Chapter 52

It was cold.

The feeling of a carpet on my bare feet was fuzzy, and the air around me felt cold. Walking down without taking any corners, I was lead through the building.

The closer we got to the ring, the warmer the air felt. Countless human bodies was a tremendously good heater after all.

The warmer I felt, the faster my confidence was leaving me.

With my hand behind my back, I walked towards my biggest hurdle. Funny how every time I thought that it was it. The most difficult task I would ever encounter. There will be no struggles afterward, yet I was struck with an even more arduous challenge.

I started smelling the scent of sweat. A putrid, sharp smell that assailed my nose along with the ever-growing warmth.

"We're here. Please come inside and simply go forward from here on." Taking a large key chain and finding the appropriate one, my guide opened…

"Another door."

"Hm?"

"You should do something with the interior here. You can get confused here really easily."

"Sir."

"Why not use the original layout? Without making our lives difficult.

"Sir! Please come inside."

I winced. "Yeah, yeah, I know."

The moment I walked inside, I heard a rattling sound of a key turning. The way back closed behind me.

Walking down the dim tunnel, I felt like it was a journey through eternity. I saw a ring with my opponent already standing there. The line of light that split the tunnel and the space around the ring was just ten-twenty meters ahead.

Step after step, I walked forward. I squinted my eyes before emerging through the tunnel. I instantly heard the boisterous cheering and the rattling of a cage. A couple of seconds passed, and I got used to the light. Looking around, I saw a huge crowd behind the cage-like walls. Shouting something, cackling, mocking, and producing so much noise that I thought I can become deaf.

Upwards I saw obscured balconies.

Deep breath. Take a deep breath.

With such thoughts, I went towards a small metal staircase, which was put in the corner of the ring. Slowly making each step as I felt the canvas with my legs, I grabbed the ropes and hopped over. Doing so, I turned around, and now I was facing the turnbuckle.

"Fuck, there is no turning back. Come on, get yourself together." Taking a few deep breaths, I slapped the padding of the turnbuckle. "Let's do this!" And turned around to look at my opponent.

It was a man in his thirties, standing before me in loose colorful shorts that reached up to his knees. The rest of his body was bare, just like mine. He had an average body type and height, and perhaps I was slightly taller. His gloomy face had a layer of thick stubble.

I started slowly warming up, keeping my eyes on him. Making a few small jumps and swinging my arms loosely.

The announcer started hyping the crowd, but I was focused on the guy before me. Unlike me, he was simply standing there. Awkwardly shifting his weight from one leg to another, scratching his inner thigh through his shorts.

He sure was laidback, hardly looked like a fighter. In the end, was I too scared?

No. I've already underestimated my opponent once.

"LET THEM FIIIIIGHT!!!" My brain registered the shout of a host, indicating the start of the fight.

The very next moment, I stepped out of the corner and took my usual stance. Taking the center of the ring, I started shuffling my legs here and there.

My opponent, however, was still pretty laidback. His face, looking like he was drinking the last couple of months, and right now, he had the worst kind of hangover. Albeit this didn't hinder him from moving without any care for the world around him.

Spitting outside the ring, he started slowly walking towards me, his upper body somewhat stiff as he lifted up his arms in a high block. It looked crude to me.

"Thwap!" I struck with a jab trying him out, but he looked completely unfazed.

"Slap!" "Thwap!" a straight and an overhand as I moved sideways, left him unfazed again. As I started circling him, he struck with a punch of his own, aiming at my chin. I softened up the strike by covering my face with a hand. The back of my hand stung upon connection.

He returned back to his high block immediately after his strike standing firmly on his feet. I saw this as an opening.

"Thwack!" Striking him at the side of his body with a jab, I closed the distance and made an uppercut with another hand. Looking to continue my series, I shifted my legs and upper body to his side. Continuing punching his gut.

He didn't just stand there and started answering. A wide swing with his left was followed by a swing with his right. Both strikes were evaded by the movement of my upper torso but the last one connected with my cheek.

