Chapter 437: Equanimity
Four days later.
The Iai swordsman who had dared to draw his blade at the gatehouse was sitting
in an izakaya in downtown Tokyo, having drinks with an old circle of friends.
Nursing a cold draft beer, his mind drifted back to the bloodbath at the Three
Wolves checkpoint.
"Man... that outsider was something else."
He tapped his glass on the counter, exhaling sharply. "Name's Ren Shiroki. I'm
thinking about dropping by his dojo later just to check out the trophies. Heard
he's got quite the museum."
The swordsman rubbed his own jaw, slapping his cheek lightly.
"Right here."
"His palm-heel grazed me right on the chin. There wasn't even enough weight
behind it to leave a bruise."
"And yet... every nerve in my skull screamed that I had just been blasted by a
cannon."
He paused, staring into his amber beer.
"It wasn't a physical blow. There was no real impact, and he didn't throw a
closed fist. But every cell in my biology was convinced that my head had been
taken clean off."
"If 'devastation' had a face... that [HASHOGEKI] was the definition of it."
His drinking buddies scoffed, asking if he had just frozen up from stage fright.
The swordsman shook his head without hesitation.
"No. That wasn't something you could tough out with stubborn pride."
"I hit the dirt, paralyzed. Even though my brain wanted to stand back up, my
nervous system refused to ignore the reality that I had been murdered. A cold
sweat soaked right through my clothes."
"My reason wanted to deny it. But my flesh, my blood, my cells, and the decades
I've poured into the blade... every single part of me conceded the truth."
He touched the scar near his throat.
"If he had aimed for my forehead or my shoulder, sure—I would've gritted my
teeth and swung back. But his stance was absolute, and he targeted the exact
structural fault-line of my face."
"The kid was a monster. If he had wanted to... he really would have turned my
head into paste."
[Four Days Earlier — The Three Wolves Gatehouse]
Himuro Ryo had reached the exact same conclusion.
The reason Ren Shiroki's "Wave Strike" carried such terrifying efficacy was
because of Acknowledgment.
Ren was a warrior who could truly deliver that level of destruction.
"Hmph...!"
Ren stood dead-center in the dirt, his eyes webbed with broken red capillaries.
He remained locked in a chest-to-chest grapple with the two-meter brute, neither
man yielding an inch of turf.
I see...
Himuro watched without blinking, recalling the sudden collapse of the Iai
master.
His startup speed surpassed an Iai swordsman. His raw static torque matched a
two-meter powerhouse.
[THE SOUL COMBATANT] Ren Shiroki.
To the audiences of the Kengan matches, the Underground Arena, and the street
brawls, Ren was famous for his flashy, fluid, multi-angled, and stylish
choreography.
It was an easy trap to fall into.
Spectators became intoxicated by his flashy transitions, assuming he was merely
an agile, evasive dancer. They completely forgot a fundamental truth:
Ren was, at his core, a Devastating Power-Striker.
He wasn't like Master Shibukawa or Kaku Kaioh—ascetics who had stripped away raw
mass to achieve the absolute zenith of redirection. Ren was an aggressive,
front-line juggernaut!
Tackles, throws, brawling, lethal kicks—he excelled at every single facet of
violence.
Never make the childish mistake of assuming Ren Shiroki lacks raw speed or
crushing power!
The psychological conviction behind his [HASHOGEKI] worked because his
fundamental understanding of kinetic force allowed him to deliver that exact
catastrophic trauma in reality!
CRACK!
Ren's biceps corded like steel cables. He pried open the brute's locked arms,
vaulted straight up, and clamped his thighs around the giant's neck!
Using his entire body weight as a descending pendulum, he violently rolled
backward mid-air!
[ZANGIEF: RUSSIAN DROP]!
BOOM—!!
The two-meter giant was slammed into the earth spine-first, his skull bouncing
off the dirt with a hollow, sickening crunch. His eyes rolled up into his head,
and he went completely limp.
"Haha..."
Ren bounced back to his feet, as light as a feather, facing down the remaining
masters.
His engine was reaching a terrifying temperature. His consciousness was crystal
clear.
I can see it...
His single right eye scanned the surviving circle of killers.
At first, facing dozens of martial arts veterans seemed to demand a calculated
hit-and-run guerilla strategy. But now?
The collective mob seemed to merge into a single, unified "Entity."
And this entity was riddled with glaring structural flaws.
Every vector of danger... every kinetic startup... every shifting footstep was
laid bare before him.
