Chapter 446: The Courage to Throw a Punch
"He... he threw him just like that?!"
Himuro Ryo stared at the clearing, completely stunned.
The challenger calling himself Yoshinari Karo was a colossal titan—206
centimeters tall, weighing roughly 165 kilograms, built like a barrel of dense
muscle and protective blubber.
Jun Guevara, standing at around 178 centimeters, was slightly smaller than Ren
Shiroki and about the same height as Himuro himself. In Himuro's tactical
textbook, an infighter taking on a giant prioritized striking vitals from the
blind spots. Yet Guevara had casually swept the colossus off his feet with a
frontal trip!
"What style is he using?" Himuro asked, his eyes darting. "Ancient Kenpo? Or is
it something like Ohma Tokita's Niko Style?"
"No..."
Takeshi Wakatsuki shook his head beside him, recalling his brief clash with
Guevara at the Two Tigers gatehouse. "I honestly don't think he belongs to any
established martial arts school."
Himuro blinked in surprise. "Even with all your experience, you say that,
Wakatsuki-san?"
"It's not a question of technical rank," the Wild Tiger replied in a low, heavy
rumble. "Watch. The real fight is starting!"
[MR. 2] Jun Guevara vs. [THE UMIBOZU] Yoshinari Karo!
The two men stood opposite each other in the dirt lot outside the camp,
encircled by a crowd of onlookers.
It was, by every definition, an unsanctioned street brawl.
Yet neither Guevara nor Karo took a recognizable martial arts stance, nor did
either reach for a concealed weapon. They simply stood in the open, locking eyes
with entirely different expressions.
The old fisherman was dead serious; Guevara looked as if he were waiting for a
bus.
Karo paused, gradually sinking his weight into the earth. His fierce scowl,
framed by a thick white beard bristling like steel needles, gave him the aura of
a savage sea leviathan.
"Young man. We both have duties to fulfill. Raise your guard!"
"A guard...?"
Guevara's eyelids drooped. "Do I really need one?"
He rested both hands on his hips, tilting his head with a lazy smirk. "How's
this posture? Good enough for you?"
Karo's face hardened, the last trace of patience vanishing from his gaze.
"Fine. As you wish."
Karo hunched his massive frame, extending his left arm forward for ballast while
drawing his right fist high above his ear. His fingers curled tight—not like an
ordinary boxer closing a fist, but as if he were gripping an invisible shaft.
A harpoon.
He held the phantom weapon with white-knuckled intent, his killing aura
distorting the morning air.
Karo was not an arena fighter, and he wielded no refined martial arts.
Throughout his life, his life-or-death struggles had been waged against sea
monsters—the primeval horrors of the Pacific that triggered mankind's deepest
evolutionary fears.
To defend his fishing grounds, to protect his family, he had put down every
beast that crossed his bow.
With these two hands, and his trusty harpoon!
Karo threw his right fist forward with the exact mechanics of a harpoon strike.
For over forty years, since he was a teenager, his body had repeated that
single, devastating movement millions of times.
The strike carried a name—Whale Burial!!
FWOOSH!
The old fisherman's harpoon punch detonated toward Guevara, driving the heel of
his pinky and the outer edge of his knuckles straight into the youth's sternum.
It wasn't a standard impact. It sounded like an artillery shell striking
bedrock!
BOOM—!!
Guevara didn't dodge a single millimeter. He allowed Karo's punch to hammer
flush into his chest, keeping his hands resting lazily on his hips as he
absorbed the strike head-on.
Screee—!
Guevara's boots carved two deep ruts through the dirt as the kinetic shockwave
shoved him backward.
When the dust settled, the spectators stood frozen in disbelief.
Karo's Whale Burial was still pressed firmly against Guevara's chest.
Yet Guevara stood there, hands still planted casually on his hips. Aside from
the skid marks in the sand, his posture hadn't yielded an inch!
He... he didn't miss? No! He hit him flush... but it didn't drop him!!
Karo's eyes widened to dinner plates.
Never in his life had he seen a living creature take that punch standing up.
That blow could pulverize reinforced concrete; it was an impact that snapped the
spinal column of an eight-meter great white shark!
What kind of unshakeable base was this?! What kind of monstrous absorption
capacity did this kid possess?!
Ren Shiroki saw it clearly.
Karo's Whale Burial was powerful enough to make even Saw Paing spit blood. Yet
Guevara looked completely unbothered, as if a child had tossed a sponge at his
chest.
"Hmph~!"
Guevara exhaled a plume of warm air, his nose twitching.
"Captain, you can't knock me down with that."
"Because you people are merely standing on the earth. That's not enough to truly
root yourself."
Guevara gently patted Karo's fist aside.
"Since we're brawling, let's make it official. I believe boxing looks something
like this, right...?"
