“Can’t believe we got the special reward!” Crowed Dakota as they sat in the hangar’s canteen.

“Me neither,” Mai mumbled while she chewed a mouthful of noodles.

They’d both been rewarded with a skill called STEALTH. Not that they’d had a chance to try it out. After the obstacle course another ten cullers had been killed, deemed to be too injured to continue.

How has wanting to get back to my sister become so bloody complicated! A voice at the back of her mind whispered that she should have stayed in the sewers. At least that way she had a chance of earning her way free. Not as quickly as the Culling might see her home, and even after what had happened to Andries, but she would still have had a chance of living.

Right here and now, she didn’t know if she was even going to make it to the actual Culling. The instructors seemed determined to kill as many of the potential cullers as they could. At least in the city she wouldn’t have to worry about the instructors.

“Hey, no need for such a long face,” Dakota said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I know things are pretty shitty right now, but once we get into the city we’ll be free to roam at will.”

It was as if Dakota had been reading her mind.

“Cheer up, don’t let the other see just how down you are. They’ll take any sign of weakness and use it against,” whispered her friend. “Have a look at STEALTH, it’ll cheer you up.”

Swallowing, she called up the description.

Stealth

- One of the most important skills a culler can have. STEALTH allows the user to sneak up on their opponents without being heard or seen. PASSIVE, it allows them to move quieter during everyday life, but ACTIVE it turns them into silent killers. Not only that, but if the user thinks out of the box it can be used in many different ways.

Mai looked around, trying to work out how many of their fellow cullers still lived.

“Seventy-nine out of the original two hundred,” Dakota could clearly read Mai’s expression.

“How many do you think have died total? Across the city I mean.”

“Well if you do the maths, that would mean at least five hundred thousand, unless the rules are different in each hangar.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as they processed that thought.

“And what if they were lying about the numbers of hangars? I mean, they could have got over one million people signed up. Then they whittle us down until there’s a million of us. Hit that target and it starts.” Dakota was staring intently at Mai as she uttered this.

“Shit,” Mai dropped her chopsticks into her bowl. “I hadn’t thought about that. I had been concentrating on the idea that during the first fight, the numbers would be dropped by half, bringing the total to five hundred thousand like they said.. Then reduced again in similar numbers by the assault course we just finished.”

“What, you were hoping there’d only be a couple of hundred thousand left for the actual event? Think you can take them all on?” chuckled Dakota. “Think we’re being paranoid?”

Mai shrugged. It was more than reasonable that they would be paranoid. Afterall, they knew that the instructors were trying to kill them. So why not destroy them in other, more subtle ways?

It was called Mind Death, psychological tactics designed to destroy a person’s mind. It was subtle, like the sound of a dripping tap. Plip, plip, plip. Plant a seed of doubt, feed it, let it grow, and then use that seed to plant others.

She’d learnt of it watching the holodramas. It was a favoured technique of members of the Celestial Court in her favourite holodrama “Heaven’s Fingers”.

“Better chance of being able to hide out and let the … more determined kill each other off first, Mai suggested.

“Hide?” scoffed Dakota. “Didn’t you see the last Culling?”

Mai shook her head. She’d watched it a couple of times, but only for the action and hadn’t really paid as much attention to it as some others, especially not around the rules. She’d been shocked by the killing then, even though it was accepted as something perfectly natural in the city. Out of her friends, she had been one of only a few who hadn’t worn Culling merchandise, or spent hours discussing the merits of the top cullers.

Now, she regretted she hadn’t paid more attention. Then again, if her current self had travelled back in time to warn her past self, she’d have been laughed out of the apartment.

“They launched drones to track those cullers who had gone to ground. You can’t spend more than a few – it’s random from Culling to Culling by the way – hours in any given location before the drones force you out.”

“What happens if you don’t move or go back to the spot a bit later. Like after a couple of minutes?”

“You’re culled. People hiding is boring. Makes for poor sport. People have a lot riding on this. Lots of bets.” Dakota rubbed her fingers together in an old-age gesture.

“Are the gangs betting?”

