“Huff… huff…” came the panting sound of the one armed on his back on the floor. His dhoti barely covering anything, in his eyes was visage of 6 ft tall beautiful woman with an angelic face. Beautiful black eyes, towering breast simmering the in the shine of her sweat, giving her the angelic shine, the only thing distinguishing her from an angel. Her thin waist, perfectly placed centered navel, moving inwards and outwards as she tried to control her breath in vain. Her long legs, perfect thighs made her the object of everyone’s desire…

But right now, the heaving chest gave her the breath for strength, supple and flexible waist made it impossible to land a hit and the powerful legs kicked the crap out of Kush who outclassed her in strength by a humongous margin. She then spat on the floor right next to his right ear. Then came the beautiful sonorous sound of a bell ‘ting’

Sometime back when Tara challenged Kush…

“So when do we start?”

“Whenever you are re…”

With a smug smile Kush replied “I am ready now”

A smile appeared on the woman’s face as she said “Don’t want to dry yourself?”

Kush replied “Let’s go, don’t regret your decision later”

Smile on Tara’s face disappeared and lifted her perfect ass off the guest bed and headed out the room. Kush followed her, his eyes following the round voluptuous ass of the woman as she made her way across the gallery out through another gate. It led to a close room about 10 m high and 30m by 30m in dimension. It was a flat surface enough for a but he doubted it would survive if he went wild in hear. Tara as if reading his mind said “Don’t worry, its enchanted, you can run wild in hear as much as you want. It was made by someone beyond your measly measure of strength”

She then walked behind a translucent curtain. Kush could see a dark shadow of hers from the other side as she untied a knot which held the entire dress of hers in place and it dropped, may be cause of the chilly temperature in the room or maybe from the excitement of the fight, her nipples were erect though slightly visible in the outline of the shadow on the translucent curtain. The outline of her perfect body sent shivers down Kush’s spine. She put on what looked like shorts which started right above her ass and ended right below her vagina on her thighs. She put on a short tight top, which pressed her breasts together and pushed them hard against her chest. When she pulled the curtain apart he could see her once again. The elastic tiny top which could barely contain the majesty of her breast and her perfectly carved body and her tiny elastic drawers binding her ass begging to free themselves from binding of the fabric. Once she was ready she asked “Now tell me how do you want to fight?”

Kush looked with a puzzled expression not understanding the question

“With or without your weapon?” a little annoyance in her voice

Kush was irked by her tone, it was her who called her on, challenged to a fight and now she was treating him so poorly. As for her strength, Kush believed that she was weak cause of her performance against Brutus and that was truth no matter what she thought was the right answer she was miles away from him when it came to any sort of fight.

“Without weapon, heh” he said as if he didn’t deign her worthy enough to use Tanka.

Tara too was pissed from his attitude towards her and was intent on fixing it at any cost.

“Come in” she said and then came an able bodied man who looked a bit aged from his face, he didn’t have any muscles and wore loose fitting dark clothes. He came in with a gong and a metal stick probably to strike it with. We will fight in rounds. Kush was a little puzzled, he had never had a formal bout with anybody; rounds and rings were a foreign concept to him. Seeing his crumpled face and remembering how he described his barbaric training she could guess what he was thinking and said “Round is the duration for which the fight will continue before a break. Each round will be quarter of an hour and after each round we take a break till you manage to get back up. Round begins at the sound of the gong and ends with the gong and I stop no matter what position I am in. Any questions?”

“What do you mean when ‘I’ manage to get back up?”

“You’ll see” this pissed Kush off a lot and suddenly the gong rang.

Kush was mostly on the slower side when fighting an opponent but what happened next was ridiculous, Tara disappeared from in front of him and before he could feel anything she was about a meter next to him and soon the legs he had admired so came at him like the scythe of a death god and ‘bang’ hit him square in the jaw from his right with her heel. His neck was built like a trunk and a one kick was never going to throw him off his game, on the contrary it made him focus more, but then before he could turn his neck back to have a look at her in came an elbow which struck square in the jaw. The difference in height between the two wasn’t much about 4 inches but the length of Kush’s arm was not short, when fully extended his arms extended below his knees, but when reaching his right side most of his opponents had the advantage in reach. He used Tanka’s broad blade as a shield to offset those advantages but without it and speeds like Tara’s was like a bane to him. Attack didn’t stop there as she came in with a punch once again square in the jaw. All of this in a fraction of second since the gong rang. Kush still was on his feet could go strong cause of his ‘Toughness’. This time he was able to react as he kept a palm of him just below his chin where she had attacked him some time before partially out of fear for the next hit and partially out of anticipation he wanted to grab a hold of her and eliminate her speed and agility. But the hit never came and just as he was about to look around to search for her, he felt something sharp hit him right below his ribs on his right.

