A brief dispute

Some dudes just wanna fight I guess. But that's not always a good idea

He blasted his fist forward directly into his opponent's head.

His arm was fully extended, and he had stepped forward with one foot.

The full weight of his body behind the blow.

He grinned as he punched. Just as his coach had taught him, he let out a sharp grunt.

Then the blow impacted. Knuckles first.

And his fist broke. His arm behind it, bent at the elbow, accordioned up and then snapped. The bone thrust free of muscle and tissue.

And all he could do was stare. The grin was gone. Evaporated and replaced by a sudden and urgent bolt of absolute pain.

It arrived in his brain with all the force of a freight train. And he roared and stumbled back. A step, then another.

His mind tried to outrun the pain and damage.

To no avail.

He sank to the floor and sobbed out a cry.

The pain sat with him and held him, crushed him in an enthusiastic grip. "How?" The sob turned into a coherent word. Then melted back to rivulets of screams.

The face he had punched moved in closer, on a triangled neck of muscle, a drum of a torso atop a tank of thews and lower limbs.

He had challenged a god.

But this god was not wrathful. Not offended by the assault. And also, not at all indifferent.

It raised a foot. It seemed to lift up forever until it blocked the sunlight from Jocko's eyes.

And then it stamped down hard.

The foot crushed through Jocko's head and upper body.

It hammered into and then out of his previously undefeated corpus.

Vitae jetted and Jocko's vision snapped to black. There was no fading, no gradual transition from living to dead. He simply was dead.

But for some reason his consciousness disagreed.

It lingered. It clung to the destroyed mess of his carcass. It tried to reenter the body, to revitalize it. And failing, it charged at the god who was watching him.

Aware and with head cocked, sad. It spoke then. A simple if halting phrase. "Shall I rip your silken leavings to shreds and allow you to dissolve into the void? Or would you take back your sense and flee this place?"

The god pivoted as if to leave.

Jocko's spirit. his essence refused to admit its defeat. It now punched as well. Only with gossamer limbs and non-corporeal mass.

Its punch floated and kissed the gods back as he or it completed their turn away.

The god looked back over its shoulder then and sighed without ever letting out breath.

Jocko's mind boggled. "How?"

And then the god simply clapped.

The hurricane of windless force that erupted tore at, tore THROUGH Jocko.

It shredded him.

And even in that form, he screamed and knew true pain.

He was pared to the smallest slivers of essence.

His consciousness was minced and scattered in a nothing of time.

He was gone finally.

And the god sank back into the water from whence it had come.