I felt this punch, my head rattling. I immediately took some distance, evading the upcoming punches. As I tried to compose myself, I saw him opening wide when he punched. He also had poor technique, not moving his upper body properly.

He wasn't a fighter. I clenched my jaw tighter, seeing him moving slowly towards me. Should I play it safe?

As we were now in the middle of the ring, I wanted to up the tempo. I started making short combinations of strikes going after his gut. A one-two combo, then take some distance. A middle kick and circle him around.

As I started moving around him more and more, I felt like he was a walking sandbag.

That was when I was caught. After kicking him with a sidekick, I overrated myself and wasn't ready to counter. Instead of standing still, he almost ran up to me. With nothing else to do in my position, I was forced to clinch him.

He clasped his hand around my waist and tried to pull me to the ropes, but it wasn't so easy to do it to me.

As I stopped him, I continued peppering him with my left hand, pounding his gut.

Finally getting tired of this, he leaned back and started swinging again. As a counter, I started walking backward while moving my head. After getting hit once, I was more focused on his punches. Evading all of them, I suddenly felt ropes behind me, treacherously touching my back.

There was no escape anymore. Still trying to evade, I got hit by another punch and felt a sobering injection of pain.

Instead of simply evading, I went for punching myself. As he solely tried to swing his arms, while I was moving my body, trying to evade, the finish of this fight was already predetermined.

I felt the pain in my left hand as I connected with his right cheekbone. I evaded two of his swings in the meantime. With my left wrist flaring up in pain, I smashed the right side of his jaw. I got hit once again and felt a sudden outburst of anger at my opponent still standing. Yet another time, I punched him to the side of his face with my left.

There wasn't much of a technique in our exchange. I tried to dodge, but my punches were just as much of simple wide swings as his. Although it probably looked good, people liked this kind of grinder-like exchange.

With this last punch, his body leaned forward while his legs started stumbling backward.

I need to finish him.

This thought allowed me to almost jump forward, delivering a straight punch right in the middle of his unshaven face.

With this, he fell down. His whole body rigid and his nose bleeding from the last punch.

I run up to him to punch him a couple of times more, but I stopped in midways seeing him spasming on the canvas.

"WE HAVE A KNOCKOUT BY A YOUNG PROSPECT."

I heard the announcer voicing out my win as well as a jeering of the crowd.

"That was it?" Trying to catch my breath, I muttered to myself.

I saw a few people coming towards the ring as they started taking out my opponent away. A single woman wearing the same uniform Shultz and Christoph wore walked towards me.

"This way."

Five or so minutes, and I was back in my waiting room.

"Please wait here for your next fight." She smiled politely and left me be.

The first thing I did was to wash my burning face.

I won! Great, two more wins. I felt exhilarated at first. But after the initial excitement came away, I thought about how I fought.

"I was too nervous. I can get this, so relax, remember the sparrings, the tournament, I got this."

As I clenched my fist a few times, I felt a pain in my arm. I shouldn't punch as much. I can wrestle. Why would I throw punches like that at him?

Taking my phone in my hands, I simply put the earphones back on and started waiting. My body, cooling off ever so slightly as time passed.

Sometime later, I heard a knock on my door.

"Mister Erlig Grimes, it's your turn."

Walking down the same path, I felt more relaxed. Waiting for my guide to open the door, walking through the tunnel. The road took me half the time.

Walking up a small staircase, I jumped over the ropes. Looking at the turnbuckle, I listened to the crowd. They were chanting something as the announcer tried to hype the crowd even more.

"I can do this, HAH!" My hand moved on its own as I slapped the padding. I turned around to look at my next opponent.

A very tall guy. Taller than me, and a lean one. He sported black trunks, the kind of trunks that I saw in old school MMA fights. His square face was shaven cleanly, along with his hair. He looked boorish, but instead of simply staying here, one of his legs was on top of the rope as he was stretching.

