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

I laughed. It was forced, but Rali pretended not to notice.

Kest had been reading on her HUD the whole walk over. Now she frowned up at me.

“Chlorophyll is under the Organic supertype,” she said, gearing up for one of those big rehearsed lectures. “It affects chlorophyll-bearing plants. In his bouts last year, Shrike was known for a Vine Whip attack using vines he’d grown on the spot. If you see him throw down seeds, he’s going for the whip.”

“Shrike is my opponent?” I asked, picturing throwing my Death Metal shields up at an Indiana Jones bullwhip made of vines.

“Yes.” But Kest wasn’t done. “He did okay in the last tournament, but he wasn’t a powerhouse. His strength is all in his vine weapons, zero in his physical presence. If you get in close and engage him in actual combat, Hake, you can destroy him. He’s bigger, but he’s not as strong as you.”

My face got hot. She thought I was stronger than someone? I tried to make myself focus on the fight ahead, but it wasn’t easy after that.

So instead, I just said, “Thanks.”

She nodded, and Rali gave me slap on the back. Then they disappeared into the crowd headed for the seating area.

I followed the signs directing fighters down to the arena floor. The place was huge, at least the size of two football fields lined up next to each other, and it had been divided into twenty-four fight cages with dirt floors and professional-looking coated UFC-type wire instead of the crappy chain link fence the OSS had in theirs. I gave my name to a kokugikon staffer, and she directed me to cage twenty-three.

As I went, I looked up at the rows of seats. Already the place was filling up. It was like the Superbowl in there. Big broken-winged eagles started flapping around the pit of my stomach instead of butterflies, banging into stuff.

An official and a few other fighters had already gathered at cage twenty-three. One was the massive owl-headed guy I was supposed to be fighting, the number three seed. He sized me up when I came over, then turned back to the official.

“Rules are simple, fellas,” the official said. “Apparatuses, scripts, weapons—whatever you’ve got on you—is allowed. Killing ain’t. Kill your opponent and you’re disqualified. Big Five can’t recruit a dead man. You win when your opponent is incapacitated and can’t continue fighting or states clearly that they quit. Got it?”

I nodded, the nerves starting to ratchet up again.

“Fight one is Bilo Shrike versus Grady Hake,” the official said. He opened the cage door. “If that’s you, get inside and let’s get this elimination on the road.”

Shrike and I went into the cage and took spots across from each other.

“Face your opponent,” the official yelled.

I turned and met Shrike’s huge gold-colored eyes. His gray beak looked like steel under the kokugikon lights, shiny and sharp. His arm, growing feathers farther up and scaly bird skin farther down, reached into his pocket.

Seeds, my brain said. Here comes the Vine Whip.

Death Spirit cycled to my muscles, hitting all the major enhancements—speed, strength, sight, reinforcement...

“Bow,” the official said. “Take your fighting stances.”

Probably the weirdest thing I’d ever felt was the combination of familiarity and fear pumping through my veins as we went through the pre-fight routine. My body knew what it was doing from countless fights during training, but my brain was freaking out, thinking this couldn’t possibly be real. I was supposed to be in a classroom in rural Missouri smarting off to upperclassmen and taking the fast track to college, not getting ready to fight in some crazy alien kumite so I could join a gang.

“Fight!”

I shot toward Shrike as he flicked his scaly hand at the cage floor. My Ki-sight registered the seeds slamming into the dirt like bullets. I hopped over their little blast zones, threw out Dead Reckoning, and chopped a testing kick at Shrike’s shin.

He jumped back and landed out of Dead Reckoning’s range. Squiggling green lines of Spirit poured out of his hands and plunged into the dirt.

I started to go after him, but something grabbed my ankle and held me in place.

A vine.

I tried to stomp it off my leg, but two more braided around the first, making it stronger. Shrike dodged around me and snatched up another cord of vines. Not exactly the Indiana Jones bullwhip I’d pictured. It was only as long as his arm, but it had six lashes, and every one of them was covered in thorns.

As Shrike reared the whip back, I sent Miasma crashing out into Death Metal, one on each arm, covering my front and back. Just in time. Shrike’s thorn whip cracked, its lashes thudding into my front shield.

More vines snaked around my ankles. I had to get off defense, take the hand-to-hand to the owl like Kest had said, but I couldn’t see how to do that when I was tied down like this.

The whip lashed out again, and the vines around my ankles jerked backward.

I threw my hands out instinctively to catch myself, which put both Death Metal shields between me and the dirt, where they were completely useless. Pain seared across my shoulder and the back of my neck as thorn lashes ripped out chunks of my skin. I yelled, half in pain, half in anger at myself for letting that happen.

This was bad. I was going to lose if I didn’t do something quick.

I let go of Death Metal and flipped onto my back. Miasma rushed out of my Spirit sea as Three Corpse Sickness sprang to life. I sent the blobs running at the owl. They still didn’t look human, but I’d worked on them enough that you could tell they were humanoid. Their arms even had fists now. If someone didn’t know better, they would think the corpses were dangerous.

Shrike didn’t know better. I could hear his whip cracking, but I ignored it. Instead, I focused on the vines twisted around my legs.

Hungry Ghost had said