Chapter 151: He’s just as sick as Jake.
I continued with the focus on the growing pressure of Jake’s Berserker, on Victor yielding under brute force while learning throughout the beating — and on Grace realizing that interfering would be useless.
The collision between the two destroyed what remained of the clearing’s center.
Jake appeared first.
Not like a warrior.
Like a disaster.
His body crossed the space in a red, distorted line, and his fist descended toward Victor with enough force to make the entire ground bend even before impact. Victor raised the Black Ice sword to block, spreading an inner layer of ice through the bones of his arm and shoulder at the same time.
The blow landed.
BOOOOOOM!
The sword did not break immediately.
But it cracked.
It cracked from tip to hilt, as if a mountain had fallen on it.
Victor felt the impact travel through the blade, pass through his fingers, climb his wrist, and crush his elbow from the inside. The internal Black Ice held the structure together, but even so, his entire arm went numb for a fraction of a second.
Jake did not stop.
He twisted his body and struck Victor’s ribs with a side kick.
Victor tried to reinforce the skin in the correct spot.
He succeeded.
Partially.
The kick sent him flying, tearing the ground beneath his feet before he was finally hurled into a rock formation. The stone split into three pieces, and Victor vanished inside a cloud of dust and black fragments.
Grace, at a distance, tightened her fingers around a blade of ice.
By instinct, she almost advanced.
Then she stopped.
Her red eyes followed Jake, who was already running toward the dust without even waiting for Victor to get up. The blood pressure around him crushed the terrain. The ice spread across the ground from the previous fight began to crack merely from his proximity.
Grace slowly lowered her hand.
She understood.
This was no longer a fight in which she could interfere effectively.
Her ice was precise.
Fast.
Deadly.
But it did not have enough force to restrain Jake in that state.
Even Victor’s Black Ice, denser, more aggressive, and clearly superior to hers in raw resistance, was being broken by direct blows. If she stepped in, she would not help. She would create an opening. Maybe become a distraction. Maybe end up being used against Victor.
Grace took a deep breath.
"Idiot," she murmured. "Both of them."
The dust exploded.
Victor emerged from it with a smile on his face and blood running from the corner of his mouth.
The sword in his hand was destroyed. Half the blade had shattered, and the hilt was cracked. He dissolved the weapon before the fragments could fall, and the Black Ice returned to his body in small dark particles.
Jake arrived at the same instant.
Victor did not create another sword.
He blocked with his forearm.
Jake’s punch struck the Black Ice over his skin.
CRACK.
The layer broke.
The fist pierced through the defense and struck the bone beneath.
Victor felt the radius crack.
Instead of retreating, he laughed.
"This is much better than fighting spoiled prodigies."
Jake answered with another punch.
Victor tilted his head, letting the blow pass close to his face. The wind alone opened a cut on his cheek. He rotated inside Jake’s guard and struck him in the abdomen with his knee, using Black Lightning at the final instant.
BOOM!
Jake bent only a few centimeters.
Little.
Far too little.
Victor noticed immediately.
"Your body became denser."
Jake grabbed his knee.
Victor narrowed his eyes.
"Ah."
Jake spun and slammed Victor into the ground.
The impact opened a crater.
Before Victor could recover his stance, Jake stepped on his chest.
BOOOOOOM!
The crater sank deeper.
Victor reinforced his ribs from within with Black Ice, but the pressure was so great that several layers broke in sequence. The air left his lungs, and for one second his vision darkened at the edges.
Jake leaned over him.
His red eyes were almost devoid of reason.
"Do you still think this is funny?"
Victor coughed blood.
Then smiled.
"Yes."
Jake stomped again.
BOOOOOOM!
This time, Victor felt two ribs break completely.
Grace took an involuntary step.
Then stopped again.
Victor was laughing.
Not like someone trying to provoke out of pride.
But like someone genuinely fascinated.
Even beneath Jake’s foot, even with his chest breaking and his body sunk into the earth, Victor’s eyes shone as if he had finally found an interesting problem.
