It was last round of the sparring for Kush, he had yet to hit Tara even once, the fact that she was this close yet beyond his hands pissed him off. Right now he was standing in the middle of the arena, cuts and bruises all over his body and bleeding profusely, a few hair line fractures on his shin and on his upper arm bone. All over the arena his blood had formed pools. He was never able to fully heal himself over the night and the injuries had cumulated over the last three weeks. His left hand and shoulder drooped over, like they were dead weight, his breathing was ragged, his knees were bent to somehow let him stand and also take the next blow without falling over. His mouth bloody with cuts on the inside of his cheeks. Sweat mixed with blood, gave a pungent smell, which could ward off even the bugs and mites, dropped off the tips of his knuckles and pooled right below them in red puddle.

Tara standing across from him too was panting like she just been rescued from drowning and oxygen was the only thing she needed right now. She had been hitting him with all she had for the past three weeks now. Priding herself to be one of the strongest of her generation, but she couldn’t put him down for the count even once and moreover she was hurting all over. His skin was as tough as a steel wall would be for mortals. The skin on her knuckles had torn open and the bones in her hands were fractured starting from the tip of the knuckles all the way to her wrist. Her joints were under tremendous pain.  Her elbows, knees were bleeding, her left shoulder had been dislocated in the previous round when she tried to drill her elbow in between his ribs. This had caused her to almost be caught in the previous round, but she somehow managed to summersault her way out of his grasp. Her left shin had developed a long but shallow cut causing blood to accumulate below her feet and the right shin bone had been fractured. If you simply went by the amount of damage she seemed to have lost, though Kush looked a lot worse.

She went to a wall put her elbow on it and pushed to put her shoulder back in its socket.

He said “Let’s start”

Tara for the first time in 3 weeks didn’t launch herself in to attack him. Kush now realized the extent of damage she might have had and wanted to take advantage of the fact. Pushing through the pain of his burning muscles he started running towards Tara, the first time he got to take the initiative in a round. Seeing him run towards her Tara too came around, as she once again zoomed past his first attack and kicked him in the butt causing him to almost drop. Kush used his arm to prop himself up and spun on it.

After a couple dozen more exchanges Kush realized he couldn’t strike her no matter how he tried especially now that she was on the defence, the only option left was something with area of effect. Tara had hit him with lightning strikes, fire bursts among other attacks, but the only attacks he could use were horizontal slash and the final attack his father taught him. Tara’s attack though strong didn’t destroy the room, heck they didn’t even budge, so maybe the ship might survive his attack as well??

Sex with her had long since been brushed out of his mind, this was now a pride thing, not being able to take her down in a weaponless match was beginning to hurt his self-confidence. So he simply stood in his place with his hand balled up in a fist, his back bent, his knee bent, just enough so that when his arm was pointing down, the gap between his fists and the ground was less than 2 cm. Tara saw the weird pose and thought he was preparing for one of his weirdly super-powerful skills. This gave her a couple of breaths to calm down. Meanwhile Kush tried to remember what his father told him during the training of his skill.

“So son now that you have successfully executed your mother’s skill a couple of times, do you think there could be something stronger than that?”

Kush replied without hesitation “Mom said her skill was unopposed in this world”

“Hahahahahahahahaha” he laughed uncontrollably holding his stomach, rolling on the ground like an animal. After calming down he said “Well you mother is a prideful woman. But I have defeated your mother’s skill in past”

Alicia turned her head to the side and harrumphed “That’s cause you skill just crazy destruction based skill with no finesse, no laws governing it”

Kush didn’t like the sound of it “I don’t think I want to do it. Your methods are always along the lines of hitting anvil with your fist. They hurt a lot”

“snicker” slipped Alicia’s mouth on seeing Sagar’s face after being called out by his son; but she said “Even though I said that my skill was unopposed in the world but it was only limited to skill. What your father has is not something that should be called a skill, it should be called a disaster. In terms of destructive power, there is perhaps nothing in this world which can match it…”

A young Kush furrowed his brows in thought, he knew his mother was strong, a lot stronger than he himself was and if she says that the move awesome then it must be something special. Thinking up to this he replied “Ok”

The happiness on Sagar’s face was palpable, he grabbed his son by his shoulder and pulled him in his chest. He then said, “I am sorry for all the trouble this might put you through but trust me son, it is worth it!! It is definitely worth it”

