"That was awful," Kate told me as I reached the waiting zone, parked my armoured backside on the bench and lifted my visor."I won!" I disagreed."Your fight looked like two toddlers wrestling in a sandbox over a toy shovel. And I wouldn’t even call it a real fight," she waved off."The best fight is the one that never happens!" I declared with forced grandeur, quoting some ancient wisdom fed to me by one of my déjà vu episodes."Not at a combat tournament," she replied flatly. "There’s still time to back out.""There’s still time to win," I countered.Kate gave me a disapproving look and handed me a tablet."Amira Delgado. Your next opponent."Amira — that sounded like a middle name Nur had, back when she was still Nur. But the surname hinted at a different culture, and I hadn’t seen her face — it was hidden behind a pink helmet. Her name echoed Nur’s, and her taste in armour matched Kate’s: black and pink.Like me, and like the previous girl I fought, this was also her first fight. Except Amira had handled it with much more dignity. The fight lasted forty-four seconds. She didn’t give her opponent a single chance. He was a Fist cultivator too, by the way.I watched the video Kate gave me, then played it again.They’d been assigned a sandy arena with scattered small rocks — no cover, no tricks. Not that they intended to hide. The judge gave the signal, and Amira’s opponent went on the offensive. One step forward and a textbook karate-style straight punch, his other arm sweeping back low behind him. A silver-blue projection burst from his leading fist — fired in a straight line. It would’ve hit Amira square in the chest… if it hadn’t been stopped by a micro-shield."That’s —""A formation," Kate confirmed.That would’ve been a good time for him to stop and think, but instead he charged in like a tank — step, strike, step, strike, step, strike. Every hit, every projection (...)