Chapter 435: The Genesis of the Limit
CRASH—!
Ren Shiroki tore himself free from the crater in the wall, concrete chunks
clattering into the sand at his feet.
THUD! THUD!
The lead brute—an underground deathmatch wrestler stripped to the waist—slammed
heavy fists into his own pectorals, showing off slabs of hyper-dense muscle. It
was his tackle that had driven Ren through the masonry.
Naturally, a heavy grappler couldn't have pinned Ren alone. Beside him stood a
wiry kickboxer, light on his feet, whose stance carried the unmistakable
signature of high-level Taekwondo.
The wrestler cracked his thick neck with a wet pop. "Word is the Tokita district
has already been breached by outsiders. Three Wolves isn't rolling over that
easy!"
The kicker pivoted side-on, his eyes locking onto Ren like crosshairs. "It's not
every day an outsider brings this kind of heat to our door. We're giving you
everything we've got!"
Ren raised an eyebrow. Beneath the blood masking his face, a spark of genuine
excitement flared.
Oho? What's this...?
A few genuine heavyweights with real presence!
And they're coordinating against me?!
Even after watching their vanguard crushed, the remaining fighters hadn't lost
their nerve. The psychological intimidation that broke the petty thugs wasn't
going to work here.
ZIP!
Before Ren's thoughts could settle, the Taekwondo specialist launched off the
ground, an airborne switch-kick whistling straight for his temple.
Facing a multi-man siege, Ren stripped away all excess motion. He tilted his
head by a millimeter, letting the wind of the kick graze his cheek.
CLAP!
Ren drove his palm-heel upward, catching the kicker's heel mid-flight. With a
violent wrist-snap, he upended the man's momentum, slamming him flat onto his
back in the dirt!
Before the kicker could recover, Ren's hips coiled to deliver a finishing
roundhouse.
In that exact recovery frame, the wrestler surged forward with wide arms,
locking Ren into a suffocating bear hug from behind!
"—?!"
Ren's breath hitched. He slammed his right foot into the sand to anchor his
base, gritting his teeth as the grappler's raw mass clamped around his ribs.
The brute's grip was like hydraulic steel!
Worse, the kicker had already rolled back to his feet. He stepped into the
pocket, driving a snapping side-kick flush into Ren's cheek!
POW!
Ren rolled his neck with the impact to bleed off the shockwave. The damage
wasn't fatal, but his balance was shattered. The wrestler leaned his weight
back, preparing a high-amplitude suplex.
If Ren hit the sand pinned under a heavyweight grappler, the surrounding killers
would swarm and stomp him into paste. It would be an instant loss!
"GRAAAH!!"
BAM!
Ren drove his left heel into the dirt with agonizing force, fighting the
leverage with every fiber of his being.
From the perimeter, Himuro Ryo broke into a cold sweat.
Against a mob of rabble, psychological dominance could win the day. But against
disciplined underground specialists, fighting one-versus-many was sheer lunacy.
"Kure-san...?" Himuro glanced toward the wall, his hand drifting toward his
jacket. "Should we jump in?"
Fusui, Arisa, and Marco remained sitting on the barrier, watching in eerie calm.
Not a single trace of panic touched their faces.
Himuro blinked. "Aren't you guys... worried about him?"
Fusui and Arisa exchanged a wry, helpless glance.
"Of course we're worried," Fusui sighed, resting her chin in her palm. "But
whether he gets help or not... that's Ren-chin's call to make."
"SHAA—!"
In the center of the ring, Ren's bicep tendons corded like steel cables. Veins
bulged across his chest and shoulders as he threw his entire skeletal frame into
an explosive outward expansion!
With a savage roar, he forced the wrestler's clamped arms apart by a fraction of
an inch!
The instant the gap opened, Ren vaulted straight up! He snapped both legs
forward in a brutal double dropkick, planting both heels directly into the
wrestler's face!
CRUNCH!
The wrestler's nose caved in, spraying blood as his 120-kilogram frame collapsed
backward into the dirt, temporarily neutralized.