Back to the present, Kush was standing in that pose for atleast ten seconds when within 1 km of himself in all directions, things started to vibrate. The one who put the charm on the vessel was a monstrously strong person. One Tara couldn’t even hope to meet in her life, but the barrier on their room was paper to the Kush’s skill. Even the water of the ocean was vibrating, it could be seen visibly on the surface of the ocean. A flock of birds came in that 1 km sphere and all of them dropped into the water following a parabolic motion. If one were to inspect them postmortem they would find their blood capillaries, neurons, muscle sinews, were all destroyed. The fishes which came in that sphere died out similarly as well. The crew on the boat were fortunately all cultivators, hence their veins were nourished with mana. But they were feeling it… the immense pressure on their blood vessels and their body. They started dropping to the grounds on their knees. The entire crew including the captain were docent level cultivators they were elite guards meant for Tara’s protection. Though Tara couldn’t see them, but based on the pressure she was feeling, she knew there was no way they would survive this calamity.

“This dumbass!! Does he not know any simple skills?? And why is the ship vibrating like this, didn’t that fucker tell me even ‘Expert’ level fighter will not be able break the barrier unless he is monstrously strong??”

Suddenly the pressure on Tara increased and she started feeling blood in her mouth. “What the fuck is this monster thinking?” and before gathering any other thought she started moving forward, else the dumbass will murder the entire crew. She was not aware that the entire ocean around the boat in 1 km had started to vibrate and the radius was increasing. She about 15 m from Kush and was an adept in power level so she was only a feeling a bit of the pressure. She shouted “HEY DUMASS!! STOP WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING!! THE ROOM’S BARRIER CAN’T CONTROL YOUR POWER!!” But Kush was in a trance, the concentration required for executing a move this big was be immense.

She started in sprint towards him, but soon fell to the ground. As soon as she was within 10 m of him she fell to the ground, the pressure increased so much she immediately coughed copious amounts of blood. She gritted her teeth and step by step tried moving forward, but 3 more meters was her limit. She couldn’t move and now even breathing was becoming difficult for her. Then the realization hit her, if this dumbass managed to execute this move, she wouldn’t survive… It was either her or him… It paused her further actions for a bit, she had to make the call before he was ready. Her thoughts were broken by a fit of coughs. After blood and tissue dropped out of her mouth, she had come to a decision and summoned her 3.5 m long scythe. Barely able to stand up she could now feel the bones in her legs crack up. She had to hurry and raised her scythe above her head to execute her skill. Her scythe was special and she was sure to be able to kill an immobile person, but suddenly she jerked her head to the back because of a sensation she felt she couldn’t believe. Her scythe was vibrating too, “impossible!!! The fuck is happening right now!!!”

The moment she started executing a skill she realized her scythe would vibrate. This was fucking dangerous. Once she realized she couldn’t let the situation get worse, she stopped thinking why she couldn’t execute her skill and simply decided to go for melee. She had to be quick cause disaster was coming her way if she was not.

But just as she was about to start her swing suddenly the pressure on her body vanished, the strain she was using to stand up propelled her up, the sudden appearance and disappearance of that pressure made her lose control of her body and she couldn’t stop herself from hitting the roof and the drop to the ground. The scythe was still firm in her hands. She looked up from her position on the floor and saw Kush lying there slumped. She slowly and cautiously made her way to him and checked him for wounds. It seemed like his fist was a mess but there were no excessive injuries anywhere on his body. His fists were better than what they were after Brutus’s fight so for now she let him be and let go of her scythe which disappeared into thin air.

She approached the crew member holding the gong, who was on the ground in a bloody pile. He was alive! Tara immediately administered him with level 6 healing potion. She went on to give every crew member a level 6 healing potion. Fortunately, during this scene there was no other vessel in their vicinity or else she didn’t know what new can of worms this would open. She then stopped the ship and let it float around in the ocean for now. The current seemed mild and a brief 8 hrs of drifting would not drive them off course too much and they will be fine since they were about 12 hrs from land.

She then went ahead and downed a level 6 potion herself. She was damned tired from the sparring followed by the close call with disaster that had scared her. She had come really close to death today. She sat next to Kush’s slumped body and used her finger to feel his firm skin against his tight muscles. She sat with her back against a wall, her legs aspread next to him and her shorts digging into her pussy cause of the sweat. Despite how the bloody scene was right now, she looked angelic, especially that smile… she could probably take a person’s life and still be thanked for it. She lifted Kush from the ground and carried him to his room. He was bloody mess himself, but fatigue was keeping him asleep, he didn’t need a bath. She just pulled open dhoti and left it to a side of the bed. When she did, she got a look of his tight ass and strong tree trunk like thighs. This got her to feel things and wanted to wake him up a lot, but she simply turned around and started to leave the room. After a couple of steps she turned around and went back up to the bed and said to herself “Well he has seen all of me… a lot… so it’s only fair”. She then turned him around and saw him in his entirety. His brick like abs, his thick firm neck, broad chest and also the most important part for her. A smile appeared on her face as she said “That’ll do” and left the room. Kush slept for 14 hrs straight. When he came to he was entirely naked and his hand was hurting a lot. “Oh man… not again!”.

