The edge of the dagger slashed the man’s cheek. The gash opened so quickly, so cleanly, that the blood in his face had to catch up. It blossomed and dripped, and through the exposed gap I thought I could see teeth. They were clenched, a sure sign of anger and determination, with a slight aftertaste of malice and disgust. My plastered grin grew larger, and for a moment I was offering a genuine smile. Sadistic? I could not tell. Had my lackluster respect for the pixilated environment around me, for the basics of the game itself, grown even smaller and I saw killing and blood as fun? Would this affect me in real life, would I have a desensitized outlook on real life? Didn’t I already?
The questions raged, the battle faltered and slowed. The man was growing rapidly towards his death; the blood from the exposed vessels would flow far faster than the body would heal. I knew it would be moments before the loss of blood would cause him to waver; the wake would grow smaller as he moved, and eventually he would be swallowed by the solemn sea.
Perhaps the loss of so much blood had already gotten to his head when he reached out for my collar, the only good hand he had left attempting to hold my fur lined collar in its grip. His attempt at grasping me was a move of desperation. He wanted to see my blood, wanted to know that he had not been a silly child who had done nothing more than entered a tournament far above his meager status. He was reaching for the unattainable. In the Magus Cup, and Althanas as far as I could tell, I was not just another person. I was a god in the making.
The lunge was well timed, well aimed, had a ferocity behind it, but it was all for naught. I let his hand grow closer and closer, watched as the open palm filled my vision. Slowly the fingertips were visible before my eyes, and yet I did not move. It was not until he was within an inch of me that I finally acted, and in doing so used a simple tactic that I had long since learned.
Silent, still, the world around me stopped. Threads of time were pulled from the coding that created Althanas, threads that kept it moving forward always. I only had to think about their creation, what code created them, and which ones to pull to leave me alone in complete serenity. The speed of thought was, and always would be, faster than any person could move. As soon as the hacking of Althanas’ sense of time happened, I felt alone and empty. It always felt that way. But I only had a couple seconds to use, and would spare none of it waiting for the code to disperse and the hand to hold on tight.
I shifted my weight and pushed off the balls of my feet, jolting out of the water and to the side of the man who tried to hold onto someone that he could never touch. The water’s resistance offset my strength, spurring me only a mere three feet to my left, but plenty to alleviate the unwanted proximity of my soon-to-be-dead opponent. I landed, felt the weaves of coding slowly return to their place, and turned as they did.
Both hands shot forward, two daggers released and aimed for killing blows. My opponents silhouette was shallow and would have been a difficult target to strike at distance, but with only three feet between us the blades were perfectly on target. One lunged for the side of his throat, the other for dead center in his ribcage. It would not matter if either struck, with so much blood loss the battle would draw to a close anyway. Even if I did not score a bullseye with either, I would be left with the collateral damage of my previous attacks, which was plenty to slow and stop the man.
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