This medic wasn't open to negotiation. He simply made me lift my left hand, holding the saline bag high. The tube was connected to my right wrist.

He scanned my neck once more and said curtly:

"Off to the infirmary, while the patch on your neck still holds."

I nodded. I could walk. I could even speak. Though my whole throat burned, and my voice came out hoarse. I felt angry about being knocked out just one step before the semi-finals, but honestly, I had no desire to keep going. I was a bit unsteady, and my vision blurred from time to time. I didn't want to make it worse.

My opponent, surprisingly, hadn't fared much worse. In fact, he might have been better off than me. He got away with just a mild concussion. I saw another pair of medics scanning his head.

My doctor caught my angry look and told his younger colleague: "See that he gets there and doesn't wander off on the way."

The junior medic nodded and gestured for me to follow.

We left the dome, passing several other arenas. I caught the end of another fight. Two Mace cultivators had practically turned each other's armour into twisted tin cans. The judge stopped the match, and before the medics even arrived, technicians rushed onto the arena to pry them out of their suits.

The junior medic and I had just turned into the corridor when I heard quick footsteps behind me.

"Heading to the infirmary?" a thinhorn asked.

My escort nodded.

"I'm going there too," the horned one said. "I can take him along."

My medic raised an eyebrow but didn't object.

"Then he's yours," he said, turning back.

This smelled like a setup. Even genetically bred servants knew that initiative and eagerness to serve were punished.

I immediately thought of Thyzreth. If she had chosen to exploit my weakness, this was the perfect moment.

I shifted my gaze to the thinhorn medic.

Peter 198. A younger generation. His white coat wasn't completely white, there was a tea stain on the collar. A small detail, but one that added a touch of plausibility.

Maybe he was a real medic.

Maybe not.

The Thousand Sparks and Mind Parallelisation had already worn off, so I reactivated both techniques. I only hoped this wouldn't harm me now, after losing so much blood.

One part of my consciousness began pulling up… who? Novak, Adam, Bat? I had chat! I could already work with the interface hands-free, but on autopilot it only let me check information, everything else was far slower.

Actually, I should test this.

Ha! The interface didn't let me multitask with it. I couldn't type in chat and check the stats of the thinhorn at the same time.

Stats — late first stage. Exactly what I'd expect from a possessed body. All roots were trash except Wind. Wind — 35.

As soon as I got that information, one stream began processing it, while the other opened Novak's disciples' chat and started slowly typing a message.

Sullivan: "I think I've run into Thyzreth. I'm wounded after the tournament."

Under normal circumstances, this body couldn't possibly resist me. I'd smear it thin across the walls. But I wasn't in the best condition. I still had my protective shirt and boxers, but no bracelets, they pressed too much under the armour. And no amulet on my neck. My vision was still swimming, and it wasn't improving. Besides, the head medic had warned that the patch on my throat might come off. If this really was Thyzreth, she definitely had a plan and the means. If it was just a horned medic, then it was just a medic, better not to panic.

But I needed an answer. Right now. While my medic wasn't too far away and could still revive me. Because of course, without him, the corridor was empty.

I wanted a reply from my people, but I seriously doubted a demon would just waste time.

The stream of consciousness handling communication switched from chat to calls. If I remembered right, Bat had a jetboard, and Lina had a hoverbike.

I dialled Lina. The hoverbike was faster. At the very same moment, I stopped and looked the thinhorn in the eyes.

"And what did you expect to gain, Thyzreth?" I asked.

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The thinhorn frowned, but the expression was ambiguous. I couldn't tell if it was genuine confusion, or a cracked mask.

"Hey!" I called to the medic.

He turned, and I pointed at the horned one with my right hand.

"It's her."

The thinhorn's face twisted in hatred.

Fuck! I guessed right.

Before she even struck, I hurled the saline bag at her face and yanked the catheter out of my arm.

Thyzreth recoiled and sprang forward, tearing off her coat. The next moment I felt a wave of disorientation. Not from pain, but something else. A familiar sensation…

Too late, I realised it was Space Qi.

Her body was already covered in unpainted metal armour, the same kind we'd scavenged from the battlefield. The difference was that this set came with a helmet shaped for a horned one.

Damn it! That evened the odds.

A tube appeared in her hands… a battle artefact!

I panicked so badly I threw both streams of thought into assessing the situation, and nearly missed Lina's reply.

"Yes…"

"Do you people even read the chat?!" I barked, leaping onto the wall to dodge the tube pointed my way.

My neck flared with pain again. Blood spurted from the wound, and I saw a blood-soaked chunk of hardened foam fly off.

But the manoeuvre was wasted, because Thyzreth's first attack wasn't aimed at me.

A sharp surge of Point Qi announced that a death-charged needle had shot toward the medic.

Clearly, she had decided he was the greater threat.

A needle like that had killed Esposito, and the only reason I'd survived was my shield, which I didn't have now.

The medic… what was he, third stage?

