SSSSS-Rank: Negative Leveling-Chapter 66: Attrition

Kane got back to his feet slowly, his hand still pressed against his lower back, his face twisted into something between a grimace and a grin.

"You know what, kid, I like you, you’ve got some real creativity in how you fight," he rolled his shoulders, and Luthra heard several joints pop, "most people try to match me strength for strength, which is stupid, but you, you went straight for the weak point."

Luthra pushed himself up from where he’d been thrown, his ribs screaming in protest, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. "Weak point, you mean your spine?"

"Yeah, turns out even with mana reinforcement, if you drain all the energy out of someone and then squeeze their lower vertebrae just right, things still go pop," Kane tested his weight on one leg, then the other, "nothing permanent, just really painful, you’re smarter than you look."

’He’s still standing, still talking, I hit him with everything I had and he’s treating it like a minor inconvenience.’

Kane picked up his war hammer from where it had fallen. "Alright, now I’m warmed up, let’s see what you can really do."

The big man charged again, but this time there was a limp in his step, a slight hesitation in how he moved. Luthra noticed it immediately.

’The back injury is affecting his mobility, not by much, but enough.’

Luthra grabbed his chain from the ground and started running, not away from Kane but in a wide arc around him, forcing the bigger man to turn and track his movement. Every time Kane pivoted, Luthra could see the wince of pain, the slight delay in his reactions.

Kane swung the hammer in a wide sweeping arc, trying to catch Luthra mid-run. The chain in Luthra’s hand shot out, wrapping around a piece of broken scaffolding, and he yanked himself to the side, changing direction mid-stride.

The hammer missed by inches and embedded itself in the ground with enough force to create another crater.

’He’s slower, the turns are killing him, I can use that.’

Luthra landed on top of a pile of mining equipment and immediately launched himself at Kane from above. The big man looked up, surprised by the aerial attack, and raised his hammer to block.

But Luthra wasn’t aiming for Kane directly, he was aiming for the ground beside him. He landed in a roll, came up behind Kane’s left side, and swung the chain low at knee height.

The heavy links wrapped around Kane’s knee joint just as he tried to turn, and when Luthra pulled with all his strength, the injured back combined with the sudden torque on his leg made Kane stumble for the first time in the fight.

It was only a half-second of imbalance, but Luthra took it. He released the chain, sprinted forward, and drove his shoulder into Kane’s ribs while the big man was still recovering.

It was like hitting a truck, Luthra felt something in his shoulder give way, but Kane actually moved, sliding back a full two feet across the courtyard. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Kane looked down at the space he’d just been forced to yield, then back at Luthra, and his expression changed. The amusement was gone, replaced by genuine focus.

"Okay, no more playing around."

The mana around Kane’s body intensified, becoming visible as a shimmering red aura that made the air distort. His muscles swelled, veins bulging under his skin, and when he took his next step, the ground beneath his foot shattered into fragments.

’That’s his Path activating, Overwhelming Force, this is bad.’

Kane didn’t swing his hammer this time, he threw it. The massive weapon spun through the air like a throwing axe, and it was moving so fast Luthra barely had time to react.

He dove to the ground, the hammer passing over his head with a sound like tearing metal. It hit the wall of a building behind him and didn’t just crack it, the entire structure collapsed inward, tons of stone and wood imploding as if a bomb had gone off inside.

’One hit, if that had connected, I’d be paste.’

But throwing the hammer meant Kane didn’t have it in his hands. Luthra scrambled to his feet and ran straight at the now-unarmed hunter, his chain swinging in a wide arc.

Kane didn’t dodge, he caught the chain mid-swing with his bare hand. The metal links dug into his palm, drawing blood, but he held on.

"Got you."

He yanked the chain, and Luthra was pulled forward again, but this time he was ready for it. Instead of letting go, he used the momentum, running up Kane’s arm like it was a ramp and driving his knee directly into Kane’s face.

The impact made Kane’s head snap back, blood exploding from his nose. Luthra used the rebound to flip over Kane’s head, wrapping the chain around the big man’s neck as he went.

He landed behind Kane and pulled with everything he had, trying to choke the life out of the Juggernaut while simultaneously draining his mana through direct contact with the chain.

Kane’s face turned red, then purple, his hands clawing at the chain around his throat. But instead of trying to pull it off, he did something Luthra didn’t expect.

He fell backward.

All seven feet and several hundred pounds of mana-enhanced muscle dropped straight down, with Luthra directly underneath him.

’Oh no.’

Luthra tried to roll out of the way, but he was tangled in his own chain. Kane’s back hit him with the force of a landslide, driving every bit of air out of his lungs and crushing him into the hard-packed ground.

For a moment, Luthra couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could barely see. Everything was pain and pressure and the taste of dirt and blood.

Kane rolled off him and stood up, the chain falling away from his neck, leaving deep red marks where it had been cutting into his skin. He coughed, spat blood, and looked down at Luthra who was struggling to even move.

"That was a good try, really good, but you’re too light to keep me pinned, and you can’t choke out someone who can reinforce their throat with mana."

Luthra tried to push himself up, but his body wasn’t responding correctly. His ribs were definitely broken now, at least four of them, maybe more. His shoulder was dislocated, his vision was blurry, and he was pretty sure something internal was bleeding.

’Get up, come on, get up.’

His body didn’t listen. He made it to his hands and knees, then collapsed back down.

Kane walked over to where his hammer had fallen, picked it up, and turned back to Luthra. "You fought well, kid, better than most B-Ranks I’ve faced, but this is over."

