Chapter 34: Mysterious Challenger

-Tech City Spire-

With 4 days left until the auction, things had been quickly ramping up in the city. More and more powerful cultivators were entering the city and with that influx was the increase of people taking advantage of the cities services.

Namely, a lot of people were trying their hand at the Spire or at the Arena. On this day, James had been busy trying to ascend to the 22nd level of the tower when he got a coms from Jasmine.

“James, it would appear that a new contender has appeared in the arena for your 7 sins challenge. Both Jessy and Fatty have been defeated.”

James looked up the flight of steps he’d been ascending and then wiped the sweat from his face. He let out a long breath then turned and started walking back down the steps to exit the tower.

“So, I take it this person is challenging me next?” he asked Jasmine.

“No, the contender is challenging Goliath next. However, I was told to bring this to your attention because they have used dual elements. Jessy is also of the opinion that you will definitely want to meet this person.”

“I see. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. We can’t expect to be undefeatable in the True Spirit Realm. That would be arrogant even for me.”

A few minutes later, James walked out of the tower and then shot off like a streak of lightning through the streets towards the arena.

-Tech City Arena-

When James got to the True Spirit Arena, Goliath had just walked out to the centre to meet the challenger. This person was rather short, and their lack of stature was only exacerbated by Goliaths 7 feet of muscle.

The challenger had their face hidden in the shadow of their hood, and they wore a plain black robe allowing no one much insight into who they were. At their waist was a single sword on a belt not too different from the one that James now wore.

Standing opposed to the challenger was Goliath donning blood red leather armour and wearing a horned helmet made of bone. Held in a single hand by his side was a massive War Hammer that was the length of his body. The hammers head was the size of a 40-gallon drum and was pitch black, letting no light escape it.

The seats around the arena were packed to bursting with tens of thousands of spectators screaming and cheering. James jumped up to the top of the arena wall and looked down over the arena battlefield.

The arena was built to give all element affinities a fair chance, and it had parts from all 4 major elements. A long narrow stream wiggled through the centre like a long snake and the ground was loose dirt and stone. Placed around the arena were long iron torches sticking out of the ground and naturally, there was air.

As James looked down at the challenger, they too turned and looked up directly at James. Even while looking up, the hooded robes seemed to hide their face, everything that is, except for the bright blue eyes that stared back out from the shadows.

James sat down on the wall and cocked his head to the side as the two of them began a staring match, only to be interrupted quickly after by the ‘ding’ of the arena bell signally the start of the match. The challenger’s attention very quickly reverted back to Goliath and their hand fell to the hilt of their sword as they lowered into a battle stance.

Goliath grinned and spun his hammer around a few times like it was a plastic toy. Then without any further delay, he charged forwards with the hammer held in both hands off to one side. Seeing the huge mass of meat that was the Goliath of Wrath speeding towards them, the challenger rapidly drew their sword sending a series of wind blades through the air towards Goliath.

Goliath didn’t even seem to register them as he barrelled onwards and let them slice across his arms and legs. As they impacted and dissipated on his body, his eyes began to glow red, and his speed increased. The shallow cuts on his body began to rapidly heal, and his every step began to send out earth ripples in every direction.

Luckily for the spectators, the earth ripples reached the edge of the arena only to be dissipated by the flashing arrays all along the outsides of the arena. Having their stance disrupted, the challenger was forced to move and chose to advance towards Goliath instead of creating distance.

Seeing this person finally making a move, James’ eyes opened wide in surprise. Whoever this person was, they were fucking fast. Even James had to admit that without using his lightning energy, he would find it difficult to properly track their movements.

As he watched on, the contender seemed to float across the earth ripples and when only a few meters from Goliath, they disappeared and reappeared like an apparition in front of him while swinging the sword down in a chopping motion.

To the spectator’s great surprise, Goliath made no move to attack or defend to the front where the contender just appeared and instead smashed his foot into the ground and rolled off to the left while swinging his hammer to the right.

