Limitless Path

The others cleared out and Bai resumed her place, waiting for Tana's starting spiel before readying herself, nodding at the appropriate time. This time, when Tana signaled the start of the match, Bai was much more cautious, moving forward at a moderate pace and watching the other girl intensely. The tall foreigner didn't seem to mind, moving forward slowly herself with her sword held ready, waiting for Bai to act. Well, if that was how she wanted to play it, Bai was happy to play along, surging forward, but without the use of her skill. She could use the charging ability anywhere, at any time, not needing a specific target. If the girl-no, Beth- if Beth teleported behind her again and tried to take her by surprise, she could charge away, or even spin and charge at pointblank directly into her opponent.

Her planning was totally unnecessary, as it turned out, Beth meeting her head-on with her own massive blade, sliding the greatsword along her saber as if the massive blade was a rapier or parrying dagger. Bai's first swing was thrown wide and it took all her skill and power to bring her blade back around before Beth eviscerated her, the taller girl somehow able to change her deflection into a full-strength backswing without any wasted movement. Bai slapped the massive blade aside, grunting a little from the effort, the noise echoing in the close faceguard of her helmet. She had no time wonder at the force behind the blow, nor the skill Beth was displaying, as the massive hunk of mana steel was already back hurtling towards her, trying to cleave apart her neck.

Bai parried desperately, taking a step back to help shed the monstrous force of the swing. Is she cheating somehow?! Even with a boosting skill, this is fucking insane! Bai cried in her mind as she deflected another strike, trying to adjust the angle better but still having to take a half-step back to shed the momentum. It felt like she was fighting one of the Seniors when they used just a touch of their full power, not some noob limited to one hundred STR.

Panting, she deflected two more heavy strikes, having to take another step back before her frustration boiled over. Somehow, she was losing not just in stats but in pure skill. It was unconscionable! She abandoned her defensive stance, not that it was doing her that much good, rushing forward and bringing her saber around with a use of Massive Cleave. She hoped to at least put the American on the back foot, forcing her to block and even retreat, as she had been forced to do several times. Instead, Bai's eyes bugged out of her head as Beth let go of the hilt of that huge hunk of metal with her right hand and punched Bai's skill away, the girl's fist to the flat of her blade feeling like a giant had thrown an anvil into it.

Bai staggered back three steps before she could fully recover her stance, desperately trying to block as the tall girl swung a one-handed blow at her with her left hand that Bai barely managed to stop. Even with only one arm, she was so, so strong. Bai was starting to genuinely feel like an ant fighting a giant, though that thought was instantly interrupted by a swift punch from Beth. She hadn't been able to bring her saber around in time, the punch following only a split-second after the swing, and she both heard and felt the left side of her helmet crunch in by two centimeters. She roared her rage, combining Hero's Rush with Massive Cleave to charge the two steps forward into Beth and try to rip her in half.

She was shocked when the girl didn't teleport away but instead resumed her two-handed grip on her blade and brought it around in a massive strike, intercepting Bai's cleave. The tall girl used a monstrous amount of power to hit the broadside of Bai's saber, pushing the two blades against each other in the center of the flat sides, driving Bai's swing well off course. Beth completed the same swing motion with a step forward and powerful shoulder check, sending Bai staggering before her blade came back around in less than an eyeblink, smashing into Bai's neck and tearing out her throat. She collapsed to the ground, again, gasping and retching as the dueling field declared the winner and instantly healed all their damage.

Bai didn't even get a chance to accept the tall girl's help, finding herself easily lifted off the ground and set on her feet, the masked girl patting her shoulder. Bai shrugged her off, furious at the loss, but also more than a little embarrassed at the attention and physical contact. Before she could say anything, however, Ming appeared in front of her like a small, battle lust fueled comet, challenging the American to a fight. The American readily agreed before Bai could intercede, rolling her eyes as she left the field.