He raised his fists near his chin in an amateurish guard, looking thoroughly
relaxed.
Before Karo could process the shift, Guevara smiled. "I've always had a soft
spot for trading blows—"
SWOOSH!
A left hook ripped through the air!
The velocity was blinding, the torque so immense that a sonic crack split the
clearing. The punch detonated against the right side of Karo's skull!
THUD!
The 165-kilogram leviathan tilted violently to the left, crashing into the dirt
with an earth-shaking rumble, kicking up a blinding cloud of dust!
The spectators held their breath, expecting the fight to be over.
Then, Karo's massive silhouette sprang straight back up!
He didn't push off the ground with his hands. Using pure core elasticity and
foot torque, he snapped his 165-kilogram frame upright like a ballet dancer!
"Hah...!"
Blood leaked from Karo's nose and lips as he stared down Guevara.
The outlaws gasped in awe.
"The old man's still up!" "He didn't go down!" "Tough bastard!"
Even Guevara clapped his hands with genuine admiration. "Oho! Splendid! To
survive on open water, you need at least that much balance!"
Yet Karo felt no joy at the praise.
Because for the first time in months, his head was completely clear.
Mal de Debarquement—land-sickness.
Spending decades aboard ocean-going vessels frequently triggered the condition.
The inner ear adapted so thoroughly to the rolling of the swells that walking on
solid land created the illusion of violent vertigo. To a veteran fisherman like
Karo, dry land had always been an unstable, wobbling nightmare.
Yet Guevara's concussive hook to his temple had shaken his brain and
recalibrated his inner ear!
The land-sickness had vanished!
His senses were razor-sharp, his balance returned to its true ocean baseline.
And because his senses were clear, he saw the truth with terrifying lucidity:
Even if he wagered his life, he stood zero chance against Mr. 2. The gap in raw
combat prowess was an uncrossable chasm!
What should I do...?
Karo froze in place, torn by doubt. Toyo Electric's hounds were watching from
the crowd. How could he protect his harbor now?
Just as despair threatened to swallow him, Guevara's voice cut through the
silence like a whip.
"Captain! Are you giving up?! Does facing a strong opponent strip you of your
courage?!"
The shout jolted Karo out of his paralysis.
He felt a deep pang of shame. What did the gap matter?! Whether facing ocean
leviathans or typhoons that swallowed ships whole, he had never backed down in
his life! He was a fisherman—he fought until the ship went down!
ZIP!
Karo charged, his right fist cocked high. The Whale Burial detonated once more,
driving straight toward Guevara's face!
BANG!
The power was noticeably diminished. Guevara's concussive counter had taken a
massive toll on the old man's stamina, leaving his muscles starved of explosive
torque.
Even so, the fist buried itself into Guevara's nose, drawing two trickles of
crimson.
"..."
Guevara stood his ground, letting the punch press into his cheek, his face
lighting up with genuine satisfaction.
"That's the spirit! That's a punch worthy of the sea!"
The words fell, and Karo's strength completely bottomed out. With a soft thud,
his eyes rolled back, and he slumped forward onto the sand, unconscious.
Two punches had drawn only a few drops of blood from Guevara. In return, Guevara
had knocked out a 165-kilogram titan with a single clean counter!
The camp outlaws cheered, rushing forward to celebrate their new leader's
victory.
Amidst the commotion, Ren Shiroki's eyes narrowed. He caught a flash of movement
in the crowd—a lean, unremarkable figure with a concealed weapon, his eyes
burning with venom.
Zip!
Using the celebrating crowd as cover, a Toyo Electric hitman lunged toward
Guevara, whipping a silenced 9mm pistol from his jacket, aiming straight for the
back of Guevara's skull!
The next microsecond—
Whish!
Guevara vanished from his crosshairs.
The hitman blinked in confusion, frantically swinging his barrel.
Guevara materialized at his flank. His left palm slapped violently against the
hitman's left ear—CLAP!—shattering the eardrum with hydraulic pressure!
Before the assassin could scream, Guevara plucked a single strand of hair from
his own temple, twisted it into a rigid, braided needle, and shoved it deep into
the assassin's ruptured ear canal!
With a violent, practiced twist of his wrist, the frayed end of the hair coiled
around the internal fibers of the cochlea.
Guevara yanked backward with explosive torque!
SHICK!
The hair sliced clean through the delicate structures of the inner ear, pulling
free in a spray of gore!
Because the trauma bypassed standard pain receptors and directly shredded the
vestibular nerve, the hitman didn't even scream. His entire sense of spatial
orientation dissolved into an abyss of spinning vertigo.
He crashed into the dirt, clawing at the earth, utterly incapable of standing
upright ever again.
"Sheesh..."
Guevara dusted off his hands, sighing with a lazy, content smirk.
"You cowards always have to learn the hard way before you accept defeat."
☆☆☆
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