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

Kest wasn’t buying it. “Not for the money?”

The catfish made the same kind of croaking sound catfish on Earth do out of water. It took me a second to realize he was chuckling.

“The money doesn’t hurt, either,” he said.

While he and Kest talked about Big Five marketing strategy, I studied the guy. I couldn’t tell whether this was the same catfish I’d seen on the platform the night before. He wore regular street clothes, not a pinstriped gangster suit, and he was up close instead of watching creepily from afar. But he must’ve been listening to our conversation to have come in when he did, so watching creepily wasn’t out of the question for him.

“Here,” Rali said, handing me one of the infused pita wraps. “Eat this.”

“Thanks.” I took one cautious bite, realized I was starving, then scarfed the whole thing in about two seconds. The soft bread, savory meat, and cooling sauce really hit the spot, and Rali’s Healing Restoration cleared up the last of the concussion.

Down on the arena floor, round seven was starting. The catfish turned back around to watch, and we leaned forward in our seats.

Warcry was up against the Ylef I’d lost to. They bowed to each other, then took their fighting stances. The Ylef formed his hammers, and Warcry’s whole body burst into flames.

I remembered to trigger my Ki-sight just in time. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything but a blur.

As soon as the official’s hand dropped, Warcry and the Ylef exploded at each other. The glass hammers refracted the light from Warcry’s flames as they fought back and forth across the cage. Warcry slipped every shot the Ylef swung at him. The Ylef blocked every kick Warcry threw.

Beside me, Kest shook her head. “He’s got to stop that. The joint of the PR-168-L isn’t made to take that kind of impact.”

“That’s his go-to move,” I said. “The big roundhouse with his prosthetic. It’s too effective not to use. Trust me, I’ve been hit with it a lot.”

“But his opponent has Glass Spirit. It’s similar to the other ore and mineral Elemental supertypes in that he’ll see the breakage planes—”

Before she could finish the thought, one of Warcry’s burning fists found an opening. Instead of dodging, the Ylef sent a huge amount of reinforcement to his jaw where the punch was going to land and swung both his hammers down on the prosthetic’s knee joint.

Even with the Spirit fortifying the Ylef’s face, Warcry’s punch spun him around.

But the Ylef’s double-shot caved in Warcry’s knee joint. The hammers shattered, exploding like a bomb.

I winced as Warcry caught a thigh, groin, and stomach full of glass shrapnel. He folded over, hop-hobbling as he tried to stay standing. The Ylef darted in and slammed a forearm into Warcry’s chest as he swept the redhead’s good leg.

Warcry crashed onto his back, coughing up blood.

The place went so quiet that I could hear the official yell, “Match!”

The crowd lost their minds. I thought my eardrums were going to burst with all that noise.

Down in the cage, Warcry’s head and shoulders blazed with red fire. He wiped the blood off his mouth with his arm, then turned over. I thought he was going to get up and go after the Ylef while the guy was facing the crowd, but Warcry didn’t. He didn’t even spit.

He pushed up onto his real knee, put his fists at his sides, and bowed to the Ylef.

“Wow,” Kest said.

“No kidding,” I said.

Rali smiled. “A true warrior.”

Warcry dragged his glass-shot body out of the cage and fell against the wall in a bloody heap. He was definitely in worse shape than I was after my fight with the Ylef. I’d been unconscious, but I hadn’t taken a ton of glass shards below the belt. Even from way up where we were sitting, you could see he was really struggling to keep it together.

I stood up. “Better go give the true warrior a hand.”

Narrow Escape

WARCRY WASN’T HAPPY about me helping him, but he didn’t put up a fight when I shrugged his arm over my shoulder and got him to the hallway off the arena floor. He was pale and sweaty, and his skin felt kind of cold, so I figured he probably didn’t have the strength right then to be a jerk about it.

One of the kokugikon staffers stopped us as I was half-dragging him toward the exit.

“If he dies off the arena floor, that doesn’t count toward disqualification of his opponent,” she said.

I looked at her like she was crazy. “Okay.”

“And just so you know, implant-swapping won’t work. Before they’re signed, all Big Five recruits are required to pass scans to prove their workup matches the body scans from tournament registration.”

“Cool.” I tried to steer Warcry around her, but she got in front of us.

“I also have your picture.” She tapped her thick-framed glasses. The right lens glared red for a second. “If he turns up dead on the street, I’ll know who to send the Peacemakers after.”

Warcry raised his head long enough to give her a bloody grin.

“Oi, lovey, this grav couldn’t kill me with a poisoned razor wire garotte and a ten-minute head start. He’s one of me lads, so don’t worry about it.”

We started toward the exit again.

“Once you step outside the kokugikon doors—”

“It’s my responsibility,” Warcry said, lurching forward and almost dragging me down with him. I shuffled him back up onto my shoulder, drawing a pained grunt. “This ain’t my first tournament. I know all about the liability shift. Now, if you don’t mind pissing off, I’m gonna go leak the rest of this blood somewhere besides your nice clean floor.”

She scowled, but finally got out of the way long enough for me to get Warcry through the door.

“Bleedin’ hell.” He winced. “I can’t make it all the way back to the hotel like this, grav. Drop me somewhere while I heal. Moving keeps