Fierce Might

When "Blossom Bomb" Anthony's skull caved in and he hung crookedly from that rod, "Rainstorm Blade" Longkoni's mind went blank for an instant.

—What just happened?

—The sandstorm was so strong, and the sun was behind him. He was backlit when he looked at us. We could barely see him clearly, so how had he plotted such a precise attack route and defeated Anthony in one stroke?

Cybernetic prosthetics could withstand bullets better than natural flesh, but that did not mean cyborgs could ignore bullets.

If transmission components were hit by bullets, they would deform, twist, and eventually fail.

If sensory components were hit, cyborgs would likewise lose their ability to perceive.

If the power core was hit, the prosthetic body would lose power and become scrap metal.

Repeatedly striking one point on external armor with bullets could eventually fatigue the metal and tear it apart.

If a martial artist who had mastered the Gunfire Way controlled the space between himself and his enemy, then he was invincible.

Longkoni still remembered what Anthony had achieved when their group ambushed the thugs who came into the city to scout. Torn battle armor, exploding engines, splattered fluid, scattered parts—those were results completely unlike those of his martial arts.

They had killed thirty-seven thugs in total. Longkoni believed that he, Anthony, and Paulus could harvest the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, and even fortieth here.

After all, a martial artist's prosthetic body should not attract overly powerful thugs.

But... what was this?

Weren't the artificial eyes of Gunfire Way martial artists superior to those of ordinary martial artists?

Why had Anthony been forced back first?

How had this giant done it?

"Facts" and "speculation" had diverged severely. Whenever this happened, humans tended to believe conclusions drawn from "experience." This was a self-preservation mechanism of weak creatures. Humanity's ancestors had to associate "rustling in the grass" with "predators lurking in the grass," or they might die.

Of course, the rustling of grass might have been caused by wind or insects. Perhaps the naked eye could see grass swaying in the wind and insects hopping across it. But even then, one still needed to think, It could be a beast. Those who believed the latter had a better chance of avoiding predators and passing on their genes.

In game theory terms... "risk avoidance can be regarded as a form of profit."

Thus, the brains of these martial organisms froze under the shock.

But the Martial Arts Algorithm continued executing with meticulous precision. The control chip read the "fight or flight" response and instantly formed a countermeasure. The mantis-like twin blades on Longkoni's back unfolded, while blades sprang from both forearms. High-frequency vibrations traveled from within Longkoni's body into the blades. These blades were not particularly good. They had not been forged in a laboratory and fell far short of the standard for Phonon Sabers, but high-frequency vibration cutting was technology humanity had used in industry even before the New Era.

It was precisely because of this technology that bladed weapons had a chance to cleave steel, and swords had not been rendered obsolete by clubs.

As Anthony's legs gave way and he slowly descended toward the ground, Longkoni had already charged out. Four blades spread open like four silver serpents biting at the giant's right wrist. This saber technique was called Four Saints Test Zen Mind. Its blade paths were fierce, but it was not a committed move. The internal engine was not running at full power, and numerous variable-speed shafts were poised to act, allowing him to swiftly change techniques at the slightest shift. The paths formed by the four blades were topologically isomorphic with another one hundred and twenty-eight blade patterns, concealing endless variations and responses to one thousand and twenty-four common situations.

The giant merely sneered. "Your mind has scattered. Your moves are nothing more than a Turing Machine's output. You dare use this level of skill against an enemy?"

As he spoke, the giant still carried the steel rod on his shoulder. He merely lowered his right wrist and used half the rod to flick left and right, unraveling the topology and dispersing the blade paths. Longkoni felt that the opponent was weaker than him in both speed and strength, yet for some reason rod shadows surrounded him on all sides. He wielded all four blades and struggled to resist, but the long rod never struck the edges of his blades. It only jabbed repeatedly at their spines. Driven by that force, Longkoni barely redirected it and circled his blade paths.

The giant jabbed again and again, as though spinning a top.

The steel rod never even left his shoulder.

"I'll do it!" "Main Battle Tank" Paulus roared. He burst forward with both legs, his right arm shielding his face while his left hand drove out in a straightforward punch.

This style of boxing was called Mecha Steel Fist. Legend said it was the first boxing art created by the progenitor of martial arts and the Father of All Machines when they invented cyber martial arts, and it was also the most widespread martial art in the world. Nearly every martial artist had some way of acquiring the Martial Arts Algorithm for this boxing style.

However, the algorithm for Mecha Steel Fist already included every fundamental set of martial strategies. Experts could dismantle the wisdom of martial combat games from the very foundations of this algorithm. Over the past century, some martial artists had even used Mecha Steel Fist to reach the finals of the Paralympics.

The giant still carried the rod on his shoulder, but his lower body sank into a crouch, lowering the height of his shoulder slightly. He used the other end of the steel rod to pick aside that punch—the steel fist weighing nearly a ton!

