Chapter 83

  You Felt It Too?

  Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect after having both Lucia and Luna both run off after feeling my penetrating gaze on them. While no one had said anything at the time, I did feel it was kind of rude, or rather I realized it could be considered rude, but only after Luna left in a hurry. Then Lucia seeing Luna run off went to follow her.

  I of course stopped using my Divine Sight at that point, not wanting to cause anymore trouble or misgivings. While no one seemed to say anything to me, I felt that most of that silence might be more of my role and position in these events than anything else. That and having Markan and Mr. Yi next to me really helped keep troublemakers away, but I know they won’t always be next to me, and thus I need to learn to deal with people normally. At least those were my thoughts when I made my way out to the ring.

  All of my previous thoughts and fears about ruining a perfectly good friendship shattered when I made my way to the ring and first saw Lucia, after she escorted her contestant to the ring. The contestant that she brought was a well oiled tall blond male with tanned skin. Judging by the crowds reaction to him, particularly the screams and whistles from the female audience, he was considered to be attractive. I would be lying if I said I didn’t take a second longer to view his flexing back muscles that were on display, but I quickly shifted my gaze to the more attractive escort by his side.

  Taking a chance to view her today, I saw that Lucia was now wearing long white gloves that perfectly matched her shining leather boots and leather top and bottom. However my eyes lingered on the gloves, gloves that stretched past her hands and well to her elbows. Seeing the garment, I know she sometimes wore them, but today I specifically remember her not having them on earlier. Did that mean that my actions caused her to be self-conscious of her condition? After thinking about it, I realized that almost had to have been the case. Which made me even more determined to come up with a cure.

  Thinking back to my cure, I realized that first I used Trash to remove the still burning energy from my skin, but then I used a secret weapon that I might not be able to replicate. As thinking back to my own encounter with a Necrotic Fireball, I also had the benefit of being able to use my Mana Extraction Skill to any necrotic energy that managed to burn its way into my body.

  After seeing the lingering damage dealt to everyone, and realizing that if it had been something simple Healers like Madame Bloom and others would have easily been able to remove any lingering necrotic tissue from the body, assuming it was just a normal injury. The fact that the skin was healed, but still showed signs of necrosis all but proved that some form of lingering rot had managed to take root within the body, allowing the necrotic scarring to linger well after healing took place. Which again goes back to the idea that I have all of the steps down, as I could use Trash to remove dead outer layers of skin. Then I would need to find a way to burn away the lingering necrotic energy. My mind now told me that Holy magic could burn the energy away, likely in a painful way, but it would burn it away. Or at least, it should be a possibility. The second way would be for me to somehow take my internal use only Mana Extraction Skill and project it directly onto targeted spots of energy outside my body. With this, slight adaptation, I could use my Divine Sight to track traces of necrotic energy on the skin, removing it like a fungus, and then healing the wound once completed.

  I could also attempt to scrape off the top layer of skin past the necrotic infection and then heal the patient, but that also seems completely painful. Worse, that method would require a few living subjects to try to perfect the method on, a process that would border on the edge of torture.

  “Hey,” Lucia awkwardly responds to me as she comes back towards my side of the ring, the side with our chairs still waiting for us.

  “Hey,” I respond back seeing a slightly uncharacteristic awkward pause from the normally self-assured Lucia. She stands there for a moment, shifting her weight subtly from foot to foot, each step daring me to glance down at her exceptionally long and toned legs. Though I manage to resist, mostly.

  “You can use holy sight?” Lucia asked, her voice low enough so that only the few of us who are nearby can hear.

  I nod.

  “Yeah, sorry, I just got it and wanted to practice,” I reply awkwardly, trying to stammer out my confession for breaking some unwritten rule.

  “What? No, no,” Lucia responds, reaching out her gloved hand and placing it over my wrist with a calming gentle intonation. “I wish more people would use their sights like that.”

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  With that last remark, Lucia slightly shifts her gaze to her left, looking at Mr. Yi who is stoically scanning the crowd and ring for any signs of trouble.

  “No, I just wanted to ask if you felt it too?” Lucia responds, then looking over her shoulder we both watched as Luna came forward, then paused in shock, her mouth opening wide like a fish gasping for breath. Then she quickly recovered and turned away a flush of red tingling her cheeks. It took Lucia and I both a second to understand what happened, but it wasn’t until she made a sharp forty-five-degree turn away from us and towards her ring-side seat that we both realized she was pissed.

  Turning back, Lucia looked at me with the same mirrored look of confusion that I felt. It wasn’t until she looked down at her gloved hand still resting on my arm that recognition crossed her features.