She knew now, after two matches, that nobody on their team was individually a match for the tall foreigner, and likely their whole team wouldn't stand much of a chance against her. Challenging her over and over was just going to tarnish their so-far quite stellar battle records, but the others weren't quite as concerned as she was. Ming, in particular, didn't give a damn…about anything, really. The appearance of the Path had seemed to free her longtime friend from shackles, the girl casting off all the expectations of her stuffy clan and family ties, as well as society. The little sociopath stopped caring about anything except battle, booze, and tall, empty-headed men. Not that it was Bai's place to interfere, nor did she want to, seeing her crazy best friend truly happy for the first period ever in her life.

She shook off those thoughts as Tana started the next match, watching as the tall girl, noticing Ming wasn't using anything but her fists, cast her sword aside. Bai's eyes widened slightly at the boldness, knowing that Beth was obviously very strong, but abandoning her weapon to fight a skilled Unarmed warrior with just her fists still seemed crazy. The two met in the center of the ring, Ming charging forward recklessly while it appeared Beth had simply matched her pace, exchanging a quick series of blows. Bai's eyes widened much further as Beth not only matched Ming blow-for-blow, but quickly overpowered the tiny psycho, beating her into a pulp in two fast, brutal exchanges. Before Bai had even realized what had happened, Ming was on the floor gasping and twitching, recovering from a forced restoration by the field, while Beth was standing over her, waiting to offer her an arm up. She rubbed her eyes, staring at her friend on the ground and the tall girl, not sure what she even just saw. The American was better than her with a blade, likely being in the Journeyman level, and now was better than Ming with her fists? Impossible! Ming was the only one of them to have brought any of her skills to the second tier of power, having just hit Journeyman in her Unarmed. Was this tall, powerful, and...beautiful foreigner dual-skilled in weapons? And at Journeyman in both?!

Bai wanted to step in, but her dazed state, lasting only a second as her mind short-circuited at the possibilities, was still too long to stop Ming from challenging Beth again. The second fight went much the same as the first, the two meeting in the middle of the floor and exchanging several series of blows that ended with Ming's insides twisted in surprising, and painful, new designs. Bai sighed and interfaced with the dueling ring, making a set of chairs appear beside her, a function built mainly for occasions like this, when there weren't any big spectacles happening and members were using the main floor for duels and contests. She sat absentmindedly in one of the chairs, startled a little as a very tall, lithe figure appeared in the chair to her left, the last in the row that had popped up. It was the wolf-eared girl, named Blood, apparently, and she immediately slouched in the chair in a crude way, taking off her mask and putting it…somewhere, before watching the fight from under hooded eyes. Eyes, Bai noticed with a start, that were just as crazy as many of the Senior Enforcers, black and white and gold in a way that was unnatural, but beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful, now that she got a look under that strange mask with the gem-like eyes, she found the woman absolutely stunning. The other foreigner was very pretty, but this strange woman with wolf ears was on another level, at least in Bai's opinion. Every single one of her features was flawless, perfect, as if carved by the greatest of master artisans. When the woman tilted her head a little to look down at her Bai realized she had been staring and whipped her head around back to the dueling field, catching, just before she did so, the super cute flicking of an ear the woman did.

Ming, meanwhile, was getting pounded into slag in the ring, but didn't seem to care one bit. The small maniac was in her own personal heaven, finding someone stronger than her that she could still somewhat keep up with. Bai knew the girl was also a huge masochist, though in weirdly specific ways, but she brushed away the thoughts of the kind of…excitement…her best friend would likely be getting from what was currently happening. She studied the next fight intently, almost convinced at this point that the tall American was holding back, likely to a significant degree.

"Ya noticed that, did ya, girlie?" Came a deep rumbling from above and behind her, Bai tilting her head back to see the ogre standing behind her…and Blood…and Li to her other side. The man was simply massive.

"What do you mean?" she asked in Standard.

"Ya know what I mean, girlie," he grumbled. "Ya noticed she ain't goin' all-out in any of these fights. She's holdin' back and still cleanin' yer clocks."

"So, what do you suggest?!" Bai snapped a little hotly. Temper, temper. She continued, her voice switching to a much more exasperated tone, "You want us all to fight her?"

