That was Knuckle's target from the very beginning. With a massive humanoid lion towering over him by a full head, many vital spots were simply out of reach. The chin and throat were too high to sustain pressure; one punch might land, but he could never deliver dozens to the same spot. The heart lay buried behind a chest wall thick as iron, ribs hard as steel—impossible to pierce with bare fists.
But the liver was different. Sitting lower than the heart, shifted to the right, less protected, and right within Knuckle's range, it let him twist his hips and drive in relentless hooks. It was the one place he could hammer again and again, hundreds of strikes piled one atop the other, wearing down muscle until the organ itself took the damage.
Notoriously sensitive, the liver was an organ where even a single solid blow could shut the body down entirely. For an E-rank beast like Silvermane, one strike alone wasn't enough to reach the organ—but a hundred might be. That was why Knuckle chose the liver: not because it was an absolute weak point, but because it was the only one within reach, the only target he could keep hammering until the end.
When Inferno Knuckle's first blow sank into the beast's flank, muscles and fibers compressed under sudden pressure. Some energy was absorbed by the thick tissue, some rebounded in shock, but a small fraction traveled deeper as a mechanical wave. That alone should have been negligible, lost within the lion's dense musculature.
But Knuckle wasn't delivering an ordinary punch. He was Inferno Knuckle. Alongside the mechanical force, his strikes carried searing heat. Protein fibers began to denature like meat on a skillet, shrinking and losing elasticity. The surrounding tissue stiffened and grew brittle, its ability to cushion shocks reduced. The struck area turned into a weak spot—both microscopically torn and slowly "cooked."
At first, the beast only twitched and scratched at the irritation, proof enough that microtears and burst capillaries were forming beneath the surface. This was the state of "weakness emerging." Reflex made the beast tighten its muscles defensively, but preheated tissue contracted even more violently, leaving it overstrained. Knuckle hammered the same spot again and again. Fibers already denatured tore faster; heat spread inward, rupturing tiny vessels and melting fat into blistered pockets of damage.
This was why Knuckle dared to face Silvermane at all—he thought he had a 0.1% chance. Tiny, but still enough to give him a reason to stand his ground. The truth was, Knuckle was terrible at math; he had just pulled that number out of thin air, thinking it sounded low enough. In reality, his odds were far worse—something closer to 0.00001%. All those grand images in his head of the boss agreeing to a fair duel, and of himself skillfully outmaneuvering it one-on-one, had already gone completely out the window.
Knuckle figured he had burned through every shred of luck in his life just to get here: because Solstice and Evermoss had gambled their lives to return, and because of Mai's impossible, surgical intercept shots—only then had he managed to reach the moment of throwing this punch.
Now the beast's muscle shield had lost its shock-absorbing strength. Knuckle knew it. Silvermane knew it. The clearing blazed white as he drove out his full-force punch, a shockwave of heat surging outward and slamming into the beast's fearful face. Yes—fear. For the first time, Silvermane felt it. In that fleeting instant, its entire life flashed before its eyes. Not even when it had faced hundreds of monsters, not even before high-ranked predators, had it ever known terror like this—the terror of death.
And fear made the rushing reel of its memories pause on something recent: the image of Knuckle pivoting lightly on his toes, slipping past its devastating strike, the pivot step. Silvermane now stood in the perfect stance to perform the same maneuver.
For the first time, a beast like Silvermane glimpsed the beauty of martial arts. A slight tilt of the foot, let the killing blow pass, counter with a hook, and crush the pesky fly before it.
But then—
Bang!
Just as its lead foot lifted, a bullet tore through the night. It whirled through the faint glow of Knuckle's blazing punch, slamming into Silvermane's raised foot. The beast even saw it—sparks flying as the round spun violently toward its flesh. It didn't pierce, but it was enough to knock the limb sideways instead of pivoting back, leaving its flank wide open, extinguishing its last hope.
The punch finally landed, driving its force deep into an abdomen stripped bare of any shock absorbers. The excess heat punched through, cooking the liver from the inside—compressed force and thermal shock bursting vessels like an overheated water balloon.
The explosion thundered. Silvermane didn't know if it came from outside or from within itself. Its huge body convulsed as if electrocuted, golden eyes bulging before going glassy. It vomited a stream of thick blood, the stench of iron mingling with charred smoke.
Its legs buckled, knees collapsing under its own weight. The mighty arms that once swung like hammers now dangled, trembling like rotted timber. Spasms racked its body, its roar breaking into a hollow wheeze, no longer a lion's bellow but the whistle of wind through a cracked pipe. A heartbeat later, its whole frame sagged. Proud muscles shrank unnaturally, chest heaving in shallow jerks, then stilling.
Knuckle exhaled, shoulders sagging in relief. But the moment didn't last. The beast's body flared red, eyes burning like coals. It rose from its own blood, and Knuckle's face went pale—partly from exhaustion, partly because he recognized this state.
