Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (best books to read .TXT) 📕

“One of you isn’t leaving this street alive.” The Shogun started cutting the deck of cards in his right hand and folding them back together, his fingers moving like spider legs. “The survivor receives or keeps his full membership Of Smoke and Silk, and his past will be considered erased.”

“How’s that for motivation?” The Bailiff chuckled. “It’s him or you, Smart Boy, and I got a feeling I know who he’s gonna pick.”

Warcry let out a scream of rage and red light blazed.

Instinctively, I threw out Dead Reckoning. It pinged immediately. I dove out of the way of a fiery kick that would’ve taken my head off. Warcry was already throwing another lethal kick. I rolled to my feet and spun to block. His prosthetic slammed into my forearm.

The bones snapped.

“Are you serious?” I screamed at him. Pain pulsed through my arm as I dodged his follow-up.

“I ain’t dying on some dungheap prison planet!” he roared.

“I wasn’t going to kill you, moron!” I ducked a big hook followed by a bone-crushing kick aimed at my throat.

I didn’t have enough Spirit for my tattoo to heal the broken arm, and calorie healing was too slow. I pulled all the Miasma I could from the fresh bodies in the street. Warcry was stupid strong right then, and he wasn’t holding back lethal strikes.

But he wasn’t playing it smart. He was going for the fastest, most violent kill he could to get this over with.

My right arm was still healing. I couldn’t block Warcry’s shots like that. Thinking of Kest’s Shield Arm Bracer, I sent a wall of fortification down each arm.

Turquoise Death Spirit shields the size of trashcan lids formed. I pumped Miasma into them until they were as dense as steel.

When Warcry launched himself into another attack, I slammed forward and bashed him with my left shield. He staggered, then threw himself at me again, coming around my right side and targeting my healing arm. I met him halfway with a tooth-jarring crash.

Death and Metal—names for the shields popped into my head, and I laughed a little hysterically. Maybe all that adrenaline in such a short time was getting to me.

The shield blocks just ticked Warcry off more. He came at me from every direction, slamming me over and over again like a rhino bashing itself bloody trying to break down a concrete wall. Every impact pushed me back, my shoes making long lines in the dirt of the street. Sooner or later, I was going to trip over a body and go down. Then he really would kill me.

When my Spirit for Death Metal started to run out, I sucked up the last of the Miasma from the bodies and topped off with some from Hungry Ghost. Then I reinforced my legs instead of the shields.

Warcry came in with an insane executioner kick at my head. I let the shields drop and jumped straight over him, landing behind him. He spun to keep me face-to-face. Before he could move, I blasted out a kick reinforced with all the Spirit I’d just downed.

Warcry’s prosthetic came off his leg, bending back like I’d smashed his knee in. I swept his good leg, dragging his shoulder back at the same time. As he fell, he shot a rigid hand at my windpipe. I slipped that and hit him with a cross-body elbow to the temple that whipped his head around.

I took a step back, fists up, heart charging, ready to go again if he got back up. But he didn’t. He was out cold.

I’d won.

After a hundred thousand fights getting my butt handed to me by this guy, I’d beaten him.

Not just that, but I’d survived.

I grabbed big handfuls of my hair and tipped my head back, puffing out these huge breaths up at the sky.

“Finish him,” Shogun Takiru said.

Moving Targets

“YEAH, GET HIM, INDENTURE!” Ripper yelled.

For a second, my brain flashed back to the parking lot outside my high school, with Blaise’s buddies all cheering him on. Except these guys weren’t yelling at me to whoop up on Warcry.

“Kill him!”

“Paint the dust with his blood!”

“Earn your spot and we’ll buy you a round!”

Then reality slapped me in the face. I’d knocked Warcry out, but I hadn’t won. Not according to the terms of this fight.

I backed up a step and shook my head. “I’m not killing anybody.”

The Shogun scowled. He flicked the shuffled deck with one thumb, and the top card jumped to his opposite hand.

“I want one or both of these meat roaches dead, Bailiff.”

“As is right and proper.” The Bailiff stepped forward. “But if the honorable Shogun Takiru will humor me, the OSS does have quite an investment in both these boys, and it’s only a few days ’til we see it pay off at the Wilderness Territorial. Forgive me for saying so, honorable Shogun, but I know you want an affiliation as badly as any of us.” The Bailiff pulled out the tattoo script remote and grinned at me. “Couple shots of this’ll remind our indentured pal that he’s supposed to be the smart one here.”

I gritted my teeth, bracing myself for the pain.

Metal jangled. The heavy metal balls and chain from Kest’s workbench dropped into the street like a line in the sand between me and the Bailiff. Blue-white sparks flew straight up and out into a solid wall of Metal Spirit.

“Time to run.” Rali appeared at my side, almost giving me a heart attack.

“Geez, don’t do that!” I pulled back my punch. “I almost knocked your head off.”

From the other side of the Metal Spirit barrier, I heard yelling and confusion.

“Come on.” Rali waved his walking stick to hurry me up. “Kest isn’t sure how long her Portable Shield Wall will last against a Shogun.”

“Wait! Warcry,” I said. “They’ll kill him if we leave him.”

I took another hit from Hungry Ghost, then hefted Warcry up onto my shoulder. It was awkward as heck, but it didn’t take