“Do you shit if you eat?’ Laughed her friend. “Of course the gangs are fucking betting. And they’ll be betting on all the gangers in the Culling. Some of these fucks volunteered for this. Their families are guaranteed a bonus for each kill. Hells, they get a bonus if they make it into the Culling. There are bets on that as well.”

Mai’s mouth soured at the thought. She’d entered the Culling to get back to Li. That people would actually profit from her killing or being killed was anathema to her.

CULLER – REPORT FOR TRAINING

DO YOU ACCEPT YES/NO?

“I swear they give us the option to refuse just to fuck with our minds.” Dakota rose from the table they were sharing, “Come on. Don’t even think about choosing no.”

“Too late, I’ve thought about it a lot these last couple of days.” Still, Mai pressed the YES button and dutifully followed the guideline which appeared.

“Good morning cullers. From now until the start of the Culling you are safe,” Dragon Warrior smiled at them. It was the first time she’d done it and rather than feel relieved, Mai felt even more on edge.

“You have joined a band of warriors whose origins have been lost in the mists of time.” Gorilla paced in front of them, his huge fists helping him to swing along. “As of today, barring any accidents, you face exactly six hundred and fifty-two thousand, three hundred and twenty-four opponents.”

“Fucking told you they were messing with us,” Dakota hissed out of the side of her mouth. “Still fancy your odds?”

Mai didn’t know what she fancied. It was such a large number. Just like the size of the population. You could only go by the numbers of people around you. Thinking of anything bigger was just beyond her.

“No worse than yesterday,” she muttered back. “No better either.”

WEAPONS TRAINING

DO YOU ACCEPT YES/NO?

Mai cursed as she realised she’d missed the instructor’s briefing, she’d been too distracted, wrapped up in her own thoughts.

Stupid! Can’t afford to not listen when that bastard ape is talking. Next time could be my last, she resolved to pay better attention. Pressing YES she looked in the direction the guideline led. There was a small woman, couldn’t have been more than three feet tall, one of the Halfers, a race of people bred to work in the pipes and ducts of the city. She’d often thought of them as cute. Not so this one. A full-face scar crossed from temple to chin.

An unforeseen side-effect of their genetic engineering was that they were natural marksmen. It didn’t matter whether they held a servo-assisted laser rifle or a rock in their hands. If they wanted to hit something, they would. Holodramas often depicted them as cold killers, working for either law enforcement or acting as lone assassins. Li had absolutely loved those holodramas.

A small group of cullers had already gathered around the Halfer by the time they reached the point.

“Welcome Cullers. Today I’m going to teach you how to use submachine guns.” The Halfer held up a stubby-looking weapon. “They are designed to spit out as many bullets as possible in the shortest amount of time. Each sub-machine gun bullet costs nought point one per cent BIOMASS, which gives you a cost of three per cent per magazine for thirty rounds.”

Pausing, she looked to see whether her students were following her. Mai nodded vigorously as the Halfer’s gaze landed upon her.

“Good. Naturally, when you form the weapons they don’t have a magazine per se. But you still have to fill the weapon at a maximum of thirty rounds each time depending. Unless you buy an upgrade which allows more. Reloading still takes time. It’s not as fast as creating the weapon, because the template allows for a full magazine.” There was a murmur at that. “But! Forming another sub-machine gun might be quicker, however you’re then going to have to pay more BIOMASS, and as time goes on, that will be costly.”

Pausing, the Halfer looked at a couple of cullers who were still murmuring to each other. Feeling her gaze, they quickly stilled.

“There are other weapons, such as light machine guns, which have the capacity for up to one hundred and fifty rounds per magazine. How much BIOMASS is that if we assume the ammunition cost is the same as an SMG’s?”

There was another pause as the cullers tried to work out the answer. It wasn’t that it was a difficult question, more that they were so overwhelmed with events that their brains struggled with the simplest maths.

“Well?” the Halfer’s foot tapped, conveying her annoyance. Having seen the consequences of the Gorilla’s annoyance, Mai was certain she didn’t want to see what punishment the Halfer came up with.

