Chapter 46: Feels Like Oji
Having made her resolve, Momo approached Sana carefully. In her Death form Momo was physically the same as a Beginner Bottom Origination, a Tier and two Stages above Sana. With her physical strength alone Momo should be able to wipe out anyone at Sana's Cultivation.
However, her opponent was Sana.
Momo made a test swing with controlled strength. Sana matched her with a strong attack with her palm. Both blows cancelled each other out completely, leaving no damage and allowing them both to remain firmly planted.
Not deeply surprised Sana was able to handle that much, Momo hit left, the right and from above. She focused on the speed of the attacks, trying not to put too much strength into the blows. The idea was to beat Sana without killing her after all.
But attacks without any true force behind them were ineffective on Sana, who blocked each flawlessly. She could squeeze every ounce of strength from her body and swap her weight at high speed. Unless the siege went much faster and longer, Sana would not fall to such 'light' attacks. Momo was faintly reminded of someone.
Unable to think of who and why, Momo instead focus on the task at hand. As light, quick attacks were easily blocked and deflected, Momo could only choose to hit Sana with a serious and powerful attack that had the full measure of Momo's skill and comprehension of the mace behind it.
In spite of launching such a brutal attack, Momo was honestly hoping Sana would defend herself well enough. The Death Palm crashed into Momo's mace this time, making her hands numb as her attack was stopped dead. Even as Momo had hoped Sana could handle it, she had expected a more desperate answer to be required and to yield less effective results. While Momo was shocked at this, Sana seized the initiative and crashed a Thunder Leg into Momo's torso.
Even with the senses and speed of a Beginner Bottom Origination, Momo was still only an average fighter. She barely reacted in time to use her left forearm as a block. Momo's block was bashed aside, the power packed into the attack only reduced by a modest margin. The remaining impact was more than enough to drive Momo back several steps as her organs shook inside her torso.
Eyes narrowing, Momo reacted only barely in the nick of time as Sana followed up with the same movement Technique that allowed her to dominate Cifer. A savage sweep with the mace was all that was required to force Sana to back off for a moment before Momo came in with Bull's Rush. The aggression at a weak moment and immediate follow up reinforced the familiar feeling.
The pressure Sana felt was surreal. To her it seemed like Momo might as well have been a Bottom Origination instead of Intermediate Broken Origination. Strength behind each blow, reaction speed, toughness. A single mistake was all Momo would need while Sana would have to find dozens.
And now that Momo was rushing in and multiplying that pressure with a storm of attacks Sana was having to bring more and more out of her arsenal. Death Palm, Thunder Leg, and Fleet Step weren't going to cut it alone. But they could set up her trump card, Storm of Fists.
Storm of Fists taught one to stack punches onto each other before releasing an assault of unimaginable power. It wasn't a one to one ratio however, and while it would release multiple strikes as part of the attack it would absorb several of the stacks into each strike at higher levels. Depending on how many punches were layered into the released attack, this Technique could be Broken, Bottom or even Low Origination tier.
In theory it could even go far higher than that, but Sana was at that level yet. Stacking 2 through 8 fists counted as Broken Origination, while 9 through 30 would count as Bottom Origination. Sana's record was to be able to release 40 fists, which was in the range of Low Origination. At that level it would release about 6 or 7 hits comparable to her Thunder Leg.
Sana was willing to bet that was enough to take down Momo. Sana would have to endure hell before she'd get that chance though, holding Momo back while keeping a hand free to stack her Storm of Fists. And so Sana barely held on, getting beaten black and blue until she vomited blood all for the purpose of stacking up 40 fists into her Storm of Fists.
Momo was very happy she had chosen to enter her Death form for this fight. Sana was simply too skillful and tenacious a fighter for holding on so long! It had been 3 minutes since the start of the fight, but after the first few plays where Momo was growing accustomed to Sana's fighting style and methods Sana was being slowly cornered and ground under.
Even Sana's Thunder Leg wasn't able to match Momo's Death form Skull Smasher. That trade off came close to breaking Sana's leg, which made Momo feel a bit sorry. But despite the pain and despite the fact that it was harder to find somewhere on Sana that wasn't injured, Sana refused to surrender. In fact, it felt like Sana was getting more and more used to handling Momo's speed, toughness and strength.
Not that it mattered, Momo focusing as much on that odd familiarity as each strike. Sana gave the same feel as someone else she'd seen, but on completely different levels. Like a hill compared to a mountain, or a lake to the ocean.
Nobody dared speak as they watched the close fight unfold. Elder Jirou could feel as many eyes on him as were on the fight. This was unacceptable! It wasn't possible for a child in Broken Origination to have a level of Comprehension that surpassed his current limits! "Impossible." He muttered to himself. There had to be another reason for Sana's miserable condition.
It was at this point that Grand Elder Ichirou arrived with Deacon Gorou. The Grand Elder was stunned by both combatants after a moment. To his eyes the level of this match had already exceeded the bounds of Broken Origination in more than one way. Especially since he could tell what Sana's plan was from the small signs connected to the Storm of Fists that was well known inside the Skull Sect. "She's impressive."
Deacon Gorou nodded. "I thought that Momo must have already lost by now. But she's actually about to defeat that Sana."
Grand Elder Ichirou shook his head. "With Essence as pure and dense as Momo has Sana should have lost in the first exchange of attacks. Instead, Sana is about to win. Which will probably work out for the best with me here to stop Jirou. Anyone able to have such combat prowess or such dense, pure Essence at their levels are worthy of the Skull Sect's close attention."
The way that Sana was holding up was starting to get on Momo's nerves a little. Sure, Momo was a bit distracted and missed some tiny openings made by her sheer strength. But she'd never seen anyone so tenacious or stubborn! An image suddenly came to her mind as if in answer to that thought. Oji laughing as he parried Elder Naoki's assault, then flipped the whole fight in a single move. A move that Elder Naoki believed Oji didn't even have.
Just in that instant, Momo knew who Sana had reminded her of. Momo had assumed Sana was showing everything she had. But if Sana was truly like Oji, than Momo was being led to believe that like. And if just like Elder Naoki had been led to believe Oji had shown everything he could do, than revealed his trump card.
Just as Momo was thinking on this comparison her attacks slowed in contemplation, and Sana dodged an attack that left Momo open and prepared to release her final Storm of Fists.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone