Chapter 467: So Stupid!
Tap, tap, thud! Thud—
Ren marched forward with his hands tucked behind his back, his heavy footsteps
pounding out a fierce, rhythmic cadence.
With every inhale and exhale, he trod the earth like a silent, enraged one-eyed
tiger, locking his predatory gaze onto Guevara.
The spectators couldn't help swallowing hard in unison.
"So... so strong..."
"Hands behind his back?!"
"Are they out of their minds? He's gonna wipe out!"
"Is this even a fight anymore—!?"
"..."
Faced with the mounting pressure, Guevara tightened his expression.
He jammed his toe hard into the dirt, snapping his leg upward with explosive
torque to kick up a heavy curtain of dust and loose gravel.
Swish-la!
Instantly, a wave of flying sand blasted straight toward Ren's face, covering a
wide enough spread that dodging was impossible.
Because Ren's hands were locked behind his back, he had no way to parry or
shield his eyes. He was forced to snap his eyes shut, slitting them open just
enough to peer through paper-thin cracks, his field of vision instantly
crippled.
"Hmph—"
Guevara flashed a calm, confident smile as he exploded forward off the front
foot, driving a piston-like front kick straight into Ren's face.
Bang!
The heavy impact rattled Ren's skin, sending his eyelids and lips rippling from
the kinetic shock before his supporting foot slipped, sending him tumbling
backward in a dizzying somersault.
He even choked back a tear or two as the flying dust choked his throat.
Tap—!
Guevara touched down first, his movement flashing like a phantom, leaving fading
afterimages in his wake.
Thud!
Planting his right foot deep into the earth, he snapped his left knee violently
upward, driving it straight into Ren's lower spine.
"Hah!"
With a sharp grunt, Guevara channeled a burst of freakish strength, using a
single knee strike to launch the 103kg Ren high up into the air.
Swish-la—!
Ren locked his core muscles tight, absorbing the brute trauma of the knee
strike, but the world was spinning wildly around him as he was lofted toward the
clouds!
Had he been sent flying two meters? Three meters?
—?!
Realizing that Guevara's follow-up was bound to follow instantly, Ren tucked his
limbs in tight, drawing his knees almost up against his chest as he carved a
sweeping arc through the air.
[CAMMY: HOOLIGAN COMBINATION]!
Channeling his entire body's tension, he kept his left arm tucked to his ribs
while pulling his right arm back to recalibrate his center of gravity. His right
leg snapped out like a spring-loaded switchblade, chopping downward in a vicious
arc.
[REVERSE BLADE CHOP]!
Whoosh!
The razor-sharp right heel chopped down dead-center against Guevara's face,
splashing a spray of blood from his nose and forcing the pirate leader to
stumble back several paces.
—Tap!
Ren landed cleanly, planting his feet with his left hand resting across his
chest and his right arm extended outward, holding his finishing pose with crisp,
airtight precision.
The landing was gorgeous enough to draw genuine cheers from the audience.
Judging by the immediate flow of momentum, Ren had clearly seized the advantage,
yet his own expression remained deeply unsettled.
"Oh—"
For some reason, Guevara's attacks generated a strange, disorienting sense of
vertigo, as if the ground beneath Ren's feet had a mind of its own, slipping
entirely under Guevara's command!
"Well, well?"
Spotting Ren's posture, Guevara arched an eyebrow with a teasing grin. "Look at
that. Not only did you use your hands to steady yourself, but you even locked
into a formal stance!"
Before the echo of his voice had even faded—Whish!
Guevara pivoted on his heel and launched another high roundhouse kick straight
toward Ren's head.
Ren ducked low, letting the sole of the shoe brush past his hair by a razor-thin
margin, his eyes tracking Guevara's movement.
Instead of watching the flying leg, however, his eyes locked onto the foot
Guevara was using as a pivot on the ground!
Guevara had once boasted that he was a man anchored to the earth, which was why
Yoshinari Karo's heavy blows hadn't been able to budge him.
He had also claimed that his fights were forever bound to the soil, capable of
leaving permanent marks.
Martial arts theory contained similar maxims—the saying that "power originates
from the earth."
Clearly, Guevara's mastery had long since transcended the crude stage of merely
"pushing off the ground," stepping into an entirely different, ethereal realm!
"Now that's what I'm talking about! Magnificent, absolutely perfect!!"
Ren's eyes lit up with a brilliant fire, thoroughly engrossed in the thrill of
the exchange.
Guevara didn't let up, chaining high and low kicks together until Ren was forced
to hop diagonally backward, landing with light, springy footwork.
At the exact same time, Guevara snapped off a front-thrust kick that caught Ren
square in the face, spraying a fresh mist of blood from his nose and leaving
twin trench-lines carved into the dirt by Ren's heels.
Swish-la—!
Skidding back a full half-meter, Ren finally came to a halt.
Yet, when the crowd strained their eyes to look, Ren didn't look battered or
disgraced at all. His expression remained serene, blood dripping lazily from his
nose while he casually shoved both hands deep back into his trouser pockets.