“Fifteen per cent,” Mai blurted out, surreptitiously crossing her fingers, and praying to all the Gods she knew she was correct.

“Good. Always bear in mind the cost of killing someone, it’s not limited to physical and metaphysical aspects,” the Halfer nodded in approval. Passing the sub-machine gun to one of the cullers, she let them feel its heft and examine it before saying “Keep it moving.”

“It’s got fuck-all range and its accuracy isn’t that great either. However, at ranges of up to fifty feet, it’ll do what’s required.”

Dakota nudged Mai who took hold of the weapon. It was surprisingly heavy for its size. A grip sat behind the trigger, and one hung down from the short barrel. Taking hold of it she gasped as it shaped itself to her hand.

A set of crosshairs appeared on her retinal monitor as she snugged it into her shoulder and slowly tracked it over another class of cullers.

“Keep it moving please,” encouraged the Halfer. Blushing, Mai passed it on to the man standing next to her.

“We’re going to use virtual bullets. Targets will appear on your retinal monitors and you will shoot them. Or not.”

“Why not?” asked a culler.

“Some will be marked with a red outline. Those are civilians. You are not allowed to deliberately kill civilians. Doing so will incur penalties.”

Everyone gathered knew the rules. The Culling was part of the city. Part of every citizen’s life. Still, considering Mai had missed the fact that hiding wasn’t allowed, she decided she’d better pay attention.

“What about in self-defence?” Asked another member of the group.

“Self-defence is permitted. Any civilian who attempts to interfere in the Culling by attacking a culler will be culled. If a culler does this before the drones can, then no penalty will be applied. Civilians are allowed to let cullers know of the presence of other cullers. You may not kill civilians that do that.”

There was a series of nods. The Culling saw incredibly large bets being laid upon the results. Previous Cullings had seen civilians allowed to intervene directly by engaging the cullers and killing them. However, after the Chongqing Massacre, the rules had been changed. Still, there was no guarantee that civilians wouldn’t try taking a pop.

Mai hid her relief at the knowledge she wasn’t going to have to face even more opponents. Especially on their home turf.

“Back to the lesson. This lesson will give you the USE SMG skill. Practice hard. Take your time with each shot. Learn how to control a burst. Learn how to spray. Do not skip a lesson.”

Holding up a sub-machine gun - SMG, which had been printed rather than being formed out of her own arm, she ran through the parts, explaining what they did and demonstrated how to strip and rebuild the weapon.

“Some of you look bored. There will be times when you don’t want to spend BIO-MASS. At which point in time, old-fashioned weapons like this are very important indeed. There are plenty around on the lower levels, as the people there don’t have the BIO-MASS to spare. I heartily recommend you learn how to use these, rather than relying on your own body.”

And with that the Halfer handed out SMGs to everyone in the group. Mai took hers with a polite thanks. Unlike others who rushed straight into the first lesson, she took her time to truly look at the weapon.

She’d need to kill and gain EXPERIENCE in order to buy upgrades and improve the weapon. And by killing and improving the weapon, she’d become a better culler. It was a self-fulfilling cycle.

BEGIN SMG LESSON 1

YES/NO?

Smiling for the first time at the option to begin a lesson, she selected YES and tucked the stock of the weapon into her shoulder.

SELECT SINGLE FIRE AND ENGAGE 5 TARGETS

An image of an SMG appeared with an arrow pointing to the selector. She had a choice of single shot – known as semi-automatic, three-round burst, and full automatic.

Selecting single shot mode caused five targets to appear at different distances. Laying her sight onto the nearest target she took a breath and fired.

Both the noise and the recoil startled her. It was completely different from the films she had watched at home. A dot appeared on the target where the bullet had hit. It was high and to the right. Completely missing any of the scoring areas.

Sighting on the next target, she aimed lower and to the left, then fired.

CRITICAL HIT! – HEART – INSTANT DEATH

CONGRATULATIONS!

Whoop-de-fucking-doo she thought. Her next shot was for the head. Aiming just below and to the left , she cursed as the bullet still hit higher than she thought it would.