In almost the same moment he smashed his foot down, the apparition in front of him disappeared and reappeared to the right swinging their sword in a sideways slash. Goliaths face made a savage grin as his massive war hammer connected with the challenger’s sword and then a boom rattled the arena, and a huge cloud of dust rose up shielding the spectator’s view.

The challenger was shot out the other side of the cloud like a bullet from a gun and very quickly found themselves face planting with the normally invisible protection arrays around the edge of the arena. After a flashy light show from the array field, the challenger fell to the ground and slowly began to pick herself up.

The crowd was going wild, and it seemed they mostly believed that Goliath had just secured his victory. On the other hand, James sitting far above at the top of the arena cupped his chin with a frown. His quiet contemplation was very quickly interrupted when Exsue suddenly appeared on his lap and started rubbing her face against him like a cat.

“You better not get any funny ideas Jay Jay. If you try and hit on that bitch just because she has the lightning attribute I’ll just kill her.” Exsue purred into his ear.

James’ face made a series of different changes and then settled on a questioning one with his eyebrow cocked. “She? How do you know it’s a girl? And how do you know they have lightning attribute?”

Exsue pouted and looked at James with a frowny face. “Don’t play games with me Jay Jay. She might be wearing robes, but any self-respecting man can tell it’s a she after seeing her figure moving around. And we both know that she must have lightning attribute, I can sense it when she uses it just like when I sense another person’s cultivation level.”

James looked back down at the arena and his face soon formed into a frown. “This isn’t good Exsue. It means they’re probably already here.”

“They? Who is this bitch?”

“I don’t know. But I have three theory’s and only one of them is good.”

While James and Exsue had their little discussion, the dust in the arena had finally settled revealing Goliath using his hammer to stand and covered in rapidly healing cuts and blood dripping from his body. On the other side of the arena was the now once again standing challenger wiping the blood from their mouth and breathing heavily.

After taking a step forward, they reached to their ribs showing they most likely received quite a bit of internal damage from that short bout. Goliath’s eyes were now glowing so brightly they looked like flashlights beams of red and his face had a disgustingly broad smile.

He then took a long breath and lifted his hammer in both hands as he once more moved towards his challenger. Seeing the mountain of muscles stepping forward again, the woman picked up her sword from the ground and after a few swings returned it to its sheath.

Also taking a deep breath, she began walking forwards as well. When the two were about 20 meters apart, the challenger pulled her sword out again and following it from the sheath was a long arc of lightning that fired directly towards Goliath. To her consternation, Goliath just raised his hammer and the lightning bolt was sucked into the head.

James couldn’t help but give a chuckle watching this. Of all the people to fight against with lightning, Goliath might have been the worst. He and James had both had uncountable sparring sessions, and Goliath had long since thought up countermeasures for all of James’ tricks. It was also the reason he had been able to predict the high-speed feint in their earlier collision.

Seeing their trump card being so carelessly rendered useless, the challenger changed tact and started to run in a circle around Goliath. Their speed increased bit by bit, and soon they looked like a single blurry ring. Seeing where this was heading, Goliath’s face grew solemn.

Very soon numerous blades of wind were slashed out from the circling blur heading towards weak points like joints or arteries. Goliath began to spin his hammer like a staff and as it spun it danced around his body deflecting wind blade after wind blade.

Just when things looked like they were going to develop into a battle of attrition, the wind blades increased in magnitude to become an uncountable wave of deadly sharp blades all closing in on Goliath.

Seeing things devolve so quickly, Goliath gave a loud grunt and swung his hammer with full force into the ground. A huge ripple like a crushing wave spread out from Goliath and engulfed the incoming wind blades like the sea.

Another dust storm rose up in the arena, but the focus of the battle quickly shifted as Goliath shot out one side of the dust cloud swinging his hammer defensively while the challenger fired off blindingly fast stabs and slashes from their sword.

