Chapter Forty-Five: The Duel (Part Two) Thanks to reader 20170212093813879 for the reward.

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Sure enough, before Kai could press his advantage, the Black Knight sprang to his feet with a kip-up.

A corpse that had been dead for twenty years should, at best, have become a dried husk. Where could it possibly have skin and flesh, let alone muscles? And yet this Black Knight could still perform a kip-up while wearing armor weighing more than a hundred pounds. The principle behind it was truly baffling.

Then again, magic was a wondrous thing.

Seeing the Black Knight charge at him once more like a raging bull, Kai could only feel helpless. This was precisely why he disliked fighting undead in close quarters. One blow from them could leave you grievously wounded even if it did not kill you, while your own attacks barely mattered to them. It was terribly unfair.

Especially when so many of Kai’s spells were unusable under the circumstances, the disadvantage was even more pronounced.

Still, since he had agreed to the duel, there was no reason to abandon it halfway through. Kai did not retreat. This time, he could not be bothered to think too much about it. He simply raised his fists and charged forward.

It was not that Kai could not use the divine sword tempered by dragon’s breath to finish off the undead before him.

But he had chosen to respect Tristan nonetheless. Even if this was merely a puppet, he intended to defeat him fair and square. From the very beginning, he had kept those two swords in reserve, preparing to grant Tristan his final honor at the end of the battle.

Before that moment came, however, he would treat this fight with the utmost seriousness.

And so Kai advanced empty-handed.

Seeing this, the spectators cried out in alarm. To ordinary people, when two men fought, the one holding a weapon naturally had the advantage over the one with empty hands. Kai was clearly putting himself at a disadvantage by confronting the Black Knight unarmed.

Those familiar with Kai, however, did not think so. Anyone who truly understood him knew that Kai was at his strongest precisely when he abandoned his weapons.

Before the crowd’s cries had even faded, Kai shot forward like a bolt of lightning, penetrating the Black Knight’s range with overwhelming aggression. The Black Knight was not a living person, after all, and its reaction speed was nowhere near that of the real Tristan.

Before it could launch an attack, Kai had already broken through its centerline.

Kai spread both arms. His right arm slipped directly past the Black Knight’s sword-wielding hand and through its armpit, while one of his feet stamped firmly between the Black Knight’s legs. His foot drove into the ground, his legs extended, and his waist twisted, every movement flowing seamlessly into the next. It resembled the way an Olympic throwing athlete channeled the strength of every part of the body into the object being thrown.

The difference was that Kai concentrated all that force at his left shoulder.

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Bang!

A tremendous dull impact rang out, accompanied by the faint, almost imperceptible sound of breaking bone. The armor over the Black Knight’s chest caved inward, and its entire body flew backward like a cannonball.

Eight Extremes Fist—Iron Mountain Lean!

As mentioned before, the martial art Kai had studied in his previous life was Eight Extremes Fist. It was a close-combat style whose movements emphasized power, simplicity, and explosive force. In application, it focused on intercepting and seizing at the slightest opening, breaking through with hard, direct strikes. It possessed all the characteristic qualities commonly associated with pressing, assisting, crowding, leaning, bursting, and shaking.

Power began in the heels, traveled through the waist, and reached the fingertips. The explosive force was therefore immense, giving the art an exceptionally practical combat character. Its momentum could truly be described as strong enough to make the heavens fall with a sway of the shoulders and shake the Nine Provinces with a stomp of the feet.

This style valued practicality above all else. Its purpose was to inflict damage. Among its signature techniques, Iron Mountain Lean was the finest of the lot.

The key to Iron Mountain Lean was closing the distance. One had to approach the opponent at a range where it was said that “striking a person was like kissing them,” then crash into them with the shoulder. Though the shoulder appeared to be the point from which the force originated, the technique actually combined the twisting power of the waist and hips, bringing the strength of the entire body to bear. The resulting impact was devastating. Against a true master, one such blow could leave a person dead or crippled.