Tara had plunged hard into hit liver with her knee and for the first time managing to move him lifting him off the ground by about 4 cm and pushing him off atleast a foot to the left. She saw him wince in pain. She had fought with a lot of opponents in in her time at the Uni, but this toughness is ridiculous even for an adept level toughness practitioner “Didn’t he say he didn’t have Karmic power” she thought “Let it be for now, I have to kick his ass, he is not like Brutus I can do this!!”

After the knee containing the full force of her weight, she used the bottom of her palm to smack him in the ear. He didn’t have his footing properly so the hit made him skip on his left foot a couple of times to his left and then stop. She punched him in the neck behind his head causing him to balk to the front. She then used her shin to kick him behind his knee. Kush was just helplessly flailing around, always 3 steps behind her. It was like seeing a kid trying to find where the coin came from. Tara hit him behind his knee three more time behind his knee and then spun to his left again. She saw the smile on Kush’s like he was proud of something and saw his arm approaching.

After being hit thrice behind the knee he was starting to feel weak in his legs and this was pissing him off “It hadn’t even been a couple of seconds since the gong rang and she was going at this ridiculous speeds to knock him out. This way she would burn out way before he would” he thought.

After he got hit in knee he expected her to hit him in his right again and he was right she went for his weakness but this time he was ready. She was poised to kick him straight in the temple, he tried to grab her for which he raised his hands to his temple but just as she was about half a foot from his head she changed the direction of her kick and came down on his waist with her knee. The gap and distance gave her so much force that Kush was forced to bend to his right unnaturally. Their position was such that this caused both their faces to come infront of each other and for a fraction of a second both of them remembered the time in the courtyard of the allotment. Her face shining in the sun and him approaching her to kiss her. But this time all the two of them had it in their eyes were rage. Rage cause of being underestimated and rage cause of being disrespected and this was all being expelled in their fight. Just when their faces were a few centimeters apart Kush felt another sharp jolt to his left side. She plunged her elbow on the left side of her face, before Kush could pull himself out of trajectory she had punched him once again in the left of his face pushing him further down his right and after this came another knee to the left side of his torso throwing him away sending him crashing in the wall about 17 m from where they were. Kush felt that one.

Kush hit the floor on his right ear

‘BAM’

Came the sound as his neck twisted in a weird angle but he was still not injured. He took a second to catch his breath thinking she wouldn’t attack since he was down, but he was terribly wrong. As he heard felt a sharp jolt on the back of his head. She had kicked the back of his head like it was a football using the front of her foot. Kush was near the wall already as his forehead hit the wall

‘BAM’

The kicks, elbows and punches weren’t doing him a lot of damage but slowly the damage would pile up, he had to act before it became a point of no return. As he thinking this, in came another kick to his left ear, she had kicked him with her toes and his neck also turned in an unnatural angle.

Kush rolled over before the next attack, the first attack he had managed to dodge. He didn’t wait and immediately stood up and tried to run away, a big mistake he realized not a lot later just after his second step. She was a lot faster than him and he couldn’t escape. She kicked the back of his legs and he fell down face first, she kicked him in the neck lifting him off the ground and then stepping on his back. She never did a grappling or wrestling move, cause she knew that she couldn’t wait at any location for more than a fraction of a second, the opponent would then crush her. She then sent a knee flying down on the back of his head. Kush used the fraction of second in the first slow attack and rolled over to the side and sent a punch flying thinking she couldn’t dodge if she was in air. But she hooked her right leg around his arm and pulled her body away. Kush too alert at the time smashed his arm in the ground but she had but used his arm momentarily and swiftly let it go as she was thrown about 10 m from him but she quickly bounced to feet and immediately dodged to right seeing the incoming punch.

