Chapter 51: The Physics of Violence

Chapter 51: Chapter 51: The Physics of Violence

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." — Isaac Newton

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The duel began like a lightning strike, with no warning.

Victor Kole did not circle Joel or offer a salute. He had come to defeat a fraud in front of everyone, and he had no intention of talking first.

As the duel bell’s final echo faded, the vents on his gauntlet opened. A white bolt of lightning shot out like a snake, struck the arena floor, and sent cracks racing across it.

KRRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK.

Lightning spread across the gold circle in branching lines. The golden wards along the walls grew brighter as they absorbed the extra energy.

Three thousand people rose from their seats at once.

Victor Kole, the Year Three star, had opened his duel against a Level 1 student with enough power to kill him. The whole Academy had come to watch Joel burn.

Joel moved silently through the web of lightning using Phantom Tread. He wasn’t simply running away from the bolts. He was moving around their source.

On his way to the arena, he had studied Victor’s power the same way he studied any dangerous medicine: by reading the label first.

The storm is really two attacks hiding inside one, Joel thought as he slipped between two forks of lightning. An afterimage of his coat remained where he had been a moment earlier.

The first part is the lightning. It’s electricity, and my Frame can’t absorb it. At least that’s clear.

The second part is everything else—the pressure and the wind. Those are forces, and force is food for my Frame.

The wind struck at the same time as the lightning. Victor swept his free hand, sending sharp blades of air flying through the storm.

FWOOSH! FWOOSH!

Each blade was as wide as a wagon wheel, with sharp edges on every side.

Now Joel understood the full plan. The lightning forced his enemies to move where Victor wanted, while the wind blades cut them down. Together, the two attacks had ended many duels in this hall.

Joel raised his forearms and let the blades hit him.

The first blade struck Joel’s guard with two different sounds.

Its force hit his arms and flowed through the Frame into his energy reserve, like water filling a tank. But its sharp edge cut his forearm from wrist to elbow. The wound was clean and shallow, and it was already closing.

Joel stepped back once, then again, keeping his arms raised and his head down.

From the galleries, it looked exactly as the crowd had expected: a fraud being pushed back and beaten down.

"HE IS FINISHED," a voice howled from the second tier, and the mockery came down like the weather it was cheering for.

"THE F-RANK IS MINCEMEAT!"

"LOOK AT HIM BLEED! THE MIRACLE IS A MEAT WALL!"

[Ding!]

[Aegis Frame: kinetic component absorbed, 1,900 units.]

[Aegis Frame: kinetic component absorbed, 2,200 units.]

[Shear component: partial. Lacerations: 6, shallow, closing.]

[Reservoir: 31%.]

Six blades. Each one costs about two thousand units, Joel noted as he gave ground again. His heart remained calm, even as the crowd shouted for his blood.

The numbers are already clear. Victor Kole can only release a set amount of energy each cycle. His gauntlet needs eleven seconds to recharge. I’ve counted that cycle in the courtyard, in the archive, and in sixty-one recorded duels.

The man is a meter, and the meter never lies. No one has ever bothered to read it, because none of his opponents could afford to stand in front of him long enough to take notes.

•••

Victor fought like a weapon. The next few minutes showed just how fast he was.

Victor used the lightning to move through the air. In one heartbeat, he was at Joel’s side. THWIP! Lightning struck first, followed by a blast of wind.

Then Victor appeared at Joel’s blind side. He struck again from behind an afterimage, then again from another angle.

Each time, the lightning hit only Joel’s afterimage or missed him by inches. The wind blades, however, found his forearms. And every time, Joel’s arms were already raised and waiting.

The crowd saw it as a beating. Joel was covered in a dozen shallow cuts, and he kept retreating toward the edge of the arena, one step at a time. With every pass, the scanners displayed the same result on the public slate.

[External scan: Flesh-Guide (F), Level 1. Status: critical (cosmetic).]

"HE IS RUNNING! THE OUTER CITY TEACHES RUNNING!"

