Chapter 83: Fake Death

Stone Hands’ punch hit hard, landing square on my back. Even with my sturdy body, I still felt a few ribs crack.

I slammed into the glass wall. It was solid enough that it didn’t crack or anything.

Ethan spoke to me mentally, opening a connection so we could figure out the best way forward.

"Do you have a plan?" he asked.

I already had something in mind, but the odds of it working weren’t that great. It was a risk we’d have to manage.

"I’m going to kill this Stone Hands guy, and then you’re going to kill me. After that, I’ll find a way to come back and rescue you. What do you think?"

"What do you mean, kill you? If I do that, how are you coming back?"

He had no idea about my regenerative ability. Even if he punched a nasty hole in my chest, my body would still recover, given enough time.

"Relax, I’ll recover. Might take a few days, but once I’m back on my feet, I’ll infiltrate this place again and get you out."

I had to convince him it was the only option. There was no other way.

"The only way you get out of here alive is if I lose this fight and fake my death. That’s it. Let’s go with the plan."

All that mental back-and-forth happened in the blink of an eye. Just long enough for me to get up after being hit and turn to face Stone Hands.

There was no reading his expression with his entire body covered in stone, but what he said gave me a pretty good idea.

"Oh? Still moving? Impressive. Very few people take a punch from me and stay standing."

The crowd was surprised too.

"The Basilisk is still walking around? He has to be faking it. That punch was brutal."

"He’s not faking it. I believe in my fighter!"

I rolled my neck from side to side, cracking it. I rolled my shoulders and opened and closed my fists a few times.

Stone Hands stood watching from the other side of the arena, perfectly still. Now the fight was just between the two of us.

"You want to go punch for punch?" He started laughing. "I don’t think you can match my strength."

How wrong he was. Maybe in raw strength he had the edge, but I was better in every other way. This idiot thought he was way stronger than me, and the reality was something else entirely.

I ran at him, just as fast as before. My steps carried incredible force and momentum, but there was no cracking floor, no sound of footsteps. I was floating across the arena.

Stone Hands dropped into a fighting stance, like a boxer. I closed in and threw a punch straight into one of his ribs.

I was much faster. The punch landed clean, and I felt his stone body on my knuckles, like hitting solid rock.

With my speed, I managed to throw the punch, reset to my starting position, and still dodge his counter, all in one motion.

I ducked under his swing, circled behind him, and unloaded a flurry of punches into his ribs again.

That’s how the fight went for a few minutes. Every punch I threw carried serious force, and even if Stone Hands was tough, his ability would eventually give out. He couldn’t keep it up forever.

I knew for sure when I heard the frustration in his voice.

"Stop running and fight like a real man! If you keep dodging, I can’t hit you."

"And who said that’s my problem?" I shot back. "You’re the one who’s going to die, not me."

Why the hell would I fight in a way that helped him? Stone Hands was living in a dream world.

I kept hitting without stopping. My hand was bloody and torn up, but it didn’t matter. I kept going.

Stone Hands started calling out to Ethan.

"Aren’t you going to help me? Why the hell did we come as a team if you’re not doing anything!"

The crowd thought the same thing. But in the end, it was expected. In that kind of fight, everyone’s only goal was to survive.

When his ability finally stopped working and his body returned to normal, I couldn’t help smiling. He stared at me with genuine shock, genuine fear.

"Wait, wait!" he begged.

I switched from a fist to an open palm and drove it through his chest, right around his heart. The strike was so fast he couldn’t even dodge.

Stone Hands looked down, pressing both hands over the hole.

He dropped to his knees. I knew he was done. There was no coming back from that. The hole was right next to his heart.

At that moment, Ethan appeared, stepping out of invisibility, just like we’d planned. He had a knife in his hand.

Maybe it was real, maybe an illusion, maybe something else entirely, but what was definitely real was the pain when the blade went through my chest, the same way I’d done to Stone Hands.

"He finally showed himself! He was waiting for the right moment. What a sneaky move."

The wound looked bad, but it really wasn’t that serious. I could have easily kept fighting and taken Ethan down without much trouble, but I had to pretend it was worse than it was.

I put my hand on my chest, forced a pained expression, and spat blood. I dropped to my knees, then fell onto my side.

At that point, I took control of my breathing. Slowing it down gradually, along with my heartbeat.

It was something I knew I could do, even without ever having done it before. A change that came after my bloodline matured.

The referee came over to check our pulses and confirm we were both dead. I was faking it and looking the part. Stone Hands was actually gone.

"The fight is over. We have a winner!"

The crowd erupted. The ones who’d bet on Ethan were losing their minds, walking away with money.

Someone carried my body off to wherever they discarded the corpses. Even playing dead, I cracked my eyes open every so often to get a feel for the layout of the place.

They put me in a coffin inside a storage room. Other coffins were in there too, with other dead fighters, no doubt about it.

"Two more to harvest organs from," a man said.

What kind of sick operation was this? They were pulling organs out of dead fighters and selling them on the black market, raking in a fortune. Hunters’ organs were even more valuable since they were infused with mana.

Lucky for me, they had to work through the others who’d died first. I lay there quietly, listening to the doctors talk.

A few hours later, they finally clocked out, turned off the lights, and left. The silence told me I was alone.

I slowly pushed the coffin open and climbed out. It was a refrigerated storage room packed with coffins. I didn’t feel the cold much. My body could handle it.

I opened one of the other coffins to make sure. There was a body inside. My guess was right.

So now, how was I getting out of there? How was I going to find Ethan? Our mental connection was still active, even at a distance.

"You there, Ethan?"

"Finally! Are you alive? Did it work? Where are you?"

"I’m in a storage room. They harvest organs from the dead fighters here. Now, how the hell do I get to where you are? That’s the question."

Ethan used our mental connection to send me images of where he was. It was something, but not enough to actually find him. The place was massive.

In the corner of the room I found some medical uniforms and a security uniform. I changed right there on the spot.

All black, with leather boots, a cap, and even a radio. Blending in with the security guards wasn’t going to be easy, but it was the best I could find.

Better than the medical outfit, at least. The cap gave me something to hide my face with.

I went out through the only door in the room. A lit corridor stretched out in front of me, but there were no guards in sight.

I kept walking, trying to piece together what I’d managed to see during the moments I’d cracked my eyes open while they carried me. They’d only put me in the coffin once I was inside the storage room, so I’d still caught a few things along the way.

I reached somewhere familiar. It was the exact same apartment complex layout as the one I’d been staying in. Same layout, just on the other side, which meant it could be the same complex where Ethan was being held.

And the moment I got there, a guard came over to talk to me.

"Here for the shift change?" he asked.

I looked down, trying to keep my face hidden.