Chapter 318: The Blitz!
CRACK!
The hardest parts of their skulls—their foreheads—collided with a sickening
thud, the impact forcing a few rogue drops of blood from both their nostrils.
Ren Shiroki's headbutt had been delivered with enough force to shatter a man's
facial structure if he had aimed for the nose or philtrum, but he hadn't. This
wasn't a "Finishing Move"; it was a savage, high-octane provocation.
"Aha?!"
Jun Sekibayashi crossed his arms, leaning against the ropes. "The one to throw
the first insult isn't the Kure, but Ren-kun?! Bold move!"
The audience saw it clearly, and Raian Kure felt it in his very soul.
"Gah... hnnnn..."
A low growl vibrated in the depths of the Devil's throat. Veins throbbed across
his neck and temples, his irritation reaching a boiling point. His jet-black
eyes were a map of crimson capillaries, his eyelids curling upward into two
twisted crescents. He looked like a nightmare manifest.
"Fine then! Let's skip the foreplay and get to the slaughter!"
Raian bared his teeth in a demonic grin. His arms snapped upward in a blur, then
hammered down, aiming to crush Ren's forearms and break his grip on the Master's
"clinch" from earlier.
Zip!
Ren retracted his hands a millisecond before the blow landed, letting Raian's
double-fist strike find only empty air.
Raian didn't break his momentum. He transitioned into a rising right uppercut
tracking straight for Ren's jaw.
"—!!"
Ren snapped his right elbow up, catching the torque of the hook on his joint. A
heavy, muffled thud echoed through the plaza. The sheer, monstrous strength
behind Raian's arm forced Ren to stumble a half-step back.
Ren didn't reset. He used the momentum of the stumble to pivot.
Drop. Anchor. Step. Drive.
The sequence was a perfect, fluid arc. Ren exploded upward from his crouch, his
left fist firing with the roar of a jet engine.
[RYU'S SHORYUKEN]!
POW!
The punch buried itself in Raian's solar plexus. The kinetic energy was so
intense that Raian's abdominal muscles underwent a visible, violent deformation
before the force traveled upward, catching him squarely under the chin.
BANG!
The heavy impact snapped Raian's head back, spraying blood from his mouth and
nose into the night air.
However, Raian's physical threshold was in another dimension. A strike that
would have decapitated a normal man only forced him back half a pace. He tensed
his core, his veins bulging as he anchored his weight.
"You—"
He barely managed a single syllable before Ren tightened his right fist and
fired a lead straight.
THUD!
The knuckles caught Raian flush on the face. Ren didn't let up, transitioning
into a relentless technical blitz. He dropped into a crouch, launching a left
hook that slammed into Raian's waist.
BANG!
He followed up with a right straight to the gut, then drove off his heels, his
entire torso snapping forward as he unleashed a vertical left uppercut.
[LUKE'S AVENGER COMBO]!
Bang-bang!
The high-speed barrage momentarily suppressed the Devil. Ren maintained his
breathing rhythm, his back foot sliding half a pace to coil his power. He
twisted his entire mass to the left, his center of gravity dropping low before
his core snapped taut.
He performed a mid-air rotation, his right leg whipping around in a devastating
heel-kick.
Ultimate Art— [DEE JAY'S MAXIMUM SOBAT]!!
BOOM!
The high-velocity Kickboxing rotation slammed into Raian's chest. The force was
enough to delete the giant's balance, launching him backward through the air.
"A HIT! HE LANDED A CLEAN FINISH—!!"
The Kure announcer screamed in disbelief. Though she wasn't a combatant, she
knew the legends of the [DEVIL].
"The one who unleashed the first savage blitz wasn't Raian Kure... it was Ren
Shiroki!!"
As the announcer's voice echoed, Ren was already in motion. His calves exploded
with power as he drive off the sand, closing the gap with the falling Raian.
[DRIVE RUSH]!
WHOOSH!
But in that exact heartbeat, the grounded Raian's eyes snapped wide. He drove a
single hand into the sand and used his core to perform a grotesque,
hyper-flexible hip-twist. He launched a high-level scan-kick from the floor.
"DIE!"
The kick was like a scythe of the Reaper, the angle so subtle and lethal it was
designed to sever the cervical vertebrae.
Seeing the blade of the foot tracking his neck, Ren didn't retreat. He stepped
forward, deeper into the impact zone.
[SAGAT'S HIGH SCAN KICK]!
SHINK!
Both men unleashed high kicks, but Ren had the vertical advantage. By using his
lead-step to misalign the range by a fraction of an inch, Ren slipped the
"scythe" and delivered his own counter-kick.
Raian's leg whistled through empty air.
"GOT YOU!"
Ren's heel caught Raian perfectly in the back of the knee. Like a hammer hitting
a spinning top, the impact forced the one-handed Raian into a violent rotation
against the floor.
Zip-zip-zip—
Raian performed a high-speed roll, his body tracing a series of fluid, predatory
curves as he sprang back to his feet. He spat out a mouthful of blood and
smirked.
The trade had lasted less than fifteen seconds, yet the intensity was enough to
rival a full championship match. The audience was paralyzed, unable to look
away.
"Magnificent... simply magnificent!"
Mitsuyo Kureishi [The Freak] stared with wide eyes. He hadn't seen his friend
Ren in a while, and the evolution was staggering.
He blinked. "Ren... has reached this level already?!"
Fusui Kure beamed with pride. "Told you he was the best."
Kureishi let out a cloud of hot steam, his expression turning into one of
twisted, technical mania. "Ren's bones... they must feel incredible when they
snap!"
Fusui: "...Please stop talking."
Despite the creepy commentary, Kureishi was a technical genius of the highest
order. "Seriously, Ren's talent for styles and 'Waza' is eerily similar to my
own perception of human anatomy."
"To me, every living thing is just a collection of Bones waiting to be reset. I
suspect Ren... sees Combat in much the same way. It's not just a style to him.
It's a fundamental state of being."
CRACK!
Raian Kure twisted his neck, his vertebrae popping.
"Kukakaka! This is it! This is the feeling!"
He hunched his shoulders, blood still trickling from his mouth. He flexed his
fingers into claws, radiating a hunger so deep it was almost tangible. He looked
like an ancient, starving beast.
Recalling the last few exchanges, Raian locked his black eyes onto Ren.
"I've butchered plenty of flashy amateurs in my time, but your skills... they're
a hell of a lot different from the rest of that trash!"
"Karate, Kickboxing, Muay Thai..."
"You aren't just 'collecting' them. You're absorbing them into your very
biology. The variety is insane, but your precision is even higher."
"Doesn't your brain ever short-circuit, brother? I can't wait to crack it open
and find out!"
Raian's demonic grin grew wider.
"Hey, what are you waiting for? Keep swinging!"
Raian's eyes widened, his pupils practically glowing. "Skip the boring stuff. If
you use another half-assed probe on me... I'm going to kill you where you
stand!"
"..."
Ren Shiroki bladed his body. He dropped his arms low, his fists half-clenched.
His knuckles let out a sharp CRACK.
"Raian-kun... everyone thinks you're just a mindless psycho."
"But I have a feeling your 'Combat' and your 'Strength' are a hell of a lot more
Technical than your personality suggests."
"You like precision? Fine. I'll show you exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes—"
Ren tilted his head back, adopting Jamie's loose, rhythmic drunken stance. His
knees were bent like coils, his fists held in a relaxed, swaying guard. Then,
his eyes centered.
Red veins erupted in his sclera, tightening around his pupils like chains and
forcing them to vibrate at high frequency. His conscious will accelerated past
the point of instinct. He purged every micro-second of the unconscious from his
mind, seizing total sovereignty over his biology.
[ENGINE]—MAX OUTPUT!!
"Phew...!"
Ren exhaled a long trail of hot steam. He arched an eyebrow at Raian.
The Devil didn't waste time on a response. He studied the shift in Ren's aura,
his manic grin reaching his ears.
"THAT'S IT! THAT'S THE LOOK!!"
Raian loved the scent of death. He was a powder keg with a short fuse, but as a
combatant, he was a genius of the bloodline. He recognized the [ENGINE] for what
it was.
Absolute sovereignty over the brain. Total technical execution at the cost of
extreme internal pressure!
"So you really do fight like a machine, don't you?!"
"..."
Ren Shiroki said nothing. He slid forward, his feet silent.
Zip!
His boots left two shallow ruts in the sand. His movement looked loose and
light, yet he was anchored like a high-tension spring. He was a predator in a
state of perfect synchronization.
Jaku Kaioh gasped. "That movement... it's the Zui Quan of Kenpo!!"
ZIP!
Ren closed the gap with a [DRIVE RUSH]. He fired a rapid-fire flurry of three
punches.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Raian raised his forearms to block. He prepared to counter-hit, but the drunken
strikes didn't stop.
[JAMIE'S FREEFLOW STRIKE]!
The lead fist fired, retracted, and fired again in the same microsecond.
Bang-bang!
Raian tanked the first, but for the second, he snapped his hand up to swat Ren's
fist aside.
Ren performed a high-speed pivot. Using a modified back-fist guard, he spun and
fired a secondary right straight while his left continued the suppressive fire.
SLAP!
The combination was a blur of fluid, water-like movement. Raian adjusted his
footing, his demonic grin never wavering. He refused to retreat even half a
pace. Relying on his superhuman Kure reflexes, he met the technical onslaught
with raw, brutal trades—punch for punch, kick for kick.
Zip!
Ren used the torque from his left punch to drop his weight. He swung his arms in
a wide arc, performing two lightning-fast feints before resuming the barrage.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!
The two warriors became a vortex of kinetic energy. Their silhouettes blurred as
they shifted and dodged, the wind from their strikes screaming as they left
trails of light in the dim plaza.
The announcer had her [REMOVAL] active just to keep up, but she couldn't find
the words.
"S-So fast! They've vanished!!"
"With our eyes... we can't even track the frames of their movement!!"
Before she could finish—ZIP!
Raian's massive hand shot through the flurry. He clamped his fingers around
Ren's right wrist in an iron grip.
Ren fired a left jab that caught Raian in the chest. BANG! A red welt appeared
instantly.
Raian didn't care.
"You think mastering moves is enough to beat a Kure?!"
He locked his second hand over Ren's wrist, his grip a biological vice. He
twisted his waist and core, the motion identical to a professional hammer-throw
athlete. He forcibly swung Ren's entire 101kg body around him.
"Stop getting cocky! FLYYYYYY!!"
WHOOSH!
Using raw, monstrous torque, Raian spun Ren in a full circle. At the point of
maximum centrifugal velocity, he released his grip with a manic laugh, launching
the youth across the ring.
(End of Chapter)
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