Huh?!
Nameless had thought the big man was as good as dead, but he immediately sensed something was wrong.
He sprang back. The instant he retreated, the big man abruptly changed his move and swept his axe sideways, nearly cutting Nameless in half at the waist.
"Hard qigong?"
Nameless looked at the big man and asked.
The big man clearly had no intention of telling Nameless what he practiced. He wasn't some villain in an anime or novel who delighted in explaining his abilities to an opponent. That would be asking for trouble.
Unless an ability had no weakness, revealing it to an opponent was as good as revealing its weakness too.
Nameless wasn't disappointed. He dodged the big man's next flurry of attacks, then suddenly slashed the back of his head.
He slipped past the big man's sweeping axe and slashed his neck.
"I thought it was a body-hardening art like the Golden Bell Shield or Iron Cloth Shirt, with a vulnerable spot somewhere. Turns out it's something more interesting," Nameless said with a smile.
With those two strikes, he had aimed for relatively vulnerable parts of the big man's body. Both were exposed, yet the blows had produced different results.
The slash to the back of his head hadn't left a mark. The second slash, to his neck, had left a faint white line.
That meant the big man hadn't defended the second strike properly. This wasn't a body-hardening art. It seemed more like a technique that concentrated internal force at a particular point for defense.
Only when the big man saw an attack coming, or predicted where Nameless would strike, could he move his internal force there and avoid injury.
If he couldn't see it coming or react in time, he would be hurt.
Once Nameless understood