Imposter System

Alexandria had no experience fighting in brawls such as these. Therefore, her knowledge of combat is very restricted to a standard fight. The people who come to this underground arena to brawl are far from standard. Bruce Lee predicted that she would try to go for his foot, this was just an attack to test her response time. A metal staff that was strapped to his back suddenly extended, impaling the stage and giving him a fulcrum.

Bruce Lee grabbed the top of the staff and shifted his center of gravity like a cat. Alexandra's hand was deflected by his sudden lateral movement, and after planting his leading foot on the ground, he sent his back foot in an uppercut motion toward Alexandria's jaw. Needless to say, she was completely unprepared for this level of maneuverability. The audience began shouting for blood, expecting a quick knock-out.

However, to everyone's surprise, except for Alexandria, the foot that made impact with her jaw simply stopped once it reached its destination. Alexandria wasn't knocked back or out, nor did she even stumble. After a split second of time, Bruce Lee realized the dangerous position he was in and attempted to continue rotating his hips to get out of her range. But Alexandria latched her forearm and bicep around his ankle and threw her opposite elbow down onto the side of his knee, using her body weight for additional force.

In order to minimize the impact of the strike, Bruce Lee dropped to the stage and was able to bend his knee slightly. This gave him the control to strengthen the fibers around his joint. However, the impact was equivalent to being hit by a truck. If not for his enhancements, his knee would have been dislocated. Alexandria didn't wait for him to recover, and immediately bent his knee backward behind his other leg toward his butt. Once in the control position, she pushed his body onto the ground and latched his other leg under her armpit, while clamping his bent knee between her legs.

As a large amount of pressure was placed in his lower back from the angle that she pressed him down, Bruce Lee managed to grab his staff and swing it backward, knocking Alexandria in the head. Unfortunately for him, her head was tougher than his staff. In response, she pressed down harder until snapping could be heard from the muscles in his back. The amount of force she could exert wasn't enough to break the fibers, but it was enough to detach them.

Sensing his enhancements beginning to fail, Bruce Lee pressed his palms down into the stage and pushed backward with full force. The fibers in his arms moved above the safe limit and began to tear the surrounding tissue. However, the backward thrust was able to make Alexandria take a step back. Using the limited space, Bruce Lee rotated his body, freeing his knee.

He didn't make the mistake of striking with his legs again, instead he did a backwards summersault to create some distance. Due to his experience, he did manage to place his staff within arm's reach, so he grabbed it mid tumble. He now knew not to use his body in direct combat. In that last exchange, he had already lost a considerable amount of his maximum force due to overexerting his arms.

At this point, the crowd was already chanting "Faceless, Faceless, Faceless." Which further dampened his mood. Alexandria wasn't worried about the staff, since it already proved to not cause her any damage. She maintained her position in the center of the arena and kept her vigilance up. Bruce Lee began to rotate his staff rapidly above his head, then he leaped forward and did a downward strike.

This was considered one of his lethal moves as the force exerted between his arms and legs would coalesce at the edge of the staff due to the centripetal force of his movement. Alexandria ignored the strike and stepped forward with good timing to hand a punch directly to his liver. Perhaps due to the fact that she grappled him at the start of the fight, but Bruce Lee decided to take a gamble on her offense being weak. Instead of blocking, he went all out on his strike.

However, his assumption that she was a tank was incorrect. As soon as his staff connected with Alexandria's head, he heard a crack. Initially, he thought he succeeded in breaking her defense, but then he vomited a mouthful of blood all over Alexandria. He looked down and saw her fist firmly inserted into his abdominal cavity. Even Alexandria was shocked at her strength. The crack was from his lower rib that snapped from the concussive force of the strike.

As she pulled out her fist from his body, his torn skin began to ooze blood. Her fist was covered in blood initially, but as soon as medical staff ran onto stage and carried Bruce Lee out, all the blood that had made contact with her skin was gone. Alexandria's eyes had turned red for a moment as she felt a surge of hunger, followed by a satisfying feeling. No one paid attention to the missing blood, and hurriedly cleaned the stage with disinfectant and helped clean Alexandria off.

"Winner is Faceless!" The robot announcer resounded three times and the crowd went wild. The fight was short, but exciting. Alexandria walked off stage and was immediately approached by various fighters congratulating the newbie on her first win. She nodded, but didn't speak, maintaining her mysterious image.

Alexandria checked with the robot and had directly gained ten-thousand credits. After confirming her gains, she walked to the side and watched the next fight. However, she wasn't too focused. Instead, she was feeling around the changes in her body. This was the first time she came into direct contact with someone else's blood. It seemed that her body absorbed it directly through her skin.

She was unaware of the existence of the system and could only feel around her abilities herself when Matt wasn't around. Deep down she felt like something had awakened in her. Her hunger for more blood began to slowly build. She suddenly smiled under her mask and was excited for her next fight. Alexandria was determined to be more brutal with her next opponent.

The next three fights were much more brutal than Alexandria's fight. The seasoned veterans of this underground fighting ring seemed to know how to rile up the crowd. Last minute bets came down while the participants were leaving slashes and bloody stains all over the place. Some blood even managed to splatter in Alexandria's direction, and she licked her lips in anticipation.

There were two fighters she was particularly interested in. One of them seemed to have modified their body to rapidly heal wounds using special nanomachines. This opponent was rather obese and bled a lot. His skin was particularly tough due to several treatments from the nanomachines, and his body was well nourished to maintain his excessive blood loss. In Alexandria's eyes, that opponent could be summed up in two words: blood bag.

The other fighter she was interested in had similar enhancements to her own, except hers were only to the skeletal system. Her whole body seemed to be covered in a metal skeleton. She used short daggers as her weapons but had a very primal way of fighting. Her eyes were also modified to be like an animal's. The reason she was interested in this opponent is that she had no fear of taking injuries. This meant that she bled— a lot.

Seeing those two successfully beat their opponents and move onto the next round made her very happy. The final fighters were of no interest to Alexandria. One had replaced his blood with a blood-like substance with the consistency of mercury. She didn't have any feeling of desire when seeing it spilled, additionally, it was semi-autonomous and would return to his body after being spilled. And the other opponent looked desiccated.

His body was thin and frail, and his skin was pale. He seemed to be dead. There were operation marks around his neck area and a metal device on his head that seemed to be used for controlling his lower body. Alexandria wasn't sure what was going on with this fighter, but he was nicknamed the Zombie so she could guess. Nevertheless, he probably didn't have much blood, so he was useless to her.

Fortunately, the Zombie lost against Mercury, so she didn't have to be disgusted if they happened to match up next. She noticed the betting pools were even between the other fighters, it was only her that had such huge odds. There were only so many people on this ship, so it was uncommon for newbies to arrive. The other seven fighters were veterans. This made her wonder if there was another fighter that didn't show up today or was severely injured last time.

However, those thoughts were instantly gone when she heard her name being called up. "Second round, First Match: Faceless vs Mercury!"

'Dammit, my blood bags!' She cursed internally.