When I asked Amelia to announce my next challenge, I certainly wasn't expecting to be thrown into it just immediately.
The domain replacement thingy happened again, and there I was, back on the same dark alleyway that almost killed me once. Something about the sky looked different, redder, angrier. As if to express that it was done going easy on me.
I'd wished that was only an assumption, but unfortunately, it wasn't. The next challenge didn't walk out of the darkness the same way Stone did. He'd already been there, hands in pocket, waiting for me.
[Stage 2]
[Player VS Cypher]
[Difficulty: Insane]
Insane? That was in par with Tyler's difficulty. Just what I needed. But something about this Cypher guy seemed weird. Dangerous, even.
For one thing, he was just a really slender guy in a black hoodie that covered almost all of his face. The kind of pictures you'd see only in comic books about the Grim Reaper.
For a stage two, he didn't look so determined or angry. His expression was bored, the kind of expression that said he'd determined the outcome of this match. Was it intimidating? Probably... definitely.
"What do you think, Amelia?"
Amelia's hologram appeared, and she didn't hesitate to give me a look of sheer frustration. Like she was done trying to deal with my shit.
"I can't exactly say..." She said, creasing her chin. "But from his physique, I can tell that he fights more with agility than with strength. If you're gonna beat him, you have to either match his speed, or land a perfect blow-"
I didn't wait any longer. I just dashed towards him, trying to read his coordinates. C1. I just had to aim for his head first. That was where I could land the strongest attack.
I reached my right fist out to him, but he moved his face to the side. Effortlessly, while his hands were still in his pockets. I tried again with my other arm, one pack of a strong blow- that only kissed the air again.
C2. I tried for a knee jab, but he flexibly bent his torso backwards. Nice. He's distracted. I tried for another punch, but he just bent his head sideways again.
Fuck. How is he so flexible?
It made me angrier that he was doing all these and hadn't removed his hands from his pockets. Plus, the analytical eye skill didn't seem to be helping as much. I could track his coordinates faster, as the skill had defined, but he was faster to dodge.
I shoved my left fist upward, and with my other fist, I arched the X point- a cross blow. This was such a fullproof method that I didn't think he could avoid it.
But he did. And cunningly at that. He loosened the weight on his balance and dropped to the floor like a football. An aggressive stump followed, but he still rolled over and regained his balance.
He returned it to his hoodie pockets, then smirked. That grim smile, I didn't miss it. And somehow, I began to ask myself if I was really facing off against a stage two challenger, or if this was just a final boss in weird clothing.
"Who the fuck are you-"
A blur of motion. In one second, he was right there, slapping me with a tiny smirk. And in the next second, he vanished with the howl of thin air.
Where did he-
Tap. Tap.
I felt it. Two finger taps on my shoulder behind me. I slowly turned around, as if hesitant to uncover the realisation behind me.
And then, BAM. One swift punch directly hit my nose. Invisible stars circled my head. I stumbled backwards, clutching my already bleeding nose. Fuck. I hate this guy.
Angrily, I charged him again, swiping any possible punch in his direction. Grunting with every failed attempt. At this moment, I was starting to understand Stone's pain when he kept missing me. It was frustrating. Appalling. And even more embarrassing that I had an analytical skill that was just proving useless.
Cypher wasn't playing around anymore, either. With every failed attempt of mine, I became open to him. He punched me in the guts where I failed to punch him. Knocked a K.O in my shoulders. And my face? Well, it'd pretty much become his punching bag.
His last blow was to my torso. A knee kick. Hard. Merciless. I had my bet on losing a life with that attack, but I just rolled off helplessly on the ground, spitting out blood from whatever internal organ he'd destroyed in me.
"I can see that matching his speed was a totally wrong suggestion." Amelia gave me a funny look of guilt. "Are you okay?"
"Do I look like I'm okay—"
Footsteps. Cypher walked towards me and grabbed me by my shirt. Close up, I could now see his face clearly. His eyes were blank white. No life in them. And a soft scar ran down the left one, stopping at the corner of his nose.
Honestly, whoever created the characters in this system was really a genius—
"Do you know...Where am I?" He asked with a grim, cracked voice.
And honestly, that was the last thing I was expecting him to say.
"Huh?" I didn't move my eyes away from him. What was he talking about?
