Chapter 177: No to submission.

Many eyes found the Grand patriarch, waiting for him to intervene. Sabrina was ruthless, she would kill her brother right there if she had to. They wanted him to step in and end the fight, but the old man did no such thing, leaving them confused.

Meanwhile, Derek was done running, if she was fighting unfair, so was he. As Sabrina came close with a wide, arrogant swing, she left her center line unguarded.

He saw his chance and took it. His next move wasn’t a sword master’s skill. It was a boxing one. Derek didn’t look. He didn’t telegraph. He just turned his hips, rose suddenly and threw a straight right hand with everything his desperate body could muster. His fist connected squarely with the bridge of Sabrina’s nose.

Sabrina’s laughter turned into a gurgling shriek of surprise and pain as her head snapped back. Stars erupted in her vision, and the physical universe ceased to make sense for a moment. Her hands went numb, and she felt the sword being pried from her grasp. Before she could blink away the tears, Derek used all his might to heave her weapon out of the ring boundary to join his own.

"Weapons are for warriors, sister," Derek grunted, his nose also bleeding from the stress, but his eyes were clear. "Let’s see how you fight when you can’t hide behind a toy."

And the blows began to roar.

This was Derek’s world. The moment her sword was gone, his striking master-class took over. He was a practitioner of Orthodox Stone fist Boxing, a style that prioritized honor, fair engagement, and direct, overwhelming force. He didn’t use tricky footwork. He didn’t kick. He just__ punched non-stop, as if she was a beast he was trying to kill.

He hit her in the hollow beneath her ribs, knocking all the air out of her. He hit her with a left hook that sent her staggering into the corner where she could not move. He hit her with three stiff jabs, each one precise and fair, targeting only her core and shoulders__ honorable targets. He was seriously, systematically beating her. His own hands were raw and bruised, he was still bleeding, but his face was a mask of dutiful resolution.

He stepped back, and Sabrina staggered. Her face was becoming a ruin__ her nose broken, one eye starting to swell, blood blooming across her cheek in sickening, detailed detail, matting into her hair. She was a master of grappling-based discipline like Aikido, but she couldn’t initiate a clinch if she was being hammered into a paste every time she took two steps.

"Submit, Sabrina," Derek bellowed, driving his elbow into her ribs. "Just submit and we can stop!"

Submit? to you?Ha! I would rather die. She thought as he twisted her hand and pressed her to the wall.

Sabrina was trapped between the ropes and the tiled wall. He had her pinned now, her back against the ring’s protective padding, his knee pressing into her chest, preparing for one final, fair knockout strike.

Sabrina smiled through the blood on her face. Her brother, the master of fairness. His weakness was so predictable. Unlike him, she was willing to do anything to win.

With a sudden, explosive move, she drove the heel of her boot into his right foot. It forced him to let go of her. In that microsecond, she twisted her body as her right hand flew to the wrist of the left one. On that wrist was an old, watch that she wore always. Her fingers clicked the secret release mechanism on the bezel.

The lid popped open, revealing a thin, charcoal-colored dust.

"Fight fair, you say?" Sabrina hissed.

She threw her hand forward, blowing directly across the watch face. A thick cloud of the acrid, dark powder went straight into Derek’s face.

"AHHHHHH!" He screamed.

Derek dropped his fists and clawed at his eyes. It was a concentrated irritant made of Ground Chili Pepper and Black Iron Oxide. The itchy substance invaded his ocular canals. His vision became a blurry, fiery mess of orange and red pain. He was effectively blind.

A shocked, furious hush fell over the room. The Grand Patriarch didn’t just twist his lips. He clamped his hands onto the hilt of his knife, his face darkening with a silent, cold rage. He had known. His daughter always played dirty.

Sabrina stepped out from shadow of her temporarily blinded brother, coughing, but triumphant. She stood up, staggering slightly, wiping the mixture of powder and blood from her own mouth.

And she laughed again. Not a fight-winning laugh, but the manic, high-pitched giggle of someone who had completely lost her connection to reality.

"The noble Derek Kaelion___ beaten by a woman! Look at you!" she crowed, raising her arms to the ceiling. "I am the master of this ring! There are only a precious few in this world who can stand against me! And you___ you will never be one of them! You haven’t even seen what my Soul maiden abilities can do, brother! Be grateful I only used average human skills only!"

The spectators were horrified, not by her words, but by what she did next. Sabrina slowly reached a hand back to her head. She pulled a single, six-inch silver hairpin out of her hair, letting the dark locks flow loose down her back. The silver of the pin was polished for fashion, but now it looked like a weapon.

She stalked over to the blinded, struggling Derek, and with zero hesitation, thrust the point of the hairpin four inches deep into his stomach, high near his ribs.

People gasped in shock!

The collective breath of the family could have sucked the oxygen out of the room. This was a whole new level of vulgarity.

But it wasn’t enough for Sabrina. To ensure he would never, ever think about challenging her again, she wanted maximum humiliation. With the pin still in his stomach, she dropped to her knees and wrenched his arm up and behind his neck, using her own legs to lock his hips down, forcing him into a deformed, submissive pretzel of a hold knot.

"Say it, big brother, mighty Derek Kaelion! I TAP OUT!" she screamed, her voice cracking with insane glee. She twisted the hairpin, digging it into his viscera. "Say you lost! Tap the mat! Tap it!"

"No___" Derek groaned, the word barely a whisper from his bloody, swollen lips. "I__ won’t__" Like her, he was willing to die today, but he would never submit to her. Not if he hoped to be the Grand patriarch someday.