Seeing him warming up, I started jumping up and down, warming my body in my own way. My eyes, drilling a hole in him.

"LET'S GET IT ON!!!"

As we heard a command to fight, we started walking towards each other. His legs were in a wider than usual stance, while his arms were hanging fairly low. I also noticed that his hands weren't clenched tightly. Instead, he moved his palms slightly backward while he tucked his fingers.

Whatever it was, I wanted to take him for a ride.

While he was still aiming at the gap in my defense, I used an overly wide low kick. He stepped aside, ruining the balance ever so slightly and I went down. With my balance point shifted, I used the canvas of the ring to push off harder and lunched myself at his legs. I managed to clutch him tightly as I started forcing him to the ropes. He, however, sprawled so that I wasn't able to finish what I wanted.

Moving left and right, he struggled with me. He started elbowing the back of my head until I finally stumbled from the pain. Using this, he shook me to the side while moving away on a different side.

As I tried to get up, I barely dodged a soccer kick and made a wide punch to make him back off. Feeling my breath getting rough, I stood in my usual stance while he kept his own.

Fuck it! It will be hard to throw him like this. I felt the back of my head stinging.

But this stalemate wasn't everlasting. As he slid across the ground, he made a jab with his right that I barely evaded. Eating his second jab with my face, I heard him exhaling loudly.

"THWAP!" his shin connected with the left side of my body in full impact. I clenched my teeth tighter as I backed off.

He moved to the right, and as I followed him, he once again started throwing jabs with his right, but I evaded them by ducking to his left. Closing the distance, I've thrown a punch of my own straight at his jaw. Yet because of the difference in our height and stance, I've only felt pain in my hand. All while he was barely rattled.

"Slap!" "Thwap!" his left hand, slapping the base of my neck as his right knee connected with my gut. His right arm was already around my neck, and I couldn't escape. After his knee connected, he kneed me again and again, aiming at my body.

Feeling excruciating pain, I needed to somehow answer to this. Instead of going sideways or backward, I decided to try my luck at the bottom. Getting down the moment he went after another knee, I hugged his knee and yanked his other leg. Making him lose his balance. As he tried to come back up with his hand touching the canvas, I lurched forward with my fists. He was getting away from me on his four limbs, and I started punching him in his face from the back. It continued for a while before he finally escaped from me and turned around.

His face was getting beaten up. The color red started appearing here and there. The price was my knuckles hurting so much I felt my fingers will pop out.

"Hup!" as he exhaled, his leg connected with my body again, and as I tried to catch it, he punched me four times.

Fuck how can he punch so hard even though I'm hurting so much?

Rocking himself, he made a jump-like step forward, launching another series of his punches. As they all went into my block, I was instead fed by another middle kick from him.

"THWAP!"

I answered with a kick of my own which he managed to sidestep.

Fuck, how can he punch so hard while it's hard for me to even clench my hands? I was sweating buckets. My ribs and guts were hurting while my right eye swelled ever so slightly.

His face was roughed up much more from all the punching when he fell. But his body was in better condition. I haven't seen many bruises on his torso.

He moved forward once again, trying to deal as much damage as he can. It was at this time that I solved this puzzle.

After swatting his attacks, I made some space between us. In the middle of my defense, I noticed something. I noticed, how he was attacking with the base of his palm. He even slapped me sometimes instead of punching me with his fist clenched. I bet that was the reason he could strike me for so long.

As he once again made an opening with his attack I, however, answered with an attack of my own. Executing a front kick to his knee, I made him lose his balance. I punched him hard into the face with the base of my palm. Adding a sharp whip-like slap to his cheek.

He didn't back away and clinched. Tying my neck with his long arms, he started kneeing me again. This time I answered faster. Sweeping his other leg, I made him back away, feeding him two liver shots by my right and left.

Both of us were breathing roughly.

