Public Humiliation

"It's been a while, Palmo. How have you been?"

The heavy armor flinched, this time in disbelief. It wasn't an impersonator that stole the armor. It really was Cayce. How did he survive? No, they checked his body. He was certainly dead. When they checked, there was no breathing, no heartbeat and no brain activity in what was left of his skull. Yet... that voice...

He was... back from the dead.

The public comms went silent. The spectators didn't understand why, but they could feel tension seething through their screens.

"Don't feel like talking anymore, old friend?"

Cayce slowly drew a double-edged sword from a sheath on his lower back. This was one of his newest additions. The sword was somewhat short, but Cayce was accustomed to using combat knives, so it wasn't too strange for the blade to be shorter than usual.

"I was hoping you would tell me who hired you to kill me..."

The edge of the magi-blade ignited with a hiss. The edge glowed brilliantly, illuminating the dark armor and casting shadows into the snowy sky behind him. The glow was intense, the amount of mana used to fuel the blade must be high. It was clear the sword was meant to end matters with a single strike.

Palmo recovered from his shock and drew a shield with his left hand and a one-handed longsword with the other. Both ignited in a golden hue.

Cayce lunged forward with a growl. The clash between blade and shield threw heat into the air with a burst of mana particles. After the block, Palmo tried to stab at Cayce with his own sword, but Cayce deftly dodged several times. Palmo's shoulder was injured earlier from the combat knife, but he still had his armor's motion assist, so his strikes were still just as powerful and quick as normal, though the mana consumption was somewhat higher.

Palmo's assault of slashes and stabs continued for several minutes, but Cayce dodged every attack by a small margin. Sometimes the side of the sword would even scrape along Cayce's armor as the edge missed by only a fraction of the blade's thickness. At first, it seemed Cayce had been completely suppressed and couldn't find an opening to fight back. But after a while, the spectators noticed Cayce's blade wasn't ignited. He was simply humiliating the proud heavy armor.

The two machines danced back and forth in a beautiful display of combat. Their movements were powerful and quick, causing snow to flow in the resulting air currents as attack was answered with evasion time and time again.

Palmo's mind became a mess. Wasn't Cayce a sniper? Since when did he have close combat skills? Sniper armors were known for their weakness in close combat, that's why they chose to fight from a distance in the first place! So why couldn't he land even a single hit on this guy?!

It was at that moment Palmo noticed a glacier wall a few meters behind Cayce. As Cayce continued dodging, he backed up closer and closer towards it. Thinking to use this to his advantage, Palmo continued to push him back with various attacks until Cayce's back was nearly against it. At that moment, Palmo made a deep, stabbing lunge.

However, instead of jumping back into the wall and trapping himself, Cayce finally ignited the high-grade shortsword and parried Palmo's attack from the outside. Palmo's deep lunge had suddenly become leverage for Cayce to push him aside and reveal an opening. Using the opening, Cayce turned the shortsword back towards Palmo and drove it through the knife wound on his shoulder.

Sshunk!!

The blade tore into the opening and ran all the way through the shoulder until the hilt stopped the blade from going any further. Smoke snaked from the new hole in Palmo's back. If the vents were open, Cayce would be able to smell sizzling blood.

The invisible cameras of the simulation captured every angle, showing the best view in each moment. The spectators could hear the normal sounds of metal tearing and mana bursting, things the simulation's cameras always picked up. But in this match, the comms channel was left open to the public. The sound of shoulder bones being crushed and flesh being torn apart trickled through Palmo's mic, being quickly followed by his pained screams.

The spectators fell silent. Their eyes were fixed to their screens and the cheers stopped. These sounds were brutal. There were very few matches that played communications between the competitors and none of them picked up small details like these. Only the fighters would have known these sounds were even there. It was almost too much for the spectators.

With the blade still through Palmo's shoulder, Cayce spun around, dragging the heavy armor with him. He then drove his shortsword into the glacier wall and activated an anchoring hook at the end of the blade while deactivating the mana edge, effectively pinning his enemy to the wall by the shoulder.

The pain was terrible. The simulation was designed to mimic every aspect of real-life combat and that included full-scale pain as far as the technology made possible. Palmo's vision became blurry as he struggled to deal with the pain and confusion. Cayce let go of the sword holding Palmo to the wall and took a few casual steps back before speaking.

"Let's keep this simple. I want everything you have on the one who hired you to kill me."

Cayce drew a dark combat knife and twirled it in his fingers as he spoke. At this point, Palmo's legs no longer supported his body. He could only hang there by his shoulder, listening to Cayce speak.

"You have 24 hours. If I'm not satisfied, we'll repeat this conversation in person."

Then, Cayce flipped the knife to a reverse grip and ignited the blade. This one glowed much brighter than usual, just like the short sword. Then with one powerful movement, he stabbed the knife directly into the pit of Palmo's neck, the same weak point he targeted in their first duel.

The simulation's public cameras watched as the golden glow faded from the heavy armor's eyes.

[ Match complete ]

[ Victory ]

[ +11,500 CP ]

The simulation ended and the spectators went wild. Several entertainment and news stations spoke about the duel, analyzing every detail they could. The defender was highly skilled and also merciless. He could have ended the match with that first move, when he threw the heavy armor on the ground. Yet he decided to take his time and publicly humiliate the challenger as well as threaten him for information.

The entertainment and news stations had differing thoughts about the match as well as the competitors, but they all wanted to see Cayce climb the ranks. He clearly didn't belong down in rank 82. How high could he actually go?

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beep beep!

Cayce was at home revising his plans for the week when his assistant machine beeped lightly.

[ Files recieved ]

[ Sender: Palmo Genin ]

"Sounds like I won't have to hunt him down to get him to talk."

Cayce smiled bitterly. He was angry at Palmo for deceiving him, but he was satisfied with the public humiliation for the time being. Besides, he could take his time to get revenge, he didn't need to tire himself out right away. For now, he wanted to eliminate the one who put a bounty on his head, then start climbing the ranks again.

Cayce opened the first file and began to read.

"Ahh, so it was you."