Her next shot at a target nearly twenty paces away plugged it straight between the eyes.

CRITICAL HIT! – HEADSHOT – INSTANT DEATH

HEADSHOTS ARE A SUREFIRE WAY OF KILLING SOMEONE QUICKLY!

BUT BEWARE, THEY ARE ALSO HARDER TO HIT.

That wasn’t really a surprise. A bullet to the head was going to give someone a very abrupt end to what was already most likely a bad day. Nor was it a surprise that hitting someone in the head in the middle of combat was also going to be difficult. Although hitting them in the head when they weren’t expecting you, might make things easier. Plus it would also mean they’d be less likely to go down screaming and letting everyone around them know that someone was around and causing mischief.

LESSON COMPLETED

DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE WITH LESSONS?

ALL LESSONS MUST BE COMPLETED TO UNLOCK USE SMG

YES/NO?

Grinning, she selected the next lesson. For the next half an hour she was taken through using SMGs, both stationary and moving. Snap shooting, aiming, and a mixture of all different methods. By the end of the last lesson she was sweating and panting as it had required her to run and shoot on the move whilst moving through an urban environment full of enemies and civilians.

SMG LESSONS COMPLETED

NEW SKILL! USE SMG RANK 1!

USE SMG +5%

A stylised and rotating image of a sub-machine gun appeared on her retinal monitor, and her skills menu opened to show her that the skill had been essentially ‘unlocked’. Opening it up, she read the description.

Use SMG

- Sub-machine guns fire small calibre rounds at a very high rate. They are great spray and pray weapons, excellent for suppressing an enemy. USE SMG is a PASSIVE skill which confers a base unlimited duration, and a 5% CRITICAL HIT bonus. Each additional level of skill confers +5% CRITICAL HIT chance.

Mai frowned at that. Gorilla hadn’t said anything about the fact that the combat skills would have a PASSIVE nature. Which made using skills all the more tactical. Against low-level threats she could use the PASSIVE aspect of the skill and not have to worry about it running down and entering RECHARGE.

But against more challenging opponents, she could activate it and at RANK 1 would automatically get an additional five per cent to her chances of a CRITICAL HIT.

“I suggest you also take a quick look at the description of the weapon in order to understand the weapon better,” the Halfer said immediately after dismissing them. Most of the Cullers didn’t hear, too busy chattering about their best shots, or just too wrapped up in their own thoughts, but Mai was just close enough.

Checking her retinal monitor she saw she had enough time to grab a quick read.

Sub-machine gun – A light personal weapon with a small calibre, mid-sized magazine, and a high rate of fire. Inaccurate out to a long distance, it is perfect for close-in combat and short ranges. Due to the low power of its bullets, it doesn’t confer bonuses such as STAGGER, BLEED, or CRIPPLE, but does confer the SUPPRESSION negative effect.

Whilst it wasn’t that impressive on a whole, she did like the idea of being able to fill a room with lead in the blink of an eye and send any opponents scurrying for cover. Alongside that was the chance that she’d actually be able to drill someone full of bullets. Which, whilst a bonus in terms of Culling, still turned her blood to ice. Unlike some, she wasn’t reconciled to the idea of killing a fellow human being one bit.

“I nailed that lesson. SMGs are such fun! Medicinal even in a way,” Dakota was grinning from ear-to-ear. “How about you?”

“I did okay. You’re right, blatting away at targets is quite therapeutic. Not sure how I’d feel about it if the bullets were coming towards me though!”

“Fucking hell!” A culler threw his weapon down. “I didn’t even get to rank up!”

Mai tilted her head. “How? We were told if we did the lessons we’d get the skill!”

“He missed too many targets, killed too many civilians, and chose not to read every prompt window. He was punished.” The Halfer said as she calmly picked up the weapon. Hefting it, she took a moment to look the frustrated man in the eyes and smashed the butt of the SMG into his groin. “Never disrespect my weapons like that again. Medic!”

That gave Mai pause to think. Not the smashing of the groin part, punishing the students seemed to be par for the course. But the fact that there was actually the chance they could fail to pick up a skill. She vowed there and then to give one hundred per cent, no matter how tired she was.