"Not a bad thought, girlie," the massive man rumbled with a grin. "Ya should ask Tana for a Special Limited-Stat match. Put ya all against Beth with her stats limited and yers at regular amounts. Ya got what, about one-eighty STR right now? That'd be enough to give her a good challenge."

"Wait, how do you know what my stats are?" Bai asked, worrying tinging her voice and her eyes thinning as she stared at the big lump.

"Girlie, I'm over a thousand damn years old and I been doin' this shit for around that long. Ya think I can't look at a little slip of a fighter like ya and figure yer stats in a second? Pah!" he replied with a snort like two avalanches impacting each other.

"So, let me get this straight; you think all six of us should challenge Beth to a six-on-one with her stats limited and ours not?" Bai asked, not sure if she genuinely understood his crazy suggestion.

"Yep," was his only response.

"What about her?!" Bai cried, pointing to Blood.

"No," the strange woman grumbled, shifting in her chair to an even more slouched position.

"What, ya want a seven-on-one? Maybe if Blood limited her stats that'd be alright," the ogre returned, patting his massive gut as he muttered the last part.

"No! I meant, at least, a six-on-two!" Bai responded sharply.

"Girlie, either of these girlies would tear yer whole team apart, even with limited stats. There's bitin' off more than ya can chew, and then there's being suicidal, and that's the latter," he rumbled.

"We'll see about that!" Bai huffed angrily, standing up and stomping onto the field after Beth crushed Ming like an old tin can yet another time. "STOP!"

"Bai, what is it?" Ming huffed with a frown, angry at having her great fun interrupted.

"Don’t blame me for this," she shot at Beth before turning to Ming. "That fat asshole just claimed that our whole team couldn't beat this foreigner if we had full stats and she was limited. I won't stand for that insult."

"This'll be fun!" Ming shouted excitedly, not at all bothered by the implications of the ogre's statements. She just wanted more fighting and more blood, and that's just what they would give her.

"Come! Center!" Bai called to her team in Mandarin with Li, Wei, Fang, and Mei Mei joining her and Ming on the floor. They arranged themselves in formation around the circle Ming had just been using before she turned to face Beth. She found the girl holding her mask in one hand with a raised brow, staring at the six of them, and she remembered the girl couldn't have heard the ogre's comments and she had been speaking Mandarin.

"Your…senior? Claimed that you could beat the six of us, even if your stats are limited and ours are not. What do you think?" Bai challenged the girl coldly.

"Sounds fun. You want me to actually try?" the American replied.

Bai felt her vision start to go red and tunnel. "You'll pay for that!" she snapped in standard before making sure her team was ready. Her anger wasn't helped by the other girl laughing, laughing, right in their faces. Bai had never been so deeply insulted in her life, and she had never been so angry, feeling the blood surging in her veins like an animal's primal screams. She barely had the presence of mind to acknowledge Tana when she was asking the contestants if they were ready, her saber trembling in her hands as she glared murder at the pretentious bitch across from her team.

The dueling field chimed to signal the start at the same time Tana shouted for them to start and dropped her arms. Bai couldn't reign in her anger, but her team was with her now, and they had her back. She grinned ferally, very similar to Ming, as she used her full stats to shoot across the arena at Beth, not able to see any hint of the other girl’s emotions through the mask, nor through body language, as she didn't shift at all seeing the team of six strong fighters charging her. Bai activated Hero's Rush when they were almost halfway across the field, her team activating movement skills behind her to keep up and guard her back. She was a little confused, her anger cooling a bit as she saw the opponent neither countercharge nor flee but decide to meet them head-on. Here and now, they would show this stupid girl what a full team working in perfect coordination could do.

That thought was blasted out of her head as the girl teleported, only to appear directly in front of Bai, centimeters away and already swinging. Bai had no chance to stop, course correct, or even re-align her current swing, the opponent already deep in her guard, having her dead to rights. The girl had her sword in her left hand and a very familiar pain coursed through Bai as the girl's right hand crashed into Bai's helmet. This time, however, that pain was far, far worse, though it blessedly lasted only a few moments. When Bai came to, she realized she was standing outside the ring.