Jameson made the decision he had left.
If I can't beat him at range and I can't beat him up close, I need to change the entire field.
Time fracture at maximum. Not the 34% from before. Not the 63% from now.
One hundred percent.
If the space inside the radius fragments completely, there's no valid approach angle. No predictable foothold. No way for a body to calculate movement in a space without consistent geometry.
It's the only attack he can't learn in two minutes.
The time fracture marks in the air around Jameson flared.
Seventy percent.
Eighty.
Ninety.
The ground beneath his feet began to appear in two positions simultaneously — where he was and where the field said he should be, separated by four inches that weren't four inches but the entire difference between standing and not standing.
Kai saw it.
Full charge. If it reaches one hundred, the field becomes unnavigable.
Estimated time to full charge: four seconds.
I have four seconds.
---
He didn't think about the four seconds.
He used them.
First second: direct sprint toward Jameson — not diagonal, not calculated, direct. The most predictable attack possible.
Jameson saw him coming and smiled.
Predictable. The field will redirect any linear approach to—
Second second: Kai stopped two meters away and threw himself to the ground.
Not a fall. A controlled roll — right shoulder to the ground, full rotation, using the momentum of the sprint to convert vertical movement into horizontal, passing beneath the main radius of the time fracture where the field was weakest because it hadn't been designed for targets moving on that plane.
What is he—?
Third second: Kai came out of the roll already on his feet, one meter from Jameson — inside the minimum radius, where the time fracture didn't have enough space to redirect.
The reflex barrier of soul fire activated automatically.
Kai extended his left arm — not to strike, to absorb the barrier. The soul fire hit his left forearm and burned. Real, enough, the kind of pain that doesn't fade in thirty seconds.
Kai logged it as data and filed it away.
Fourth second.
Closed-fist strike with the right arm — full hip, full rotation, full body weight concentrated on the exact point of the jaw that produces loss of balance before loss of consciousness.
The same strike. The same angle.
The one he'd used when Jameson tried to take Serah's hand.
But this time with the chat bonus active at 521%.
---
The sound was different from the first one.
Jameson didn't go flying backward.
Jameson stopped.
The time fracture field flickered — ninety-four percent charge, then eighty, then sixty, descending as Jameson's system processed that its primary user had lost the concentration needed to maintain it.
The blue flames went out.
The shadow dominion dissolved.
Jameson was standing — barely, with his weight on his left leg because the right still hadn't recovered the muscle from the previous strike — looking at Kai with the expression of someone who has calculated all available variables and found that none change the outcome.
Kai's left forearm was burned from wrist to elbow.
He wasn't looking at it.
He was looking at Jameson.
---
I lost, Jameson thought.
Not with surprise. With the specific clarity of someone who sees a result and accepts it because denying it changes nothing.
Four years in this world. Eight hundred forty-two thousand people watching me. A system that took me two years to learn to control.
And this human has been here sixteen days.
Sixteen days.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"How?" he said.
It wasn't the tactical question from before. It was the other question. The one that comes after tactics no longer matter.
Kai looked at him.
Lowered his fist.
"The roll was judo," he said. "The final strike is boxing. The pattern reading is from twelve years training with people who didn't warn you before hitting you." He paused. "Mixed martial arts exist because no single discipline has all the answers. Neither does yours."
Jameson processed this.
"And the forearm?" He looked at the burn.
"It's going to hurt tomorrow."
"Just tomorrow?"
"Probably the day after too."
---
The floating screen above the plaza updated the final numbers.
RESULT: KAI RENO
[Total viewers — Battle of Streams: 5,200,000]
[Final bonus — Kai Reno: +589%]
[Final bonus — Jameson: +8%]
[Abilities unlocked during battle:]
[— Field Adaptation — Level 1: ability to use adverse combat conditions as personal variables]
[— Barrier Reading — Level 1: identification of passive defensive abilities in real time]
[The system notes that both abilities were learned in active combat]
[The system notes that this should not be possible]
[The system has stopped being surprised by what Kai does that shouldn't be possible]
---
[GarcíaFTW: FIVE MILLION VIEWERS IN THE BATTLE]
[NocheEterna99: TWO NEW ABILITIES LEARNED IN COMBAT. IN REAL TIME.]
[StreamerHunter: "field adaptation" — the system gave a name to what he's been doing from the start]
[xSorinx: Jameson has +8% bonus. His viewers abandoned him during the fight.]
[Pedro_Sierra: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ MVP PEDRO ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ WITHOUT THE CAMERA THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]
[Deral_Bleattler: PEDRO THE HERO. PEDRO THE LEGEND. PEDRO THE SAVIOR OF THE STREAM.]
[User_7741: ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ FIVE MILLION ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ]
[GarcíaFTW: ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘ ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘ ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘]
[NocheEterna99: ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘ ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘ ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘]
---
Serah walked toward Kai.
She didn't run. She walked — with the new stride, the one she'd changed since the treacherous floor room — and stopped beside him, looking at the burned forearm with the expression of someone taking inventory.
"How bad?" she said.
"Superficial. It didn't reach the muscle."
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes."
Serah extended her hand toward the forearm. The silver markings on her skin glowed faintly — not combat, something warmer — and the temperature around the burn dropped two degrees.
Not healing. Just temperature relief.
"It's what I can do," she said.
"It's enough," Kai said.
The markings pulsed.
---
[System — notification]
[Additional SSS Entity — Lira — current distance: 3 km]
[Speed: maximum]
[The system notes that Lira accelerated when the stream reached five million viewers]
[The system also notes that it's almost nightfall]
[The system reminds that there's a red-eyed vampire who's been approaching for days]