That was why the first thing taught to students of Eight Extremes Fist was how to conduct themselves as human beings. They trained to strengthen their bodies, not to compete in violence or settle disputes with their fists. Teachers did not encourage their students to truly use the art against others, for fear of causing harmful consequences in society.

Thus, in his previous life, the number of times Kai had actually fought with all his strength could be counted on one hand.

When he had served in the military, he had rarely had the opportunity. The army did not encourage hand-to-hand combat, after all. The weapon in a soldier’s hands was not a stick for stoking a fire. To carry a gun yet throw it aside and challenge the enemy to a contest of fists and feet was simply madness.

After he became a police officer, he had even less use for it. Law enforcement generally followed the principle of minimal force, prioritizing restraint rather than injury. When apprehending suspects, Kai usually relied on grappling techniques and rarely used Eight Extremes Fist.

It might sound unbelievable, but in his seven years as a police officer, Kai had barely even touched a gun. If the police force had not maintained a shooting range, he suspected that after a few more years he might even have forgotten how to shoot.

Kai had studied martial arts for more than a decade, yet had found almost no opportunity to use them in actual combat. Of course, that statement was somewhat unfair. His training had laid an excellent foundation for him, and it could not be said to have been useless.

Even so, he sometimes could not help thinking that way. Like every child who studied martial arts, he had once dreamed of becoming a great hero. Unfortunately, he had been born into the modern world.

There had simply been no opportunity.

After crossing into this era, Kai finally had a place to put his skills to use. Yet now he found himself longing to return to that peaceful age…

Perhaps human nature really was fundamentally perverse.

The instant the Black Knight was sent flying, Kai did not stop. On the contrary, he had no intention of letting up. He closed in, his feet scraping across the ground and leaving two long trails in his wake.

As the old saying went, when throwing punches, one had to “chase the wind and pursue the moon without pause,” giving the enemy not the slightest chance to catch their breath.

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Rising fiercely and landing with force, breaking through the opponent’s defenses, and advancing in relentless succession—these were the greatest characteristics of Eight Extremes Fist in combat.

The instant his Iron Mountain Lean sent the Black Knight reeling, Kai moved according to his intent, following a straight line directly toward the Black Knight’s centerline.

Most of the body’s vulnerable internal organs, such as the spleen, were concentrated along this line. Any attack that struck there would cause considerable damage.

Of course, that meant little against the Black Knight. It was simply Kai’s habitual way of attacking.

Kai moved like a drawn bow and struck like exploding thunder.

His fists blurred into afterimages as they pounded relentlessly against the Black Knight’s body. The successive dull impacts sounded like thunder—rapid, fierce, and tightly packed.

The Black Knight had been sent flying by the Iron Mountain Lean. Although its excellent combat instincts allowed it to preserve its balance and avoid falling, it had not yet regained its footing when Kai’s attacks descended upon it like a violent storm.

Faced with Kai’s overwhelming momentum, the Black Knight could do nothing but defend.

That was the essence of Eight Extremes Fist: force had to be sudden and violent, catching the opponent off guard with an unstoppable momentum. Every punch drew upon the strength of the entire body. The force originated within and surged outward, while every part of the body moved in perfect coordination, fully awakening its latent potential and releasing it in an instant.

But the Black Knight was not truly alive. After its initial flurry of confusion, it immediately abandoned defense and chose to trade injury for injury.

Because they were fighting at close range, the Black Knight had neither the opportunity nor the ability to wield its greatsword. It simply held the weapon in one hand and counterattacked with the other, hoping to drive Kai back and create more room to maneuver.

When the Black Knight threw a straight punch, Kai stepped to the side and moved to its flank, then brought one fist crashing down upon the joint of its punching arm.

Crack!

One of the Black Knight’s arms was broken beneath Kai’s strike.

But Kai did not relent once he had gained the advantage. After knocking aside the straight punch and leaving the Black Knight’s center open, he immediately drove a fist into its throat, forcing its body to arch backward involuntarily.

Taking advantage of the opening while the Black Knight was unable to counterattack, Kai’s fists fell upon its face like drops of rain.