  “Dang it, one second, I need to take care of this,” Lucia began, raising her hand from my arm, causing an immediate chill to appear where her gloved hand once sat. I look down at the arm, feeling suddenly exposed in that one section. Then looking back up, I watch as Lucia immediately sits down next to Luna who for the first time seems to lean away from the person who had been like a sister to her all this time. Seeing their rift, I can’t help but wonder what happened to them. Then seeing how they both make furtive glances at me, I can guess that it has something to do with me.

  At this, the slight bubble of hope that had started to form within my chest burst as it was clear that while Lucia might not be opposed to my use of Divine Sight, even seeming to encourage its use, Luna was not of the same mindset. Looking at her and seeing the telltale patches where my mind now knew that her skin was not uniformly perfect stood out.

  Worse, when I looked directly at Luna, she apparently felt my gaze as she turned to face me, rather than continue the animated but hushed conversation that was taking place between her and Lucia.

  Not wanting to cause any more drama, I turned my attention towards the ring and watched the match. I was impressed to see that it was a match with speed versus strength again, which seemed to be a common matchup. Here the tanned blond fighter seemed to have speed and a bit of strength on his side, while his older opponent had strength and size to his advantage. To my surprise the larger fighter was one of the people I identified backstage who had a necrotic scar on his right arm.

  Seeing the fight, it was clear that the scarred fighter favored that right arm, using his left to jab and strike, despite clearly being naturally right-handed. A fact that made him both less effective, and showed a vulnerability that the blond fighter quickly found and exploited.

  Running to the larger fight’s right, the quick fighter opened up to deliver quick earthen infused power strikes. Seeing the strikes and feeling the possible damage, the fighter instinctively turned his whole body and used his left arm to block low. At the same time the blond fighter used his left arm to strike upward at the fully exposed head. Moving on reflex the larger fighter raised his right arm up to block a direct blow to his face. A move that the blond fighter had apparently expected and took full advantage of as he quickly shifted his momentum from going upwards, to changing it into an elementally infused hammer fist. One that came down directly on the injured arm.

  A thick wet smack echoed out from the blow causing everyone to tense up.

  “Ohh!” Lucia and Luna both let out gasps of reciprocal pain at the sight.

  Almost immediately, the direction of the battle began to change. What had once been a fairly equal fight, despite the larger fighter being forced to use his nondominant hand to fight, suddenly got twisted on its head. As the blow seemed to sap the strength directly out of the larger fighter’s body. His legs quivered and shook, and it seemed to take all of the opposing fighter’s will to remain standing.

  Seeing the moment, the blond opponent reached in and grabbed the clearly favored arm, and began doing gimmick type effects. Going for rug burns to the scarred area, while causing the larger fighter to nearly drop to his knees as a look of complete pain covered his face.

  Despite this, the large man hung in there, with his speedy opponent so close, he still tried to fight back. Raising his own free left arm, the bulky fighter formed a fist and prepared to aim it, but was suddenly stopped by the agile fighter quickly jumping up, looping his feet around the arm and dropping to the ground in what I believe would be an arm breaking maneuver. Again, it all looked amateurish, here they were fighting with powers, but all it took was direct contact to a neurotically infested patch of skin to change the outcome of the match completely.

  Tap, tap.

  The bulky fighter almost immediately tapped out, my cue to begin running onto the ring. But I felt a wave of anger hit me, as I saw the opponent smile brightly for a second or two, holding the position and defiantly holding now crying fighter’s arm in position.

  My body moved on instinct, that is my only real defense. That said, even if I had to do it over, I would not have changed the outcome of what happened next. While Kam, the referee, might have been hesitant to act against the gloating fighter, I had no such compulsions.

  Snap-kick.

  I ran forward, my left foot perfectly planting so that I was only half a step away, then using all of my momentum and force, I spun on the planted left foot and got a complete cheap shot to the exposed temple of the oiled blond opponent.

  It was a complete cheap shot, one that seemed to work instantly for the blond fighter who had been gloating a second ago dropped almost instantly, his body falling like a deflating arm flailing tube man. Logically speaking the unconscious fighter should take priority, especially as they just suffered a traumatic injury to their brain, but I was too furious at this point. That is why I did what my heart told me to do, and focus on trying to heal the necrotically injured fighter, and in particular try to fix his arm.

  Gently going over to the arm, I held it up. Even without my Divine Sight going, the Skill that had been used to mask its presence was gone, revealing the full decay of the limb in question for all to see.

  I could hear the crowd murmuring about the injury.

  “Why was he fighting with such an obvious injury,” one voice carried out, but was soon drowned out by others.

  “Isn’t that contagious?”

  “Shouldn’t they do something?”

  Those were some of the comments from the crowd, but one that particularly caused me to feel anger came from the insensitive comment, “how could they not disclose this for the betting!”

  That’s when I realized that people didn’t care about the contestants, but rather the results.

  Holding up the purple puss filled arm, I focused and I prepared to work.

  “If they want results, I will give them results,” I said, as my eyes began to glow as my mind began working out this problem before me logically.