I rush the party and my body feels lighter than it ever has before.

One of the quicker members steps in front of the rest and begins to throw a right roundhouse kick. Before it can fully extend into a strike, I’m already within range to check it. Regret immediately bleeds into his face, but not nearly as much as the actual blood that will come out of it soon.

I raise my left knee as it comes towards me and his shin connects, causing the man to recoil in pain. I skip off of my standing right foot, plant my left into the ground, and throw a front switch kick into the man’s solar plexus.

He folds like an omelet.

I drop my elbow into the back of his head, smacking his forehead into the floorboards. Cracked like an egg.

Wait, I got the order mixed up.

One of his companions makes the mistake of trying to tackle me. He’s burly, moving fast, and his body is low to the ground. This could be dangerous if I don't avoid it completely.

I raise my right leg up above my head and bring it down into an axe kick. My heel connects with the crown of his head and there's a sickening thud. His skull bounces like a ball off of the floor, his body still moving forward. He tumbles forward and then skids across the ground, lying unconscious behind me.

The last person is already mid-attack, sailing towards me with a flying knee. His attack is a blur, but the world is in slow motion for me today. I sidestep the knee to my left and he misses entirely.

During the sidestep I throw my right palm into his face, breaking his nose. I clamp my fingers down on his skull and hold him above the ground. He raises his arms to claw at my grip, yelping in pain.

"Please stop, please let me down!"

Being the gentleman that my mother raised, I oblige him.

I slam his head into a stool and the wood splits down the middle, fragmenting the legs beneath it. I throw a punch into his face while he’s down, fully shattering the legs of the stool below and planting his head into the floor. He lays still in a pillow of splinters.

I stand straight up and pause my rampage to look around. My vision is a blur, as if the people around me were all in my peripherals and the people I were fighting were the only ones in focus. None of these faces look familiar anymore. Who were the people who harassed me and who weren’t? Did it matter anymore?

No… it didn’t.

I could take them. I feel great.

Before I could attack anyone else, a man bursts from a door on the upper balcony overlooking the lower floors, interrupting my thoughts and slightly dampening my angered mood. My focus switches to him.

He rushes down the stairs, surveying the wreckage of the guild. It doesn’t take long for his eyes to narrow in on me. I’m standing right in the center of it, after all.

“What is happening down here?”

I analyze him. He’s tall, with silver hair and a lot of lean muscle, wearing a blue uniform with a matching cap. He’s probably some sort of guild authority figure. This forces me to be a little more cautious about my approach. I don't need to get in too much trouble with anyone like him.

After some thought, I decide to tell him what had happened. It's not like I can really reason my way out of this one.

I look over at the man who taunted me, and drool is dripping from his mouth. The look really suits him.

“That guy and his party insulted my mother”. I point at the unconscious man behind the bar, and then the three people on the floor respectively.

Let’s try the honest approach.

I wipe some blood off the palm of my hand, dirtying my cloak. Should’ve waited for a towel or something.

The man looks taken aback. The tenseness of his posture relaxes, and his overall atmosphere begins to soften.

“So… you kicked his ass, and then you beat the shit out of his whole party?”, the man asks.

“That’s the gist of it.”

There's a brief silence. The whole guild is waiting for his response, and the tension in the air begins to build again.

Then, every part of his body relaxes at the same time. At this point, he’s completely calmed down. He sits down on the third lowest stair from the bottom, and after a moment of consideration, he decides to speak.

“That’s fucking awesome. Good job. A man who doesn’t stand up for the woman who birthed him isn’t a man at all, wouldn’t you agree?”

He leans his head onto one of his hands, and it’s my turn to be surprised. I didn’t think that would actually work. I nod my head in agreement, but he’s not done talking.

“Now I’d really like to let you off the hook, but you trashed my guild, and that’s just really not cool. You’re gonna have to make up for that.”

His expression starts to spread into a grin. I’m curious, so I offer up a question.

“How exactly will I make up for this, hypothetically speaking?”

The man looks very glad that I asked. His lips curled, he announces what he has in mind.

“You have to give me a go too.”

He gets up and starts walking toward me, kicking away dirt and debris as he approaches. It doesn't seem as though he cares very much about the unconscious adventurers, because he moves them out of the way with his feet almost as rough as he did the debris. His entire presence oozes mana. Even with my very minimal sensory capabilities, I can still feel the power emanating from this person. He was dangerous, no doubt, and the way that he carries himself betrays an undeniable aura of confidence. After getting close enough, he presents me with an enticing ultimatum.

“If I win, you’re banned from the guild. If you win, you’re not banned, and there won’t be any bad blood. Sound good?”

