Chapter 27. Help, Help, I’ve Been Kidnapped!
Pain was the first thing Rhys felt. He swayed slightly, a breeze shifting through his hair. Rather than open his eyes, he let himself hang there, his knees wrapped around the wood of a tree and weighed there with some kind of counterweight, reflecting on what had just happened. He’d been fighting some losers and totally dominating them, and then Ev had come around. Taller, more muscular, more powerful, but still only Tier 2, well below Cynog’s strength. She hadn’t tried to kill him, or seriously injure, the way Cynog had, but she had straight knocked him out with a punch. That was some serious power.
Unlike Cynog, I don’t hold back. Was that it? It sure hadn’t felt like Cynog was holding back. And to be fair, he had been in much worse a state afterward. If anything, he felt as if Cynog, the sadist, had deliberately left him awake to experience as much of the beating as possible, while Ev had simply landed the KO when she felt like it.
On the other hand, Cynog definitely could have killed him, and had deliberately held back. On the other hand, Rhys had been using his most powerful enhancement techniques, neither of which he’d used against Cynog, and he’d still lost. He’d landed a good hit, and he’d put up a fight, both of which were remarkable achievements for someone a Tier below, but he’d lost.
No, that’s not quite right. Cynog and Ev… from the beginning, their blows had completely different goals. Cynog hadn’t had to fight him. Rhys might as well have been punching a rock wall, for all the damage the man took from his blows. It wasn’t a fight at all, but a one-sided beating. He’d been free to torture Rhys, and had chosen to do so at his leisure. Ev, on the other hand, had been fighting him seriously. He’d forced a Tier 2 to fight him on even footing, as though he was a Tier 2. He wasn’t, and so he’d lost, but he shouldn’t denigrate his accomplishments. For trash, that was quite an achievement.
“You can go ahead and open your eyes. You aren’t fooling anyone,” a distinctive tenor voice intoned, vaguely amused.
Rhys opened his eyes. Ev lounged in a tree opposite him, one leg dangling, her head propped on a hand. He gasped in shock. “Ahhh! I’ve been kidnapped!”
“Uh huh. Convincing,” she deadpanned. “Come on. Get your ass up, and let’s get started. Forget Cynog’s bullshit and let’s get to training.”
Rhys swung in place, getting a feel for the counterweight on his legs. “I’m stuck.”
“Sure you are. I didn’t tie your arms or take your blade,” she replied.
“Then… why’d you hang me up?” Rhys asked, lost.
She snorted. “Your sleeping face looked too smug. It was annoying me.”
“Oh.” Rhys shrugged, not really understanding. He drew his blade from within his robes and activated Trash Intent. Reaching past his hips, he strained his feet down and slashed the rope that bound him to whatever she’d used as a counterweight. His body instantly fell head-first, but only a foot or so before he hooked his ankles on the branch and caught himself. Rhys dangled there another few seconds, reaching back to free the loop of rope from where it had been tied around his ankles, then swung himself around, flipped off the branch, and landed on his feet.