Chapter 182: Madman's Brawl

They both moved at the same speed in both big and small movements so they could read each other pretty well. This was why size was an advantage in this realm; you could reach your opponent easier with a bigger size.

"BOOM". The two large as building swords in Jade's hand clashed with the large axe he buried in the Parasites head at first and a large club; the Parasite had successfully blocked Jade's attack. The Parasite lashed out and brought its mouth towards Jade's neck and Jade did the same bringing his own teeth to the rat's neck.

Pain of loss assaulted both parties as they bit each other like animals, there was no soothing feeling or any kind of feeling at all from absorbing a part of their opponent. They both vibrated as they endured the pain and executed their next moves. The Parasite's teeth were as hard as their crystalline nature suggested and had torn through Jade's armor and Jade's teeth had also injured the Parasite.

Jade backed away from the Parasite while it turned its back toward Jade revealing the hidden third weapon it was holding; a spear, the Parasite had held a spear behind its back with its long tail when it stood upright and it was now swinging it sideways toward Jade.

If the centrifugal forces worked in the soul realm the same way they did in the physical realm Jade would have been hit already without noticing anything due to the large amount of speed the tip of the rat's tail would be moving at talk less the tip of the long spear. Luckily all movements happened at the same observable speed in the soul realm due to the weird quality of the time and space in the place so the only disadvantage was that Jade couldn't get out of the range of the spear in time.

Jade resolved himself and blocked the spear swing with his arm which was, to the Parasite's surprise, unguarded. It hit him and the impact caused the crystal like spear to separate a part of his rocky body before finally levitating it towards the Parasite at a speed that was faster than he could move in the empty soul realm. Pain was given to him in exchange for his donation and he was frozen stiff, enduring the pain, the Parasite brought its crystalline teeth towards the same spot on his neck again.

When Jade was free of the pain the Parasite's teeth was closer to his neck that any of his weapons was to its body. The spear was also rebounding along with the other weapons promising to put him at an extreme disadvantage due to the pain he would feel from the two wounds he would have to get since he could only block two attacks. Getting these wounds with the Parasite so close would throw him into a vicious cycle that saw the Parasite gain grey rocks and getting stronger attacks until the pain of loss and amount of grey rocks he had was low enough for him to break out.

Jade still had options; he could teleport the Parasite away and the Parasite knew this but Jade chose to enter the vicious cycle, bringing the Parasite boundless joy.

…

Time passed and the Organizer watched the battle happening in the empty soul realm. A smile appeared on its face when it saw Jade tremble and stiffen from the pain of loss for the thousandth time. It said "I've finally found the perfect title to give him. He's a master piece".

…

An unknown amount of time had passed and the Soul Parasite was feeling extremely gloomy as it attacked Jade. It was doing what it was made for; fighting in the soul realm. It was born a predator of the soul realm, a realm that transcended the material in importance; it was far above most of the material monsters even with its poor stats.

But after fighting with Jade for what seemed like an eternity, it realized that this was not the case. It wanted to beat Jade and get his Soul Glyphs; it was right there in front of it but it could do nothing about it. Jade had been getting into a disadvantageous position with it on purpose. He allowed the Parasite to attack when he could just teleport it away and endured the pain.

After a while of losing grey rocks, when he was on the verge of turning back to grey sand, Jade would teleport away, bring out one of the many guns hung at his back, and shoot a ton of pins at a time. The pins came out at a higher frequency compared to the frequency when Jade first used bullets. The pins could be dodged but when they came in a large amount and covered a wide space it made it impossible for the Parasite, which had gained a lot of grey rocks, size and things to lose, to dodge them. When they hit the Parasite, the pain of loss was so much that it robbed it of any sanity, tormenting it.

When Jade had gained enough grey rocks to be of the same size as the Parasite through this strategy he would hang the guns back and brawl with it inevitably reducing his stash of grey rocks and repeating the cycle.

The Parasite had tried to break out of the cycle by breaking the guns at Jade's back but it learnt that it couldn't break any weapons with the other weapons and even though its teeth worked and could break them. Jade could always repair them with his glyph when he grew smaller and the pain of loss was lesser.

The Parasite also couldn't naturally break out of Jade's cycle because although its hits greatly reduced Jade's size when he was about to start his shooting counter and a few more hits would have reduced Jade to nothing. They both moved at the same speed; the smaller Jade was the easier it was for him to dodge. Hence, the tables would always turn and the Parasite would be assaulted with more pain than it could adapt to.

The pain wasn't what made it so gloomy but the fact that it didn't understand why Jade continued with this pointless strategy. Jade could beat it in ranged combat but it was superior in close combat, the natural solution was for Jade to maintain his distance and win. But he always came close, wanting to suffer the pain of loss. It had no idea why Jade would do this. This was just torment for both of them!

…

On the other hand, Jade's aim was to spend this precious opportunity to train himself in enduring the pain of loss. The bites and cuts of the Parasite when they both were at the same size was just enough pain for Jade to get used to gradually. But the pain the Parasite suffered from his pins when it was way larger than him was too much for training purposes.

As the cycle repeated itself Jade held back on increasing his size beyond the size that would make them equal when he was using his guns. He could now endure the pain at average size but he used this advantage to create more pins to stockpile and shoot the Parasite with. They were his trump card since it couldn't pull them out of it's body. Jade's goal wasn't only training but to trigger something special that he hoped would happen.

Their cycle of pain repeated itself millions of times and the count didn't stop. It reached the billions, tens of billions and hundreds of billions. Jade realized that no matter how many pins he shot the Parasite with, its size never increased even if it didn't take them out. He tested something while he was shooting and found out that the pins were still in the body of the Parasite; its size just didn't increase because of it. The size of both parties was only dependent on the amount of grey rocks they absorbed not the amount of objects that occupied the space they were in.

At this point Jade was easily able to endure the pain of loss from being at average size and the Parasite was extremely gloomy when it fought him. Its eyes were lifeless and its smile was gone as it gritted its teeth in anticipation of the extreme pain that was surely on its way.