Dokeshi March ~ 11!

The Ushi-Oni ignored Grant’s approach, judging the gauntlet-wielding pink-haired prodigy as the greater threat. He was more than happy to teach them the error of their ways. Dropping his shoulder, Grant slammed into the nearest gyuki and planted his pauldron in its thorax, while his sword stabbed at the base of its bull ear. The impact pitched the freaky spider monster to its side, allowing his sword to slice deeply across its throat.

One-hit kill! Weapon cultivation increased by 30% for 10 minutes!

“One down, two to go!” He was able to dodge the spray of blood that shot out of the monster, but he wasn’t able to avoid the spear-like tip of the monster’s chitinous leg. It was more bad luck than on purpose, as the Ushi-Oni spasmed in its death throes. Grant shouted as the lethal appendage pierced his forearm. Damage notifications flashed through his eyes, momentarily blinding him. “Bwah!”

Damage taken: 31 piercing (31 mitigated.)

<Focus! That yokai is dead, but it isn’t done yet!> Sarge’s shout was all the warning Grant needed. He rolled backwards, away from the monster attacking him. His arm tore away from the leg attempting to impale him, but he ignored the shooting pain making his hand numb. The bleeding yokai was desperately trying to get back to its feet, its spidery limbs clattering on the cobblestoned street. <Sword and mind must be united!>

Once again, Grant had no idea what that meant, so he just knelt in a sprinter’s stance and darted under the oversized creature as it regained its footing. He ran resolutely through the curtain of blood still pouring from the gaping neck wound, dragging the uchigatana across the length of the bulbous abdomen. It was a wonderfully destructive attack, forcing the monster to plummet to the ground, its insides now on the outside.

“Oh, that’s awful!” The smell was like a punch in the face to his senses, and he retched in disgust. “I need to figure out something else for the next one.”

Now that his first opponent was staying down, he could focus on what the other two were doing. Suki was facing both of the remaining Ushi-Oni at once, and the fight appeared to be pretty evenly balanced. She was too fast for even the dashing movements of the oxen-spider-creatures to keep up with, though her giant gauntlets weren’t doing much visible damage to the monsters. It was an endurance game to see who would tire first. Given what he knew about Suki, he would gamble all he had on her winning.

The obvious move was for Grant to jump in right away to help, but he was facing the difficult decision of when exactly to do it. They were fighting as if almost in a choreographed dance, and he was worried about timing his intervention poorly—it could distract Suki’s rhythm and end in disaster.

<Engage in combat fully determined to die, and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle, and you will surely meet death!> Sarge’s howl sparked Grant into action. He knew the sword spirit was right; overthinking things would only slow his reflexes, and he needed to be in top form.

Getting stabbed just once from the ox-spider monster, even with blocking all the damage from the glancing blow, left his arm so numb that he wondered if the creature had been covered in a contact poison. He needed to be careful, or it would be a short fight. The blood from his defeated foe was dripping off his elbow, seeming to fall in slow motion as he sprinted toward the cow-sized monsters attacking the petite girl.

Suki saw him coming and timed a punch to land on the horn of the gyuki he was charging. It positioned the head so the creature didn’t see his approach, allowing him to amputate the rear left leg where it met the thorax.

The Ushi-Oni began lowing in a mix of pain and anger, quickly spinning in place to confront the new combatant. Unfortunately for Suki, that meant its bulbous rear slammed into her just as she was turning back to face the other monster. She went flying straight into the waiting claws of the third gyuki.

Grant was dealing with his own struggles; the surprisingly quick spin of the ox-spider indicated that the monster he had killed at first must have been the weakest and slowest of the trio. His hypothesis was reinforced when the front legs of the yokai darted toward his face in an uneven staccato, their sharpened tips like spearpoints aimed at his most vital areas.

Training to deflect incoming threats served him well. February Twenty Nine seemed to block the incoming limbs with a will of its own. Grant didn’t even have to think about angling his blade to force them out of alignment; the hardened chitin of the spidery legs created an eruption of squealing metal as their length ran along the edge of the sword.

When the creature reared back to gore Grant with its horns, he ducked forward into a roll that put him within easy striking distance of the gyuki’s right eye. He stabbed deep but found he didn’t have the leverage to push through the back of the eye socket into the brain. Fortunately, the blow did manage to force the monster to scuttle backwards in pain. Taking the opportunity to glance around, Grant noticed the predicament Suki was in. She had grasped a spider limb in each hand and was twisting and dodging the butting head as it tried to pummel her.

<Let her fight her own battle! You worry about your own opponent, then help her.> Grant’s focus snapped back to the gyuki in front of him. <Get in there and finish this!>

He put action behind Sarge’s orders, leaping over an outflung limb on the creature’s blind side and stabbing his sword through the side of the thorax. He twisted his grip, widening the wound before ripping free and rolling under the downward-striking limbs. The ichor dripping from the wounds he had inflicted made the footing slippery on the cobblestone street, so he jumped backwards into the more open area of the intersection.

The monster fighting Suki must have reacted to Grant moving closer, because a sudden shout of victory from her was immediately followed by the sound of pained lowing. Grant’s opponent seemed reluctant to move into the more open area, its spidery instincts convincing it that the more confined space of the narrow street provided more protection.

<You have it scared!> Sarge’s shout was excited, and he urged Grant back into the fight. <This is your chance. Go show that demon creature who’s boss!>

Grant lunged forward; his sword brandished in a two-handed grip that was aimed at the blind side of the creature’s neck. The technique had taken down the first one, so he hoped the same technique would work twice.

It didn’t.

The yokai was blinded, so it swept its horn sideways in an attempt to keep Grant back. The bony protrusion smashed into his shoulder, throwing him across the road until he bounced off the street sign on the corner. His breath exploded outward, and his ribs made a crackling sound like crumpled parchment. The whole right side of his body went numb, and he tumbled to the ground in a heap.

“Uhh…” Grant groaned as he forced himself to get back on his feet, every inhale stabbing like a spear to the lungs. Even though his right side lacked all sensation, he could still move it. His hand tightened on his sword, and he wobbled forward a step while bracing against the bent street sign. The agony that shot through him almost made him pass out, but somehow he managed to stay on his feet.

<Yeah, no matter how strong you are, busted ribs are their own special kind of pain.> Sarge politely waited for Grant to steady himself. <I don’t think you punctured a lung, but at least one rib is definitely broken. I would recommend you finish this fight without doing a bunch of jumping around.>

“Easier… said… than done…!” Grant was struggling to talk, but he was able to get back in position to engage the yokai in combat. The injured monster still looked game to fight, so he tried to appear as though he was too; then he noted his health. “By the Regent, they hit hard!”

Health: 143/352

Mana: 19/19

<Like an ox, you might say?> Sarge snorted dryly. Grant had missed the damage notifications when he had hit the pole—hitting the sign was a pretty big distraction—but the shock of seeing half his health disappear was a sobering moment: he couldn’t afford to take another blow. Thoughts of retreating to heal ran through his head for a moment before a wave of determination swept over him.

<Good. Losing is acceptable; giving up is not.> Grant could feel the approval coming from the sword in his hands. <Get back in there.>

This time, Grant had a plan. It was time to finish the fight, and he needed to end it in one fell swoop. He shuffled more than ran at the yokai, waiting until it was preparing to kill him with another swing of its horns. He ignited his spell with a shout and outpouring of mana, shocking the ox-spider and causing it to curl up on itself while he recalled the effects of the spell.

Thundering Step: Create a static field in a five foot radius around you that damages others when they move through the area. Does not move from the point it was set. Lasts five seconds.

Mana cost: 10 per use.

Damage (Self): 0% Mental cultivation.

Damage (Other): 100% Mental cultivation per second (76+ 10%) increase from Lightning Attunement: 83 lightning damage per second for 5 seconds.

A deep belly laugh erupted from him. The devastation the spell inflicted on the monster was instant, blasting the gyuki with four hundred and fifteen damage in total; well more than needed. The creatures clearly had no any spell resistance—or perhaps they were water-attuned beasts—because the Ushi-Oni was unable to back out of the spell radius, shriveling down to a smoking husk as the spell ended. A downward stab through the skull of the yokai guaranteed it wasn’t going to get back up.

<Excellent. Now, go help Suki before she gets hurt.> Sarge urged, leaving him no chance to catch his breath.

A glance at the brawl told him it was for good reason. Suki had crushed most of the limbs on one side of the yokai she was fighting, but the monster still had plenty of mobility left. The pugilistic properties of Suki’s gauntlets meant she had to get in close to do any damage, and the spear-like spider legs were making it hard for her to finish off the creature.

Grant waited for an opening and managed another shuffle-run at the monster when it was forced to focus on a thundering blow from Suki. He landed a perfect downward arc onto the base of its neck, almost severing the head in one strike. Exhausted, he immediately plopped down on the ground, not caring about the disgusting paste of monster blood and dusty debris churned together on the street.

The numbness was starting to fade, and shooting pains were slowly replacing the deadened feeling along his right side. He was trying to concentrate on breathing through the pain when a very angry Suki came over and punched him in the chest.

“That one was mine!” Suki kicked the dead creature’s head, finishing off the decapitation and sending it tumbling down the empty street. “I had it right where I wanted it!”

Grant wasn’t able to reply, since his broken ribs were pushing against his lung. Instead of responding, he dropped into the meditative state that allowed him to replay the fight and heal some of his damage.

Live by the Sword: Pause and meditate on the failures of your combat ability, healing up to 35% of all damage taken within the last ten minutes over one full minute. This ability will increase with physical cultivation.

He was forced to relive every blow and mistake, and contemplate how to improve. The biggest flaw was his poor timing: if he had used his spell at the start of the fight, it would have ended without him being injured at all. The creatures’ weakness to spells wasn’t something he had known about at the start of the fight, and he had no knowledge of any creature like the Ushi-Oni to fall back on. Next time, he would maximize the radius of his spell.

Health: 143/352 -> 217/352. Critical areas focused. Broken bones repaired to 90%. Organs repaired. Soft tissue repaired to 80%.

It felt like waking up from a long sleep when Grant opened his eyes after the full minute of rest. Suki was smashing the corpse he had electrocuted with steady and measured punches, her blows sending sharp cracks echoing through the area. He gingerly rose to his feet, wincing at the pain it caused him. Wasn’t he supposed to be healed enough by now that it didn’t hurt so bad?

<Oh, feeling a little sore, are we?> Sarge seemed angry about something, which confused Grant. He had won, hadn’t he? <You didn’t see the skill you earned yet, did you? Sorry to say, it looks like the system decided to start working against you.>

Skill gained: Bodily awareness (1/3). Your mind has learned what is real, and what is not. Now you will always know for sure.

Tier one effect: the pain of all real damage taken is increased by 10%.

“What?” Grant was incredibly angry about the new skill. He’d never even considered that a self-damaging skill could exist, “Sarge, I thought skills were supposed to help me, not literally hurt me!”

<If you had fought the way you should have, you wouldn’t be in this situation.> Sarge’s tone softened, and he sounded a little less angry. <You know… maybe it’s partially my fault. I shouldn’t have made things orange for you, but it’s too late now. I guess it is a good thing you gained this skill. Your mental cultivation is going to go through the roof in no time.>

All Grant could do was sigh as his wounds throbbed.