The cuts and wounds continued to build up on Goliath’s body until his movement suddenly stopped and another huge swing of the hammer deflected the sword and sent it flying across the arena. The challenger took this opportunity and closed the tiny little remaining distance until she managed to land a hand on Goliath’s arm.

Seeing this, James suddenly stood up and dropped Exsue onto the ground. “Oh god, please don’t tell me she’s about to...”

Before his words finished, Goliaths body began to spasm and jerk. This only happened for a second until the glow in Goliath’s eyes grew frighteningly bright and his head reared back releasing a demonic roar that shook the stadium.

The entire arena began to shake, and a pulse of air blew out from Goliaths body like a small explosion. Much to James’ surprise, Goliath’s roar died in his throat, and he suddenly became limp then collapsed.

The crowd was silent in shock and then seeing the challenger having won against three of the Sins in a row, they went mad. Cheering and applause echoed out over half the city as they screamed, yelled and stamped their feet like savages.

James stood on the top of the arena wall looking down at the now unconscious Goliath and the huffing and wheezing challenger who was leaning on her knees trying to keep herself standing upright. James couldn’t stop himself from mumbling as he cupped his chin and his face darkened.

“What the hell was that?”

Exsue, who’d climbed back up and was now sitting piggyback on James’ back again, looked down curiously at the arena. “What was what? She just shocked him into unconsciousness right?”

“No, I doubt it. I doubt even you could shock Goliath into unconsciousness anymore. He seems to have developed some kind of hatred for it from our training, and now it only drives him into momentary insanity. He becomes mindless in his rage and destroys everything. Last time I did it, he nearly killed me. Normally takes him a while to calm down and I’ve never seen him drop like that before. There’s something else going on here.”

After a brief time of catching her breath, the challenger left the arena, and the crowd began to quieten down again. James had Goliath dragged back to the Lab where Skay began a battery of tests from the standard to invasive but found nothing out of the ordinary.

James then called Jessy and Fatty down to the Lab after watching their recorded battles with the challenger and questioned them. Both of them went down in similar ways and woke up the next day which was why Jessy had brought this to James’ attention.

Neither of them could explain what happened when they were touched be the stranger and could only say they suddenly become drowsy and then unconscious.

James was both excited and worried by this news. He began to have a number of suspicions but chose to discuss none of them. He wouldn’t know for certain until he met this person himself.

Unfortunately, the challenger chose instead to battle Exsue the next day.

With only three days until the auction, the news that someone had managed to defeat three sins in a row was huge. The city was in an uproar of excitement, and the entire arena was packed to bursting the next day with spectators pushing beyond the hundred thousand mark.

James once again sat on his perch up on a random spot along the coliseum-like wall and looked down at the arena. All prior damage had been repaired overnight, and the challenger and Exsue stood facing each other at opposite ends of the arena.

Exsue, of course, was looking up at James throwing him suggestive looks only to be enraged by the fact all of his attention was instead focused onto the challenger, who also happened to be looking up at James with those clear blue eyes again.

As opposed to the curious look James had yesterday, his face was now emotionless and void of expression. Soon, the ‘ding’ of the arena bell rang and before the contender even had the chance to lower into a stance a huge bolt of lightning flew across the length of the arena and connected with her shoulder throwing her into the array force field.

James couldn’t help but slightly pity this girl for having chosen Exsue to battle. The fact that James had been paying her any attention would undoubtedly make Exsue jealous. Making it worse, she was another person with lightning affinity, which doubly increased Exsue’s envy at the lady drawing James’ eye.

Exsue was already rushing across the arena and lifting her hand for another lightning bolt before the challenger had even finished climbing back up from the ground. As she forced herself to her feet, she pulled the sword from its sheath on her hip and let a huge arc fly out to deflect Exsue’s next attack.

In less than a second Exsue was within striking distance and her hands were formed into claws dancing with lightning as she swung at the face of her opponent. Seeing herself being dragged into a difficult close range battle, the challenger instead ducked back while slashing with her sword to create distance.

