My next fight was against yet another Wood cultivator. Wood–Point, to be exact, and frankly, it was starting to get on my nerves.

Where the hell were all these Wood users coming from?

Calisto Aeova was a rather efficient fighter. Well, you have to be to make it to the quarter-finals. And like me, he'd reached that stage without taking a single hit.

There wasn't a mark on his rebellious grey-green armour. His opponents hadn't managed to land even one strike on him…

Well, that's not entirely true. He just had a shield. Not an energy shield, but a real one.

His left gauntlet was wrapped in vines that gathered into a knotted growth on the back of his hand. Even that growth alone could be used like a buckler, and he did use it that way, but the vines could also unfurl into either a small round shield or a large oval one that could cover nearly his entire body.

I suspected that the more the shield expanded, the less durable it became, but the more area it covered. I still doubted my Chain Punches would have done any damage at all.

So, his defence was solid. And his offence wasn't lacking either. For that, Calisto wielded a long spear tipped with a needle-like, square-edged point.

The spear and shield were clearly part of a set, he could sheath the spear behind the shield and thrust through it. The vines allowed the spear to pass right through.

As for techniques, I hadn't quite figured out what exactly he had in his arsenal. He definitely had a dash, and not just a straight-line one. It let him shift direction mid-air. Probably by bending the spear.

The dash was his go-to opener.

Zihao would've liked this guy.

But I wasn't Zihao, and I had to figure out my own approach. This opponent was a tough nut to crack.

Heavenly Fist?

Yeah, like he'd give me the time to charge it.

I needed to get behind him and strike from there. This was clearly a job for Monkey. An arena with columns would've helped a lot.

But nope, my luck had run out. We got a flat arena. Totally even, aside from some scuff marks on the plastic surface.

We both set up before the signal:

I placed my right foot forward and shifted all my weight onto it; Calisto, on the other hand, led with his left and drew his spear back.

The moment the judge gave the signal, Calisto launched — a sharp lunge, then a dash, flying forward with his spear extended.

I kicked off the ground and Monkey-leapt up, and up again!

Calisto bent his spear, and his dash began arcing upward, but he was too late. Another jump took me much higher, and he shot underneath me.

We passed each other, and for a moment, I felt a strange déjà vu. Same setup as with Skoryk: he was mid-air, his technique was ending, and that split-second moment of suspension was coming.

That moment where he'd be completely vulnerable.

Indeed, Calisto's body froze mid-air, locked in position. He drifted a little higher and then began to fall.

I didn't hesitate.

A surge of qi tore through my right arm, and Heavenly Fist began to form above the arena, silver, massive, all-powerful, waiting only for my command.

But, first of all, the height wasn't right. Skoryk had launched straight up, so she'd gained far more altitude. Second, I had thoroughly disoriented her before she fell.

Calisto wasn't spiralling like Skoryk had.

He moved along a single trajectory and didn't crash so much as unfurl into a recovery. His spear rotated perpendicular to his momentum, and instead of stumbling, he turned the fall into a clean roll. He hit the ground, sprang to his feet, turned, and launched another dash. This time directly at me, gaining altitude again as he came.

I was still descending, slowing myself with countercurrents of air beneath my feet, but I had to abandon the ultimate. He would've reached me long before I could finish the technique, and I needed my arms free to guarantee an escape from his path.

I created a platform beneath my left hand, swung across it, made another one to my right, and kicked off it with both legs.

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We passed by each other again, but this time, I didn't waste time on a long cast. I sent a pair of Hooks flying at Calisto's back.

They caught up to him before he could fully recover into another roll. The Hooks didn't do much damage, but they did knock him into a less controlled tumble.

His back flashed with silver.

Of course he had a formation!

And I still couldn't quite tell what kind. It looked like a fragment of my own shield, but only a fragment, albeit a large one.

I switched to Chain Punches, wanting to stress the formation more, and get a better look. Calisto's formation covered only his back. The front was left entirely to the shield.

The moment he got to his feet, he unfurled the shield, covering his body and hiding the spear.

Under the pressure of my Chain Punches, he advanced calmly, so I hid a few Hooks in the stream.

He let the first one through.

The projection curved in a tight arc and slammed into his exposed right shoulder, the part just peeking out from behind the shield.

Calisto stumbled. He nearly fell! Should've aimed for the head, maybe I'd have gotten something better out of it.

But the second time, he wasn't so careless. He tracked the incoming projections more closely. The vines on his shield spread to their widest and now bent and shuddered under my Hooks, but they still held against the Chain Punches.

Calisto advanced with confidence. His spear was still hidden, but I knew he was preparing to strike.

The question was — would I retreat?