He wore a fresh dhoti and cleaned his dirty one. As he left the room he went to the main deck of the ship, the place he had boarded the ship from. He met a few people from the crew along the way, who showed him weird expressions, ranging between rage and fear. On reaching the back deck he realized it was raining. It was day time then but the clouds painted the sky gray, the winds were strong, standing against the bulwark was the familiar beautiful figure of the woman he had wanted to have for a long time. She was dressed in a blue gown, with plunging neck line which ended below her navel, her dress had high slits on both sides of her legs which ended above her ass. The divine rain dropped on her dress making her lose gown stick to her body showing to him the outline of the body he was very much familiar with and the merciful wind blew the lower fringes of her dress away. He made his way across the deck in slow measured footsteps. He was aware of the consequences of the skill he used at the end and was happy that everybody was still alive. He was so confident in his skill that even if he didn’t finish it completely, it was powerful enough to defeat any opponent, though he was surprised by the rigidity of the room’s barrier to contain even the initial phases of his skill. He was sure he had won and now it was time to reap the rewards.

When she saw him, she too started walking, seeing her walk towards him he started walking faster. She too sped up a little and suddenly they ran towards each other. As soon as they were in front of each other she used both her hands to grab his neck and kissed him passionately, she slipped her tongue inside his mouth and pulled him down. He slipped his hands from the slit of her dress and grabbed her ass. The ass he wanted to grab so much but couldn’t cause of the immense pain last time. But now even though his hand was paining again, he was not going to let this chance slip. He crushed her ass in the palm of his hand and lifted her up. She understood the pain he was in and wrapped her legs around his waist and crossed her legs on it. She used her nail to try and tear out the skin on his back but couldn’t. Then she remembered the injury she had given him on his back and stuck her nails in it and tried to pull at it. He too put his fingers in her pussy and felt the sweet sweet nectar. Just then she came off his mouth for air. He had a goofy smile on his face and she too had a beautiful smile on her face. He started moving towards his room with her hooked to his waist when she asked “What?”

He said asked in confusion “What?”

She then asked “What’s the smile for?”

“It’s cause I won the bet” grinning from ear to ear, as if he had won the Olympics.

Tara had forgotten about the bet after the second day mostly cause, she had placed the bet prove that she was stronger and nothing else, it had served its purpose. She was doing all this, little because she was happy he was trying so hard for getting her, little more cause she guilty about trying to kill him, little more cause he was strong as fuck, little more because he had a rock hard body but mostly because she was horny as fuck.

But once she remembered that, she just said “Who said that?”

“What do you mean who said that? Did you escaped my skill”

She was silent for a bit and slowly unlocked her legs and climbed down and pushed him away “What skill? You stood in that weird pose for a few seconds and slumped to ground unconscious”

“What??” he said clearly disappointed in the direction this conversation was heading towards and slapping himself in his mind screaming inwardly “why did I open my mouth. ARRRGGHH…”

“What?” Tara asked not looking at his face “You just passed out and that’s it”

“Then why did you... you know” he asked

She replied “Cause I wanted to”

Kush then said “Then let’s do it!!”

She replied with a bad expression on her face “Not in the mood right now” and started moving back into the accommodation section of the ship.

Kush just stood there looking at his palm trying to remember the feeling he just had in it.

A few hours later Tara was in her room as she thought “Why did I lie? Now I am just horny with nothing to do, taking care of myself is never as fun”

She then heard a knock on the door as her face lit up with expectation.

Kush said from other side “It’s me Kush. Don’t worry I am not here for ‘that’. Just here to talk”

Tara’s perked up face now turned somber again but she still said “Come in”

Kush opened the gate and said “Hi. Sorry to bug you again and again, I just wanted a restart, I think we started off the wrong foot and the sex just messed things up. I am not a pushy kind of guy and pretty sure I seemed like that”

She took a deep breath and said “yeah I know what you mean…”

Kush took this as a conversation opener and pulled a soft chair from the room and sat on it. He then said “So what are you upto in Thar? You from around here?”

She looked out the window, seeing the thin fringes of the bronze red sand reflecting the noon sunlight which were starting to become visible. Nostalgia in her eyes causing her to smile, but a hint of pain as well causing her eyes to tear up a little. She then said “Ah… this is home…”