He was done for…

Yet despite all my fears, he thrust his hand forward, and a silver fist projection shot out to meet the needle.

With a steel-and-glass crack, the projection detonated. The needle ricocheted into the ceiling, then clattered down onto the floor.

"Jake was right," the medic said. "Thyzreth, you're fucked!"

What?

I almost lost control, even with my thoughts running hot and both streams active. It took real effort to land on my feet.

"Why would we need chat," Lina asked, "when a show like this is happening live?"

At the far end of the corridor, two figures in black-and-white armour appeared.

"Come to us, Jake," Lina called.

I didn't wait for a second invitation, but Thyzreth clearly reassessed the situation too.

I sprinted towards the pair for cover, but a metal disc whizzed past me, unfolding into a transparent energy shield that split the corridor in two. I slammed into it at full speed, smashed my nose, and bounced off.

Darkness flooded my vision, and when the light returned, I was on the floor. The other end of the corridor had been sealed as well. Thyzreth and I were trapped in a pocket, cut off on both sides, while Novak's other disciples tried to break through to us. A storm of projections rained down on the barriers.

Thyzreth already had the tube aimed at my head.

I jerked right, and the needle buried itself in the plastic floor. I pushed Qi into my arms, Monkey-flipped myself upright, then lunged sideways, dodging another needle that struck the barrier. It bounced, but for a split second left a crack in the field.

I had to hold on.

I was faster!

Even with all her artefacts, she couldn't keep up with me. Maybe I was even stronger.

I let loose a torrent of Chain Punches, hammering her formation. They shattered against big silver shields — perfectly attuned against the Fist. No way to trick them with a Hook.

But even the light projections ruined her aim, knocking her shots askew.

I Monkey-leapt closer, grabbed the tube, and ripped it from her hands, nearly paying the price, because another appeared instantly, forcing me to dodge again.

Each dash was costing me more and more. The world refused to stabilise after I stopped. It kept sliding in the direction I'd been moving, and I had no chance, no time, to catch my breath. Time wasn't on my side.

The bleeding…

The medic… I suspected it was Bat under the mask again. After pounding the energy field a few times, he switched to the wall and had already chewed forty centimetres into it. Chunks of rubble scattered under his blows.

The barrier Adam and Lina were hammering wasn't in much better shape. Cracks were flickering more and more often. On top of that, I was deliberately manoeuvring so that the needles, the ones I was still dodging, struck that very same shield behind me.

Thyzreth didn't like that. She shoved the tube back into a spatial pocket and pulled out a contactless injector.

"Seems I'll have to go back to plan A," she said, snapping out the ampoule and crushing it in her hand.

A heavy, black gas oozed out, rolling across the floor in thick clouds, but Thyzreth caught it with an Air technique and hurled it straight at me.

Poison?

I almost laughed, thinking of Novak's foresight. A pity I didn't have the antidote bracelet on me now, but my foundation alone carried strong resistance to toxins.

Of course, I tried to dodge, but the smoke caught me, burning my eyes and sliding into my throat, drying the mucous and choking off my breath in an instant.

I clutched at my throat theatrically, rasping as I leaned back and stepped away, the distance between me and Thyzreth was short.

Another step…

Now!

I lurched forward and sent Qi into my legs. One step, two, three!

Damn it! I have no helmet!

Bam!

My shield slammed into her formation and darkness swallowed my vision. Pain shot through my neck as if I'd run into a scythe, and my forehead felt like it had been hammered with a sledge. The backlash of the Iron Head froze me in place.

Not so for Thyzreth. Like the artefact needles before, she slammed into the wall, ricocheted off like a ball, and rolled uncontrollably across the floor to the barrier, the one where Bat had already broken through the wall, triggering the dome's doors to slam shut as the atmosphere thinned.

Thyzreth's body skidded to a stop on this side of the barrier, but her arm slipped past without obstruction.

Bat, already half through the breach, lunged for her, grabbed her arm, and yanked her outside. He whipped her like a rag doll, smashing her into the wall, then the floor, before stomping down and breaking her shoulder. Armour cracked with the crunch of joint.

Thyzreth screamed. Bat crushed her foot next.

Silver flared under his boot, a blast rang out, and her foot flattened.

"Jake!" he barked, scanning his own arm. "Shit! It's Black Death! How are you still standing?" He obviously hadn't been told everything by Novak.

Staying on my feet was getting harder. The world was blazing, swimming, threatening to slip out from under me altogether.

Bat pulled an auto-injector from his pocket and jabbed something into his own neck. Then he hauled the broken Thyzreth onto his shoulder, walked through the barrier, and without a word grabbed me as well, carrying me out the other side.

"Hospitalisation for two, now!" he ordered. "I breathed this shit too."

He set me down, and my legs gave way, but Lina caught me, unlike Thyzreth, who clattered to the floor like scrap metal. Bat immediately jabbed something into my neck, into the half that wasn't already covered in blood.

"You'll be fine, Jake," Lina promised, and I let myself relax.

Darkness swallowed the world.

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