—Got him... no!

The sensation was strange. The readings from his transmission system indicated that Paulus's fist should have struck the giant. Yet it brushed past the giant's armor instead. The difference was truly a hair's breadth.

"Borrowing force to redirect force," "using four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds"—in emotional terms, it was like guiding the enemy's attack, personally pouring oil onto the enemy's fire, making him lose control of his rhythm and causing his attack to miss.

Of course, that was all nonsense.

Any force could be broken down into arbitrary component forces, and any forces acting on the same object could be treated as a single resultant force. Applying force to a moving object could alter its state of motion.

As long as the magnitude and direction of that force were correct, the object's trajectory could change as desired.

As long as the magnitude and direction were appropriate, even a force much smaller than the attack itself could deflect its trajectory.

This process required no mathematics beyond calculus. A computer could perform it easily.

As long as the sensory processor was functioning properly, any martial artist could do it by applying the formula F=ma.

Of course, combat between martial artists was not so simple. Changes in techniques, the release and withdrawal of force, and even combat tricks all involved games on a higher level.

Paulus had anticipated this—this was merely the mark of Outer-School Martial Arts entering the hall. He had anticipated it long ago. After his right hand, which had been protecting his head and face, blocked the steel rod's thrust, the twenty-seven punches of See All Beings poured forth in an instant.

In the hands of an ordinary martial artist, this technique held not the slightest power. But Paulus could turn the mundane into the miraculous. He had already used this move, See All Beings, to smash five thugs until their entire bodies warped and their heads burst open.

Every thug killed by See All Beings had worn disbelief in his eyes—they could not believe they had been defeated by such an ordinary boxing technique.

But the giant was not that kind of thug.

The giant still resisted while carrying the rod on his shoulder. He still used no technique, merely stirring Paulus's punching momentum with force-borrowing methods, like parting grass to find snakes.

Paulus's fists struck the rod, their force traveling through it into Longkoni. Longkoni's blades resisted the rod, then sent it rebounding through the reaction force, striking Paulus.

"Your intent is far too slow," the giant said. "By the time the algorithm has prepared your techniques, your intentions have yet to catch up. After your techniques fly out, your intent crawls after them like a turtle. Before games on a higher dimension, your brains offer no help at all. At this level, you still dare come out to help in a fight?"

Paulus ignored the man's mockery. His steel-forged arms continued repeating See All Beings, punching without pause. The sound of clashing steel drowned out everything else.

Perhaps two seconds... or three?

Some balance suddenly broke. Paulus's fist struck the tail end of the steel rod. The giant Leif failed to hold onto it, and the rod drove along the giant's shoulder toward Longkoni like a battering ram. Longkoni dropped to one knee and used the blade on his right shoulder to block the strike. In only one second, the steel arm of his right shoulder blade could no longer bear the force and shattered with a crash. But in that moment of force dispersal, Longkoni's right leg suddenly sprang up. He used the broken metal arm to brace the steel rod, changed direction as he leaped, and planted both feet on the rod, charging toward the giant's exposed head with superior footwork.

Paulus also raised both fists, and See Heaven and Earth was already unleashed.

—This is my method of counterattack!

Paulus knew that his heavy prosthetic body, built for strength, and Longkoni's light prosthetic body, built for agility, differed enormously in output. It would have been one thing if the giant had gripped the rod properly. But until now, he had only used his wrist, elbow, and shoulder to control it, and he had stubbornly relied only on force-borrowing methods. Within a few exchanges, the balance between the two ends of the rod would break.

That was their opportunity!

Longkoni unleashed Double-Dealing. He had long considered the possibility of losing one blade and had prepared a specialized martial art for precisely this situation. Three streaks of silver light darted like venomous snakes toward the sensory ornaments on the giant's head.

—We're going to win!

—Pay for your arrogance...

Then the giant turned his head.

The final frame in Longkoni's consciousness was the giant's artificial eyes, glowing with a bloody light.

It was as though the time in between had been deleted. Longkoni lost several frames of vision. When he regained perception, he had already jumped too high, soaring into the air to the giant's left.

The giant held the steel rod in a swinging posture. Paulus had already been sent flying more than ten meters away.

A steel divine soldier weighing over a ton had been knocked away with that single swing. Leif's posture was as casual as if he were playing golf.

At the instant Longkoni lost perception, when the rod was about to slip free, the giant flipped his wrist and seized its tail end. Then he applied centripetal force, changing the rod's linear motion into circular motion, sweeping aside Paulus's punch at exactly the right moment.

And Longkoni's prosthetic body had leaped on its own, as though out of his control, causing his killing move to strike empty air entirely.

—Wh... bzzz... y...

Longkoni crashed to the ground, his mind completely blank.