"Hah!"
Ren used the recoil to backflip, resetting his spacing from the remaining circle
of fighters.
"Hah... hah..."
His lungs burned, but his mind had never been clearer.
It doesn't matter who the opponent is... It doesn't matter what the scenario
is... One-on-one, one-on-a-hundred, or a gauntlet of killers... The assignment
never changes!
Ren pivoted on his planting foot, whipping a low side-kick straight into the
liver of the dazed kicker, doubling him over with a strangled shriek as he
vomited bile into the dirt!
The answer is simple! Listen to your fighting spirit... and trade blows just
like always!!
CLANG!
Ren twisted his hips, burying a heavy reverse-punch into the abdomen of an
incoming brawler.
A metallic ring echoed across the clearing.
"Tsk...!"
Armored!
The man was wearing a ballistic plate under his tactical vest—standard street
equipment in The Inside.
Ren shook out his right knuckles, dispersing the stinging numbness.
No problem! I can still swing!!
"NEXT!"
Ren spread his arms, closing the distance to wrap up three men at once. He drove
his weight forward, forcing them into a stumbling retreat, then coiled his legs
and launched into a spinning aerial sweep!
[RYU: TATSUMAKI SENPU KYAKU]!
THUD-THUD-THUD!
Three fighters took heels to the jaw, blood and teeth spraying in a wide arc.
Yet before Ren's feet touched the ground, two knife-wielders flanked him from
his blind spots, their combat blades tracing cold silver arcs through the air!
Ren ducked low, driving an uppercut into the lead blade's wrist.
It doesn't matter who steps up! It doesn't matter how lethal their toys are!
Keep striking!
Whish—!
A weighted steel chain whipped out from the crowd, wrapping tightly around Ren's
left forearm. The wielder dug his heels in, yanking back with all his weight.
Instead of fighting the pull, Ren leaped with the momentum! He closed the
distance in a single bound, driving a concentrated palm-strike straight into the
chain-wielder's sternum!
BOOM!
"Hah...!"
Ren was deaf to the outside world. He heard only the rhythm of his own heartbeat
and the bone-on-bone impact of his strikes. Strategy, psychological warfare,
intimidation—he had burned them all away.
Push to the edge... When a man is backed against the wall of his absolute
limit... the only thing left to do is throw everything he has!
"HYAAAH!!"
Ren's high roundhouse kick caught another martial artist in the temple, sending
him skidding across the dirt.
Before he could recover his planting foot, two more men closed in, raining down
a storm of fists and knees.
Thud-thud-thud!
Blades were too slow; against a moving target, bare fists found the gaps faster.
BAM!
An elbow strike caught Ren flush across the bridge of his nose.
The edge cut like a razor. Ren rolled his neck to shed the torque, but fresh
blood erupted from his forehead and brow, blinding one eye.
Drip... drip... drip...
Blood tracked down his cheek, dripping off the point of his chin into the sand.
From the sidelines, Himuro Ryo watched the blood pour, his knuckles whitening as
he dragged on his cigarette.
Is Ren Shiroki's combat really incapable of conquering the Three Wolves sector?
Wait... what the hell am I thinking?! Of course it can't! That's common sense!
This wasn't a puzzle with a clever solution. Even if a man hungered for
strength, there was zero reason to push it to this extreme. There was no need to
gamble his life in the gutter against an endless wave of killers!
If all he wanted was victory in the Kengan matches, he didn't need this madness!
"Hey!" Himuro shouted through his smoke, unsure if he was yelling at Ren, at the
spectators, or at himself. "That's enough, isn't it?! You've proven your point!
Dragging this out is suicide!!"
No one answered.
Neither Ren nor his inner circle acknowledged the shout. They were locked onto
the frame.
And Ren's opponents—the heavyweights of the Three Wolves sector—saw the blood
pouring down his face and felt their morale surge. They smelled blood. They
could taste victory!
SWOOSH!
Three fighters charged in unison.
Ren back-dashed, utilizing the cracked concrete to pivot, but he couldn't shake
the encirclement.
