John stood like a statue, his feet planted firmly on the cold arena floor as he locked eyes with Ricky. The atmosphere in the sparring hall had shifted; the air felt missing a spark to explode, charged with a heavy tension.
In the background, he could hear the frantic shuffling of students clearing away the blood Luke had left behind, a grim reminder of the stakes. He could feel the burning, predatory gaze of Cissel digging into his back. But in this moment, none of that mattered.
Standing this close to Ricky, well within the focused range of his Frame Recognition, John was finally able to conduct a true audit of the boy's internal structure.
'I see you now,' John thought, his vision filtering through the structure of normal codes, focusing on the special ones. 'There are sixteen in total. Eleven special codes... And five showing peculiar, erratic movement patterns, different from the rest.'
"Fight at will!" Nikolas's voice boomed, thick with an excitement he didn't even bother to mask. "I expect something truly interesting from the two of you! Do not disappoint me!"
"I won't!"
Ricky was the first to move. He didn't just step forward; he exploded. In John's vision, he saw eleven of the special codes hum in a unified, synchronised rhythm. The youth moved with staggering speed, a blur of motion to the average eye. However, to John, who had danced with the lightning-fast Cissel, it wasn't quite enough to overwhelm him.
'I can keep up with this!' As Ricky closed the gap with a lunge, John pivoted. He moved with a fluid grace, widening the distance between them with ease. 'I'm not one of those half-assed losers you've been training with, Ricky. You're going to have to work harder for this fight.'
But just as the thought crossed his mind, the five weird codes began to hum. They didn't just hum; they surged, shining with a stark, violent white light that eclipsed every other code in Ricky's body. John's heart skipped a beat. He knew a strong move was coming, but the reality of it defied every logic in his mind.
From each of the five nodes, a thin, impossibly long filament began to extend.
It looked like a strand of white hair growing at an accelerated rate from a follicle embedded deep within the codes. Yet, these weren't hair. These filaments were alive. They snaked out through Ricky's body, growing and twisting in the air with a mind of their own, defying gravity and the laws of physics.
In the blink of an eye, Ricky was surrounded by five long, pale whips that writhed in the air like the tentacles of a deep-sea nightmare. The codes giving birth to them pulsed with a sinister, rhythmic throb.
'What the heck is this sorcery?!' A cold dread bloomed in John's heart. He retreated instinctively, his eyes tracking the movements of the twisting filaments. 'Let's see if you can make those things move faster than your own body, you freak!'
The fight evolved into a high-speed game of cat and mouse. The two students began a lethal dance around the arena, Ricky trying his desperate best to snare John within the reach of his tentacles, while John consistently slipped away by the fraction of a breath. It was a contest of pure agility, a frantic rhythm of lunges and parries that left the rest of the class breathless.
But after a few minutes of circling, John's frustration began to mount. He wasn't getting the information he needed to complete his quest this way. He could see the filaments, but he didn't understand their function. As the system Quest's name had reminded him, he was here to dig deeper.
'There's no gain without pain,' John thought, a grim resolve settling over him. 'Screw it.'
He deliberately adjusted his timing. He moved a fraction slower than necessary, allowing just one of those writhing white filaments to graze across his arm.
The result was instantaneous and agonising.
"Agh! What was that?!" John's voice cracked in a sharp exclamation of pain as he tore himself away, retreating to the far edge of the fighting space.
The spot where the filament had touched him was no longer intact… It was an open, gruesome-looking wound, as if a white-hot wire had been dragged through his flesh. Because he had pulled away so quickly, the wound wasn't deep enough to hit bone, but the damage was more than just physical.
As he clutched his arm, a cascade of golden notifications flooded his vision, the sheer number of them momentarily blocking out the world.
-
[Ding! You have been exposed to a suction force - Your stats have lost 1 point each - Your Mental Points lost 50!]
[Ding! Your strength - defence stats are lower than your enemy - Your Mental Point cap – speed - Int stats are over your enemy!]
[Ding! Your loss is cut by 50%!]
-
'Damn! He's way worse than that vampire girl!' John's mind screamed in shock.
It wasn't just the loss of twenty-five Mental Points; it was the theft of his hard-earned stats. Ricky was literally stripping away John's ability to fight with every touch of those filaments. The realisation that his Strength and Defence had been shaved down sent a jolt of panic through him.
But just as the weight of the loss threatened to overwhelm his focus, two more notifications flared to life at the bottom of the list, glowing with a soft, soothing light that cut through the pain of the stolen stats and Mental Points.
-
[Ding! Congratulations! You completed Quest Dig Deeper, part 2 of the serialised Quest - Once you are battle-free, you'll receive your rewards!]
-
'That bastard!'
John's mind was a chaotic storm of rage. He stared at his arm, the wound was broken codes in his arm structure, as if they were crushed by an unstoppable force. 'If I get hit with all five of those filaments at once, or if I let him graze me a few more times, will my stats and Mental Points bottom out? Will I be drained into a permanent Burnout State?'
Part of him was electrified with the thrill of discovery. He had finally pierced the veil; he had unveiled the long-awaited mystery surrounding Ricky. He had fulfilled the goal of his quest, but the realisation of what he was actually facing was sobering. Ricky wasn't just a rival; he was a catastrophe. In every measurable way, this youth was more dangerous than Cissel.
'Screw it!' John had what he came for. He had seen the white hair filaments, learnt the effect of Ricky's special ability, felt the drain, and completed the quest. There was no reason to continue this suicide mission. He instantly raised a hand, his voice clear and sharp in the sudden quiet of the arena.
"I forfeit!"
He waited for Nikolas to step in, to call the match and offer the same protective intervention he had provided once before during the last competition against Cissel. But the teacher didn't move. Instead, Nikolas let out a low, mocking snort that echoed through the hall.
"Not this time, John Mirage," the teacher said, his eyes narrowing with a fierce glint of his own.
"I asked for a spectacular fight, and all you've given me so far is the sight of a mouse scurrying around a maze. Man up, boy. This is the Military Department, not a daycare. I demanded something interesting, and you haven't delivered any yet!"