Chapter 127: Still Standing
The cleared ground behind the villa was silent. Morning light spilled through the trees, cutting long bands of gold across the packed earth.
Liam stood in the center of the clearing. Across from him, Jack rolled his shoulders, the movement making his already massive frame look even broader.
Dark tattoos crawled from his arms up the sides of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. His knuckles were scarred.
His jaw was thick. A faint grin pulled at his mouth. He looked like he had been waiting his entire life for this.
Neither man spoke.
Jack raised his fists. Liam lowered his stance.
Then Jack exploded forward.There was nothing graceful about his first attack. It was simply overwhelming.
His lead foot slammed into the dirt as a massive right hand came straight toward Liam’s head.
Liam slipped outside it, the fist tearing past his ear with enough force to stir his hair, and answered immediately with a straight punch into Jack’s ribs.
Jack’s torso shifted under the impact, but he didn’t stop. He swung a brutal left hook. Liam crossed both arms to block, and the impact still drove him backward two steps.
Jack grinned. "That’s more like it."
He charged again. Liam met him, and the clearing erupted.
Punches snapped through the morning air. Elbows crashed against forearms. Shoes tore at the dirt as both men fought.
Jack was pressure incarnate he didn’t chase Liam, he took away the space Liam needed. Every step forward forced another step backward.
Every punch carried enough weight to end the fight if it landed cleanly.
Liam fought differently. He moved, angled, countered, withdrew, re-entered. His punches were shorter, faster, and more precise.
He struck Jack’s body, jaw, ribs, then disappeared before the larger man could fully answer.
But Jack refused to be discouraged. A minute became five. Five became ten.
Then Jack finally caught him his right hand clipped Liam across the cheek, snapping his head sideways. A thin line of blood appeared beneath his eye, and Jack’s grin widened.
Then something strange happened. The bleeding slowed. The cut began closing. Liam felt the familiar warmth spread beneath his skin.
Vital Restoration. He hadn’t activated it. It had triggered automatically.Jack stared, his grin slowly becoming something far more dangerous. "Shouldn’t he be bleeding a lot." He stepped forward. "Interesting."
His fist came again. Liam ducked beneath it and drove a knee into Jack’s stomach. Jack absorbed the impact, caught Liam’s leg, and yanked.
Liam’s balance disappeared for an instant before he twisted free, whipping his elbow across Jack’s temple.
Jack’s head snapped sideways. He took one step, stopped, then slowly turned back.
He was smiling. Liam’s eyes narrowed.
Jack came forward again. No hesitation Only violence.
Twenty minutes passed to thirty.
The fight had become something far beyond a sparring match. Jack’s nose was bleeding, a cut above his eyebrow running down toward his cheek.
Liam’s shirt had been torn away, leaving his torso slick with sweat, bruises appearing across his ribs and abdomen only to gradually fade beneath the System’s restoration.
Jack adapted quickly. The first time Liam used an inside angle, Jack was caught by it. The second time, he anticipated it. The third time, he stepped into the same angle himself and drove his right hand into Liam’s jaw.
Liam’s vision flashed white. He stumbled sideways, and Jack followed immediately a low kick, a hook, an elbow.
Liam blocked the first two and slipped the third by inches, though it still grazed his forehead. Blood spilled, then reduced slowly.
Jack laughed. "You are just good."Liam wiped the blood from his eyebrow. "Seems that way."
Jack’s grin widened. "Then I’ll just hit you harder."
He charged. Liam met him. Their fists collided, the shock of the impact traveling through both men’s arms. Neither gave ground.
They simply stood in front of each other and traded Jack’s hook against Liam’s guard, Liam’s straight punch snapping Jack’s head backward, Jack answering with a body shot, Liam returning with an elbow. Jack took it.
Liam took the next punch. Neither man stepped away.Blood fell into the dirt. Jack’s breathing grew heavier. Liam’s ribs burned. But neither stopped.
Then Jack did something Liam hadn’t expected. He deliberately took a punch. Liam’s fist struck his mouth, and blood immediately filled Jack’s lips.
Instead of retreating, Jack smiled, stepped forward, and spat the blood directly into Liam’s eyes.
Liam’s vision vanished into red. Jack attacked a heavy punch toward his head, another crashing into his shoulder, a third driving into his ribs.
Liam’s arms came up just as Jack’s knee rose. He caught it, twisted, and used Jack’s momentum to send him stumbling past.
Liam wiped his eyes and regained his vision. Jack was already waiting, blood covering his teeth, looking delighted.
"Good."
Liam’s expression hardened. He stepped in, and this time Jack was forced backward one punch, two, three, a hook snapping his head sideways, a straight punch to the nose, a low kick that buckled his leg. Jack staggered. For the first time, he gave ground.
Then he planted his foot, stopped, and came forward again.Liam’s eyes sharpened. This man was insane. He wasn’t ignoring the pain. He simply didn’t care.
An hour passed. The sun climbed higher. The clearing had become a battlefield, the dirt beneath their feet marked with footprints and dark drops of blood.
Jack’s left eye was nearly swollen shut. His chest rose and fell heavily. One hand had begun to swell.
Liam wasn’t much better, his body covered in bruises Vital Restoration steadily erased. Yet Jack was still standing. Still coming. Still throwing.
Liam hit him with a combination that would have dropped most men. Jack staggered, one knee nearly touching the ground nearly. He caught himself, straightened, and laughed.
"Not enough."
Liam stared at him. Jack wiped the blood from his mouth. "You’ll have to do better than that."
They collided again. This time there was no technique left to hide behind just instinct, will, and the refusal to be the first man to fall.
Jack’s punches became heavier. Liam’s became sharper. Jack landed a crushing right hand against Liam’s ribs,Liam answered with an elbow across his brow, blood exploding across Jack’s face.
Jack didn’t blink. He swung again. Liam slipped it, countered, and Jack absorbed it. Again. Again. Again. Neither man stopped.
Then Jack threw everything he had into one final right hand.
Liam saw it coming. He slipped beneath the punch, stepped inside, and drove his left hook directly into Jack’s jaw.
The impact cracked through the clearing like a gunshot. Jack froze. His eyes lost focus. His fists remained raised. For one heartbeat, he stood completely still.
Liam waited.
Jack swayed. His knees trembled. But he still didn’t fall. A strange grin appeared on his bloodied face. Then his eyes rolled upward, and his body finally gave out.
Liam caught him before his skull could strike the ground and lowered the massive fighter carefully onto the dirt.
Silence returned. Liam stood over him, breathing heavily. Jack was unconscious. But he had never surrendered. Never dropped willingly. Never stopped fighting.
Liam looked down at the battered man and slowly nodded.
"Stubborn bastard."
He stepped back and sat on the ground. Vital Restoration continued working beneath his skin. Liam rested his arms on his knees and waited.
Jack had earned that much.
He hadn’t lost because he was weaker. He had lost because, eventually, his body had reached its limit before his will did.
And even unconscious, Jack was still lying there like a man who had refused to fall.