Nothing is stopping me from getting back to Li!

***

Every part of Mai ached. For the last week they’d had twelve-hour days packed with lessons. SMGs, assault rifles, shotguns, light machine guns, medium machine guns, sniper rifles, knife fighting, sword fighting, how to set anti-personnel mines, how to disarm anti-personnel mines. How to sneak, climb, jump, abseil and even base jump.

It had been both terrifying and exhilarating on equal measures. The irony that she was at her fittest when she could also be dead in the next few days didn’t escape her. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so damned sad and scary. And talking of scary.

“UNARMED COMBAT. This is not DIRTY BOXING, SHOOT WRESTLING or any other skill you might have picked up outside in what you lovingly call ‘real life’,” a large woman whose jumpsuit bulged with muscles stood before the cullers. “These techniques are designed to give you the ability to kill as cleanly and quickly as possible, whilst expending as little effort as possible.”

The woman stopped talking for a couple of seconds to throw techniques in the air. Even without an opponent her face was utterly intense.

“You will be faced with opponents of all sizes. Hopefully, the lessons you learnt on day one won’t have been forgotten. I advise you to follow every lesson. No matter how badass you think you are. For the purposes of this training you will be allowed to use any combat skills you have. That way you can advance in them, whilst taking on the UNARMED COMBAT lessons. Any injuries will be HEALED.”

Puffing out her cheeks in relief that she could use her skills, Mai moved away to her designated training area. Then again, was it really good that others could use their skills as well? Once again she had to remind herself that getting through this and surviving so that she could get back to her sister was the goal. They all had enough space to ensure that there were no accidental or not so accidental incidents. A drone hovered nearby each area to ensure people followed the rules.

UNARMED COMBAT LESSON ONE

BEGIN YES/NO?

Rolling her shoulders, she took a deep breath and selected YES. A huge man wandered over. Her opponent was so big even his muscles had muscles. From the sweat on his skin Mai could tell he’d already been fighting. Disappointingly he didn’t have any bruises. Tattoos covered his whole body. A couple indicated loss of loved ones. Others claimed to have killed an enemy. She wasn’t sure just what to believe, but it made her breath catch just to see them.

“Fucking bring it.” Mai raised her fists.

Mai was more than comfortable with fighting when it didn’t result in her having to kill someone. She’d spent a lot of her youth trying to fit in with the disruptive elements on her hab level. It was having to fight to the death that she found so difficult. The killing of Chow still haunted her dreams, waking her up in the middle of the night with chilled sweats. Sometimes those dreams merged with other memories and she found herself killing Andries or – even worse – her little sister.

She wasn’t the only one with nightmares. People cried out in their sleep, screamed, or just sobbed continuously. Gradually she had learned how to tune out all of those noises as well as the burps, farts and snores normally associated with a roomful of sleeping people. But what she couldn’t do was tune out the nightmares.

Even though at five miles down, her and her people were low on the pecking list, the gangs on the five-mile were nothing compared to the one-milers; more concerned with doing a bit of graffiti and trying to show that they were rebels whilst secretly wetting themselves at any social points they lost.

Petty crime and larceny weren’t truly punished until civilians reached their majority, eighteen. Instead, a child committing a crime would suffer a social score penalty one quarter of that of an adult. That penalty would then carry over into their adult score. Unless they’d been terrible people, this wouldn’t have much effect and they’d be able to go about their adult lives without much of a hindrance.

In addition, their parents would suffer a one-half penalty. It was supposed to encourage parents to be stricter with their children. With Mai, whose parents were dead, this had had no effect.

Although, would that have made a difference? Would I still have turned out the way I did if mum and dad weren’t dead? Immediately feeling guilty at the thought that her parent’s deaths were the reason she was in so much shit now, she turned her mind back to the task at hand.

After a few seconds of thought she activated her SMART MOUTH skill. Whilst it was normally used to get her out of trouble, it could also be used to get her in to trouble. It was counter-intuitive to think of it that way, but sometimes you needed to get people angry in order to get them to react the way you wanted. Passive, it gave her the ability to see if someone was trying to aggravate her, being deceptive or economical with the truth or downright lying.

