"There is space enough here for us to knock about in, I take it?" Zhao Chen pointed at the enormous transport hold before them.
This one hold was the size of a football field, and 10 storeys high.
It was one of this interstellar transport's cargo bays.
No purpose-built dueling ground, granted; but ample for these two to duel in.
"Here, then." So saying, Leona pulled several things from about her person and threw them on the floor.
Zhao Chen ran an eye over them.
A small laser pistol, a device resembling a small energy shield, and some other pieces of personal equipment.
By the look of it this Leona had come prepared.
As she saw it, even had he not stopped the others from firing earlier, on the strength of these weapons she had confidence she could have got away at her leisure.
Though to Zhao Chen none of it posed any threat whatever.
He had the panther-girl guard and the rest wait outside the field, took off his uniform jacket, and walked to the center of the ground in nothing but the white shirt beneath it.
"Hey — you mean to fight me like that?" Leona looked at Zhao Chen, walking ahead of her, and asked in some surprise.
"Is there some problem?" Zhao Chen halted and looked at Leona in puzzlement.
"You will not put on personal exoskeleton combat armor? I can even permit you to use a combat mecha." Leona lifted her head and said it with pride.
"To deal with you there is no need of such things." Zhao Chen shook his head, and saying it walked on to the middle of the ground — where he then, of all things, began his pre-match warm-up as though nothing were the matter.
Leona's face went purple in one patch and white in another; she had not thought this man could be so arrogant.
To dare duel her using no other equipment whatever.
"You will regret this decision of yours." Leona gave a cold snort, and then pointed at the women guards to one side. "You had best make ready your finest medical pod and physician."
"For you?" The panther-girl sat down on the floor, a bag of melon seeds from somewhere or other in her hand.
"Come, come — place your bets! Wager how many minutes our Commander-in-Chief needs to settle this dragon-woman!" the guard squad's deputy leader called out excitedly.
"I'll put down one minute!"
"A minute is too contemptuous of her, surely — she is Dragon-folk, after all! She can surely bear a minute and a half!"
"I'll put down 30 seconds! Dragon-folk indeed — if she can hold 30 seconds under our Commander-in-Chief's hand, that alone will count as impressive."
Leona's mouth twitched and her fists clenched; she felt this crowd must certainly have gone soft in the head.
To think that she would lose to this frail human.
"Hmph. I hope you can still laugh a while hence." With that, Leona walked to the middle of the ground, already beginning to consider how she would thrash this man who did not know death when he saw it — three of his ribs broken, to begin with!
"Cap… captain… this… is this all right? I'm a little worried for our Commander-in-Chief." A young woman soldier, rather green by the look of her, asked the melon-seed-cracking panther-girl captain in a low voice.
The panther-girl captain gave a contemptuous laugh. "Dragon-folk of that sort? Our Commander-in-Chief will settle her without the least trouble. Out in the hangar earlier, that woman's provoking attack — the Commander-in-Chief could in fact have handled it himself. But we draw this salary, after all; the proper bearing must be kept up, must it not? Heh heh heh. You just watch here and see how this dragon-woman comes to grief."
This woman soldier had only lately joined the guard, and did not know the Commander-in-Chief's terrible combat power.
The panther-girl captain, who had witnessed Commander-in-Chief Zhao Chen in a real fight, had considerable faith in his combat power — the man was quite simply a tyrannosaur in human shape!
Zhao Chen bounced in place without cease, looking at Leona, who regarded him with contempt.
He was in fact rather interested in this sort of hand-to-hand fighting; and within the Owl Dragon Legion — setting aside the awkwardness of his standing — there was truly no one at all who was a match for him.
Even that great white cat had been settled and brought to heel by him.
And now here came one from the tribe with the strongest individual combat power in the Warhammer, volunteering to grapple with him besides.
How could Zhao Chen let slip so fine a chance?
"Are you ready? I can let you strike first." Leona looked at Zhao Chen with a cold smile.
"Then let us begin." Zhao Chen asked it.
"Begin."
Leona's words had scarcely fallen when she saw a figure, for all the world like a ghost, come straight up before her.
Leona's combat instinct crossed both arms before her chest without her willing it.
Bang.
One great crash.
Leona felt the pain in both arms, and her body shuddered.
She looked at the man opposite in astonishment. This strength… how could it be… how could this man possibly possess so terrible a strength?
While Zhao Chen at this moment was wild with delight inwardly.
To be safe, he had used only half his force.
And this Dragon-folk princess before him had, of all things, caught it. It seemed the Dragon-folk tribe's individual combat ability was rather fine after all.
She could take a beating.
"Again!" Zhao Chen shouted excitedly, and thereafter swung his fists at exceeding speed.
One blow… two… three… five… 10…
In the eyes of the onlookers, all they could see was the afterimage of fist upon fist — and only a single breath's time had passed.
While to Leona all this overturned her every notion.
This strength, this speed!
Leona had no room whatever to strike back, and could only defend after a fashion with both arms.
Crack…
Leona heard a certain sound; she at once beat her wings and shot backward at exceeding speed, flying up toward the heights.
She looked at her right arm, hanging limp — in those several blows just now her right arm had been broken.
At this moment Leona no longer dared make light of the man before her.
His speed and his strength surpassed even her own father's.
But happily, their Dragon-folk tribe could fly besides; and this man had no personal armor, nor any weapon.
Flying in the air, she stood upon undefeatable ground.
And she herself had means of ranged attack.
Leona began gathering it in her belly, and then spat a fireball straight out of her mouth.
Zhao Chen's body drew back; he looked in astonishment at the floor where that fireball struck, and at the decking it melted.
"So this is the Dragon-folk race's gift — spitting fireballs from the mouth?"
Zhao Chen had heard of it, but seeing it with his own eyes was astonishing all the same.
Thereafter Leona spat fireballs without cease; but though these fireballs were of high temperature and corrosive besides, Zhao Chen dodged them all with ease.
"That woman's cheating — flying up in the air like that!" the woman guard who had wagered 30 seconds complained, seeing her time about to run out.
And at this point Zhao Chen had no notion of going on playing either.
He bent both knees slightly, and the next second shot toward Leona in the air like a cannon shell.
At a speed so great that Leona could not react to it.
She hurriedly made to loose the fireball in her mouth.
But the next second a great hand pressed straight upon her face, and the fireball was stoppered inside her mouth.
Thereafter her body shot backward at speed and slammed heavily into the ceiling.
The next moment the two of them fell freely to the floor.
Leona's mouth, on account of her own fireball, was scalded past speaking, and her lips somewhat red and swollen.
That's right — where is that man?
Suddenly a shiver ran through Leona; she felt a wicked gaze behind her, and then felt her tail seized in a pair of great hands.
She turned her head and saw the wicked grin on that man's face.
Before Leona could get a word out, the next second she was, like a sandbag, hauled up by the tail and slammed about at his pleasure.
Several sunken craters were beaten into the floor.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
The women guards to the side could not bear to watch; several covered their own eyes.
That deputy leader who had opened the betting pool bared her teeth in a look of pity. "Our Commander-in-Chief has far too little tenderness for the fair sex — how that must hurt, a face slammed into the floor like that."