He thought it was his time to attack, but he had telegraphed his punch so much that she managed to spin on her hands and land a kick on the back of his powerful neck throwing him on the ground, immediately tried to grab her legs by force, but she slipped out of his reach at the last moment and all he could grab was air and felt a kick on the small of back forcing him down. She didn’t straddle him cause he was much-much stronger than her and could easily trap her using only one of his leg for a second and after that he wouldn’t let go. She was too fast for him, but he was too strong her but things were well within her expectations. Kush, obviously having fought even faster opponents, managed to follow her with his eyes, but as was the case with the other faster opponents, he always got hit. Only difference here was that the other faster opponents on his island hit him a lot harder so he didn’t really have a lot of practice there.

Kush now lowered his center of mass and simply took the hits from the opponents like a wrestler. He then spread his hands open and didn’t defend himself at all. He knew if he simply let himself get hit he could take quite a few of them and planned to corner, not giving her any options to escape. But she did not let it happen at all as she landed a few kicks on his neck, but he knew it wouldn’t succeed in one attempt so he kept on trying to do it. Doing this without having an arm was always going to be difficult and he was sure this was the only way.

First try failed…

Second try failed…

Third try failed…

.

.

.

He kept on failing till the ninth time when finally, he was able to corner her, but he once again made a judgement error and went in a bit too quick and low. Tara simply side stepped and elbowed him in the back of his head again, causing him to fall on his chin. He could feel the warm taste of blood in his mouth.

“Don’t lose it” he said to himself but he quickly spun around with closed fists as if he wanted to murder her

Seeing him annoyed Tara said “Heh” so as soon as he turned he rammed his cheeks right into her knees as the cut in his mouth increased and blood poured out of it and dropped on the floor in a small splatter on the floor of the room, but this time he didn’t stop and like an enraged bull simply used his waist’s strength to throw her off her using his cheek to push her knee. Then like an animal he used his arm to push forward at her fearing that waiting for his legs to turn would let her escape. Tara simply lowered her leg and side stepped, after that went for the knee is his nose but suddenly stopped for some reason and didn’t move for a second. Kush didn’t understand the wait but this was the opening he had been waiting for. He grabbed her by the waist and tackled her to the ground and straddled her and just as he raised his hand to punch the day lights out of her, he saw her deadpan eyes and stopped. He really wanted to punch her but he was doing something wrong. It was not about hitting a person from the fairer sex but something else. As if reading his mind, she said “The gong rang you dumb fuck”. It then hit Kush and he stood up and let her go. Anger, rage, shame and indignation filled him as he saw her back turned to him and walking away. He closed his fist, no matter how powerful he was, if he couldn’t hit her it was all for naught.

“Lets start” he uttered.

As soon as he said so the man rang the gong and Tara once again disappeared from his view. Kush was surprised cause he was going to go on a tirade about how she said he would understand “till you manage to get back up”. But all he got was an ass whupping of the life time. Another fifteen minutes of getting kicked, kneed, punched, elbowed and so on while all he could do take it of block it and dodge it some time. By the end second round, his neck and abdomen had become blue from bruising and there was a cut above his eyes, the bleeding blocked his vision but he said it again.

“Lets start”

This time he took the initiative to charge in trying to take her by surprise but she slipped out and came down on his back and so it continued, she smacked him around the room like she was playing squash with him. All her hits were critical, meaning she was mostly hitting places like neck, behind the knees, above the liver and above the kidney. Kush was black and blue all over. He tried all his strategies, but she was way out of his league. His bloated confidence from having fought and defeated Brutus started to wane away in air. After fifth round, his knees were starting to hurt and her punches and kicks were causing cuts in addition to bruises. His left eye was black, his face a bloody mess, his torso was laden with bruises and cuts and he was bleeding all over.

