I rose from the workstation a new demon. My body felt perfect; all of the remaining impurities had been hammered out of me and melted away. Possibilities about my new capabilities raced through my head and an intense desire flowed through me.

  I clenched my fist, a small shockwave emanated from the sheer force. The rest of my muscles flexed. They roared like a supercar being revved to the limiter. It needed to be released, it needed to be tried out.

  “I see you’re eager,” Master commented as he cleaned his workstation.

  “Thank you, Master, I feel like a killing machine,” I thanked with a bow. “I think that I can show you something interesting now.”

  “Oh?” Master said with an interested expression. “I'll give you a moment to acclimate yourself. Are you sure that you wish to test it out against me?”

  “There is no better person than to test myself against.”

  Master left his workstation. The hut folded away to leave only untouched nature behind. The ox demon’s face darkened along with the sky overhead. Black clouds rolled in and punished the earth with lightning strikes. He cracked his bones, each popping sound timing with a boom of thunder.

  His eyes glowed red with bloodlust and his oppressive aura pressed down on the world. He smashed his fists together and created an explosion like a bomb. I had to dig my talons into the ground as much of the earth was ripped up and sent sailing in different directions.

  “Do not fail me here, Ishmael!” Master warned with a guttural roar. “Don’t get me excited just to be a disappointment!”

  He lunged forward, the entire mountaintop disintegrating under his force. He arrived in front of me in an instant. Swirling mana coated his hands and led his punch in a spiral motion.

  I grinned wildly. I stepped out of the way, my body gliding through the air at supersonic speeds. Master’s punch swung through the air, creating a vortex that eroded away at the stone and sent debris in all directions.

  I moved behind him, loading up a devastating punch of my own. My arm superheated with fiery mana. Steam billowed from gaps in my scales and my punch made a sound that screamed through the sky.

  Master ducked below my fist, allowing the scorching wind to pass over him. A spiraling punch formed on his fist again. I felt the air around me getting sucked into the miniature tornado.

  I did not want to dodge again. I twisted my body and jabbed forward with my other arm. Another burning limb was sent blazing forward at the speed of a rocket launch.

  Our fists met in the middle. Heat mixed with wind to create a burning tornado that set the world ablaze. It felt like I was standing in an industrial oven. My scales heated up like ceramic plates, but my improved body managed the temperature admirably.

  What did not manage the impact admirably, was my arm. The limb was caught in the twisting motion of Master’s vortex. My response strike only intensified the winds, directly leading to my shoulder joint being twisted to such a degree that my arm was wrenched free from the socket and sent flying off into the distance like a doublewide in a Category Five tornado.

  I hopped back, giving myself the space to regrow my arm. At the same time, Master was inspecting his own hand. Blackened scorch marks covered his bloodied knuckles. However, the look he gave me was one of disgust.

  “Why didn’t you use it?” He demanded. “You could have inflicted me with a terrible debuff there.”

  “I don’t want to ruin our fight,” I answered. “It always ruins the fight.”

  “Ruins?” Master bellowed. “You think you can afford holding back on me after everything I said? I will show you my full might and you can tastes the ashes of a pathetic defeat.”

  Master moved his body in almost a rhythmic dance. His limbs flowed with an elegance that his form did not possess. He opened his eyes and threw a punch into the open air. I tensed up in expectation of him moving towards me, but his feet did not shift at all.

  A split second later, a force equivalent to being hit by a speeding oil tanker caught me in the body. I was sent sailing through the sky like a kite wrenched from a child’s hand by the wind. Another one struck me while I was trying to get out of my tumble, sending me flying higher up.

  I dove down as another strike smashed through where I had just been. I could barely see Master’s form all the way in the distance. He hadn’t moved and inch while I was likely already a mile away.

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  “He can punch me from here?” I questioned with awe.

  I rushed back at him. More punches flew my way like anti-air missiles to my position. Like a jet fighter, I took evasive maneuvers; weaving my body around in ways that avoided as much of the blast damage as I could. I could not perfectly mitigate all of it, but what did get through were handled by my upgraded scales.

  Quickly, I managed to close the gap. I twisted under and punch and readied my own. The speed I was carrying would generate an impact like an atom bomb.

  I smashed my fist into Master’s midsection. It felt like a car hitting a brick wall. There was barely any give from Master’s body, but my arm felt like it was going to rip apart into tiny pieces.

  Master caught my upper arm, spinning me around in the direction of my momentum before ripping me upwards and then slamming me down with all of his force. I could have sworn a lung flew out of my mouth as I was driven several feet into the rock.

  Another hundred feet of mountain disintegrated into sand, dropping the both of us. I used my wings to take advantage of Master’s lost footing. I speared him with both of my fists and drove him down into the mountain with a shower of rocks.

  “Why do you continue to insist on disrespecting me?” Master demanding, absorbing my punch without any difficulty. “You will need everything you have if you hope to even come close to putting up a fight.”

  I punched him again, this time with my hand coated with iron. The [Iron Fist] smashed him in the face, keeping his body stuck in place. I punched down again, striking him in the head. Finally, I was getting somewhere. I couldn’t do this endlessly, but I had to make hay while the sun was still shining.

  A hurricane-grade gust of wind pushed me off of Master’s body. He got up and dusted himself off. He pressed the side of his snout and blew out some bloody mucus.

  “More! Give me more!” He challenged.

  A blast of wind burst off of his body again, trying to push me back. I forced my way through with my strength. I charged forward with my fists rocketing out. I tried various mix-up combinations that I knew, shifting from form to form, style to style. It felt sloppy, off-kilter; a car made of parts from several different models. I couldn’t use the forms that Grendel taught me, Master would know them all by hearts.

  He joined my combat, weaving his body through my assault. He threw a flurry of close, tight punches, forcing me to dance around him.

  I punched out with my [Iron Fist] catching him on the elbow and temporarily freezing his body. I jumped up, anticipating the burst of wind to drive me away. It allowed him to regain his mobility, but it gave me the angle to begin another flurry.

  We exchanged more punches, each of them building up the damage in my body. I was starting to feel worn, but I could not find any telltale signs of fatigue building up on Master.

  His stats must be superb.

  He stomped the ground, sending a shockwave through the air. I hopped to avoid losing balance. A fist came at my body and threw an intercepting punch laced with [Iron Fist].

  Then, a drained feeling covered my body, sapping it of strength. My mana levels were critically low.

  The punch landed, but I was sluggish in getting myself away. Master’s hand grabbed my around the neck and wrenched me closer to his furious face.

  “Is that all you have?” Master bellowed.

  He lifted me up in the air before slamming me onto my back. His foot came down to stomp me into atoms. I tried to move, but my muscles did not want to cooperate in the way that I wanted. I could move, but it would be far too little, far too late. This was as far as my current abilities would be able to take me.

  Death may as well been written on the bottom of his foot. It was over for me. I didn’t have any regrets; I fought the way that I wanted to and got the challenge that I craved.

  Master was everything that I hoped him to be.

  I accepted the death coming my way, my mind already moving on to the rematch. I needed to use [Iron Fist] more sparingly. I needed to have a well-thought out plan as to what the following moves would be. My current strategy was not effective enough.

  The foot stopped short of my face. The certain death that I saw in his move did not come. Instead, I heard a frustrated sigh.

  “Why did you stop?” I asked.

  “Just as you denied me a piece of your fighting, I will deny you some of mine. I must also ask you, did you give up and accept your fate there?”

  “On this round,” I answered. “But, I have some ideas for the next round.”

  “Next round? What next round?” Master spat. “You disrespected me. You, didn’t fight me with the same sincerity that I fought you. And, to insult me further, you surrendered your life to me when you still had more to offer. This is what you were so excited to show me? This worthless shit? I should have known better than to have such expectations. I thought you were a kindred spirit!”

  Each word of Master’s scolding bled me worse than the fight itself. Was this what it felt like to be on the other end of a boring beat down?

  “So this was how Wrath felt when he fought me for the first time?” Master wondered aloud. “I am shocked that he bothered to fight me at all.”

  “I’m sorry, Master,” I apologized. “I should have given you a worthy fight.”

  “You should have,” he agreed. “Instead, you fought me in a way that would only bring you satisfaction. Even if you did win by holding your cards tight, do you think I would have been pleased that you found me unworthy of your entire potential?”

  Ah, maybe this was why others weren’t overly interested in fighting me. I was a selfish lover, only taking for myself and not giving back in return. Master wanted to face [The Great Decay]. He wanted to feel his stats drain as he tried to battle his way through it, but I denied him, content to feel his full fury without offering it back.

  “You remind me more of myself that I initially realized,” Master spoke again. “This pride was something that I once expressed without humility. It agitates me, the way your behavior feels like I’m looking at a mirror.”

  “Allow me to fight again,” I requested. “This time, I will use my entire heart and soul to give you a proper victory.”

  “No,” Master denied. “I can tell that you have yet to truly galvanize your abilities. You must earn yourself a rematch.”

  “What must I do?”

  “Fight the cave guardians until you can defeat all three of them in a single move. Don’t come back until you know exactly, move by move, how you would bring the end of my life. I will not do you the dishonor that Wrath did me by allowing that rematch. Now, go.”