But trouble was what she needed now. She needed … she took a quick look at his name glyph … Samed. She needed Samed as angry as she could get him. The angrier he got, the more he would try for the big punches. The bigger the punch, the more energy required. The more energy required, the quicker he’d get blown. Muscles needed oxygen.

“Come on fat boy, try and hit me.” That seemed to do it. His nostrils flared and she could have sworn he actually snorted. “What are you waiting for? Hit me! I bet your sister could hit harder!”

Samed roared, his entire body reddening.

And that’s what one of those tattoos meant. He’s lost his sister.

She knew what was coming next. Samed would try to finish her with one punch. Blinded with anger, he’d want to punish her.

And that’s exactly what he did, huge arm swooshing through the air. Whilst slow, it was clear that even one punch would be debilitating. And no matter how much HEALING they’d get after the fight, she didn’t want her jaw shattered.

She ducked under it and slapped a hand across his exposed ribs.

HIT! – 0.5% DAMAGE

“Shit!” he cried, clasping a hand to his burning skin. He moved back, raising his hands in a guard once more, exposing a large red welt the size of her hand. It made her smile.

“Ah, got a boo-boo?” Mai sneered. She danced out of his reach, forcing him to come after her. Keeping light on her toes, she flicked her hands out towards him, forcing him to keep his high. She faked a kick, then danced out of the way as he took another mighty swing.

He came after her, as she continued to taunt him, insulting everyone from his mother to his ancestors. Swing after mighty swing was dodged and his breathing became more and more laboured. Not a lot of people knew that whilst muscles gave power, and were intimidating to people that don’t have them, they required a lot of energy to power. And oxygen. With muscles that large, Mai knew from hanging around her local martial arts kwoon, that all she had to do was get him to waste as much energy as possible. Then, when he was blown, she could take him down.

If only I’d remembered that when fighting Chow, she thought as she barely dodged another swing. Samed might have been big, but it was clear he wasn’t a trained fighter. Probably thought that his muscles were all he needed. Typical big man, big ego.

Ducking another wild swing, Mai activated her DIRTY BOXING skill, purposefully selected Samed’s nose, popped up and threw a hard jab.

CRITICAL HIT! 10% DAMAGE

BLEED @0.5% PER SECOND

STUNNED!

Blood gushed out of Samed’s newly broken nose as the STUNNED glyph popped up over his head, three stars circling. It was disturbingly comical, especially given the current situation. Even learning to kill or be killed, at least right now, still allowed her to see the lighter side of things where she couldn’t all those times before when the glyph had popped up. Cursing he launched a clumsy combination. Mai danced away, continuing to taunt him.

DIRTY BOXING still active, she selected his nose again.

CRITICAL HIT! 5% DAMAGE

BLEED @1% PER SECOND

This time when his hands raised to guard his face she pressed home her attack. A feint with her lead hand was followed by a quick palm strike to his diaphragm.

CRITICAL HIT! 5% DAMAGE

WINDED!

Stylised lungs appeared, with a large cross over them. “Hooooffffff” and similar noises came from him. She knew she was pressing her luck by going on the offensive, but it was really her only chance. Samed was bigger than her, which meant that every hit he landed would do more damage. She had to keep him on the backfoot. Or else it would be her with the negative effect glyphs hanging over her head. And her the one suffering all the pain.

Not going to happen, she thought, pushing any sympathy or self-doubt she might have had firmly to the back of her mind. I need to get back to Li. Everything I do here makes that more and more of a possibility.

Mai’s DIRTY BOXING was at Rank One which meant she had a 5% chance of a critical strike every time she hit. However, her STREET SMARTS skill, which was at Rank 3, also gave her a 15% chance.

Although STREET SMARTS wasn’t a combat skill per se, it was a skill which also conferred a 5% CRITICAL HIT bonus in combat when ACTIVE.

Which meant she currently had a ten per cent chance of getting a CRITICAL HIT.