I sent out two Hooks from my right. The double impact bent the shield and exposed his right side. My left immediately drove a Hook into the gap.

He didn't have time to cover it, so he dove under.

The thing was, during my training with Heavenly Fist, I'd finally learned to guide my qi outside my body, and, as a result, to adjust my projections mid-flight, though techniques still restricted this heavily. I forced the Hook lower.

Boom!

It clipped the crown of Calisto's head and nearly knocked him to the ground.

I leapt left, trying to get even more of his exposed right flank. Chain Punches! Hook!

I aimed for his head, for his side, the spots unprotected by shield or formation.

Finish him!

This mistake should have cost him the fight!

I went all in, arms swinging like mad, but Calisto wasn't the kind of man to be taken down so easily. He deliberately turned his back to me so his formation would cover him, but I was striking so quickly that the silver shields couldn't form in time and broke under the pressure. They wouldn't hold for long, but he didn't need them to.

Calisto swung his arm back, set the shield in place, then turned his body to face me.

Stubborn bastard!

I jumped into the air, attacking from above. He raised the shield, but I angled the Hooks to sweep under it and strike his legs from the front.

Got him!

I forced him down onto one knee, but that again reduced the gap in his defence, and I couldn't bend the Hooks sharply enough to reach his body. Now they struck only the floor.

Vaulting over him in the air, I landed and circled around, hammering at his defences, searching for a way through.

I probably felt just as furious as Okoro must have, trying to break through my shield.

Calisto's shield never left me, and I'd grown so used to its sight that I missed the moment his spear slipped through the vines like a snake from its nest, lunging straight at me again.

At the last second, I triggered my own shield, but the spearhead broke through and pierced the armour underneath. It only grazed my right side, just a touch, nothing serious.

My energy shield and his physical one pressed against each other, crackling with strain.

He yanked the spear back and struck again.

Once more it tore through my shield, but this time I had leapt back far enough that the armour wasn't breached.

With his shield pressed into mine, I couldn't counterattack. My projections would have detonated just centimetres beyond, or even inside, my own shield.

Unless I laid them in as Hooks.

Calisto leapt and thrust again, but I shifted right, letting the spear pass on my left, and launched a heavy Hook straight into his skull. Right past the guard!

Calisto staggered hard, instinctively turning the shield to cover the side I'd struck from.

I Monkey-leapt left, scraping my armoured gut with the spear he'd failed to retract. Because of that spear, my shield couldn't recover properly and was already cracking, threatening to collapse.

I fired off another Hook, and it struck true.

Calisto went down onto the floor, and on instinct, I snatched his spear and tore it free.

My shield shattered completely from the intrusion, but I had his weapon in my hands. With immense satisfaction, I hurled it off the arena.

"Surrender!" I roared at Calisto, who was still trying to gather himself after the last detonation right by his ear.

His shield shrank back into its default knot on his arm. Staggering like a drunk, leaning on his right hand, he raised the left in front of him.

I thought he'd lost control of the shield, but I was wrong.

From that knot, instead of a shield, came a long burst of needles. It flared against my formation — too small to stop individually, but too many at once. They chewed straight through it. The stream tore across my visor; it cracked, and fire seared my neck. I felt hot blood flooding inside the armour. I had seconds.

Enraged that I'd fallen for this last trick, I struck with a Hook. But suddenly, his formation covered him from the front as well. The energy shield shattered under the Hook and Calisto fell again, but he'd managed to block the brunt of it. Clearly, the formation only failed when the vine-shield was deployed.

I grabbed his legs, flipped him face down so he couldn't target me with that thing anymore, in case there were still shots left, and dragged him.

Damn if I knew what kind of formation that was or how long it would take to break through it. I didn't want to waste time, I didn't have time. Hot blood had already soaked down to my stomach. Another moment, and blood loss would cloud my mind.

I hauled Calisto to the edge of the platform. The cunning bastard started to resist, weak but deliberate. But I still had enough strength, and enough rage, to throw him off the arena.

"Medic!" I shouted even before the judge declared my victory.

Two medics rushed up immediately.

"The neck!" I pointed. "Bleeding. Do we need a Technician?"

One medic scanned me, then yanked a couple of needles out.

"No. Get him onto the platform," he ordered.

Adrenaline made my heart pound twice as fast, and blood spurt twice as hard. By the time the machine was disassembling my armour, even my trousers were soaked, and my vision was already swimming.

Thank heaven for the medics, they didn't wait for the platform to release me. On the move, they jabbed something in, pulled something out, cauterised, foamed, and hooked me up to a saline drip.

By the time I stepped off the platform, the procedure was already complete.

"So, am I cleared to continue?" I asked.

The medic gave me a look and tossed me the saline bag.

"Keep it high!" he said.

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