Most fights ended anti-climactically. In most cases, there wasn’t a last-minute powerup, a last-minute turn-around, a last-minute victory. In most cases, fights ended exactly how one would expect it to. There was no flashy clash, high-risk decisions from both sides or high stakes. The winner simply won, and the loser simply lost.
This was the cold unromantic reality of Martial conflict, of the martial World.
Yet every once in a while, this truth was broken.
Fights where one combatant was clearly losing, ends up winning. Despite all odds, despite all the damage one had suffered, one occasionally managed to win. These were rare and marvelous moments, where the losing fighter managed to defy all odds and deny his or her fate.
Unfortunately for the beast, this wasn’t one of those times.
The beast was covered in blood, as multiple orifices gushed it out. It had begun losing its balance, speed and even the ability to dig underground.
Rui had splendidly managed to avoid any lethal attacks, even if just barely at times. In the end, he had managed to pull through the worst of it.
BLAP
“ROOOOOAAAAAAR!” Its roars had lost all anger, leaving only despair and fear.
Rui had timed a Flowing Canon and an Outer Convergence attack perfectly well with a Blink, and had managed to damage its eye almost entirely. The beast had lost most of its vision, and now was flailing around wildly.
BOOM
BAM
POW POW POW
WHAM
Rui peppered it with strikes over and over, for nearly an hour.
And an hour later, the beast had died.
Rui even took the precaution of observing it with Seismic Mapping for another ten minutes, just to ensure that there was no chance whatsoever that this creature was still alive. At a distance of five meters, he would be able to hear its heart beating.
Once he was finally convinced that there was no life left. He heaved a deep sigh of relief and collapsed to the ground.
He was truly exhausted, even the continuous usage of Helical Breathing was not enough to preserve even a decent amount of his energy.
He reached for his belt, opening the pouch and taking out a healing potion. The first healing potion he’d needed in the entirety of the mission. The beast had left many acid burns throughout their long, drawn-out fight. Each time it had burned immensely, but Rui expressionlessly bore the pain, since he knew, he didn’t have to worry about flesh injuries since they could be healed easily with healing potions.
What he had to avoid were lethal injuries, since the low-grade standard-issue healing potions would not heal that. He deeply inhaled the gas that had been stored as a pressurized liquid, allowing it to reach the deepest parts of his lungs via Helical Breathing so that as much blood as possible would come into contact with it, to hasten the healing process.
Ten seconds later, his skin was back to normal.
But he felt even greater exhaustion.
Healing potions hastened the natural healing speed of the human body, meaning the nutrients, compounds, substances and stamina for the newly regenerated tissue came from himself, draining his energy even more.
He quickly proceeded to consume a mental and physical rejuvenation potion, to invigorate and energize his body.
After that, it was just a simple matter of following post-mission protocols for Hunter missions. First, he turned off the eco-survey device, he had been told that it saved data automatically so he didn’t need to bother with manual operation of it too much. Part of the data would be sent to the ministry apparently, while the vast majority of it would need be to handed in, a limitation Rui found interesting.
He then indicated the successful completion of both objectives of the nested mission through the standard mission-tracking device given to him by the Martial Union.
Aaaaand he was done!
A deep sense of accomplishment and relief had filled his body.
“Phew.” Rui sighed, as he gathered his many tumultuous thoughts. It had been one hell of a mission, but he felt quite accomplished. His first hunting mission was a dashing success. It was an eye-opening experience as well in many ways. He had come to realize that he quite liked the adventurous spirit of hunting missions. It felt open-ended and free, he had never experienced a mission with as much as freedom as the one he had just undergone.
(‘Well, that’s only because I’ve undergone stuffy defense-class missions all this time.’) Rui mused. Bodyguard missions were the most restrictive class of missions among all, in many ways.
Rui ended up enjoying the experience of hunting missions so much that he realized he might want to shift to hunting-class missions entirely.
(‘No.’) Rui shook his head. He was unprepared and undeveloped for hunting-class missions and he knew it. This mission had shown his Martial Art was still not as broad and wide as he would have liked it to be, from the compatibility of his techniques with beasts and the natural environments to the compatibility of the VOID algorithm and non-human targets.
(‘I have a long way to go.’) Rui sighed, getting up. He had sat around for long enough, and the rejuvenation potions had made him quite energetic.
(‘Maybe I should go for another mission, or maybe I should get some sleep.’) Rui shrugged. The effectivity of mental rejuvenation potions would wear off soon and it had indeed been a while since he’d gotten some sleep.
Just then
BEEP BEEP
The mission-tracker device had received an notification.
(‘Urgent summon back to the Martial Academy?’) He frowned as he read the message. What could be so urgent that they summoned him back right after a successful completion of the mission? Had he waited too long after the completion of the mission?
He shrugged, mystified as he hurriedly began jogging towards Hajin. He took one last glance at the Shaia Plains, before turning his back and heading back as fast he could.
He didn’t think the urgent summon would occur for trivial reasons.