But he was still standing erect and said “Lets start”

She didn’t even lose her breath and kept on thrashing him around and after 19th time, he had bruises all over his face and his lost sensation in his right foot, his ankles were swollen. Just looking at him felt painful and he was beginning to understand why he won against Brutus. To his mind he consciously thought that Tanka and his mother’s armor was a big reason why he won, cause together they negated two factors which made Brutus deadly, one was his corrosion power and the other was his massive defense. His own personal ability was largely more biased towards strength. The combination of three made him the perfect counter to Brutus where she was the perfect opponent for Brutus, since she would have had to connect many times to get an injury on him and that would have been in Brutus’s ball park. But no matter what it was a big achievement saving an entire country from a decade long plague and thus subconsciously he had started to underestimate the people who fought with him.

He shook his head to focus his vision and looked up at the woman, not a drop of sweat visible on her visage and still said “Lets start”

.

.

.

After 60th round a little more than 15 hours were over and Kush still didn’t manage to land a single hit. His face was now unrecognizable, hands swollen cause of the blocking all of Tara’s attack waiting for the one opportunity. Tara too was not bleeding from her knuckles, her elbow, shin, knee and ankle. The toll was pilling up on both of them. She did not expect him to be so resilient. Her attack though weak in comparison to his defense, each of her attack could shatter a rock easily. She was just bleeding from punching the slow guy’s muscles not even his bones. “The fuck sort of training has he done?” After 71st round Kush landed on his knees and went down on his back, he was not yet unconscious but he was down for the count, looking up at her towering figure sweat drenched, bloody but still beautiful.

She bent at her waist and spat on the floor next to him and turned around to walk away trying to catch her breath and waiting for the guy to say ‘I give up’ or ‘let’s start’. But what she heard was different “I am sorry” a mild low voice from one armed man beaten black and blue.

This caused her to stop in her tracks and turn her head to side. Kush continued “I judged your strength from your fight with Brutus where odds were stacked against you. I am sorry for that”

There was a brief pause after that, he could not see her expressions since her back was facing him but her fingers loosened a little as her hands opened up and she exclaimed loudly “I am not weak!! I am strong!!” her shoulders shaking a little.

Kush didn’t know how to respond to this so he just shut-up and there was silence once again. He then said “None of my training partners were able to let me fight for any amount of time. If you could help me w…”

“Tomorrow morning same time same format same bets”

Kush had forgotten about the bet and simply dozed off after hearing ‘format’. For him tomorrow onwards was going to be a huge training session and naturally his healing mechanism started functioning and the damage on his face started reducing and by morning he was not limping anymore. He looked like he had come from a bar fight but he had healed up pretty good. Tara on the other hand had to take a level 7 healing potion, just to heal up the injuries for the next. Seeing him walk about normally despite having only slept in the arena they were fighting miffed Tara a little but she did remember Sylvie saying he used mana from ambient to heal himself rapidly. Though using the Mula chakra and mana to heal oneself must require huge reservoir of mana and really fat mana veins.

She was a bit extra motivated today having defeated him yesterday and sated her thirst for revenge. The same thing repeated today, except for Kush fumbling around a little less in the opening rounds. He was once again thrashed around the ring like room without anything to hit. It was frustrating for him, so much that after a few rounds he smashed his fist in the centre of the ring in anger trying to vent off whatever anger he piled. All he was able to hit in his bouts were the wall, floor and the roof. Once again at the end of the day blue, bruised and battered Kush took help of the wall to sit straight. He had used his father’s method to analyse her stats, it had come with experience over past 1000s of battles he had with beasts his father made him fight.

Now that she had vented her frustration she was in a good mood and sat next to him with her back against the wall as well. Her sweat smelled delicious and Kush liked it a lot. She asked him “since you asked my help to train, what all do you know about Karmic powers, characteristic powers, Chakra and potions?”

Kush replied with a shrug “I know the types of characteristic powers, I know two Chakra points and I don’t know anything about potions”

Tara astounded by the revelation asked him “Do you not know the classification of Karmic powers, potions and five of chakra points?”

Kush just shook his head.

Tara

Strength: ~1200

Speed: ~7000

Agility: ~12000

Regen: ??

Magic Regen: ??

Toughness: ~1500*

Skills:

???

Kush

Mana veins 89

Strength: 4900*

Speed: 1000*

Agility: 270*

Regen: 9004*

Magic Regen: 30209*

Toughness: 6703*

Skills:

Heavy Swing* Dodge* Horizontal Slash* ???* ****

Svadhi and Mula chakraa open