This time I didn't want to give him time and went after him myself. Making a jump step forward, I slapped him, but I was blocked. So I added a middle kick of my own as his hands were up high, protecting his head.

He managed to catch my chest with a palm strike of his own as he moved backward. I felt my mouth filling up with something.

Once again, moving forward with the same combination of overhand slap-like strikes, he got caught by a low kick of mine as I stepped sideways. Thwarting his attack, I aimed high and started slapping, throwing palm strikes to his head while he tried to block.

As he moved backward and I continued to strike his body, he was soon standing against the ropes as I started swinging wildly at his torso. He swung widely at my head, and as I tried to back away, caught me for a knee to my stomach. His tall body leaned forward as he smashed the side of my head with an elbow while I tried to retreat.

Almost pushing him away with a straight kick to his gut, I jumped away.

Taking some distance, I felt a need to stabilize my breathing. I opened my mouth for a second. A large amount of something viscous was flowing down. Splashing around me. Dripping down my chin, dirtying my chest and the canvas underneath me. I felt a metallic taste in my mouth.

Bathed in my own blood, I was breathing heavily. But my opponent was breathing heavier than I. As he tried to launch a high kick this time, I dodged it easily. He was getting too slow to catch me.

As he was still trying to stabilize himself from the kick, I went after his head. This time it was mine.

He wasn't ready to defend himself in time, and a palm strike went right under his chin. After connecting, he immediately fell as if he was a tree that was cut by a lumberjack. His legs, buckling, folding down, he fell on his back.

"Aaaaaahhhhh." I bent over myself, trying to catch some breath. I felt sticky all over my body. I tried to rub my chin with the tape, and it immediately turned red.

The same team of staff came inside in a jiffy. Taking care of my opponent, taking him away, I was led by a woman valet back inside.

"We will call you for your next fight, sir."

The first thing I did was getting out of my tape and throwing it into one of the buckets. Taking out my towel from the bag, I opened up the faucet and started washing my face and chest from the blood.

My hands were shaking slightly as I wiped my face for the last time. After making sure that all of my teeth were in place, I started taping back.

My chest, undulating greatly as my heart thumped quickly. I felt aroused and overly excited. But my hands were gradually starting to hurt stronger.

Taking back the phone that was still working, playing the same tune, I put on my earphones. Walking back and forth, I was waiting for my final opponent.

With all my attention being on the door, I instantly reacted when I heard the knock.

"I'm coming." throwing the phone without any care, I went outside.

"Mister Erlig Grimes!" It was Shultz who was guiding me this time. After exclaiming loudly, he started praising me. "I've never thought you will be such a great fighter. The patrons are very pleased with today's event." As I started walking on my own, he hurried over after me.

"I'm glad."

"It's such a pity that one of the fighters dropped out. There was an interesting, promising woman. She would make a great pair with you." Glancing at him from the side, he was possibly more aroused than me, his eyes opened wide, sparkling as he blabbered all kinds of nonsense. His hands were flailing wildly as he tried to articulate his thoughts.

But it ended too soon as I made my way to the passage that led me to another opponent. It took me a couple of minutes.

"If you win here in a spectacular motion, our patrons might even add a bit on top of the sum we promised you."

Parting ways with him after these words, I went towards the ring. Noises of the crowd were a lot duller as I went inside of the ring. Hopping inside over the top rope, I slapped the padding of the turnbuckle and turned around immediately.

Jumping on my legs as high as I could, I was looking at the last obstacle. A guy with a beer belly and a mullet haircut. He was bigger than me in terms of physique but had the same height. His initial fat face bloated even more due to bruises. His eyes locked on me were like two small beads. There were a lot of scratches deep enough to bleed all over his body. His loose shorts were painted red with blood. There were also a few cuts on his face. But at the moment, the blood was stopped, probably with something like Vaseline.

I jumped up and down as a warm-up, and he was doing a basic stretch, showing me a much greater deftness, and flexibility than I expected from his pudgy body.

