The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 336

Chapter 336: 336 | The Weight of Ten Thousand Hours

I blinked. "What?"

"No Aspects. You want to see what I’ve got underneath the styling, and I want to see what you’ve got underneath the registrations. Physical only. No Corona, no telekinesis, no whatever else you’re hiding. Just bodies. Just skill. Just the parts of us that don’t come from genetic inheritance or cosmic accident."

That was not what I’d expected. Corona was Hiro’s primary advantage, the thing that made him a legitimate threat at range, the thing that would have required me to work for a victory. Taking it off the table meant he was either supremely confident in his physical capabilities or genuinely curious what would happen when we met on equal terms.

Or both.

No Aspects meant I could push harder. See what this body could actually do against someone who knew how to fight.

"Rules," I said.

"First to yield or first to incapacitation. Nothing that requires medical attention afterward. We both have class tomorrow and explaining fresh injuries to Steele seems like a waste of time."

"Agreed."

Hiro rolled his shoulders. The last traces of Corona faded from his chest, that golden luminescence dimming to nothing, and without it he looked different. Smaller, somehow, though he wasn’t actually small. Just human. Just a guy in expensive training gear who’d picked a fight in an abandoned field with someone he’d decided was a moral problem.

I mirrored his stance, settling my weight onto the balls of my feet. The Demigod trait hummed beneath my skin like a live wire waiting for somewhere to discharge. No Aspects meant no Spectral Reach, no constructs, no force projection. Just whatever this body could produce on its own.

Which, thanks to the System’s gifts, was considerably more than my registration suggested.

We circled each other. The grass whispered under our feet, still damp from morning fog that hadn’t fully burned away. Somewhere in the trees a bird called out, oblivious to what was building twenty feet below.

Hiro moved first.

He closed the distance with a burst of speed that shouldn’t have surprised me but did anyway. The guy looked like he belonged on magazine covers, not in actual combat, but he crossed twelve feet of grass in the time it took me to register he was moving. His leading jab came straight down the center, textbook form, shoulder rotation perfect.

I slipped left.

Not planned. Not conscious. The Demigod trait firing on instinct and my body responding before my brain finished processing the threat. Hiro’s fist passed close enough to my ear that I felt the displaced air, and then I was already moving, already counterattacking with a hook aimed at his ribs.

He wasn’t there.

The moment my jab missed, he’d pivoted, dropped his weight, and repositioned to my outside. My hook found nothing but empty space and then his elbow was driving toward my floating ribs with the kind of commitment that suggested he wasn’t worried about tomorrow’s classes after all.

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