Chapter 251: Still Water
I ask for Veric’s sword.
He looks at me as if I’d asked for the throne, the crown, and formal permission to spit on his family crest.
"No."
"It’ll save time."
"That’s exactly why I shouldn’t hand it over."
I just keep my hand out. Veric holds my gaze for a few seconds, but there’s a limit to how much pride a person can spend arguing with someone who has no intention of backing down. In the end, he pulls the sword from its sheath and gives it to me hilt-first, with the expression of a man already regretting it before he knows why.
"If you damage that, I’m charging you with interest."
"It’s a sword. It’ll survive."
"It’s an expensive sword."
"Then it finally gets to justify the price."
Before he can answer, I drive the blade’s tip into the dirt and start scoring a circle around the open part of the plaza. The line comes out uneven, cutting the low grass and marking the dry earth. The circle takes almost all the usable space between the fountain and the trees, big enough to move, small enough to make fleeing a choice with consequences.
Veric stays quiet until he understands what I’m doing.
"Sands," he says, his voice too low to be just irritation. "You took my sword to use as a marking stick."
"Yes."
He opens his mouth, closes it, looks at Freya laughing across the plaza, and decides that continuing the argument would only make everything worse. When I finish, I hand the sword back. Veric wipes it with a cloth from his inventory as if the blade had been subjected to a humiliating experiment.
"This is the ring," I say. "Step out on your own, you lose. Get thrown out, you can return, as long as you’re still conscious. I’m the judge."
Freya crosses her arms but doesn’t object. She seems more interested in finding where I plan to go wrong. Kellan studies the circle with simple attention, probably counting how many steps it’d take to shove someone out. Mira, on the other hand, watches me, not the mark on the ground.
I pull a piece of dark leather from my inventory, still among the items I brought from Lost Ark. I kneel near the dry fountain and write the names with OXI concentrated at my fingertips.
Oliver Kaminski.
Zhang Xi.
The Nomine Gladiatus rune closes around the letters, thin as a scar. I set the wager at one percent of experience. Nothing more.
"Diver Marks."
Oliver looks at Zhang Xi with that cautious respect large men sometimes develop toward people too small to read safely. She steps up first and marks the leather without ceremony. Oliver does the same after. The rune lights, pulling a thread of OXI from each of them, and the leather burns to ash. The bond is made.
"One percent," I confirm. "Knockout, surrender, voluntary exit from the circle, or an interrupted fatal blow. If I call stop, you stop."
Oliver summons Motorhead from his inventory and rests the weapon on his shoulder. The hammer looks too big for a training match, which is exactly Oliver’s problem in almost any enclosed space. Zhang Xi enters the circle with no visible weapon. Her gray tunic falls straight, the hood resting on her shoulders, her hands joined in front of her body.
She stops at the center of the marked area and looks at Oliver with an almost gentle serenity.
"Mister Oliver, come when you’re ready."
The line should sound like an invitation. Somehow, it sounds like a sentence. Oliver isn’t a coward, but he isn’t stupid either. He adjusts his grip on Motorhead, sizing up the monk as if trying to find where someone so calm hides the dangerous part.
"For a healer, you look far too comfortable inside a fighting ring."
"Healing wounds means knowing them well," Zhang Xi answers. "And sometimes, knowing how they’re made."
Freya stops smiling.
Oliver lets the air out slowly. "All right, then."
I position myself outside the circle, close enough to read the line of both bodies. Veric stands to the right, more serious now. Rhayne watches in silence, her hands locked together. The plaza, which before only seemed remote, turns too small for the tension building inside it.
"Get ready," I say.
Oliver lowers his center of gravity. Zhang Xi closes her eyes.
"Fight."
Nothing happens.
Oliver doesn’t move in right away. The absence of any hostility from Zhang Xi is so complete that it seems to jam his combat instinct. She doesn’t raise a guard, doesn’t adjust her feet, doesn’t change her breathing. It’s like attacking someone standing in prayer.
After a few seconds, Oliver makes the decision out of stubbornness.
He charges.
Motorhead comes in a heavy arc, swinging from the right toward Zhang Xi’s head. It isn’t an empty blow. If it lands, the fight ends there, along with most of her medical dignity. Even so, she doesn’t move.
Oliver brakes at the last instant.
The hammer stops crooked, too close to her face, and the weapon’s own weight nearly drags Oliver sideways. He has to plant a foot in the dirt to keep his balance. Zhang Xi opens her eyes only after the blow has already died.
"Why did you stop?" she asks.
Oliver looks more annoyed with himself than with her. "Because you weren’t going to block."
"I didn’t say that."
"You didn’t do anything to suggest otherwise either."
Zhang Xi smiles gently. "Still water isn’t always shallow, Mister Oliver. Sometimes it’s only learned to hide the current."
Oliver looks at me, an honest mix of frustration and respect on his face. "Boss, does this count as psychological damage?"
"Only if she charges for it."
He breathes deep and raises Motorhead again. This time he doesn’t hesitate. The swing starts lower, pulled with both hands, gaining speed before the final approach. Oliver doesn’t aim for the head. He aims for the torso, where brute force has a better chance of forcing Zhang Xi to show something.
She waits until the last instant.
Then her sleeve opens.
A fan appears in her hand.
The motion is small. The fan touches the side of Motorhead’s haft at the exact point where the weapon’s weight begins to overpower the control of his arm. There’s no contest of strength. Just redirection.
Motorhead explodes into the ground beside her.
Dirt and bits of stone leap inside the circle. Oliver is dragged by his own attack and has to twist his body to keep from dropping to his knees. Zhang Xi stays in the same spot, the fan open in front of her chest, her expression far too serene for someone who was nearly crushed.
She tilts her head.
"What’s the matter, big man? I’m right here."
Kellan goes serious. Freya loses her smile. Veric looks at the mark on the ground, then at the fan, as if reviewing the whole fight in silence.
I keep my eyes on Zhang Xi.
Leona handed me a healer. She just forgot to mention she’d also handed me a problem shaped like a monk.
"I’m starting to miss the quiet, pacifist Zhang Xi," I murmur. "This one scares me."