Jake raised his leg to stomp again.
Victor moved his hand.
Black Ice appeared around Jake’s ankle, not to freeze it completely, but to alter the joint’s angle at the exact instant he would bring his foot down. When the blow came, the axis of the leg shifted a few centimeters.
The impact struck the ground beside Victor’s chest.
The crater exploded.
Victor used the explosion as momentum.
Black Lightning ran through his back and shoulders, accelerating his body out of the crater. He spun in the air and struck Jake’s face with his heel, coated in Black Ice and charged with dark electricity.
BOOM!
Jake was pushed a few steps back.
He did not fall.
Victor landed on one knee, one hand on the ground, breathing with difficulty. His regeneration was already working on the ribs, but the pain was still there, bright and useful.
"I understood something," Victor said, slowly standing.
Jake wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand.
"You understood nothing."
"I did." Victor rolled his shoulder, feeling the cracked arm slowly realign. "Berserker is not just physical enhancement. If it were only that, your movements would not change so much."
Jake advanced.
Victor did too.
Their fists collided.
The impact created a circular wave that swept through the crater.
This time, Victor gave way first.
His arm was thrown back, and Jake used the opening to punch him in the face with his other fist. The blow hurled Victor sideways, but he used Black Lightning in his feet to arrest his trajectory and stopped before crashing into another rock.
He spat blood.
He kept talking.
"You are burning control in exchange for strength. The angrier you get, the greater the output. But the energy is not refining your body. It is forcing everything."
Jake appeared in front of him and tried to crush his head with both hands.
Victor ducked by a hair’s breadth.
Jake’s hands collided above him.
BOOM!
The pressure almost knocked him down.
Victor struck Jake’s ribs with three quick blows, each carrying a small discharge of Black Lightning. The goal was not to wound him deeply. It was to measure. Test response. See where the Berserker’s natural defense thickened the most.
First strike: high resistance.
Second strike: involuntary muscular contraction.
Third strike: delayed reaction.
Victor smiled.
"The left side is slower."
Jake roared and struck with a knee.
Victor blocked with both arms.
The impact lifted him from the ground.
Jake grabbed his neck in midair and dragged him through the ruins, destroying an entire wall with his body. Victor felt stones crush his back, but created Black Ice between his skin and the fragments before they could pierce important organs.
It still hurt.
A lot.
The pain drew a louder laugh from him.
Jake slammed Victor into another wall.
Then into the ground.
Then lifted him again.
"Stop laughing!"
Victor grabbed his wrist.
"I cannot."
Black Ice spread from Victor’s fingers to Jake’s hand. The cold tried to climb up his arm, but the Berserker aura boiled around his skin and shattered the freezing into shards.
Victor watched it with attentive eyes.
"So internal heat increases too."
Jake hurled him away.
Victor spun through the air, created a short Black Ice blade, and stabbed it into the ground to reduce his speed. The blade broke almost immediately from the force of the throw, but it delayed his trajectory enough for him to land without destroying more ribs.
Grace watched in absolute silence.
It was strange.
She had seen many talented vampires fight. She had seen prodigies enter frenzies, heirs lose control, and monsters overwhelm arrogant youths in the Ritual. But this was different. Jake was becoming less rational with every second, a mass of strength, fury, and instinct, pushing his own body beyond the limit with the Berserker ability.
Victor, on the other hand, was also becoming more insane.
But in another way.
He was not losing reason.
He was sinking into it.
Every blow he suffered became information. Every fracture became a note. Every mistake in the Black Ice, Black Lightning, or his stance was corrected in the next movement. His smile was not empty arrogance. It was hunger.
Hunger for combat.
Hunger for learning.
Hunger for something difficult enough to force him to evolve.
Grace murmured:
"He is just as sick as Jake."
Perhaps worse.
Jake wanted to destroy.
Victor wanted to understand how to survive destruction and then return it better.
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