She then flipped her sword and swung back again releasing a wind blade that was simply swatted from the air by Exsue’s lightning claw. “You little bitch! I’m gonna kill ya! Jay Jay is mine!”

With that short statement made, Exsue launched forwards to engage again. Her body swayed and disappeared until reappearing like a ghost right behind the challenger and swinging a lightning claw down. The challenger gave a ‘harrumph’ and ducked down while spinning back and slashing against the claw.

A crisp ‘clang’ rang out when the two connected and the challenger and Exsue both shot apart a few meters sliding along the ground. The challenger made a flourish with her sword and then inserted it back into its sheath while lowering herself down in preparation to strike again.

Exsue also slid to a stop and dropped down with both hands out to her sides flashing with lightning. James was rather surprised by the look she had on her face. It was the first time he’d ever seen Exsue look serious about anything. He almost felt bad now, as he thought back to how much she seemed to love him. That thought quickly disappeared when he reminded himself how absolutely crazy she was.

As the two ladies in the ring faced off against each other with menacing glares, an eerie silence fell over the crowd in the arena. The tension in the air began to grow until it felt like the air in the arena was actually vibrating, and the pressure was slowly ramping up like sinking into the depths of the ocean.

Finally, this menacing aura was interrupted when a patron of the arena let rip a ground shaking fart, and the two contestants suddenly disappeared from sight. Moments later they both reappeared, and the clang of the claws and sword connecting with each other rang out.

The crowd erupted into cheers as the duo disappeared from sight again, only to reappear a few meters away locked in combat once more.

The rate at which they collided began to increase, and soon clangs and screeches rang out through the arena before the previous ones had even died out. The duo managed to traverse half the arena before they finally split apart again.

They both looked a little worse for wear with bleeding cuts covering their bodies and their robes torn ragged along the arms and legs. Exsue looked especially bad, mostly because her eyes were bloodshot and she was foaming at the mouth. She looked like she was on the verge of having a fit.

Although you still couldn’t see the challenger’s face under her hood, you could tell she was pretty drawn out after having that brief contest of speed with Exsue.

Before the crowd had the chance to allow the eerie pressure to descend again like last time, Exsue stood back up straight and looked down her nose at the challenger. “You’re pathetic. You’ll never be worthy of Jay Jay you cheap hussy.”

Exsue then dispelled her lightning claws and fired off an arc at the bell in the arena, to signal her withdrawal. The moment the bell rang out, the challenger dropped her sword to the ground and fell to her knees puffing like she’d just escaped a natural disaster.

James was beyond surprised. Knowing Exsue’s nature, he never expected her to resign from a match. Especially against another woman with the lightning element. He was pretty sure she’d probably have killed her if the chance came about.

As the staff of the arena escorted the challenger out, and all the patrons filed out of the exits, Exsue jumped up along the wall until she was next to James again. Seeing her hardly out of breath and with only a few cuts and bruises he couldn’t help but cock his head and raise his eyebrow.

“What’s going on Exsue? It’s not like you to concede a fight. Don’t tell me you don’t think you could win?”

Hearing this from James, Exsue gave ‘humph’, pouted, stamped her foot, and then turned to face the now empty arena. She raised both hands above her head and channelled her spirit energy. Very quickly a massive lightning ball 5 meters in diameter formed over her head and with a little flick of her arms it rocketed into the centre of the arena.

Following this, the entire centre of the arena exploded, and the shock wave crumbled the array barrier like it was brittle, aged paper. The debris decimated the seats along with the few poor individuals that had failed to leave the arena yet. After the dust had settled, Exsue turned up her nose and, for the first time since they met, she walked away from James.

James couldn’t help but scratch his head and sigh as he glanced at Exsue and then back to the huge crater that was once the True Spirit Arena. Without even asking, Jasmine already had drones flying in from all over the city clearing debris and rebuilding.

