You Already Won

Running.

Jonathan had always been fast. Back in high school, he wasn't a star, but he had speed. Junior year, he made it to the Penn Relays. Placed fourth. Everyone blamed the anchor, even if no one said it out loud. That kid tripped over his own ego. But nothing in those years of sprinting, nothing on a track, nothing in a relay… compared to this.

Ryun surged beneath his feet, launching him through the shattered skeleton of a once-beautiful city. He ducked low through archways, vaulted over broken carts, and dove through collapsing walls. Shards of mosaic glass burst around him as he crashed through a window, rolled across a banquet table, and leapt from a balcony without hesitation. His feet hit a tattered awning, which snapped and flung him down into a merchant alley like a slingshot.

A halberd blade sliced through the air a second later, splitting the cobblestones he had just vacated. The shockwave leveled two nearby homes.

"STUPID HAG!" he roared as he slid under a fallen beam. "I DON'T EVEN HAVE MY GEMS ANYMORE!"

It was true. Somewhere between the Ryun blast and the Omni-man finisher and the damn cabbage cart, he'd lost his stash. Thirty golden, two black. Gone. He didn't even have the pouch anymore. Just new clothes(that were now ruined)and a growing desire to scream into the void.

But there was no time for rage.

Ashantiana was still behind him.

She didn't care about his excuses. Didn't care he had no idea what he was wearing or why her eyes were burning like vengeful suns. Her movements were clean, wrathful, and precise—every strike of her halberd carved death into the air. Jonathan felt it behind him, every swing dragging the edge of his soul closer to severance.

He used a shattered bell tower as a ramp, twisting mid-air to kick off a statue's crumbling head and land on a sloped rooftop. Ryun flared in his heels as he vaulted from one rooftop to the next, nearly slipping on slick tiles. He didn't slow. Couldn't. She was already on the roof behind him.

No plan. And now I'm being hunted by Joan of Arc if she was possessed by a sand demon.

He dove through another skylight, tumbled down a spiral staircase, bounced off a laundry line, and hit the ground in a crouch. A thin cloud of dust trailed behind him like a comet tail.

Great. Just him, the world's most aggressive halberd psycho, and a growing desire to punch a tree out of sheer frustration.

Also there were no sewer covers.

Jonathan cursed Requiem's aesthetic. All divine cities and celestial bricks—but not a single manhole to dive into like a proper urban rodent.

He zigzagged through another ruined courtyard, ducking as a crescent blade of Ryun-infused wind shrieked past his head, cleanly decapitating a statue behind him. A second strike carved into the road like butter, while a third—sharper, faster—hit him dead center.

Crack—THOOM—CRASH!

He flew through five buildings.

Not into. Through. Stone walls, wooden beams, crumbling tapestries—he blasted through them like a missile, body slamming into the sixth wall with a rib-cracking thud. Dust buried him. Rubble pinned him. He coughed blood.

"Cool. That's fair." He grimaced, voice muffled by the debris.

But he raised his hand, fingers trembling. Blood trickled upward, curling around him. Ryun surged. Bones clicked back into place. Muscles stitched together. He was healing faster now. Not perfectly, but enough to stand—just as a thunderous hum warned him.

BOOOOOM!

A Ryun beam vaporized the block.

He dived—just barely clearing the explosion. Asphalt screamed as it warped and peeled. Smoke rose in spirals.

Jonathan exhaled, a red and black ball of crackling Ryun pulsing in his palm. "Okay," he whispered, charging it tighter. "Fine."

His aura roared around him like a pressure storm.

He grinned. "Just like the show— KAMAH—"

He flung the Ryun beam forward.

A shockwave boomed across the city. Energy cracked like a thunderclap. Light flared.

"HA—!" he shouted, eyes wild. "TAKE THAT!"

Ashantiana didn't flinch. She cut the beam in half.

Jonathan's smile dropped.

She split his beam. Mid-flight. Like she was slicing a loaf of bread.

"…Oh, hell no." His face darkened. "Nobody disrespects Goku."

Ashantiana's eyes narrowed. Her halberd spun. Three jagged wind spears materialized, loaded with pebbles orbiting their shafts like shrapnel moons.

Thunk-thunk-thunk.