I heard a sigh pass his lips. Apparently, my answer to his question was something he'd heard over and over again. But then, why did he want to know where he was? Did he become independent of the system that created him and was trying to escape?
"Never mind." He said, rather tiredly. "I'll just ask the others."
He slammed a blow into my face, one so tight that the last I heard was a deafening ring. In one second, I was knocked unconscious, and then conscious again- back to the beginning of the game.
[Lives Left: 2/3]
Cypher. He'd fought me like I wasn't even supposed to be a challenge. Dodged my attacks while pulling off dance moves. He'd done it all effortlessly. And yet, this was the guy I was supposed to defeat?
Analytical eye my foot. If anything. He'd been the one reading my attacks, fooling me into whatever opening I thought he had. He wasn't just fighting, he was strategising every one of my moves. Calculating.
"I can't beat him." I concluded, staring at his grim figure standing some feet away in the dark. "He's too tough."
"That's the problem." Amelia's hologram appeared. "You're reading him too much. But he's read you better and faster in the first round."
"So, what can I do? He thinks faster than I do."
Amelia looked blankly at me. "Then, stop thinking." She said.
Stop thinking? What did she mean by that? Was I supposed to shut down all the neurons in my brain and rush irrationally at him?
But then, maybe that was the answer. To move in a way he won't be able to predict. And to do that, I also had to lose mind control over my movements and do it without thinking.
"I'll give it a shot then."
I ran towards Cypher, my fists out as if to gift him a punch. But a foot close to him, I shoved a kick into his side. Surprisingly, it hit. And I heard his breathing become heavier after.
I reached my punch for his guts, but he leapt backwards, jumping up in the air to kick my face. I caught his leg, and with all the force in me, I drove his slender existence into the ground.
I wanted to pounce on him and punch him to next Friday, the same way he'd done with me—but he side rolled, and my knuckles met the bare floor's impact.
Ouch. Hot.
He stood back up. And for a minute or two, we just stared each other in the eyes like western cowboys trying to determine who owns the land.
I needed to trust my instincts. At that point, they knew more than my brain did.
Cypher pulled that glitchy move, disappearing from the spot like he was never there. I didn't hesitate. I rapidly turned around, punching whatever was behind me— if there was even anything.
My fist hit flesh, luckily. Cypher staggered backwards, holding on to his nose. Payback. I rushed him regardless, grabbed his right arm before he could try to dodge, then revolved in a flash.
When I heard his bone crack, I knew I'd caused a critical hit. He yelled in pain, now grabbing his arm pathetically. He appeared to be too busy with his damage, probably why he didn't see my final hit coming. A high leap in the air, and then. BAM. My foot right into his face.
Silence.
While I still kept my fists up, waiting for him to come at me again, he just lay there on the cold floor. Unconscious.
"What?" My eyebrow arched questioningly at the picture. "He's dead. So fast?"
[Stage 2 Complete]
[Player Wins]
[Reward]
[Force: +6]
[Agility: +7]
[Stamina: +4]
[Fortitude: +0.1]
[Pro Reward!]
[Flow State- Active Skill]
"What's a flow state?"
"It's a skill that allows you to bypass conscious thought and tap into your muscle memory, reacting instinctively against opponents," Amelia explained.
"Oh. So basically, this is another reward that is a skill I discovered myself while fighting, eh?"
"Don't get too cocky. The system rewards you for what you already know. These skills already exist in its reward slots, you just get an enhancement reward when you actually use it."
By now, I'd returned to class, standing right beside my desk. Thankfully, no one was present, because it could have been awkward to see the school cripple actually popping out of a domain.
"I want to test it out," I said to Amelia as I took my seat. "To see if it's actually enhanced."
"Well, that's not until-"
Amelia was about to say something when two of my classmates walked in. Girls, holding juice boxes and looking at me amusedly.
Ella and Rein. I recognised them from my last big bully encounter. They'd been the ones praising those stupid middle tiers as they whacked off my face in the hallway on an early Thursday morning.
"I heard that Ren is going off against Tyler," Ella said before sipping on her juice. "I'm going to watch their fight. Are you coming?"
"Duhh." Rein giggled as she said that. "Tyler's so hot. Of course, I want to see him beat somebody up."
Oh?...oh. I smiled. Not because they thought he was going to beat me. But because Tyler was actually starting to make announcements that I was actually going to be present at the arena.
And that was just the outreach I needed.
"It's time to end all these."