He raised the hammer for a finishing blow.

’No, not like this, I didn’t survive five years of grinding just to die in some courtyard, I didn’t free these people just to leave them to the Syndicate, I’m not done yet.’

Luthra’s hand found the ground, and he pushed his negative mana out, not in a circle this time but in a sphere, expanding in all directions. The energy spread through the earth, into the air, creating a zone of absolute void fifteen feet in diameter.

Every bit of ambient mana in the area was consumed instantly, including the mana Kane was using to enhance his body.

Kane felt it immediately, his Path flickering as the fuel for his power was stripped away. His enhanced strength dropped dramatically, and the hammer that had felt weightless in his hands suddenly became what it actually was, several hundred pounds of metal.

The weapon dropped from his grip, hitting the ground with a massive thud.

"What the hell did you just do?"

Luthra forced himself to his feet, swaying dangerously, blood running down his face. "I made it fair."

Inside the void zone, neither of them had access to mana, it was just two men, injured and exhausted, with nothing but their physical bodies.

Kane looked at his hands, felt the absence of power, and then he laughed. "You’re insane, you know that, you just took away your only advantage, now it’s just strength versus strength, and I’ve got twice your muscle mass."

"Yeah," Luthra admitted, "but you’ve also got a damaged spine, a bleeding nose, and you’ve been burning mana for the last ten minutes while I’ve been conserving mine, let’s see how much strength you’ve actually got left."

Kane’s grin widened. "Alright then, let’s do this the old-fashioned way."

He didn’t go for his hammer, instead, he raised his fists and moved into a fighter’s stance. Luthra did the same, though his broken ribs made every breath agony.

They circled each other, two injured fighters in a zone where magic didn’t exist, where all the ranks and Paths and systems meant nothing.

Kane threw the first punch, a straight right aimed at Luthra’s head. Luthra slipped it, feeling the air displacement as the fist passed his ear, and countered with a body shot to Kane’s injured ribs.

The big man grunted, stepped back, then came forward with a left hook. Luthra ducked under it and drove his knee into Kane’s thigh, targeting the leg he’d chains earlier.

They traded blows, neither one holding back, neither one defending. It became a brutal exchange of damage, seeing who would drop first.

Luthra’s world narrowed to the next punch, the next kick, the next moment of pain. His broken ribs ground against each other with every movement, his dislocated shoulder hung useless, but he kept moving, kept fighting.

Kane’s face was a mask of blood, his movements getting slower as the damage accumulated, as the lack of mana enhancement made every injury matter more.

A punch to Luthra’s jaw sent him staggering. A kick to Kane’s knee made the big man stumble. An elbow to Luthra’s temple nearly knocked him out. A headbutt to Kane’s already broken nose made him roar in pain and fury.

The spectators watching from the edges of the courtyard had gone completely silent, this wasn’t a duel between hunters anymore, this was something primal, two people beating each other to death with their bare hands.

Luthra caught Kane with an uppercut that snapped the big man’s head back. Kane responded with a haymaker that sent Luthra spinning to the ground.

Both of them were barely standing now, their bodies more broken than functional, held upright by willpower alone.

Kane spat out a tooth. "You should have stayed down, kid."

Luthra wiped blood from his eyes. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

They came together one more time, fists flying, neither one dodging anymore, just trading damage until one of them stopped moving.

Kane landed a punch to Luthra’s solar plexus that stopped his breathing. Luthra responded with a palm strike to Kane’s throat that made him gag.

They both stumbled back, gasping, swaying on their feet.

And then, at the exact same moment, they both collapsed, hitting the ground hard and not getting back up.

The void zone dissipated, mana flooding back into the area.

For several seconds, neither fighter moved, the only sound was their labored breathing.

Then Luthra’s fingers twitched, his hand moving slowly across the dirt toward where his chain lay. It took him three tries to grab it, his fingers barely responding to his commands.

Kane tried to push himself up, made it to one elbow, then fell back down, his body finally giving out.

Luthra wrapped the chain around his good hand, took a breath that felt like swallowing glass, and forced himself to his knees, then to his feet.

He swayed, nearly fell, caught himself, and took one step toward Kane, then another.

The big man looked up at him, blood covering his face, and managed a weak smile. "You actually won, I can’t believe it, you actually won."

Luthra stood over him, chain in hand, and said the only thing that made sense. "I told you, let’s see who breaks first."

He collapsed again, this time on purpose, sitting down hard next to Kane’s prone form. "You’re not getting this place, the mines stay independent, the people stay free."

Kane coughed, winced at the pain, and nodded. "Fair enough, you earned it, Syndicate won’t be happy, but that’s their problem, not yours."

Khorvash and Rebecca ran over, the dragon girl’s eyes wide with shock. "Luthra, you look like you got hit by a building."

"Feels like it too."

She looked at Kane, then back at Luthra. "Did you win?"

"Yeah, I think so, did I win, Kane?"

The big man raised one hand in a thumbs-up gesture. "Yeah, kid, you won, I can’t even stand up anymore, victory by incapacitation, it’s yours."

Rebecca started crying, whether from relief or fear, Luthra couldn’t tell, maybe both.

Misha appeared with several others carrying medical supplies. "You’re both idiots, complete idiots, that was the most brutal thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve worked for the Syndicate for ten years."

"Yeah, well, he started it," Luthra said, then immediately passed out from blood loss and exhaustion.