When beasts ranked up, they too gained skills. Not as varied or random as humans, but fixed by type, much like the hereditary [Excalibur] power of the Pendragon line that Solstice bore.
For beast-types, Level 10 unlocked [Enhancement], which amplified their natural strengths. At Level 30 came [Evolution]—transforming either into a compact, intelligent humanoid form like Silvermane, or into a massive brute of raw power. These two were fixed skills that every beast-type would inevitably gain. At Level 20, however, they would acquire a personal skill. This varied from individual to individual, though each species had its own characteristic pool of abilities, and most beasts would gain one from that set.
Knuckle had thought its mimicry was a Level 20 skill, but no—it was simply learning ability after [Evolution]. Silvermane was just a clever beast.
But what Knuckle saw now was unmistakable—[Lionheart]. One of the lion species' signature skills: the Will of the Lion. A sudden surge of willpower that allowed the beast to ignore pain and enter a frenzied state for a short burst, much like a fighter juiced on doping.
Hero manuals didn't rate it highly, since it couldn't truly break physical limits. It merely drove beasts into a frenzy, but their limits still remained. Yet in the aftermath of this battle, it had become the very factor that could decide the outcome.
Worse still, livers could regenerate.
Knuckle had blown it apart, but not completely destroyed it. If the beast had died outright, that would have been the end. Instead, [Lionheart] kept its blood flowing. With the regeneration granted by its Level 10 [Enhancement], the recovery would be terrifying. It wouldn't heal fully right away, but enough to restore combat strength—more than enough to raze Lost Angel.
Knuckle gritted his teeth. He had nothing left. He couldn't repeat what he'd just done. Only one path remained. He drew out a fistful of Vorn Cores, clasped them in both hands, and roared:
[INFERNO DRIVE]!!
Flames erupted, engulfing him. He hurled himself into the three-minute boost, devouring energy from the Cores.
Meanwhile, in a command room far from Lost Angel, Viona had linked her phone to the big screen to watch the battle. She never imagined a fight between an F-rank hero and an E-rank beast—something that should have ended in a single note—could unfold this dramatically.
As Inferno Knuckle drew out the Vorn Cores, the silver-haired old man beside her let out a heavy sigh. Viona turned, her violet eyes catching the glow of the screen, curiosity flickering within them.
"Inferno Knuckle is force-breaking into Level 30," the old man said, and her pupils tightened at once.
"If he succeeds," he continued, "his Vorn quality will soar, rising to match Silvermane's rank. With his skill, that may be enough to face it—and even defeat it. But the price is dire. Force-breaking shatters the path of future growth. Worse, if his body cannot endure the surge of Core energy, he'll explode on the spot."
His hand clenched. "And of course, the boss won't wait politely for him to finish."
On the battlefield, Silvermane lunged, each strike ripping the air apart. Knuckle dodged, but veins bulged, body swollen and in agony, the storm of Core energy battering him inside. Every vessel threatened to burst.
He chose to trust Mai. Ten bullets—that was all the time he had. And she did not fail him. Nose bleeding, arms numb after nearly a hundred rounds, she kept firing with uncanny precision, each shot breaking Silvermane's rhythm, buying Knuckle another heartbeat of survival.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
But no matter how hard she pushed herself, in Silvermane's frenzy the tenth round still left the barrel too quickly. Knuckle still glowed, but the breakthrough never came.
Silvermane sneered. It had been counting too. It knew Mai would pause after ten. Red eyes flared as its colossal fist arced straight toward Knuckle.
Mai's eyes flashed.
Time seemed to stretch.
Her finger slipped from the trigger.
Her thumb struck the mag release.
The empty magazine dropped, spinning in the air.
Her hand was already reaching, snapping a new mag into place.
The bolt yanked back, slammed forward.
All of this—less than a heartbeat.
It was not only her body that moved.It was the soul of Shadow—the battle-hardened warrior, tempered by countless wars and honed through blood and fire. And it was the muscle memory of Mai—the young girl who had drilled this motion ten thousand times. For a single breath, the two lives overlapped perfectly, spirit and flesh acting as one.
And in that instant, the rifle roared again.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Three bullets slammed into the punch's path. Silvermane's blow had already been thrown, too late to intercept fully, but the triple burst delayed it half a beat—just enough for Knuckle to slip aside.
The beast roared. It had had enough of the "gnat" interfering from afar. In a rage, it snatched a boulder and hurled it toward the dark forest like a cannonball, the rock screaming through the air.
The moment it grabbed the stone, Mai knew its intent. A flurry of thoughts raced through her mind—and she made her choice.
She didn't dodge.
Raising her rifle, she fired all seven remaining rounds, then twisted the rifle, bracing the stock against her body as a shield. The boulder's terrifying impact shattered the weapon, but distance had lessened its force—enough to keep it from punching straight through.