Zip!
Another veteran lunged. Ren slipped the attack without looking, his palm
snapping out to engulf the man's face, slamming him into the dirt with casual
indifference.
Weak points everywhere.
Was it because he was "trying his hardest"? Because he was pushing through with
heroic grit?
No.
Ren shook his head, kicking another attacker away.
It wasn't some naive, shonen-manga delusion about "giving your all in the
clutch."
It was the exact opposite: he was facing this monstrous, multi-man trial with
total Equanimity.
Not "straining for victory."
Just executing the exact same mundane routines he performed every single morning
of his life!
Kicking, punching, clinching, parrying, stepping, leaping!
Strike. Throw. Guard. Move.
In combat, those are the only four verbs that exist!
From the sidelines, Himuro watched in awe as the local heavyweights fell like
dominoes. Several were men whose reputations he knew well.
Yet Ren looked more relaxed with every passing second. He was fighting with the
casual ease of a man taking a Sunday stroll.
Viewed through that lens, being surrounded by a dozen armed killers didn't look
dangerous at all.
Ren was no longer fighting from the "disadvantage."
The remaining fighters, who had stepped forward with lethal pride, were now
retreating in frantic disarray. The numerical edge had evaporated into thin air.
Before long, Ren didn't even need to watch his back.
He didn't even need to monitor his flanks.
The space around him had cleared out. Only one man remained standing in his
path—a renowned underground kickboxer, infamous across the black-market
circuits.
"..."
The kickboxer forced a hollow smirk, cold sweat running down his neck like rain.
He had only come to watch the commotion. Then his curiosity got the better of
him. And now... he couldn't leave even if he wanted to.
So strong...
The kickboxer swallowed hard.
Even from two paces away, the crimson Combat Aura rippling off Ren was visibly
distorting the air, suffocating the lungs.
[DRIVE RUSH]!
VOOM!
Ren exploded forward, closing the distance to throw a clean right straight.
The kickboxer let out a panicked yelp, planting his heels and locking his
forearms into an impenetrable double-cover guard!
If I can't out-speed him, I'll turtle! I won't let him get a clean finish!
BAM!
Ren's right straight tapped the kickboxer's forearms lightly.
Blocked?!
Before the kickboxer could register relief, Ren canceled the recoil into a
lateral pivot, executing a secondary [DRIVE RUSH] that warped his silhouette
around the man's flank!
Whish!
The kickboxer's eyes bulged. He couldn't track the vector!
Ren's open left palm pressed lightly against the side of the kickboxer's jaw.
[RYU: HASHOGEKI]!
KABOOM!!
The kickboxer froze instantly. His brain misfired, hallucinating his jaw being
pulverized into dust, his tongue severed, his vision drowning in a torrent of
simulated blood.
Seeing the man lock up in phantom shock, Ren couldn't help but chuckle.
"Hey, pal. We're in the middle of a scrap. You can't just abandon your offense
from frame one."
Ren's hands blurred, lightly tapping various vital points across the frozen
man's frame while providing his own sound effects:
"Pop! Pow-pow! Whack! Boom! Bam!"
Finally, Ren reached out, his fingers gently peeling open the kickboxer's rigid
arm-guard.
The kickboxer stood there in pure despair, feeling as though his ribs and liver
had just been shattered by forty heavy rounds. He was a puddle of mental jelly.
"Phew..."
Ren was drenched in sweat, his chest heaving with exertion. He looked the
kickboxer in the eye, grinning like a neighborhood kid.
"Look at that, man. You couldn't block a single one of 'em!"
The kickboxer stared back, trembling. "H-Haha... yeah... thanks for sparing my
life..."
The sheer absurdity of it broke his mind. Suddenly, he felt a warm wetness
spreading down his thighs. He panicked, looking down to see if his groin had
been ruptured.
No blood.
He had literally wet himself from sheer phantom terror.
"WAAAAAH—!!"
His face turning bright red, the kickboxer broke free from Ren's grip,
scrambling into the shadows to find a change of pants.
Footsteps rustled through the alleys.
Ren wiped the sweat from his forehead, expecting another wave of challengers.
The street was empty.
The heavyweights of the Three Wolves sector had broken. They were scattering
into the dark, vanishing into the maze of the Ward.
Not a single soul stood before him.
The "Strength" of the sector had been systematically dismantled.
And Ren Shiroki stood alone in the ruins—the undisputed victor.
☆☆☆
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