With the excitement of the day over, James returned to the underground training arena at HQ and started training. From that little show by Exsue, he now understood just how limited his understanding of lightning was. Although it’s true that she had 7 times as much lightning spirit energy as he did, the speed and level at which she could manifest it was clearly leagues above his own. This showed just how limited his experience was.

It was true that his understanding allowed him to bridge the gap between himself and a True Spirit realm who had dozens if not hundreds of years more experience than him, but it was also clear that it would never be equal to the millions of years of experience Exsue had.

With that thought in mind, he sat down in his room and began to consciously circulate his breathing technique at maximum power. He very quickly discovered something strange happening after a while and then suddenly realised that he wasn’t alone in his Spirit Realm.

Sitting cross-legged on a floating piece of ‘solid energy’ was Gold James who was apparently also cultivating. Normally, James left his True Spirit body floating cross-legged in the middle of his lightning nucleus, and for the first time in a long while, he returned his main focus to his spirit realm and let the real world bend away to the peripherals.

Spirit James stood up and stretched for a bit, then floated over to Gold James who continued to sit and meditate on his orbiting grey asteroid. Spirit James gave a little cough to get his attention, only to be ignored. Feeling displeased that he was being ignored by himself, Spirit James summoned a ball of fire and proceeded to create a flamethrower directly into Gold James’ face.

~Arghh! What the fuck are you doing?!~ Screamed Gold James as he clutched his charred face and rolled off the floating grey rock, landing in the ocean of water down below.

Spirit James gave a sadistic smile then sat down on the rock and checked his cultivation speed again, then started mumbling to himself. “Now that is strange. I thought he couldn’t manifest spirit energy in the body ... but he was definitely just cultivating my hands of time in reverse, and I could feel my cultivation speed almost double.”

While grumbling and cursing, Gold James rocketed up out of the clear liquid element down below and floated up next to Spirit James. Before he had the chance to return the flamethrower to the face, a bolt of lightning streaked out from the lightning nucleus and engulfed him.

Spirit James just chuckled then opened his eyes from his self-inspection and began to question the now once again charred Gold James. “What was that you were doing just now? I thought you can’t manifest spirit energy at all. How did you activate reversed hands of time in the body simultaneous with mine?”

Gold James, after brushing off the soot on his robes, cast a sideways glance at James then began to pat his chest proudly while explaining.I couldn’t at first. But then it suddenly occurred to me that you think I’m your subconscious and that I’m the one who runs your breathing technique when you’re out there doing busy stuff, so when you finally decided to come back and consciously take over breathing, I started breathing in reverse to test it.~

Spirit James scratched his head then cupped his chin while staring off into the endless space of his spirit world. “So you mean to say, that it’s me who’s limiting you, and not your own limitations. Perhaps some part of me is reticent to relinquish too much control, and you could only do what you did because I already consciously accepted that you should be able to do that.”

Gold James was also busily staring off into the endless white space while picking his nose and nodding his head.Sure, sounds about right. I don’t know why you’re so worried though. After all, I am you. I doubt I’d be doing anything you wouldn’t be doing.~

Spirit James cocked his head to the side then shot a glance at Gold James. “Are you though?”

Gold James then cast him another sidelong glance and put his hands on his hips.Am I what? Part of you? Sure, what the hell else would I be?~

“Well, that’s still up for debate. Your more like some kind of parasite I think.”

~Hmm well, let’s test it then. Let’s play paper scissors rock.~

“That’s hardly an accurate test. For all I know, you’re a parasite that can read my mind, which only makes you even more dangerous to give any control too.”

~Wow, talk about paranoid. For starters, we already know that we’re two sides of the same person because we can both control our spirit energy. Although, I’m beginning to wonder if I am a reflection of your subconscious. If I were, I shouldn’t be able to communicate so easily, or probably at all. Not just that, but we should be of one mind, not separate. Although we no doubt have identical thought patterns because we share the same brain, we are without doubt separate individuals ... like Siamese twins or something.~

“That’s true. Maybe it would be more accurate to call you a clone of my conscious and subconscious. That doesn’t explain why your control would be so limited though. Let’s try something to test that theory. I’ll try and... ‘allow’ you to manifest energy in my body instead of only assisting me.”

