No Art Can Defend Against It

Unlike Xia Mi, who was practically itching for a fight.

Li Lin set his backpack in the corner of the room and walked toward Xia Mi across the polished mahogany floor with a sigh. Xia Mi was pulling out a hair tie to gather her long hair into a high ponytail.

He had enjoyed sparring in his previous life too, but having Xia Mi as his opponent was an entirely different experience.

It would not be an exaggeration to compare the pressure Xia Mi put on Li Lin in battle to a roaring mountain and crashing sea.

The Dragon-Slaying Binding System could indeed let him learn Xia Mi's exquisite techniques without a teacher, but it could not synchronize his awareness and experience...

Li Lin considered himself battle-hardened, yet when facing this slender, delicate-looking girl "his own age," he often felt as if she had no openings at all.

Whenever he threw a punch, he would catch Xia Mi's gaze following it. It was as though she had seen through every one of his intentions and was merely deliberately taking techniques she "couldn't block."

Like a grandmaster who had comprehended martial arts to the fullest, deliberately disguising herself as someone evenly matched with Li Lin during their sparring.

With the system's assistance, Li Lin could quickly turn the tables after a brief adjustment.

So Xia Mi would "improve" as well. Otherwise, Li Lin would easily surpass her.

At the very least, every time they stood facing each other, Xia Mi made sure her martial arts were a notch above Li Lin's for a short while.

Like now.

Xia Mi had long since tossed her backpack aside, taken off her school uniform jacket, and slipped out of her sandals. Wearing only a T-shirt and shorts, she stood by the window beneath the sunlight. Her pale skin carried a peach-pink glow; every line of her body was soft and delicate, every inch of skin smooth as jade. It made one suddenly understand what the ancients meant by "skin like ice, bones like jade."

Fortunately, Li Lin had developed some resistance to Xia Mi's looks, which had soared along with her age. He watched her every move nervously. He had once personally seen her split a stack of tiles taller than a person with a single knifehand strike; even if he had Zhao Zilong's courage, he would not dare let down his guard while fighting Xia Mi.

The hand Xia Mi held aloft was small and delicate, and the feet planted on the wooden floor were slender and fine as sculpted artwork. Yet to Li Lin, they were more terrifying than a .600-caliber revolver.

Li Lin had barely assumed a fighting stance when Xia Mi lightly performed several somewhat unfamiliar forms in place. It took him a while to sense something familiar in them—light and nimble, yet carrying a distinctive forceful, heavy ferocity.

"Baji Quan?" he asked tentatively.

"It is Baji Quan fused with a little Wing Chun. But according to modern martial arts naming conventions, you can call it Xia-style Baji Quan now."

"Xia's Eight Strikes sounds better."

Hearing Li Lin tear it down, Xia Mi shot him an unhappy look like a kitten whose food bowl had been overturned. An invisible cat tail seemed to be swishing behind her.

Knowing his tactic of disrupting Xia Mi's thoughts had worked, Li Lin hurriedly retreated to lengthen the time she needed to close in and give himself more room for error in blocking and counterattacking.

Since it incorporated Wing Chun, it probably included the famed Inch Jin. Besides, Baji Quan was known for being "fierce and explosive, with short movements and dangerous stances." Li Lin had no desire to use his body to take it head-on.

Xia Mi waved her clenched little fist at Li Lin and did not continue bickering as he had hoped.

From Li Lin's perspective, Xia Mi's shadow, which had been cast onto the floor by the sunlight, suddenly vanished.

She was already there.

Her elbow was a spear, her shoulder a battering ram. Her whole body was like a derailed, runaway train car, crashing within three feet of Li Lin with a howl that tore through the air. The essence of Baji Quan's Mountain-Leaning Strike was to slam the enemy into a wall—and smash through the wall behind them as well!

It was hard to imagine that a girl about to enter her second year of high school could train such an unyielding, ferocious hard skill.

Perhaps that was why Cassel College had been willing to give Xia Mi, whose bloodline had yet to awaken, an A-rank bloodline assessment.

Xia Mi's charge was a fraction faster than Li Lin had expected.

Clearly, she had "improved" again.

The gust of force rushing at him, together with the notification window that suddenly blocked his vision, nearly scared Li Lin into seeing his life flash before his eyes.

[Xia Mi displayed her progress in martial arts. Your understanding of "Baji" and "Wing Chun" has improved slightly.]

Fortunately, Li Lin had long grown used to fighting with his sight taken away.

Though Li Lin had reincarnated before reaching fifteen in his previous life, most Benders possessed the talent to sense and manipulate a particular element. They generally used bodily movements to complete this delicate and complex process.

This had also given Li Lin considerable combat experience and a foundation in martial arts. In particular, the defect of being born blind had made him accustomed to sensing vibrations in the air or ground. Often, his body could react faster than his eyes.

The instant Xia Mi crashed into close range, Li Lin had already extended both hands, pressing them against her shoulder and arm respectively. At the same time, he turned his body and used Tai Chi to deflect the Mountain-Leaning Strike.

Xia Mi immediately changed moves, raising her pale foot and stomping hard on Li Lin's knee. Then she thrust both palms forward and broke free from his hold.

Li Lin seized the opening after Xia Mi's old force had faded but before her new force could emerge, launching a pursuit. His hands hooked forward in rapid succession, index and middle fingers extended like a praying mantis's forelimbs as they pecked toward Xia Mi's temples.

Xia Mi raised both fists, and her arms actually sent out whistling cracks through the air. Her long hair, tied into a ponytail, came loose again. She sharply tossed her head, using her hair to disrupt Li Lin's punches, then lowered her waist and knocked aside his pursuit with both arms.

"Move like a drawn bow, strike like exploding thunder." The girl drove her right fist forward, her left hand following close behind in a palm strike, preparing to unleash Baji Quan's notoriously vicious Cross Jin.

As long as the horizontal stroke of that Cross Jin landed, regardless of whether she could follow it with the vertical stroke aided by a dropped shoulder, sinking elbow, and stomping foot, Li Lin would be dragged completely into an extremely close-range grapple.

If Li Lin could still manipulate the earth element as freely as he had in his previous life, he would never have let Xia Mi get close. He could even have wrapped himself in rock and relied on armor to fight her at close quarters.

Unfortunately, he could only take it head-on now.

Though the girl looked slender and fragile, and her punches and kicks could not exactly be called powerful and heavy, every one of her moves seemed to find the most vulnerable spot on Li Lin's flesh. Once they landed, he could not help baring his teeth in pain.

Xia Mi, on the other hand, suffered even greater pain due to the difference in their physiques, yet her expression only grew more excited and delighted. Every now and then, she would even deliberately expose an opening and take Li Lin's counterattack.

The dull booms of flesh and bone colliding reverberated through the empty gymnasium as densely as raindrops.

A full half hour later, the bruised and battered boy and girl finally stopped. Even the teacher in charge outside, who had been ready to rush in and call a halt at any moment, let out a sigh of relief.

Watching Xia Mi and Li Lin pick up their respective backpacks and leave the gymnasium chatting and laughing as if nothing had happened, he subconsciously counted the crisscrossing red swelling and bruises on Xia Mi's devastatingly beautiful face. For a moment, he could not tell whether he ought to pity Li Lin or Xia Mi.

Some children's youth was squandered beside the desks of literature clubs, dreaming impractical daydreams. In those dreams, they wished they could hang themselves in front of the beautiful girl they liked just to draw her attention.

And some children's youth was spent fighting beautiful girls to the death every day in the gymnasium or on the school rooftop.