"Hah... hah...!"
Blood stung his eye, yet his focus grew sharper.
No distance... no exits... forced to trade blows in the pocket...
Forced...? Trapped...? Did I come here because I was 'forced'?! Did I step into
this ring to run away?!
The faces of the legends flashed through Ren's mind.
[THE BUSHIN] Doppo Orochi—blinded in one eye, his heart stopped by the Ogre—did
he step onto the sand because someone forced him? [THE SAINT OF WAR] Gouki
Shibukawa—seventy-five years old, capable of sensing lethal danger from miles
away—did he ever dodge a fight because it was hard? Baki Hanma—staring down the
apex predator of the planet—did he hesitate? [THE FANG OF METSUDO] Kanoh
Agito—reigning as the undisputed King—did he fight merely because Metsudo
ordered it?
Don't make me laugh! None of those questions make any damn sense!!
Ren slowly clenched his fists, taking a deep, shuddering breath amidst the gore.
His mind redlined.
How does one defeat an endless wave of masters closing in from every quadrant?
Standard punches and kicks weren't enough.
I have to go beyond the fist!!
ZIP!
A heavily tattooed brawler lunged, swinging a spiked brass knuckle straight for
Ren's jaw.
Before the fist could reach terminal velocity, Ren's body moved. He stepped
inside the arc, cutting straight into the brawler's chest pocket.
His right palm-heel pressed against the brawler's solar plexus.
THUD!
Mechanically, it was a simple palm-strike.
Yet to everyone watching, the entire silhouette of Ren's frame—his rooted
stance, his coiled spine, his blazing intent—made it appear as though he had
driven a massive, high-caliber fist clean through the man's torso!
Why? Because the form was so absolute that their brains hallucinated the punch?!
"—?!"
Even Ren felt a shockwave of realization.
He had simply sought a way to transcend standard mechanics—to knock the man down
faster by projecting pure, unadulterated intent.
He had thrown a basic strike.
A palm? A punch?
It didn't matter! To the brawler, the sensation was unmistakable: his stomach
had been caved in by a sledgehammer, his internal organs turned to liquid!
"GAHHH!!"
The brawler shrieked, clutching his stomach as he collapsed into the dirt,
thrashing in agony.
The other fighters froze, staring down at their fallen comrade. The brawler's
abdomen bore no external bruising. His skin wasn't even swollen.
After a few frantic seconds of rolling, the brawler sat up, drenched in cold
sweat, realizing his organs were completely intact!
"—?!"
The fighters weren't skeptical; they were horrified.
Every single one of them had seen Ren strike with devastating power. Yet the
physical reality had vanished, replaced by an attack that forced the victim's
own nervous system to simulate the trauma!
A strike existing purely in the mind... yet accepted as absolute truth by the
opponent's biology!!
"Heh..."
Ren's blood-smeared face broke into a serene, effortless grin.
By pushing his biology past the breaking point, he had unlocked the next gate.
He had turned the strike itself into an expression of pure spirit!
Fwoosh—!
The ink-wash smoke churned violently. Standing beside the towering phantom of
Marisa, a legendary figure materialized.
Ryu.
The Ansatsuken master rested a hand on Marisa's shoulder, trading a silent nod
of warrior's respect. He turned to Ren, his stoic gaze softening with quiet
pride.
{You have exceptional talent, boy. You learn moves quickly, yet you never
abandoned the supremacy of the fundamentals. By tempering the basics to their
absolute extreme, you have reached this threshold.}
{This is your limit... and your new beginning!}
{Now—temper it in real battle!}
"Right..." Ren rotated his wrists, dropping into his cleanest, most refined
stance yet.
Ryu gave a firm nod.
{This technique is the reward for taking the 'Basics' seriously. Wield it well!}
Refining stance, breath, and intent to their absolute zenith. Striking without
needing to extend the fist. An invisible, point-blank shockwave that forces the
opponent's brain and flesh to yield to the wave—
[RYU: HASHOGEKI]!!
☆☆☆
-> 30 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you