Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

[AND IN THE RED CORNER, THE UNSTOPPABLE, THE HUMAN MENACE, THE MAN WITH ‘BIG GUNS’, IT’S BRATON FROM ZONE 17!!!!!!]

Braton came out all smiles and cheers as the arena burst into fanfare, as he walked onto the floating arena with a simple pair of military shorts and a towel draped around his neck.

His body was glistening in the sun with astonishingly defined pecs and chest muscles that seemed to flex with every step, bringing out an aura of sheer masculinity.

A few girls swooned at the sight as many immediately brought out their fan signs for Braton, cheering as though they have been supporting him for their whole life.

It wasn’t limited to girls and ladies, even both young and older guys were shouting in support of Braton.

It’s been a while since the group stages of each category, with the competition organizer working hand in hand with the casino to ramp up popularity and interest in the upcoming elimination stage.

What better way than to create some polarizing news, such as focusing on Ceres’s team as the dark horse of the competition?

Ceres, Trissa and Braton were all thrown into the spotlight, irking many inners and outers alike, but more and more people were flocking to their camp, or more specifically the odds of them winning.

It wasn’t Braton’s popularity that won the majority of support from this ragtag mix of people - it was the number of bets they had placed riding on him.

Who among the inners who paid for the arena ticket would legitimately support an outer out of their own goodwill?

Maybe a few outliers would, but a good majority were motivated by money and were caught up in the excitement of their own gamble as they reasoned that there was no downside to cheering for your chosen bet since it increases the chances of them winning.

They weren’t the only ones cheering on Braton, however. Back in Zone 17, everybody was screaming and shouting, seeing the cocky face of Braton appear on a global stream.

In the Gladius, the bodybuilding club went completely mental, while Ardan somehow couldn’t believe the dumbass bodybuilder that broke into his private server once would be in such a prestigious position. Reaching the top 16 in a planetwide competition was not easy at all.

“Maybe I should be a bodybuilder too?” Ardan stared at his fairly scrawny arm as he tried to flex his barely visible biceps.

The surging adoration from the crowd built up the confidence within Braton as he stood in his waiting position near the centre of the arena.

The holo-screens around the arena and city were blasting a rock music song of his choice, showing an edited video of his best plays in the group stage and qualifiers.

It was designed exactly like a boxing match, hyping up the participants and audience alike.

“God damn! They really know how to appreciate a true genuine human!” Braton waved wildly to people he could barely recognize at the arena, causing yet another surge of cheers and screams.

He also noted that one side of the arena was booing and jeering him, most likely due to them betting on his opponent.

Braton smiled as he recalled the list of opponents that he would have to face. The duels today were randomized, and his being the first duel meant that he would have fifteen possible opponents to fight against.

Naturally, Braton being himself, never practised a specific move to counter one opponent, he just focused on polishing his current move set, with Lisa acting as a rapid attacker to spar with him.

He only noted a few people that he didn’t want to face right now, having done a bit of simple research on who’s who. He really didn’t want to run into one of the students of the Five Families College right now.

[AND IN THE BLUE CORNER, IT’S THE PILEDRIVER, THE MAN WHO CAN KICK ANYTHING OUT OF THIS WORLD INTO ORBIT, GIVE IT UP FOR OWEN BOSHER!]

Braton’s face paled as an equally muscular guy stepped out onto the ring, with an equal amount of fanfare nowhere short of what Braton had. There was one opponent outside of the Five Families College that he had researched, and that was Owen.

As Owen smiled and waved to the crowd while walking towards Braton, their eyes eventually collided with each other. Today was the first time they were meeting each other in person, but naturally, both of them had done their research on each other.

A tense air formed around the two as Owen got closer to Braton, sparks flying as the crowd shuddered at the intense friction of wills.

In the centre of the arena, two muscular statues of human bodies stood stoically, their eyes staring each other down as they scanned each other’s bodies.

Even the referee who was supposed to put them apart didn’t want to intervene, feeling that his waist could be snapped by either of them with a single squeeze.

It felt like there were literal superhumans standing on stage, and the crowd held their breath to see what was going to happen next. Even the announcer was caught off-guard by the silent confrontation between Braton and Owen.

