CHAPTER 87 Echo of the Blow

A cold, damp wind swept in from the north, carrying the scent of approaching winter and the decay of fallen leaves. Heavy, leaden clouds hung over the hidden basalt valley, almost scraping against the jagged peaks of the surrounding cliffs. The daylight was pale, harsh, and devoid of any warmth. Dave stood in the center of the arena, the freezing gusts tossing his dark blond hair and lashing his bare, densely bruised chest. Every muscle in his body was tense, primed for immediate reaction, and his breath escaped his lips as thick plumes of white steam.

Before him stood the old man. But this time, the Master did not resemble the hunched, barefoot blacksmith Dave saw daily by the campfire.

Sensei was fully armored. He wore a massive, scratched, and heavily dented plate armor that hung on his body like the iron plating of a mobile monolith. The metal plates were thick, dull, and bore the scars of countless past encounters. Every piece of the armor—from the massive pauldrons and the broad breastplate to the heavy greaves—seemed designed solely to absorb and destroy any physical force. In his right, steel-gauntleted hand, the old man held the same heavy bamboo staff, which now looked almost delicate beside him, though Dave knew what a lethal weapon it was in the Master's hands.

"No more childish dodging games, kid," the old man's harsh voice, muffled by the steel helmet, carried across the valley. "You've mastered precision, but now it is time for a lesson in weight. Steel does not forgive mistakes, and mass does not care about your agility."

Before Dave could respond, the armored figure of the old man shifted.

It was unnatural. The heavy armor, which should have weighed dozens of kilograms and drastically limited movement, in no way slowed the old Master down. The old man moved with inhuman speed, the heavy steel plates colliding with a dull, rhythmic clatter as he closed the distance dividing him from the boy. The ground beneath his heavy boots literally trembled, and the momentum he generated in a split second unleashed a powerful rush of wind.

The bamboo staff sliced through the air with a loud whistle, aiming directly at Dave's side.

The boy immediately tried to execute his proven, minimalist dodge using his Lynx Footwork. He arched his torso back, trying to let the strike pass centimeters from his chest. But this time, the physics of the collision were entirely different. The momentum carried by the old man's armored mass violently compressed the air between them. The resulting wave of pressure literally pushed Dave sideways, disrupting his perfect balance on the slippery plate.

Worse, the width and sheer bulk of Sensei's armored silhouette drastically shrank his safety zone. Dave had no free space to fluidly slip past his opponent. The bamboo staff, dociążony by the ruthless mass of the armor, changed its trajectory in mid-air.

THUD!

The hard wood struck Dave directly in the ribs. The force of the blow was so immense that the boy was literally swept off his feet. He flew several meters through the air before hitting his back against one of the hard, vertical basalt pillars standing at the edge of the arena. The dull, painful sound of a body colliding with stone echoed through the valley, and the dry leaves lying at the base of the pillar swirled into the air.

Dave slid down onto the damp earth, breathing heavily. A sharp, searing pain instantly exploded in his side, and every breath felt like hot needles piercing his lungs. He felt that at least two of his ribs were cracked, and blood rushed to his mouth, staining his lips a deep red.

Yet the boy did not allow himself even a single second of weakness. In accordance with the iron discipline he had forged through months of katorga, he instantly suppressed the entire emotional layer of suffering. Pain was not a cause for panic—it was merely a raw, physical message of a positioning error and a poor distance calculation.

He rose slowly, leaning his back against the cool basalt. He spat blood onto the damp moss and stood barefoot back on his feet.

In a split second, he fell into his brief, habitual gesture of deep calculation, his sapphire eye narrowing as he analyzed every detail of the moving fortress standing before him.

The old man in that armor moves like a living battering ram, Dave analyzed in his mind, ignoring the pulsing pain in his side. Yomi I perfectly registers his movements and intent, but the mass of the armor and the violent rush of air mean my traditional, minimalist dodges lose their validity. The aerodynamic force literally pushes me off my trajectory, and the width of his silhouette cuts off my escape routes. If I only run and try to dance around him, he will eventually corner me and break my bones for good. The "Quick" style and the Inertia Lock are useless—I have no way to drive a precise wedge of fingers into soft tendons when everything is hidden beneath a centimeter of hardened steel. I must change my approach. I must take this collision head-on, neutralize his momentum with a direct block, and then strike with the full power of Napierdalanka exactly in the split second he transfers his weight after a swing.

Dave lowered his hands, and that familiar, annoying brazen chill slowly returned to his bloody lips.

"The tin can protects well, Sensei," Dave said, his voice, though slightly raspy, radiating absolute self-confidence. "But every machine, even the best-armored one, has its critical point where its entire mass turns against it."

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The old man beneath the helmet laughed throatily, a sound that resonated with dangerous power.

"Less talking, kid, and more showing. Steel doesn't care about your theories!" the Master barked and charged forward again.

This time, Dave had no intention of running. He took a wide, stable step on the basalt plate, planting his bare feet firmly against the rough stone. He began to slowly, steadily push the KAI energy from the depths of his soul, directing it directly into his arms and fists.

He activated his Gōtai armoring.

A black, metallic coating slowly covered his forearms, hands, and fingers, gleaming with a predatory, matte sheen in the pale light of the autumn sun. His skin gained the hardness and density of tank armor, but Dave took utmost care to ensure his joints remained completely relaxed. This was the most difficult part of the method the old man had been pounding into his head for the past weeks. Unlike crude hardening that turned the body into a slow, rigid mass, Gōtai allowed Dave to retain one hundred percent of his biological flexibility and gibkość. His muscles and tendons still worked like tense, springy ropes, ready for whip-like, lightning-fast movement, even though his hands now possessed the density of steel.

Sensei reached him in a split second. The bamboo staff lashed out from the side, carrying the massive, destructive momentum of the steel armor.

Dave did not flinch. He raised his left forearm coated in the black Gōtai armoring, taking the blow directly.

CLANG!

The metallic, deafening sound of the collision rang through the entire valley, flushing the birds in the neighboring forest. The force of the impact was so great that the dust around Dave's feet was violently blown away. The bones of his forearm creaked under the massive pressure, and the shockwave passed through his entire body, trying to tear his joints from his shoulders. But the Gōtai armoring held flawlessly—the black coating did not even crack, and the flexibility of his muscles absorbed the lion's share of the impact.

Dave instantly capitalized on the split second his Master's heavy staff rebounded off his black defense, and the momentum of the armor temporarily locked the old man's foot to the ground.

The boy made a dynamic, short step forward, closing the distance to an absolute minimum. He found himself directly in front of the old man's broad breastplate.

His right fist, armored in the black Gōtai coating, drew back to his side, and Dave concentrated all the violent KAI energy of his soul into a single, dense point. He did not look for any gaps in the armor. He did not try to aim for rivets or plate joints. This was not the Quick style.

This was pure, uncompromising Napierdalanka.

Dave unleashed a powerful, whip-like strike with a rotation of his hip, releasing all the accumulated force exactly at the millisecond of physical contact between his fist and the old man's steel breastplate.

BOOM!

The sound of the impact was so powerful, it was as if an explosive charge had detonated in the middle of the valley. The air around them violently shuddered, and the shockwave rippled outward in concentric circles, shredding the dry leaves on the basalt plate.

The physics of the strike worked perfectly. Thanks to the flawless synchronization of timing and flexibility, Dave created a zero-resistance flow—the massive kinetic force did not disperse across the surface of the metal, nor did it recoil back into his own arm to destroy his joints. The entire energy, dociążona by the sapphire flow of KAI, penetrated directly through the thick steel plate of the armor like a seismic wave and exploded inside the old man's body structure.

The effect was devastating.

The massive steel breastplate buckled deeply inward with a loud, metallic groan, forming a cracked indentation in the shape of Dave's clenched fist. Sensei—for the first time in many months—completely lost his balance. The kinetic force literally lifted his heavy, armored figure backward. The old man stumbled back three violent, uncoordinated steps, his heavy metal boots scraping deep furrows into the damp earth of the arena as he desperately tried to maintain his footing.

Dave slowly withdrew his hand. The black Gōtai coating slowly began to fade from his skin, yielding to its natural color, and a delicate, sapphire vapor of heated soul energy rose from his fingers. The boy stood barefoot in the center of the shattered arena, breathing heavily, but that same annoying, brazen chill instantly returned to his bloody lips.

He had proven to himself that his analytical engineering calculations were flawless. Napierdalanka worked exactly as he had planned—it did not bypass the armor, but carried the destructive force through the metal, destroying the target from within without wasting energy.

The old man finally stopped at the very edge of the arena. The steel breastplate on his chest was deeply deformed, and a faint wisp of smoke escaped from the metal cracks. Sensei stood for a moment in complete stillness, keeping his head low.

Suddenly, he raised his hands and slowly unbuckled the steel clasps of his helmet. He lifted it off his head and tossed it to the ground, where it landed with a loud, metallic crash.

On the wrinkled, scarred face of the old blacksmith, there was no anger or frustration. Instead, a broad, predatory, pride-filled smile of a craftsman bloomed—one who, after months of grueling work, finally saw his apprentice beginning to shape something truly dangerous. The old man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, where a thin thread of blood had appeared—proof that the kinetic wave of Napierdalanka had reached his inside despite the centimeter-thick steel.

"True, ruthless young violence, kid," the old man rasped, his eyes burning with a predatory fire. "You've grasped the principle. Force does not fight the steel; it uses it as a conductor. You transferred the energy cleanly, without kinetic losses in your joints."

The old man took a step forward, his massive figure still commanding respect despite the battered armor.

"But do not think this is the end," Sensei continued, his smile becoming even more dangerous. "Your force transfer still has small leaks. You waste too much energy on the sides, letting the shockwave escape through the edges of the armor instead of sending it in a straight line deep into my body. Furthermore, the steel plate on the pillar stood still, and I gave you too much time to prepare your stance. In a real fight, no one will allow you such luxury."

The old man rested his bamboo staff on his shoulder, his voice becoming low, heavy, and filled with uncompromising rigor.

"From tomorrow, we will weigh down your legs with additional basalt, and your energy splotches will be blocked even tighter. You will have to generate Napierdalanka from minimal distance, with no run-up, standing on one leg in the freezing water of the stream. Welcome to the ninth month of katorga, kid."

Dave narrowed his sapphire eye, his dark blond hair falling over his forehead as a sudden, hot ignition of motivation flared deep in his soul. He slowly clenched his right hand into a fist, and the air around his fingers instantly shuddered with a sudden, niszczycielskie pressure of his will, cracking the damp moss with a dry pop.

He knew that weeks of pure, physical hell lay ahead. But he also knew that with each passing day of this hell, he was becoming a monster that no one in Crossgard would be able to stop.