They fired—buckshot-style.

Jonathan dodged the spears, ducking into a roll—but the rocks followed. They whistled through the air, guided by Ryun threads.

Zip—zip—zip.

They punched into his arms, legs, and shoulder. He growled in pain, only for his blood to surge up and intercept the rest of the threads before they could take root.

He shuddered. "Okay, that was scary. She almost scorpion-snagged me."

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Ashantiana landed nearby, her halberd still glowing. She looked… annoyed. Maybe a bit impressed. Definitely mad he broke her Mortal Kombat finishing move.

Jonathan sighed and dusted off his robe—which at this point was 80% dirt and 20% stubbornness. He looked at his hands. At the battlefield.

Then he smiled.

He dropped into a boxer's stance. Shoulders loose. Chin tilted. Lightning crawling over his knuckles.

He didn't have a plan.

He didn't have armor. Or a sword. Or enough Ryun mastery to make anime-tier attacks.

But he had this moment. And a crazy, death-wish smile.

"Fuck it," he whispered.

Ashantiana's eye twitched.

She raised her halberd.

The air trembled.

And Jonathan grinned wider.

His body moved on instinct more than logic.

Even before Requiem.

He couldn't land a hit. Not one. Ashantiana was faster, stronger, more refined. A warrior forged by war and shaped by sacred flame. But Jonathan was hard to pin down. His footwork was unpredictable. His movements jittered between raw street brawling and bursts of wild Ryun improvisation.

Lightning coiled around his fists. He would throw a volley of red-black bolts, duck behind shattered walls, then explode the ground underneath her with blood-trapped detonation spikes. Nothing fatal—nothing close. But he was adapting.

He was also getting better at healing.

Small wounds closed fast. Larger ones slowed him down, but his Ryun control was sharper now. His blood responded faster. His bones set quicker. His will—whatever fractured pieces were left—refused to let him stop.

Ashantiana narrowed her gaze as he darted away again, sprinting through a collapsed corridor and sending a Ryun flashbang behind him.

She didn't chase—not yet.

She breathed.

Her anger was loud. The weight of this realm's humiliation, the pain of Curtenail's exploitation, the violation of her city by filthy scavengers—it boiled in her chest.

But anger was not war.

She stilled. Her Ryun responded.

Her aura compressed, pulling close like a drawn blade. Her muscles relaxed, but her stance sharpened. Her halberd hummed with violence, now quiet and waiting. Her eyes closed for half a second—

When they opened, Jonathan was gone.

But not from sight.

She saw the trail.

A blaze of flickering crimson sparks arcing across rooftops—moving impossibly fast.

Ashantiana smiled.

"The beast flees," she whispered. Before launching after him like a missile.

Jonathan ran like hell.

He knew that moment. That anime moment. The one where the calm warrior powers up, says something cryptic in an ancient tongue, and proceeds to delete someone from existence. He wasn't about to be that guy—the "What's that glowing—?" idiot.

So he moved.

Leapt sideways and turned around, Ryun flaring like a storming engine from his hands, and lit up the street with crackling red-black lightning bolts—Emperor Palpatine style. In any other context, it would've been cool. Now it was pure survival.

But she didn't flinch.

She smiled through it.

"Zur-Xec-Dek." She yelled.

Her halberd hummed.

Then sang.

Then burned with bronze light.

And Jonathan knew. Knew deep in his spine.

He was about to lose something.

It couldn't be his head. It couldn't be his legs. So his body made the choice for him.

A violent jerk to the side—bones dislocated, shoulder torn—and slice.

A clean cut.

Paper-thin. Elegant. Lethal.

His left arm hit the ground like a broken toy.

"AHHHH-GODDAMNIT!" he screamed, staggering, blood gushing in thick, dark ropes. His body screamed in agony but he didn't stop.

She moved in, lunging like a hawk with murderous intent.

And Jonathan flung the bloody stump forward, spraying blood out everywhere.

She touched it.

And screamed.

A raw, shrieking crack of pain as the cursed weight of his blood slammed into her aura. It tore through her defense like rusted wire—his blood hated her. And she felt it.

He didn't hesitate.

Right arm raised—Ryun burning red and black—he condensed everything. Every ounce of energy he had left.

