77 Battle Between Soldiers (2/2)
With dense earth energy powering his ever attack, Carlos started to break through Hou Xin's defense as his every move caused Hou Xin to tremble and his bones to fracture. The rate of Hou Xin's defense decayed faster than it should have given the internal state of his body as judged by Elizabeth, and just when it seemed like Carlos would land the finishing blow… disaster struck.
DANGER! Elizabeth didn't receive any notifications from her functions but purely based on some sort of instinct, an ominous feeling shuttled through her spine as she watched Carlos' match-deciding punch finally breakthrough Hou Xin's double arm cross guard. Now paying extra close attention as chills in her spine only grew in intensity as time passed, Elizabeth could see Hou Xin bite down on something right before he faced sure defeat.
In that exact moment, Hou Xin was thinking 'Sucks that it has to be this way, but fuck if I'm the one responsible for Master's loss. Dumb kid! Blame yourself for not losing earlier!' His thoughts were fluent as he naturally though in his native language; Mandarin Chinese. With the quick twitch of his tongue, a red pill that had been hiding underneath this whole time landed right between his molars. The pill was crushed and activated almost instantaneously.
The instant Hou Xin ingested the pill, his eyes lit up in a dazzling red light show and what remained of his Inner Strength was immediately turned into Qi with power comparable to the Mid to Late-Phase of the Warrior Stage launching forth from his body. What remained of his reserves could only mimic the strength of the Warrior Stage for a couple instances, but that was all it took to main Carlos permanently…
With Fire Qi now brilliantly burning with a deep orange color, Hou Xin leveraged his Flames to thrust his body right before Carlos and with a single hand covered in orange flames, he singed off Carlos' left arm. It looked effortless, as the orange flames cut through Carlos' Earth Armor like butter, and to add insult to injury, even after becoming the winner, Hou Xin used the last bit of energy left in his body to land a devastating kick right on Carlos' chest before the last remaining dregs of his Qi vanished and his body collapsed in the ring.
...
”Whoa, lucky me~ Now I just need another round to win~” Amidst this tense environment, Jhan's happy-go-lucky attitude after Hou Xin crippled Carlos struck a nerve in the hearts of all those from Atid's faction. Not only was Carlos an old school member of Atid's Dojo, someone who joined when the dojo was built six years ago, but he was also a beloved member of the family-esque system the dojo had built over the years. Jhan's apparent meekness was of insulting proportions, but there was nothing Atid or the others frustrated at the moment could do about it.
Everyone could see that in the final exchange Hou Xin had used all of his power without reserve. To those not paying attention to that one specific action where Hou Xin bit down on the pill, it looked like there was no way Hou Xin would have been able to win without giving it his all. Though resentful, they knew the rules and could do nothing to vent their frustrations.
However, among the lines of people angry at the result, there was a single person who stood smiling. Elizabeth… it seemed that her insanity had been challenged today and she couldn't help but flash her trademark smile of schadenfreude as she went over to help Carlos recover. 'This guy… he fought for me and as a result, he's now a cripple…' She looked like someone who belongs alongside the worst spree killers and mass murderers of the world, with that smile that spoke volumes of the kinds of sinister thoughts crossing her mind.
Even if this was her first time witnessing the gore of another human, the distributed nature of her actions didn't seem to register in her brain. Not that it should, after all, she had seen and done worse things to several animals of the Shadow Realm. But to some people there was a difference between seeing the gore of another human and that of animals; Elizabeth just didn't seem to belong to this case.
She picked up the severed and maimed arm as well as Carlos' body, not at all minding the blood that stained her clothes, before reaching for her trusty Acupoint kit. As she stitched Carlos' arm back onto his body, not once did the intensity of her demonic smile die down, as the excitement of what was to come next spurred her insanity down further than it should perhaps go…