Even so, the impact hurled her clean off the high branch, flinging her backward through the air. She slammed hard into a tree trunk with a sickening crack, momentum breaking what little balance she had left—then her body began to drop, tumbling helplessly into the void below.
Viona, the old man, and everyone watching the livestream barely had time to process her fall when panic surged twice over: her final bullets had landed squarely in Inferno Knuckle's back.
The livestream feed scrolled endlessly with comments. On the left side of the split screen, Mai's figure spiraled downward, swallowed by the pitch-black canopy. On the right, the flames cloaking Knuckle suddenly guttered, his aura softening as though her bullets had snuffed the fire out of him.
[Switch the damn camera down! We need to see if she's alive!]
[No way—if you drop the angle, you'll lose Knuckle. Stay on him!]
[She shot her teammate—who cares what happens to her now?]
[That wasn't her fault, those shots were meant for the beast!]
[She shot him in the back, are you blind? Friendly fire, plain and simple!]
[That's bullshit—those shots kept him breathing. Without her, he'd be dead already.]
[Mess up is mess up. Stop making excuses.]
[Excuses? Call it friendly fire all you want, but without her Knuckle wouldn't have lasted this long.]
The flood of text stuttered for a moment. Then a new line cut through:
[Wait… look at Knuckle—he's burning again!]
The camera feed jolted back to his half of the screen. All eyes shifted, drawn to the sight of his body glowing brighter than ever before, light blazing from every inch of him. And beyond that glow, the boss was already charging straight at him.
Mai's last seven bullets did not land at random. To the untrained eye, it looked like reckless friendly fire. But anyone versed in martial lore—or in the ancient study of meridians—would have recognized the pattern instantly.
These were fragments of knowledge brought by comrades from the East during the great expedition. Shadow herself had learned directly from Yī Shī and Kungfu. Both carried the same maps of the human meridians, yet each wielded them differently—one to heal, the other to destroy.
Each shot struck along the great spine line, embedding itself into points where life-force converged.
The first slammed into Dazhui, the meeting point of all Yang energy, right beneath the neck. Another tore into Shendao, where the heart's spirit was said to dwell. Two more rounds punched into the paired hollows of Xinshu, the Heart's gates. Her fifth round cracked into Geshu, the nexus of blood circulation. The sixth buried itself in Ganshu, the liver's gate. And the final shot pierced Mingmen, the "Gate of Life" itself, the core of vitality nestled between the kidneys.
There, the chaotic Vorn energy raging through Knuckle's body was forced to flow, one channel after another, as Mai's bullets cracked open the nodes.
For the first time since the battle began, relief washed over him. The suffocating pressure eased, replaced by a surge of power rushing through his veins like a river finally breaking free of a dam. The Vorn no longer crashed and tore at him—it flowed, smooth and unbroken, circulating with a rhythm that felt almost natural.
Knuckle's breath came easier. Every nerve, every muscle thrummed with new strength, as though his body itself was completing the last steps of a long, painful transformation. And then it struck him—the unmistakable sensation of transcendence. His very core ignited, his flesh and spirit harmonizing at last.
He had done it. He had broken through.
Knuckle had ascended to Level 30.
The world felt reborn before Knuckle's eyes. Every detail sharpened—the swaying leaves, the trembling of the earth beneath their clash, even the faint ripple of heat in the air. His senses sang with clarity, and for the first time he moved not with strain but with ease.
Silvermane lunged in a desperate swipe, claws tearing at the air. Knuckle simply shifted, a calm step aside, as if he had seen the attack long before it came. His counter was not explosive, not wrapped in blinding fire like before. It was just a hook—quick, firm, inwardly restrained.
A faint, dense glow gathered on his fist, the light steady rather than wild, its heat bending the air around it. No theatrics, no roar of flame. Only the weight of power compressed into a single strike.
The blow sank into Silvermane's already battered flank. In that instant, the liver shattered completely, bursting under both force and heat. The beast froze, body arched, golden eyes wide with shock. Then it convulsed, a strangled roar escaping its throat as steam and blood spewed forth.
Silvermane staggered, knees buckling. Its massive frame swayed like a felled tree, every muscle trembling before surrendering at last. With a crash that shook the clearing, the beast collapsed, its colossal body thudding against the earth—a dramatic end carved by a single, unadorned punch.
Knuckle had only just ascended to Level 30, yet in raw numbers he still lagged nine full levels behind the beast. In sheer quantity of Vorn, he was leagues below it. But quantity was not everything. His breakthrough had refined that energy, sharpening its quality until it stood on equal ground with Silvermane's own.
No longer did he need to drive a hundred blows into the same spot just to scratch it. His Vorn now carried enough density to wound the beast directly. The gap in level remained, but that difference could be erased through skill. And in skill, Knuckle towered above it.
Against a boss already injured, its weakness laid bare, the outcome was no longer uncertain. For a fighter like Inferno Knuckle, finishing the job was never easier.