All of a sudden, Braton launched his arm forward in an uppercut, while Owen immediately did the same. Before the referee could reach in time to stop them from fighting before the start of the match, the crowd gasped.

They were shaking hands.

“Brother, I did not know that there was another of me, and at my age too! I have been looking forward to meeting you!” Braton exclaimed, marvelling at the muscles of Owen. He knew another body fanatic when he saw one.

Owen was almost in tears when he realized that he wasn’t alone in the pursuit of raw human strength. “Brother, it is a shame we must fight today, despite our shared interests! Not many young people like us pursue this path.”

The gamblers who placed their bets on either side all sighed in unison, as they thought this match was about to be a sham.

Boos and jeers came from all sides of the arena as Braton and Owen were ‘forced’ apart by the referee, standing 20 meters apart from each other in a defined square of only a 100-meter wide. It would shrink over time, leaving anyone intending to avoid fighting to be forced in the end.

A timer appeared over their heads, with the announcer hyping up the duel.

[The ultimate duel of muscles is here! Two outstanding graduates from the outer zones will show the world what the younger generation can achieve in bodybuilding! Both of them have forfeited the use of an exosuit. True human strength will take the stage this time, with no weapons! LET’S SEE SOME RAW ACTION!]

The crowd roared even louder. Despite the monetary motivations of the viewers, there was always some deep desire to see direct human brutality on stage, all the way back before the ancient gladiators even began.

With ten seconds left on the timer, Braton asked a simple question. “Brother, if I may ask one question, I notice that you have more definition in your legs than in your arms, so if I may be so impolite to ask you: arms or legs?” Braton tensed himself, getting in a fighting stance.

The timer ticked down, while Owen’s confused face was still trying to understand the question. “Brother, I don’t understand, arms are quite useless when compared to legs! Don’t legs have a longer range? I noticed that your legs are fairly underdeveloped!”

A dark expression suddenly appeared on Braton’s face, his entire body contorting in some of secret change as his veins popped up on his skin, his biceps bulging. “Don’t call me brother!”

With only two seconds left, Braton screamed with primal fury: “YOU WERE NEVER MY BROTHERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!”

At the very second the timer hit zero, Braton lunged forward towards his enemy, but Owen was not caught off-guard, jumping forward at the same time and launching an impeccable flying kick.

Braton threw forward a fist which met with Owen’s feet, causing an air shockwave due to the sheer force with which they collided.

The amount of strength drugs and enhancers consumed by the two of them might have bankrupted an outer, so the force was unimaginable for a non-exosuit battle.

The crowd went wild, while some viewers were still scrambling to figure out what made Braton so angry.

“You peasants don’t understand,” typed Gains4Eva2384 on one of the stream chats. “Arms and legs have always been a contentious point, as humans only have a limited lifespan and can only dedicate so much time to a specific training sequence. To divide equally will make the human well-rounded, but it would not make them unique or special! To truly break the limits, you must go all in on one while still only barely slightly training the other to keep up. Braton aimed for arms; Owen aimed for legs. What’s so hard to understand!”

The clash continued under the roar of the crowd as shockwave after shockwave rolled out from the arena, even causing the floating arena to destabilize a little. Owen and Braton were going hit for hit, arms against legs.

Owen seemed to focus all his attacks using kicks of all types such as frontals, roundhouse, and back kicks, while Braton parried all of that using his arms! Braton even tried grappling Owen’s leg as it kicked, but Owen had so much core strength that he could use his second leg to stamp horizontally to knock Braton back.

The sight was like a fantasy battle, where Owen was levitating horizontally in midair while kicking with his free leg at Braton’s arms which were grabbing his other leg.

[There it is! It’s the iconic move ‘Piledriver’ from Owen! Using his insane core muscles, he can generate so much upward force to remain airborne for a second while he dishes out three rapid kicks! Anyone trying to grapple his legs will find their arms broken in a second!]

Owen smiled after pulling off the airborne kick despite being grappled, saving himself from being flung around. “Legs over arms, brother! Do not fall into the wrong path! The reach is longer and it naturally supports your body weight since birth, so of course it is stronger!”