"A FINAAAAAAL ROUUUUUUUUUUUUUUND!!!" Screaming to the point of exhausting his entire lungs capacity announcer gave us a command to start.

As I took the center of the ring in a blink of the eye, I started my usual footwork, shuffling. To my great surprise, my opponent was moving deftly and skillfully as well. His legs never stopped as he used small jump-like movements.

"HUP!"

"SLAP!"

Bouncing forward, he made two slaps from the top as he exhaled. Blocking these strikes with a forearm and a slap of my own, I answered with a low kick to his left thigh.

Taking some distance as he shook it once, he went back to his orthodox boxing stance.

As I jabbed at him with the base of my palm, stepping forward, I used the force behind my step to close the distance and kick him to the thigh again.

I was trying to balance myself when he lunged forward with a straight kick right into my stomach, connecting with the tip of his feet.

Groaning from the pain, I let a small amount of blood leak through my teeth, dirtying my chest the second time.

Sliding forward, he started throwing quick, weak jabs, trying to probe my defense as well as force me into a different position. Walking backward, I saw that the edge of the ring will be soon behind me.

I didn't want to be trapped between the ropes and his strikes, so I needed to take some distance.

Diving closer into his embrace, I made a quick combination of palm strikes towards his belly, chest, and chin. Blocking my first strike with his knee, letting my second strike connect, he defended from my last strike with his elbow.

While he was still on one leg, I shortened the distance even more. Clinching him under his armpits, I tried to hook his only footing with my own leg.

Starting to sway backward, he quickly tried to find his balance by clasping his hand around me. Releasing one of my hands, a couple of strikes connected with his face, albeit they weren't powerful enough to finish him off.

Finally brushing me off, I achieved the desired result as I gained enough distance and was back in the middle of the ring.

Trying to gauge his next movement, I saw an opening and struck him with a sidekick to his body. Suffering full brunt of the force, his fat belly jiggled.

Rocking his body from side to side, he feinted a tip kick, and after I reacted, he changed it to a kick to my shin. Losing my mobility for a split second was enough for him to close the distance and make three successful palm strikes to my body.

Grunting and spilling more blood, I tried to knee him in the gut, but he stepped out faster than I could react.

As he stood there with his movements slowing down, I went after his left thigh again. This time, however, he caught my leg and forced me into the ropes, as I hopped on one leg, trying to not lose my balance.

Feeling the ropes behind me, I felt his sweaty pudgy body in the front. Trying to punch him was fruitless. Helping himself with the ropes he held me and breathed roughly. I wanted to find an opening big enough to knock him out, but unfortunately, I could only pepper him with weak slaps and pokes. He constantly tried to tie me up, not allowing me to strike him.

Regaining some of his energy, he changed his position. Feeling his hands clasping my neck, I had a premonition of what was coming. I've had no intentions of letting this happen, though. As my right hand was still holding him, I shifted my left hand over his neck. Clasping it hard, my right hand clutched the wrist.

Feeling the guillotine locking around his neck, he changed his plans and tried to lessen the pressure with his hands.

"I won't let you…" Through my rough breath, I muttered to him. I clutched his neck that was wrinkled from the fat.

"AAAARGH!" tensing all my muscles, I started roaring. My teeth on a  verge of breaking, I exerted all my strength lifting him up from the ground.

I've lost count of how much blood spilled from my mouth as I started to feel lightheaded.

His hands flailed wildly, as he tried to hit me in the groin. He then touched my face all over, trying to feel his way to gouge my eyes. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't reach.

When I was about to put him down, his head suddenly slid away from my clutch. His body was smeared with blood that continuously dripped from his head, his face looking like a bloody mask.

Completely winded, wheezing, he tried to make a distance between us, trying to gather his strengths. While I decided to leave all of me inside of the rings.

With large, wide steps, I started going after him. With each step, I was swinging at his head, my fists clenched tightly. After a couple of steps, he ran away, showing me his back.

