Lust Meter System: Conquering Beauties-Chapter 158: The Boss 3

Iggy kept laughing.

Loud. Deep. The kind of laugh that came from the gut and didn’t care who heard it.

It bounced off the warehouse walls and came back distorted, uglier than when it left. His shoulders shook with it.

His chest heaved. Blood ran freely from the corner of his mouth, dripping off his jaw and spotting the concrete beneath his feet in a thin, dark line, and he didn’t care. He threw his head back and laughed harder.

Liam turned around fully. Squared his body to face him.

His mind was running hot.

’I haven’t been using Bound Might for long. But I’m certain no normal human being should still be standing after a punch like that or even be laughing like that.’

He looked down at his right hand.

The knuckles were swollen, red and tight across the joints, the skin scraped raw where it had connected. He flexed his fingers slowly.

They moved. No crack of broken bone, no grinding sensation. But beneath the numbness that Bound Might was feeding into him, he could feel the ghost of impact still living in his hands.

’His body felt like steel when I hit him. Not muscle. Not bone. Steel. What the hell did he actually take?’

The laughter cut off. Like a switch flipped.

Iggy wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

He looked at it.

The smear across his knuckles. Then he looked at Liam, and his expression settled into something flat and almost bored.

"You really are a hypocrite, you know that?"

His voice carried easily in the warehouse. Three hundred people had gone completely silent.

Liam smiled back slowly. "And Why is that?"

"You made it sound like you were going to play fair before we started." Iggy rolled his head to the left. The crack was loud enough to make the people nearest to him flinch. Then he rolled it to the right. Another crack, even louder, and he exhaled through his nose like he was getting comfortable. "But you didn’t."

Liam raised an eyebrow. "I don’t know what you’re talking about"

"What do you mean *you don’t know what I’m talking about*?" Something shifted in Iggy’s voice. Still flat, but with an edge beneath it. "You clearly used Pulse-X."

’Pulse-X. I’m guessing that’s what he injected into himself.’

Liam kept his face neutral. Kept his jaw loose, his eyes easy. "Never heard of it."

Iggy stared at him. A full second. Two. His eyes moving across Liam’s face the way someone reads small print.

Then he shrugged. Both shoulders, slow and unconcerned, hands spreading out to either side. "Okay. I believe you."

Silence dropped back over the warehouse.

Three hundred people.

Not one of them speaking.

Liam could feel their attention on his skin, dense and collective, the way heat from a crowd builds without anyone meaning it to.

He and Iggy stood ten feet apart. Just watching each other.

’I need to be careful now. I can’t just run in and attack like before — I need to come up with a plan’

Five seconds.

Ten.

The lights hummed.

Then Iggy spoke. "Why aren’t you attacking anymore?"

Before could say a word

Iggy was already gone.

Not stepped forward. Not lunged. *Gone.* The space where he’d been standing was just empty air and the faint blur of displaced movement, and then his fist was already there, already swinging, already an inch from Liam’s face before Liam’s brain had finished processing the absence.

’Shit... He’s fast’

Liam’s arms came up on instinct. Both of them, crossed at the forearms, pressed together in front of his face.

Iggy’s fist hit like a sledgehammer dropped from height.

The impact detonated through Liam’s forearms and up into his shoulders.

He heard his own teeth click together.

His whole skeleton seemed to shift sideways as the force transferred through him, and then his boots were scraping backward across the concrete and he couldn’t stop so he just rode it.

He finally planted and stopped at fifteen feet back, arms still up, chest heaving once.

He lowered them slowly.

Iggy was still standing exactly where he’d thrown the punch.

Hadn’t moved an inch. He looked at Liam the way someone looks at a mess they’re going to have to clean up eventually. Disgusted and Unbothered. "So you thought you were the only one who could do that?"

Liam said nothing.

’Damn, I completely underestimated him. I didn’t even see him move and that punch felt like getting hit by a car... not that I’d know what that feels like.’

His forearms were numb from mid-elbow down. The kind of numb that sat right at the edge of something worse.

But before he could finish the thought, Iggy moved again.

The distance between closed. He was right there, inside Liam’s space, left hook already loaded, already driving toward Liam’s jaw.

Liam dropped his head. The fist passed through the air where his skull had been, the wake of it brushing against his hair.

He came back up with a right uppercut. Twisted from the hips. Aimed at the underside of Iggy’s chin.

Iggy leaned back from the waist, smooth as water moving around a stone. The punch caught nothing.

Then Iggy’s knee drove upward. Hard. Aimed at Liam’s stomach.

Liam twisted left. The knee caught his ribs instead, a glancing impact, but even glancing it landed with enough force to push him sideways half a step. He felt his ribs compress. Felt the air shiver in his lungs.

He stepped back. Tried to open space.

Iggy ate the distance before Liam’s back foot finished planting. He threw a straight right, clean and fast.

Liam pulled his head to the left. The fist shot past his cheek so close he felt it move the air against his skin.

He came back with a left jab. Direct. Straight at Iggy’s nose.

Iggy slipped his head right, easy, like he’d seen it in a dream first. Then he threw a left hook.

Liam’s right arm came up and caught it at the forearm. The impact rattled through the bone and set his elbow ringing.

They broke apart. Both stepping back at the same moment, a wordless agreement for space. Three feet of concrete in between them.