I respond quickly and resolutely, as if this chance might soon leave.

“I couldn’t have asked for better circumstances”.

The silver-haired man’s chest fills with excitement.

“Alright then. I’m glad we agree.”

The man raises his arms into a mid-guard, his elbows protecting his body and his slightly curled fists protecting his lowered chin. His legs are staggered, his right leg in the back at a forty-five-degree angle, and his left pointing forward at me. It’s a picture-perfect Amyuhait stance. That's an old art that Ma used to like, but it died around the same time I was born. For him to know it, the man has to be at least my age. Interesting.

I match his stance.

The man is pleased with my response.

“Oh now this is surprising. Haven’t seen another practitioner in a long time. Don’t disappoint, ok?”

He prepares to attack, but it seems as though he remembered something important mid-action. He opens his mouth to speak.

“What is your name?”

What a useless question. Why would he need to know that? It’s not like knowing my name will change the differential in our level of skill. For the sake of possibly achieving the best outcome for myself in terms of future relations, I oblige him.

“Sun. What’s yours?”

“Ankh. Glad to meetcha”.

He shifts forward at a rapid pace into my circle of influence, wasting no time.

He throws out a somewhat committed left jab from mid-range, and I use my right hand to parry it. In return, I push into him, throwing a left jab of my own, and then a right power punch. He slips both of them and comes in for an uppercut. I dodge backward, and it misses. Feeling the force from the strike from such close range, it’s like I just dodged a swinging log.

Each strike thrown makes the air crack like a whip. Adventurers watch on from the sideline, a woman with her hair up in a tight bun among their ranks. She looks absolutely livid but waits to intervene. It’s not smart to get even remotely close to us right now.

While I’m on the back foot, he doesn’t let up. He lets loose a barrage of extremely fast punches, trying to get me to turtle up in my defenses. It doesn’t work. I clinch up with him to cancel out his flurry, and throw a hard right knee at the side of his body. He turns his hip into the knee and it whiffs.

He shoves me off of him and throws a right roundhouse at my head during the break. I lean backwards and the kick cuts through air right above my face. We’re standing at about the same distance apart as we started, and neither of us has landed a clean hit. I expected to completely wipe the floor with him in terms of technique, but he’s put in the work to become phenomenal. I can only commend him, but this poses an issue for me in terms of how this fight could possibly play out.

The problem is, he has a significant range on me in terms of reach. At this point, most of our interactions have been at mid to short range, which benefits me strictly. If he were to choose to fight from a longer range, I would be forced to approach. I’m sure he’s realized that since the beginning. He must’ve also had the idea in his head that he would’ve won by now.

It’s probably about that time where he tries to keep me out with front kicks, and I prepare myself for it.

My prediction is correct. The first move that he decides to use is a skipping right front kick, which covers the distance between us and shoots directly for my stomach.

Having been anticipating a move like this, I’m prepared to grab it.

And then something out of the ordinary happens. The foot that I was about to grab is no longer there, and has instead already connected with my head. During the kick, he actually whipped his leg from its projected shooting motion, and it curved around to connect with my jaw.

My brain goes fuzzy, but I’m still standing.

“Get him, boss! You got this!”

The man aggresses after the hit, not letting up. My back now facing him due to the kick, I throw a spinning elbow into the space I believe he’ll be, letting my instincts take over.

It connects.

The man stumbles backward, holding his face. I’m still disoriented, so I can’t really take advantage of it. We’re once again at a brief standstill.

The crowd is roaring at this point. Almost every single person in the room has placed a side bet, and we were exactly 50/50 in odds.

People are already drinking again, the bartender having fully recovered from her shock. She was pulling out the reserve ale from under the bar counter. Glad to know this guild has its priorities in order.

It seems that everyone’s forgotten the serious nature of the previous fight, and instead choose to enjoy the one happening right in front of them. Whatever floats their boat.

I raise my guard and spit some blood from my mouth.

Damn, his kick hurt.

The man wipes blood from his upper right eyebrow, which I had cut with the bone of my elbow. He too returns to his guard, smiling from ear to ear. He’s having a little too much fun with this. I can’t have that.

I strain my whole body.

I feel as compressed as a thick iron spring. My muscles steam from the energy being released, and the hood covering my head is shoved off from the pressure, revealing my jet black hair and light green eyes.

My vision is unstifled now, and I can see the defeat of the silver-haired man.

He notices my channel and the air fills with wild and feral mana. Ribbons of blue curl and wave in the air around him.

He's ready.

The ground beneath both of us cracks and we leap towards each other.

Victory will be mine.