He gave another frontal kick to Braton who blocked with both of his arms in a cross fashion instinctively, covering his face and letting go of Owen’s leg.

Braton stumbled backwards slightly, but his arms were dense from his intense training procedure, proving to be a solid bulwark against Owen’s kicks.

His steps were like an elephant’s stomp, damaging the arena floor and causing cracks to appear along the area. The arena floor was modular, not a singular piece of material. The seams between the 1-meter-wide tiles became more obvious the more they fought and placed a strain on the tiles around.

“Do not… CALL ME BROTHER YOU FUCK!!!” Braton dug his fingers into the seams of one of the 1-meter tiles, shocking some of the examination council of the impending repair costs.

Lifting a huge chunk of the top layer, he grunted as he ripped out the floor in front of the shocked Owen.

Owen quickly recovered from the shock, immediately jumping off the floor section to the side and dashing towards Braton from the left, doing yet another flying kick to catch Braton off-guard while he was still holding the floor tile.

This time, Braton ripped apart the floor tile with bare strength and swung a smaller broken-off part of the floor section that was similar to a stone plate the size of a dining table and used it to collide with Owen’s flying kick.

The sheer impact caused a dust explosion, shrouding the area where Owen and Braton were temporarily. The arena viewers all clamoured for a better view, while the prime viewing capsules that were situated around all switched to their infrared cameras to see better.

Owen closed his eyes instinctively against the incoming dust, while Braton took the attack path of Owen as an advantage. As Owen kicked through the stone plate, Braton was already throwing a punch at Owen’s inner thighs from under.

Having trained his legs for impact on the foot and at the frontal area of the leg, Owen never had good defences on the rear side of his legs!

Howling in pain, he rolled out of the dust cloud, still recovering into a fighting position except with one leg having a noticeable limp. It had only been two seconds, but the tables were already starting to turn.

As the dust cloud started to settle, a shadow of a hulk walked out, dragging one stone plate in each hand, smirking with a wide grin on his face.

Owen’s face paled, knowing that with one of his legs injured, he couldn’t do the same airborne kick with the same effectiveness.

Not willing to give up so easily, he roared as he dashed towards Braton, preparing to launch a roundhouse kick to smash both Braton and the stone plates.

Braton lifted the two stone plates, intending to crush Owen between them.

“Can your puny legs do THIS!” Braton took the two stone plates and clapped them together, hoping to sandwich them together.

Owen immediately launched his roundhouse kick, using his feet to demolish the two stone plates as they came together on either side of him.

But while he was still in the motion of turning after having kicked the two plates, Braton’s hands, which were in a clasped stance with all fingers facing outwards towards Owen, shot forward, nailing him in the back of the waist like a spear.

Owen was sent flying a good 10 meters, completely unable to stand due to the immense pain stemming from his back. It felt like hot magma had flowed into his spine and completely stopped any notion of him getting up.

Braton walked up slowly, dragging another stone chunk with a hand. His arms were also aching from the continuous blocking of Owen’s kicks, which he had to admit had some serious force and range way beyond any arms.

“Last words, leg fucker?” Braton said as he lifted the stone chunk over Owen’s sprawled-out body which was squirming in a desperate attempt to get up.

Owen slightly knew the fight was over ever since he kicked that first stone plate and allowed himself to be blinded, so he shouted with pride. “You will never be a true superhuman without training your legs!”

Owen summoned his last strength and managed to use his body to do a sweeping motion to knock Braton to the ground! Braton’s legs couldn’t handle the sudden impact, causing Braton to get knocked down and drop the stone chunk.

Unfortunately for Owen, the stone chunk landed right on top of his head, cracking cleanly in two as Owen collapsed on the floor, completely out cold.

Braton got up wearily. But upon seeing Owen knocked out, he quickly shot his fist into the air diagonally while forming a bodybuilding pose. “BEHOLD THE MAJESTY OF THE ‘GUNS’! WHO NEEDS LEGS WHEN YOU GOT THESE BABIES!”