The crowd had come back to life in a low, constant roar. Not cheering, exactly.

More like the collective sound of three hundred people breathing too fast. Someone was shouting Iggy’s name from somewhere near the left wall. Someone else was calling Liam a dead man.

Liam’s breathing stayed level.

He controlled it deliberately, in through the nose, out slow.

Iggy rolled his shoulders back, one then the other. Cracked his neck again. He was smiling. Barely. "Not bad."

Liam watched him.

’I’m letting him dictate this. That has to stop.’

He shifted his weight forward onto his left foot. Loaded it. Then he drove in low with a diving kick, his body compressing toward the ground as his leg drove out.

Iggy’s forearms came down and caught it, absorbing the kick with the casual steadiness of something that had already decided it wouldn’t move.

The impact travelled back through but Liam’s leg was already moving, already planting as his foot found the ground, already coming up into stance.

The momentum had shifted. He pushed forward and kept pushing. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Left jab. Fast. Snapping at Iggy’s nose.

Iggy pulled his head to the side. He missed by an inch.

Right cross. Hips behind it. Aimed at Iggy’s jaw.

Iggy got his forearm up. Caught it. The block held but Liam felt the arm give slightly, just slightly, more than it had before.

Liam stepped in closer, closed the gap until there was almost no range, and threw a left hook to the body. Aimed at the ribs. Put his shoulder and hip into it.

Connected.

The impact was solid. Dense. Like hitting a sandbag packed too tight. Iggy’s body didn’t buckle. Didn’t give. Didn’t even react. He just stood there and absorbed it like Liam had thrown a hand into a wall.

’There it is again. No reaction, like I didn’t even do anything.’

But Liam kept going.

Right uppercut. Iggy leaned back. Missed.

Left straight. Iggy blocked.

Right hook. Iggy slipped, moved his head outside the punch.

Left uppercut. Caught Iggy’s shoulder. Slight.

The crowd was louder now, that low roar sharpening, individual voices cutting through. Someone whistled. Someone was chanting something rhythmic that Liam couldn’t make out.

Liam kept throwing.

He refused to let Iggy breathe, punch after punch, varying the levels, the angles, head then body then head again.

Right cross. Iggy blocked, his forearm coming up fast.

Left hook. Iggy bent his knees and dropped under it.

Right uppercut. Iggy pushed off his back foot, created space.

But as he moved back, for just a fraction of a second, his guard dipped. His right side opened up. Ribs exposed. The kind of opening that only exists for half a breath.

Liam planted his right foot hard into the concrete and uncoiled everything he had into a right cross. Hips rotating, weight transferring, shoulder driving through.

The punch hit Iggy square in the ribs.

The sound it made was different from the others. A deep, dense *thud* that the crowd felt as much as heard. Several people near the front made a sound that wasn’t quite a cheer.

Iggy’s body torqued. He shifted two steps to the side, momentum carrying him, his boots scuffing across the concrete.

Liam followed the opening immediately. Left hook. Already swinging.

It caught Iggy flush on the jaw. His head snapped to the side, hair following a beat behind.

Liam stepped in, planted his feet, both hands pressing into the center of Iggy’s chest, and shoved.

Iggy flew back. His boots left the ground for a moment. He slid across the concrete, five feet, six, the friction loud and rough, before he caught himself, one hand dropping to the floor to stop his momentum. He crouched there a second. Then straightened.

Liam stood in the space he’d made. Breathing. His knuckles were burning red, swollen tight across all four on the right hand, the skin split slightly at the middle knuckle. But no pain came. Bound Might was still holding.

He looked at his hands. Then at Iggy.

’He just took all of that without blocking or dodging much. Is that stuff like... steroids or something?’

Iggy straightened his collar.

Rolled his neck slowly.

When he smiled this time there was something underneath it that hadn’t been there before. Not amusement. Something more patient. "Oh. It’s finally dawning on you."

Liam looked at him and said nothing.

Iggy walked forward. Slow. Deliberate. Boots loud on the concrete. "If you’re thinking that I can’t really feel any of those punches you’ve been serving me." He stopped. Tilted his head. "You’re correct."

The crowd went quieter. The information spreading out through the room in waves.

"So the Pulse-X made you numb to damage," Liam said.

’Of course. A drug that shuts off damage reception. Sounds like something out of a comic, but the logic holds. And if it works the way those things always work, it has a time limit. That’s why he had to inject it right before we started. That’s why he wants this over.*

Iggy’s smile widened until it showed teeth. Blood still staining the bottom edge of them. "Exactly"

’Sounds like something out of a comic. That’s why he had to inject it right before we started. I know I should be worried — but damn, that’s so cool.’

"If you want to surrender now and beg for your life, you can start anytime. I’ll make you my slave or something."

The crowd laughed.

’I can’t keep fighting for long, and one thing I’m sure of is that he can’t keep fighting forever too. And judging by the way he’s asking me to give up — he knows I’m not going to be easy to defeat either.’

Liam looked down at his right fist, then raised his eyes back to Iggy’s face.

’Bound Might does the same thing so It’s just a question of who runs out first.’

He stepped forward.

The crowd’s roar came up hard and sudden, like something had been released.

Iggy’s grin spread further. "Not gonna beg? Alright then."