Spirit James then returned to the body and began consciously trying to let Gold James manifest Spirit Energy. A few short minutes later, James suddenly felt his perception speed up, and the world slow down, while his body began to vibrate with lightning energy.

~WAHOO! Haha, lightning energy for the win!~

James just gave a wry grin then consciously tried to limit Gold James again. Very quickly the energy dissipated and a loud moan of dissatisfaction came from Gold James.Aww man! Com’on dawg. Just let me ... you know, fire some lightning bolts or something.~

James let out a long sigh and not for the first time, reflected on how childlike his spirit clone was sometimes. He then consciously tried to release full control of everything and suddenly felt a strange sensation. For the first time in his life, he felt like a passenger in his own body.

James suddenly stood up and started looking at his hands then waving them about. Very quickly his body suddenly jerked and James felt himself regain full control of his body. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and heaved a sigh of relief as he gripped his hands into fists and then released them.

~Woh! Dude! That was mad. I actually moved the hands ... and the arms! Holy Crap I moved the body! HAHAHA WOOO!!~

James grimaced as Gold James ran around in their spirit realm whooping it up and screaming his joy at the top of his lungs. He then willed it, and Gold James once again was dispelled into nothingness while James stood in the training arena mumbling to himself.

“Man that was dangerous. The feeling of being in the passenger seat of my own body. Ugh! It was disgusting.”

James then decided to try and forget the sensation and resummoned Gold James. “Ok Goldy, let’s try that again.”

James then consciously allowed Gold James to materialise spirit energy and moments later little arcs of electricity were shooting off his body all over the place. A small whirlwind then appeared followed by flames, mist and earth shaking. Unfortunately, even with them both trying together, they couldn’t materialise true plasma without using the lightning element to excite the air.

With the testing out of the way, James and Gold James then resumed cultivating with their joint efforts, creating two separate clocks inside the body. One running clockwise and the other running anti-clockwise.

Strangely, this allowed him to have almost every single one of his elements active in the body at any one time without the normal huge backlash he would feel.

-Jetsu Mountain Range-

With only two days left until the auction and the Arena still being rebuilt, this time with stronger array barriers, James decided it was about time to do a little job he’d been putting off. As the suns rose in the east, James, Goliath and Exsue mounted up on Harvy’s Velocity along with 30 of the guilds best and most trustworthy members.

Tagging along on this ride was Gary, with his one good arm and face marred by burn scars. Why James brought him along on this trip, no one but James knew.

The destination today was the Jetsu Mountain Range. The most dangerous and volatile area for 600 km in every direction. 200 km of unexplored wilderness filled to the brim with powerful spirit beasts beyond the imagination of the entire continent.

Thanks to the huge difference in primal spirit energy in the area, the mountain range was beyond Jasmine’s ability to scan or view from the satellite in orbit. Even their usual coms didn’t work in this area without the assistance of a booster they had on board the gunship.

After a casual 12 minute flight from Tech City, the gunship floated around on the outskirts of the mountain range at a low altitude. James moved to the war room behind the cockpit while the guild members all began to suit up in their Mk II Combat Suits.

Seeing Goliath seated and waiting with his huge hammer on the ground and Gary just sitting there looking confused, James gave a little nod and then tapped his ear. “Jasmine, how far have you managed to get the drones into this area? Have you confirmed the location of the beast yet?”

“Of course James. Although the drones aren’t capable of entering more than 5 kilometres into the mountains, readings of electrical activity are markedly higher in this region of the mountains. At best estimate, the beast you’re searching for shouldn’t be more than 7 or 8 km in. I should point out, that video feed and other recordings varied wildly. The drones often came out showing they’d used markedly more energy than necessary to travel 5 kilometres.”