The sight left the distant spectators blinking in utter bewilderment.
To top it all off, Guevara mirrored the gesture a second later, casually sliding
his hands into his own pockets as he stood face-to-face with Ren.
Both men looked utterly relaxed, resembling a pair of old friends chatting on a
street corner.
"..."
"..."
The [Ice Emperor] Ryo Inaba dropped his jaw in disbelief. "Those two... are
seriously keeping that up?!"
Tokita Niko furrowed his brow slightly.
"I heard Niko talk about this once..."
"In certain classical striking arts, there's a technique known as the
'Pocket-Draw Strike.' The stance looks casual and completely unguarded, but the
posture is the guard!"
"Keeping your hands tucked in pockets isn't a delay before striking."
"Instead, you use the rotational momentum of your hips to accelerate your fist
right from inside the pocket, leaving the opponent zero time to react."
"The body mechanics are tightly wound, allowing the punch to accelerate straight
out of the fabric with terrifying speed!"
Ohma paused, a conflicted look crossing his face. "Though the way Ren Shiroki
and Guevara are doing it looks similar, the underlying rules are completely
different."
Oliva smiled gently from the sidelines. "Precisely. While the physical posture
looks identical, the root philosophy is worlds apart."
"Those two aren't even thinking about pulling their fists out!"
—Swish!
The two combatants—hands still buried deep in their pockets—simultaneously
pivoted on their heels, unleashing a rapid volley of kicks characteristic of
their respective styles, trading blows directly to each other's faces.
Whack-whack-whack!
It was a pure, unadulterated kicking duel. Dull, meaty thuds echoed continuously
across the plaza, both men taking blows to the face, spitting blood and sending
crimson droplets scattering into the air.
Thud!
Ren hopped off the ground, tucking his heel tight against his inner thigh with a
wisp of white steam trailing behind, aiming a devastating Muay Thai knee strike
at Guevara's head.
[SAGAT: TIGER JUMPING KNEE]!
Boom!
Guevara blocked it with a high-level roundhouse check.
Ren instantly grounded himself, sweeping his right leg high into the air in a
vertical, straight-line axe-kick.
[RYU: HEEL DROP]!
Whish!
A lightning-fast chopping heel dropped like a battle-axe, narrowly missing as
Guevara hopped backward, letting the strike slam into the turf instead.
Thump—!
The heel stomp rattled the earth, leaving a neat little crater in the dirt.
Guevara spotted the micro-opening and fired a side kick straight into Ren's
thigh, making Ren narrow his eyes in a sharp wince.
"—!?"
In the span of a few breaths, the two had traded half a dozen high-risk,
high-reward exchanges with a ferocious intensity where every single strike was
meant to maim.
——And they were still strictly using their legs!
"Whoa!! They're still fighting with their hands in their pockets!"
"Neither of 'em is willing to back down! Neither of 'em is willing to pull their
fists out!"
"What kind of fight even is this—?!"
"..."
The spectators chattered endlessly, some already cheering at the top of their
lungs, elevating the bizarre spectacle to the status of instant folklore that
they intended to brag about for the rest of their lives.
Amidst the roaring crowd, a tiny fraction of the audience wore a completely
different expression.
[The Monster] Raian Kure was one of them.
At that moment, Raian was grinding his teeth so hard they emitted a sharp
crunching sound. He glared daggers at the combatants in the center of the plaza,
showing zero excitement and a massive, boiling surplus of pure irritation.
"I can't watch this garbage anymore..."
"Hands in pockets, kicking each other back and forth like a couple of
grandstanding peacocks... it looks flashy as hell, but all they're doing is
tossing random kicks out. That's some kid-stuff playing pretend!"
Raian twisted his neck, spitting a glob of saliva as he glanced toward the
cheering crowd with a look sharp enough to carve meat.
"Those two are paying way too much attention to this pack of idiots cheering for
them, which is why they're putting on this stupid clown show!"
"So fucking stupid!"
"..."
Standing right beside him, Fusui blinked her black-sclera eyes in mild amusement
at her cousin's rant. "Oh my, big bro looks awfully mad."
Sensing an opportunity in his sister's casual observation, a wicked, playful
grin spread across Raian's face. His eyes slanted into two wicked crescents as
he threw a heavy arm around Fusui's neck in a headlock.
"Hey, Fusui, you got any flash-bangs or hand grenades on you? Hand one over!"
Fusui felt a mild jolt of alarm, though she was deeply curious what her unhinged
cousin was planning. Racking her brain, she fished out a low-yield stun grenade
she had modified earlier to reduce the explosive payload.
"Aha!"
Raian snatched the grenade, weighed it in his palm for a fraction of a second,
pulled the pin with his teeth, and didn't even wait for Fusui or anyone else to
react before hurling it straight into the center of the plaza—landing right
between Ren and Guevara.
Ren: "————?"
Guevara: "————?"
Locked in the middle of their intense duel, both men blinked in unison.
Wait a second...
What the hell just landed between us—!
☆☆☆
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