The silhouette was by far the fastest entity I had ever seen. Every punch it threw felt like a bullet passing by. But despite this, I was somehow dodging it. Maybe it was because this was in my mind. Or maybe I'd been strong from the start—after all, it only landed a hit the first time because it caught me off guard.
Whatever the reason may be, I was keeping up. Every punch would just nearly miss me, graze my hair, touch my ear. I was hanging on without a shadow of a doubt, but this was tiring. It was clear that my Endurance Boost skill wasn't activated.
In fact, I couldn't activate any skill. Whether it was Instinct or Hand-to-HandCombat, none of my skills would activate.
Unfortunately for me, we were at a standstill, every punch it threw I could dodge. The problem was that I doubt this entity could get tired. I on the other hand, was already getting exhausted.
Eventually, I would run out of steam and that would be the end for me.
In all honesty, I wasn't much of a fighter. My only real fighting experience was a bunch of scrawny fights during my younger teenage years when I was an F-Rank. They usually ended with me on the floor, knocked out. The only other time was when I was fighting Logan in the cabin. Though that was more a battle to the death. There were no rules in there, just a messy brawl.
I had no choice but to rely on the movies I watched with the girls, hoping their fight scenes were realistic enough to help.
So I kept dodging, again and again. My body was burning up and looking at a clock I could tell only a minute and a half passed, but it felt like hours upon hours.
He had a tell when he went for a right hook. The shadow would mistakenly charge up his punch a bit giving me the slightest moment to counter-attack.
I waited for him to repeat the mistake, still continuously dodging every punch he threw.
After a small barrage of jabs, he made the same mistake. This time, I was ready.
I threw my punch and in that moment I felt like time stopped as I realized something....his punch was landing first?
In a fraction of a second, no....less than that, his fist hit my gut dead center and I fell to my knees. The air in my lungs ejected out of my body and I stood there paralyzed.
I hear the crowd screaming in excitement as the shadow stood over me. I expected another punch and braced myself, though I couldn't really raise my hands.
Fortunately, he didn't attack. Instead, he waited for me to get back up as I started hearing a countdown descending from 10.
I waited to stay down, my face lowered to the ground and the cool surface was somewhat refreshing to my forehead.
The loud noises weren't helping either. I felt like I was having 100 migraines in a single second.
Eventually, they started blurring out. My vision also felt blurry.
I lose if I reach 0 right? I wonder what would happen...
Would I just wake up? Would I die? Would I get trapped in this boxing ring? Would I...Would I ever see the girls again?
The questions at this point felt louder than the countdown. I wanted to get up. I didn't want to risk losing my happy ending.
Slowly, but surely I put myself on one knee.
Then I pushed upwards with all my strength.
And before the countdown hit 2, I was back up. I instantly started nudging myself back to create some space as I evaluated what had happened.
After a good 2 steps, I was away from this reach. I started thinking how I lost that exchange.
I had countered, so how come my attack was slower than his punch that he charged up? It was weird, I was thinking without my skills. It truly felt like my intelligence was taken out. Like a part of my brain was missing. I kept replaying the moment in my head over and over.
Until I got it....I also charged my punch.....I tried to counter-attack and I ended up winding my punch. This lead to his attack hitting me first.
Thankfully, it was gut punch, those were usually recoverable though it was clear from how paralyzed I was that I was nothing but an amateur.
The silhouette started making his way towards me, the moment he entered in range he threw a couple hooks and jabs, but I dodge them. Now that I noticed his wind-up, it was much easier to dodge.
My breath hitched. Every step, every dodge stole more air from my lungs. I wasn't just fighting him—I was fighting to breathe.
I needed to end this now! I needed to hit the greatest punch of my life!
Patiently I waited for my opportunity, he was still throwing out punches, but I kept dodging. It felt like trying to run through a slow moving fan. You would have many opportunities to go, but you would wait for it to pass a couples before finding a rhythm and finding the courage to run.
After a good 20 second barrage. I had my courage.
The moment I saw him wind-up his elbow, I instantly threw a punch. No wind-up. No charge up. Not this time.
I aimed for his liver with my left hand and in the mere instant before contact. I felt like the shadow and the shadow felt like me, like Reynard.
The surface of the entity's skin folded on itself as the punch sent shockwaves through my body. It truly was my greatest punch.
The entity collapsed, its form flickering, dissolving into nothing.
The crowd erupted into a massive roar and I felt a sense of dominance and power.
As the third bell rung, I found myself awake.
I was back in Alexis' office. She was still in the same position as before, legs crossed, straight back.
I on the other hand was out of breath, my eyes scanning across the room to make sure that she was actually there and not a figment of my imagination.
I also happened to see the luck charm that she had bought. The one in the shape of a cat. It was next to her computer and-
"Rey? You feel better now?" She said, interrupting my distracted train of thought.
I hadn't even noticed, but I didn't feel like my nose was bleeding anymore. "Yeah, I feel....good." I replied, my voice still trying to catch my breath.
"Told you it's relaxing!" A smirk was present on her face.