BZZZZZZZZZHHHHMMMM!

The point-blank blast roared to life, lashing through her and sending her flying. Not backward. Not tumbling.

Detonated.

She went through five city blocks—Ryun thrashing around her, buildings collapsing in her wake, the skyline rupturing from the shockwave.

And then silence.

Jonathan dropped to his knees.

Breathing hard. Heart screaming. His shoulder a mess. His vision tunneling.

The burning sensation in his side throbbed harder than ever. His blood pulsed with pain.

Tears threatened to rise.

He didn't cry.

But damn… he finally got a hit in.

It was short-lived.

A burst of bronze-scorching Ryun shot straight into the sky like a divine warning flare.

Jonathan stared, half-dead, and out of breath. "Well, damnit." His voice cracked with disbelief. "It couldn't have hurt her a bit more?!"

He could see her—literally. Somehow, somewhere along the way, his vision had gotten sharper, clearer, almost enhanced. And that didn't make anything better because now he had a perfect view of Ashantiana emerging from the mountain of rubble. Limbs damaged but steady. Aura burning. Eyes locked onto him like a war goddess who wasn't done.

He groaned and staggered to his feet. "Nope. Back to running. Great fight. Good show. Ten outta ten—we're done."

He spun around and started jogging—well, limping with ambition—trying not to think about the fact that a blood-fueled demigod wanted his head on a halberd. His heart pounded, Ryun low, arm gone, and each breath tasted like metal.

Then—

SHHK!

An arrow whipped out of nowhere and punched through his shoulder.

"AGHH—WHAT THE—!"

He barely had time to scream before the world ripped itself apart around him.

The light twisted. The air cracked. His body was yanked sideways like a glitch in a bad game, and suddenly—he wasn't there anymore.

——

Ashantiana slammed into the ground, carving a trench beneath her feet. Her aura still flared with killing intent as she scanned the wreckage—ready to bury him once and for all.

But he was gone.

The only thing left was blood in the wind. She held her hand out to call her halberd back.

Her halberd sparked as she gritted her teeth. "Damnit."

That wasn't a native.

The blood. The wild improvisation. The style.

An outlander.

Had to be.

And now he did this.

She looked around, furious but focused. Magic? Teleportation? No. If he had a teleportation trick, he would've used it earlier. That wasn't magic or else her attacks would have been useless. That was… something else. Someone else interfered.

Her instincts were clear—next time, she'd kill him on sight. He dealt decent damage with that attack, though she'd endured worse—and next time, she'd be ready.

Until then, the extermination would continue.

She took to the skies, a bronze blur of vengeance.

——

Jonathan hit the ground with a thud—somewhere else entirely.

One second, he was watching Ashantiana emerge from the wreckage like an unkillable gladiator, and the next, an arrow had punched into his shoulder with surgical precision—and reality folded.

Now he was flat on his back in a different part of the city, gasping for breath like someone who just escaped a boss fight by pressing the wrong button and somehow winning.

"Well… damnit." he wheezed, yanking the Ryun arrow shaft from his shoulder with a grunt as it dissipated.

"Ok!" Jonathan staggered to his feet, half-conscious, shoulder bleeding, vision fuzzy from the teleportation. "Whoever did this—be ready to forfeit ya life, kid!"

His voice cracked halfway through the threat.

"Huh?" a voice said behind him.

He spun around, fist weakly raised—only to lock eyes with two women. One was an elf—familiar, sharp-eared, unimpressed. The other…

The other was a girl in a flowing crimson robe, her cloak billowing like a storm had just passed through it. She had tousled sandpaper hair that curled around her delicate but fierce face, and her eyes were a striking golden bronze, sharp and calculating. The ornamental fastenings on her robe glimmered faintly with power—like a warrior priestess pulled from myth.

Jonathan blinked. Then blinked again.

He meant to stand tall. Meant to come off strong.

His knees buckled. Phantom pain throbbed where his arm used to be. His hair was singed, and his tattered shorts barely qualified as clothing.

He looked like a dork.

The woman in the cloak raised an eyebrow. "You sure we didn't just save an idiot?"

Jonathan squinted at her, his pride flaring one last time before the darkness returned. "Choke on a cactus, woman…"

And with that… he passed out cold.