At the same time, the damage she was dealing to him was applying a negative effect to Samed’s skills. WINDED would affect everything he had activated by five per cent. If his DIRTY BOXING was Rank One like hers, that would mean he’d lose his five per cent CRITICAL HIT bonus. It was also cumulative, meaning that each time she caused it, he would suffer an additional five per cent penalty on all of his ACTIVE skills, and anything that also had a PASSIVE effect as well. There was no indication as to how much, as only things such as BLEED and POISON showed what the effect was. She’d heard though that it could be anything up to a ten per cent penalty.

And all of that was on top of the fact that he’d be struggling to breathe, and in severe pain.

Not going to push it though, she thought, dancing back slightly, increasing the distance between the two of them. Using it to try and catch her breath.

What she didn’t know was Samed’s DIRTY BOXING Rank. He might well have a higher CRITICAL HIT chance. It was just his bad luck that she’d managed to land one so quickly. That and her skills were about to deplete and enter a cooldown period.

Samed attacked. She’d got cocky, sticking her head forward to taunt him. A double-jab, cross combination nearly caught her. She actually felt the wind from his fist as it passed her nose.

Celestial faeces! She cursed. Using her SMART MOUTH to the maximum before it entered cool down she continued to taunt Samed about his dead sister.

Tears of pain streamed down his cheeks as he tried time and again to hit her. Nose skewed to one side, blood pouring over his lips, making him spit to get a clear breath. Mouth open because he couldn’t breathe any other way. Chest heaving as his huge muscles cried out for more oxygen, Samed got slower and slower.

He was well and truly blown. His arms hung low and he moved at least half as slowly as normal.

Flicking a jab at his nose she judged his reaction. Already badly hurt in that area, eyes starting to blacken, his hands moved up. As her hand returned his hands dropped.

She flicked another blow a bit higher. Samed lifted his hands again.

Targeting his solar plexus, Mai lifted her lead leg and shot it out in a sidekick.

HIT! – 20% DAMAGE

STUNNED!

WINDED!

STAGGERED!

Mai smiled as the STAGGERED glyph popped up along with the WINDED and STUNNED glyph. Samed was still rocking backwards when she spun and threw a back kick, targeting his solar plexus once more.

HIT! 30% DAMAGE

TECHNICAL KNOCKOUT

A glyph, with the letters TKO appeared over her opponent’s head, joining the other status effects already in place. Samed was done. Her kick sent him flying backward. Crashing to the ground he lay curled up around the pain in his chest, unable to continue the fight.

NEW SKILL UNARMED COMBAT RANK 1!

UNARMED SKILL BONUS +5%

Unarmed Combat

Unarmed combat is the skill of defeating an opponent using the weapons granted by nature. It should be the last resort of any culler unless for some reason they have decided to take their opponent alive. Or to toy with them. Designed purely to kill, UNARMED COMBAT is far deadlier than other skills such as PUGILISM and DIRTY BOXING. As a result, it is only taught to members of the military, police, and cullers.

UNARMED COMBAT is a PASSIVE skill which confers a base unlimited duration, and a 5% CRITICAL HIT bonus. Each additional level of skill confers +5% CRITICAL HIT chance as well as +10 seconds to the ACTIVE duration and removes 10 seconds from the RECHARGE time.

UNARMED COMBAT experts are able to SPECIALISE in one specific strike such as JAB, CROSS, UPPERCUT conferring a base 10% bonus to all damage caused by those blows. Each additional level of proficiency in UNARMED COMBAT confers 5% to the damage.

Once, during each fight, they are able to ACTIVATE the SPECIALISM, conferring an additional +20% to damage, and +10% to CRITICAL HIT

Mai walked over to her opponent. Unable to breathe properly due to being winded, he was both gasping for air and blowing blood from his ruined nose. Sobs sprayed blood with every breath. She knew she’d hurt him spiritually far more than she had physically, and it caused an ache in her chest.

“I’m sorry. Truly. I have a sister. All I want to do is get through this and back to her. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I lost her.”

Samed cursed her. Then rolled over and vomited weakly.