the perfect name for that lethal fist of Miasma and disturbing as heck that everything about the move seemed so natural. Like I’d just been waiting for it to come along.

Had I really almost killed a guy? That couldn’t be right.

Death cultivator has discovered the most powerful Mortal technique, Hungry Ghost croaked. Death cultivator had no need for Hungry Ghost’s instruction.

The grinning skull was still clutched in my fist from the fight. I shoved it into my pocket, suddenly not wanting it to hear any more of my thoughts. Kest’s worry that an apparatus as powerful as Hungry Ghost had to come with hidden dangers swam through my head.

Except it hadn’t been Hungry Ghost, had it? It’d been me. I had figured out Dead Man’s Hand on my own. I was the one who’d almost killed somebody.

“Here I thought you’d be eliminated in the first round,” Warcry said, appearing beside me.

It took a second for what he said to make it through the haze.

“I thought I would, too,” I said. I sounded mostly normal, not very freaked out at all, which was lucky because Warcry was the last person I would’ve wanted to talk to about it. I pushed Dead Man’s Hand down to the back of my brain. I just wouldn’t use it again, that was all. “When’s your first match?”

“Already over. He was nothing but a ponser. Knocked him out in the first five seconds.”

“Congra—”

Warcry slapped a hand over my mouth and shoved his forearm into my Adam’s apple, slamming my head back against the wall.

“Don’t you dare,” he growled. “I don’t ever want to hear that word come out of your mouth unless you’re handing me a championship trophy. Got it?”

“Get off me.” I shoved-kicked him away.

He stabbed a finger in my direction. “Never.”

“Geez.” I swallowed and rubbed the pain in my throat. “Freaking psycho.”

“Know how many competitors won this round, grav? Half of ’em. So yeah, that cuts your enemies in half, but guess how many that leaves you with. Almost a thousand. Those Shoguns you just bowed to probably ain’t even in the kokugikon yet. These early eliminations aren’t worth their time. You want to impress them, you’d better claw your way into the low double digits.”

I glanced up at the empty two-way mirror box, then out at the stands, looking for Kest and Rali. I wasn’t here to win some dumb trophy or a fistful of cash. The twins had put their lives on the line. They were counting on me to win, to get us some kind of protection.

Hungry Ghost suddenly felt like it was weighing down my pocket. A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.

“I’ll get there,” I said. I had to.

Number One Seed

MY SECOND ROUND WAS against another human, a guy ranked somewhere near the middle. His kishotenketsu was as basic as mine, but he had a much higher Spirit reserve. His actual fighting wasn’t great. He carried a pair of knives, but he hardly used them. Every attack was centered around kicking. It was like fighting a way less talented Warcry. I got cut once, a slice across my ribs, and then every other attack I saw coming from a mile away. At the same time, though, the dude refused to give up, and his head was harder than a brick wall. Our fight was one-sided and brutal. It dragged out for almost ten minutes. I broke his arm, cut up his eyebrow with an elbow to the head so blood was pouring out, and smashed his nose before I finally KO’d him with a Warcry-style spin kick to the jaw.

Not a pretty fight, but I got through it without using Dead Man’s Hand, which made me feel a little better.

I wasn’t going to use it in round three, either.

My opponent was one of those slug aliens with a thick, limbless, slimy body and telescoping eye stalks. My kicks and punches rebounded like crazy, helped along by a springy caramel-colored Spirit wall almost like my Death Metal shields. Nothing I threw at him had an effect. I was just wearing myself down.

Then the slug sent these squiggly Spirit worms at me. They drilled down into my skin, tearing bloody holes in my muscle and going for my internal organs. I dropped to the dirt, scratching at them, trying to dig those spinning Spirit worms out of me.

The slug burbled a laugh.

Gritting my teeth, I sent Dead Man’s Hand creeping into his Spirit sea.

His eyes bugged out when he felt me clamp down on his life point.

He threw more Spirit worms at me. They tore into my flesh like those drill catfish in the Amazon, but I kept the pressure on Dead Man’s Hand, strangling that flickering flame inside him.

“You won’t do it!” he gurgled. “You’ll be disqualified!”

Right then, that was the farthest thing from my brain. Something about this felt right. Death was the natural conclusion to every fight. To everything. I laughed at him thinking I would care about disqualification, but that turned into a cough. Blood sprayed through my teeth from the internal damage the Spirit worms were doing.

Dead Man’s Hand tightened down another notch.

The slug guy’s face rippled from anger to terror, and he let his drill-worms drop.

“I yield!” he screamed. “I give up! Stop!”

I wasn’t going to.

“Please!” he begged.

That snapped me out of it. I hurried up and shut off Dead Man’s Hand.

My Spirit sea didn’t like that. It throbbed and ached and reached out for more the whole time the official was having me bow. My brain raced, thoughts flying at me from all directions, trying to make sense of what I’d just done, trying to pretend like it hadn’t happened, trying to justify it.

Warcry was waiting for me cage-side when I came out. He didn’t say anything for once, just nodded.

I didn’t know whether he was nodding because he knew I’d almost killed that slug guy or because I’d won round