Daisy was zoning out when she suddenly noticed the shouting nearby had stopped. She turned her head sharply.
The Thunderer was beckoning to her.
If she had any say in it, Daisy would have preferred Yu-Ti as her teacher. The man in the blue robe gave off a presence second only to the Ancient One's. Anyone who could train martial arts to that level would probably shatter the void itself in a high-cultivation world.
The Thunderer in front of her, by contrast, was definitely stronger than Madame Gao, but looked roughly on par with Daisy as she stood now.
"Attack me. Let me see what you can do." Lei Kung waved the disciples back and gestured for Daisy to open the bout.
Daisy threw a hard punch off to the side. A pale red glow flickered, fire curling around her fist, and the air shattered like glass under the impact.
She splayed her fingers to indicate she'd used only half her strength, then met Lei Kung's eyes. Can you take this?
Even pulled, the punch had torn a hole through nearly thirty cubic meters (1,060 cubic feet) of empty air. The sheer ferocity of it cut the disciples to instant silence. Before, her shockwaves had been invisible and intangible, not particularly impressive to watch. Now, threaded with a strand of Phoenix fire, who knew how much more powerful they were; but the visual effect was undeniable.
Anyone with eyes could see that punch was almost impossible to withstand. The disciples heard what sounded like the air itself cracking, and instinctively imagined the force translating through their own bones.
None of them could have blocked it.
Young Danny Rand was outright stunned. Daisy wasn't like the people here; instinct told him that much. In K'un-Lun, women held a lower status, and a woman with serious martial ability was practically unheard of.
A woman who could punch a hole through the air? He hadn't seen one. He hadn't even heard of one.
Lei Kung paid no attention to the disciples' various reactions. He nodded at Daisy's punch, then shook his head.
"Too much spread. Outside of intimidating people, it doesn't have much practical use."
Daisy actually agreed. Anyone fast enough would simply dodge. Anyone tough enough, like the Hulk or Juggernaut, could just take it.
The technique was excellent for showing off. In actual combat, she rarely used it anymore.
Still committed to her mute act, she snapped off two quick punches at full speed, the air cracking like thunder.
Then she looked at Lei Kung again. Can you actually take this? Would be a shame if I killed you by accident.
Lei Kung didn't even glance at the display. He drew the ring-pommel saber from his back and tossed it aside, settling into a stance: left foot forward, right foot back, both fists drawn tight against his chest. He waited for her to come at him.
The Lei Kung who had stepped into combat mode was an entirely different man. The shift was something Daisy recognized: the activation of chi.
His chi flowed through his whole body in an instant, and in that instant, Lei Kung went from "not particularly strong" to "potentially dangerous opponent." Daisy's attitude sharpened immediately.
In this world, "martial arts master" didn't necessarily mean frightening. Among the so-called Five Fingers, in Daisy's reckoning, Madame Gao was several times more dangerous than Bakuto.
Bakuto shifted from body to body, used his exquisite swordsmanship to keep his youthful form while enjoying every worldly pleasure. Madame Gao, even with chi to regulate her body, looked ancient by now.
On the surface, Bakuto was forever young, forever indulging in whatever the world offered. Madame Gao was a creepy old crone. The gap in their spiritual level couldn't have been sharper.
But Madame Gao's restraint paid dividends. Four hundred years of accumulated chi meant she made real progress every day. Swordsmanship couldn't deliver that.
If Madame Gao trained for a thousand years, she might be able to arm-wrestle the Hulk. Bakuto's swordplay? It was good for bullying Daredevil. Not much else.
And Lei Kung's chi wasn't weaker than Madame Gao's. If anything, it was stronger.
His powerfully built body, still in its prime unlike the aging Madame Gao, could deliver chi at its full, unrestricted potential. Daisy dropped her nonchalance. She circled him at half a turn. With her own half-baked grasp of martial arts, she couldn't spot a single opening.
She knew she couldn't trade techniques with him. She wasn't going to play his game. She'd play hers.
Offense as defense. Daisy locked in her plan quickly.
It wasn't her usual style to go in showy and loud, but right now there was something burning in her chest. She didn't want to study his forms. She didn't want to spend her time guessing at answers. She wanted to find someone roughly in her weight class and just fight.
Lei Kung looked neither too strong nor too weak. Perfect.
She closed on him in a series of sharp, driving steps, her aura swelling around her, formidable as a hawk diving from the sky. Her nails snapped out, claws blessed by Bast the Panther Goddess, five short blades aimed straight for the Thunderer's chest.
The killing intent that erupted from her in that instant drove the disciples back. The earlier sniggering and dismissal evaporated. They had been born in K'un-Lun, they had fought creatures from other dimensions; but a presence of that almost-tangible bloodlust was something none of them had encountered.
"Good!" Lei Kung roared, his own aura surging to match hers. As the distance closed, his body seemed to swell with chi, muscles bunching like cables. His right hand straightened into a vertical palm, locked onto Daisy's position, and chopped down. The wind off it was savage. The sound was the same air-cracking shriek as her own punches, and his speed and power were every bit a match for hers.
Daisy didn't try to block. She stepped off the line, slipping past his front, her right hand still in its claw form, going straight for the side of his neck. However potent his chi, if she landed her grip, he was a dead man.
Lei Kung stood nearly six foot three (190 cm), but he wasn't slow. He dropped his head, twisted his body to evade the strike, then in the same motion, with a swing of his hips and an extension of his arm, drove a strike like wind and thunder straight at Daisy head-on.
Trading punches with someone like the Hulk was a death wish. Trading punches with this Thunderer? Daisy had no problem with that. We'll see who flinches first.
She had no special technique for generating force, but with her acceleration and her powers, she could deliver impossible amounts of it.
She pulled her right hand back, dug both feet into the stone, drove from the hips, and channeled both her power and her physical strength into her left fist. She met his punch coming in.
Lei Kung's art was something Daisy couldn't place. His strikes carried the sound of wind and thunder, and the longer the fight ran, the more chi he burned through, the louder the sound became.
Daisy wouldn't be outdone. She let out a sharp shout, her fist tearing through the air. The disciples heard a thin, ringing note, like a bell. Her power kindled the Phoenix fire inside her, and her whole fist burst into flame, wrapped in heat so intense it warped the air, and slammed head-on into Lei Kung's wind-and-thunder strike.
Boom.
The shock detonated like a bomb. The disciples watching the bout scrambled back. Thirteen-year-old Danny Rand stood frozen, staring at the destruction the two of them had wrought. He had only just begun to climb out from under the grief of losing both parents, ready to devote himself wholeheartedly to martial arts; the martial arts he'd imagined did not look anything like this, a bomb going off on the training ground.
He didn't know where Daisy had come from. But he knew Lei Kung. The stern giant who only ever drilled them in physical conditioning—Danny had never realized he was this powerful.