"He’s not running," Miss Albright said from the instructors’ row.

Her voice was calm and quiet. She was watching Joel’s feet, not his blood. His feet were never where the storm struck.

In the second tier, Odette Bellamy gripped the rail so hard her fingers dug into it. She said nothing. The eleven students with her had also gone quiet. They had stopped cheering several exchanges ago without even noticing.

Victor noticed.

He was a professional fighter, and he knew something was wrong. Right on time, at the two-minute mark, frustration began to show.

Victor landed in the center of the circle and let the lightning fade.

His storm-grey eyes fixed on Joel. The boy stood in a torn coat, backed against the edge of the arena. His arms were covered in blood, yet his breathing had not changed.

Something about the numbers refused to make sense.

Victor had fought in sixty-one duels. He knew exactly what his attacks did to people. Joel was losing by every measure the crowd could see. He was bleeding, trapped near the edge, and taking hit after hit.

Yet he was not dying. He was not slowing down. And after a hundred strikes, his guard had not dropped even an inch.

"You keep taking them," Victor said. The crackle was gone from his voice, leaving it cold. "The blades. You keep letting them hit you on purpose, you gutter rat. I want to know what you think you’re gaining from it."

"The bill will explain itself," Joel said.

"THEN TAKE THIS!"

Victor unleashed the full storm. He stopped holding back, and the arena saw the difference between Victor Kole when he was angry and Victor Kole when he meant to destroy his opponent.

Victor planted both feet and raised his gauntlet toward the sky.

The vents opened fully.

VMMMMMMMMM!

The storm gathered above the arena. A powerful cyclone began to form over the golden circle, growing wider as it spun. The pillar of rotating air stood three meters across, filled with winds sharp enough to tear through anything in their path.

The pressure dropped. The floor cracked beneath it.

KRK. KRK.

The crowd fell silent. Everyone at the Academy had seen this move once before, during the second-year tournament final. That match had ended with a fighter being carried away on a stretcher.

Now the cyclone rushed toward Joel, like a held breath finally released.

Joel Carrow’s energy reserve was seventy percent full. His ledger needed just one more entry.

He stepped forward to meet the storm. And walked straight into it.

•••

Inside the cyclone, the air was full of sharp, cutting winds. They tore into Joel at once.

The wind ripped his coat into strips.

SHNK-SHNK-SHNK!

Then it cut into the skin beneath.

The pain hit him everywhere at once. His forearms were cut open down to the white of bone in three places. His Vitality tried to heal the wounds, but the cyclone kept tearing them open again. His body was caught in a constant battle between healing and damage.

Joel planted his feet in the screaming center of the storm and held his guard.

The force of the entire cyclone rushed through his Frame. It was more than anything he had absorbed before. His energy reserve climbed through its final percentage points, each one paid for with his own flesh.

Dose logged, Joel thought through the pain, deep in the cold part of his mind.

Skin, tissue, forearms cut to the bone. My Vitality is barely keeping up.

This is the limit of the label. And the Wheel pays best at the limit.

[Ding!]

[Lethal condition sustained (sustained shear exposure, exsanguination risk).]

[Juggernaut Vitality: active. Blood volume: critical, stabilizing.]

[Survival Accumulation: 100%. Converting...]

[+1 Fate Point Earned. Current Balance: 15.]

[Reservoir: 100%. Overfull. Overcharge threshold: reached.]

[System Note: the account is full, the patient is still standing, and the storm has just made the largest deposit of its career.]

Joel Carrow stood in the center of the cyclone, his forearms covered in blood with bone showing through. His wounds closed as fast as the wind tore them open again. Neither side was winning.

Through the roaring wind and flying dust, he raised his head and looked across the arena at Victor Kole.

Victor’s storm-grey eyes widened. The so-called fraud was still standing. Worse, he was smiling through the blood.

At last, something deep in Victor’s training made him understand what had been happening all along.

The anvil was full, and the storm had paid the price.