Blood rushing to my head, while my brain was lacking in oxygen, I met his foot with my stomach while moving forward.

"RAAAGH!" Yelling from pain, I wobbled. Spitting saliva and blood altogether, I tensed my muscles like I did when I tried to choke him.

"AAAAAGH!" With my fists hanging low, I roared at him as I flexed my muscles. My veins wriggling around my body, threatening to burst at every second, I screamed my all, taking a: "most muscular" pose that came straight from a bodybuilding pageant.

His gaze completely lost as he still tried to catch his breath trembled.

Sending the fastest middle kick I've ever made in my life, I missed. But I continued the combination with a spurt of punches.

Bashing him crazily as I was letting every ounce of my energy fly into my fists, I struck him everywhere. Punching his belly, elbowing his head through his block, sending a side knee to his gut at the end, I've made him stumble away.

As both of us breathed heavily, my vision dyed red, was looking at his bruised and battered body. His hands, dangling around his legs. His eyes were hidden behind the swelling flesh.

I was slowly getting deaf. The only sound I heard was the sound of my blood pumping.

Missing wildly with another kick, I felt him kicking me straight at the back of my head. My eardrums felt like they will explode as my vision was dyed completely red.

I have flown around the ring trying to catch him as we exchanged rare punches here and there.

In the end, our gas tank was too empty for us to take any action. Both of us stood still for a few seconds before taking action. He tried to reach me with a jab. But at the same time, I launched a high kick.

His fist grazed my chin, yet in return, he started a chicken dance. As I took off to finish him, I stopped in my track when he fell down and couldn't stand up.

The sound of my blood pulsating started going away, and I heard an everlasting buzz of people around me. My heart beating so fast I felt it will fly away.

Rubbing my face once, I shook whatever was left on my hand, splashing my blood all over the canvas. My eyes were slowly returning to normal.  My body hurt so much I felt all of my bones were broken.

I've noticed a figure of Shultz hurrying over to me.

He said something, but I wasn't able to hear him and simply started to walk towards my changing room.

My legs didn't want to listen to me, so the distance, which took me two-three minutes to walk, took me over fifteen minutes.

Shultz kept blabbering something as I was Rinsing my head under the faucet. The cold water brought me back to reality. Wiping myself, I started pulling all my clothes on top of my shorts.

"Should we book some kind of transport for you?" it was the first words that I could make out.

"No need." Answering him, this throat of mine hurt.

"So here is your reward, we are incredibly happy to have you today as a fighter." with a move that I couldn't register with my eyes, he took a plastic card from out of nowhere. "The password is four zeros."

I nodded. "Take me outside."

"Perhaps it would be better to…"

"No need, I can go home on my own. You simply need to show me the way out." placing my bag onto my left shoulder and taking my phone in my right hand, I walked out of the room.

"As you wish."

Walking towards the exit, I kept seeing blemishes appearing here and there. As I rubbed my eyes a couple of times, they didn't go anywhere, and I let it be.

My body hurt like hell my mind started to turn into mush.

After seeing a large front door of the building, I said something to Shultz and went away.

It was dark outside as I walked down the street. Stumbling every few steps, I felt my vision rocking from left to right and backward. Snow was falling down heavily, cooling my naked head.

Seeing a single bus stop, with a little bench for people to wait for their bus, I crashed on it.

Noticing the phone in my hands, I started looking for someone to pick me up.

"Let's see." strangely, the words that came out of my mouth were slurred.

"My parents are out so, should I call Jessie or Jet?" I fumbled with my phone as I typed a message telling them the address, asking to pick me up.

It was a much harder task as my fingers were rather stiff.

Somehow managing to type everything, I turned off the phone and leaned forward.

"I should just wait for my pick up." Wrapping up my clothes tighter, I exhaled a puff of hot air. Looking at the snow dropping across the street, feeling my body cooling down drastically, I felt my vision darken.

"Yawn!"

"Damn, I want to sleep so hard."

Then, I passed out.