CHAPTER 89 The Ultimate Sparring

Winter was arriving in the hidden basalt valley slowly but ruthlessly, casting a heavy, icy shadow over everything that had managed to survive the autumn chills. Over the jagged, sharp edges of the surrounding stone cliffs hung massive, leaden clouds that almost brushed the tops of the stunted oak trees at the edge of the clearing. From the cold, silent sky, the first thick, dry snow began to fall. White, fine flakes lazily drifted down onto the cracked, dark plates of the arena, melting in a split second upon contact with the rough ground, which still radiated the residual warmth of months of daily sparrings and katorga.

Dave stood in the very center of this harsh, misty landscape. He wore only loose, dark trousers made of raw linen, and his dark blond hair was already lightly dusted with white powder. A cold, gusty wind lashed with a wild whistle his bare chest, which was densely covered in fresh, purple bruises and old, jagged scars, but the boy did not even flinch. His breath escaped his lips in steady, thick, high plumes of white steam, and a cold, deep rigor flickered in his gaze, displacing all traces of fatigue.

Opposite him, at a distance of about a dozen paces, stood the old man. His massive, hunched, but still unnaturally agile silhouette was fully covered in scratched, cracked, and deeply dented plate armor from recent strikes. The heavy steel pauldrons and broad breastplate seemed to almost merge with the surrounding basalt, creating a barrier impossible to penetrate. Sensei held a new, exceptionally heavy bamboo staff in his hand, made from the hardest, old growth found deep in the forest wilderness. The air around the master was rapidly thickening, and gravity on the arena itself felt strangely heavy, as if pressing the swirling snowflakes to the ground. In his clouded, predatory eyes, looking out from behind the cracked visor of his steel helmet, there was no longer a trace of his former, rough gentleness—a freezing, ruthless, and pure battle intent burned within them.

"You've shown you can shut down nerves and shatter steel on dead, motionless pillars, kid," the old man spoke, his voice muffled by the iron sounding like the grinding of two great river boulders rubbing against each other. "But an enemy in the real world won't wait for your turn. They won't give you time to position yourself, they won't let you fall into a stance, or calmly catch your breath. From now on, you're fighting for pure survival. If you don't fuse what I've taught you here over all these murderous months... I guarantee they'll carry you out of this valley in pieces."

Dave did not answer with a single word. His face remained completely indifferent, and his only reaction was to slightly lower his stance on his legs and clench his hands into loose, springy fists. He cleared his mind of any unnecessary thoughts.

Before the first snowflake could land on his bare shoulder, the old man surged forward.

It was not a simple attack—it was an absolute, devastating tempest of physical power. The master's armored figure cut through the space separating them in a fraction of a second, and the heavy plates of his armor no longer generated a simple, metallic clanking, but a dull, low, and terrifying roar tearing the air. The bamboo staff surged in a deadly, perfect arc, weighted by the monstrous momentum of the steel plate. Dave immediately tried to dodge using the Krok Rysia, relying on his sharpened to the limit Yomi I. He arched his torso back by mere inches, sensing the movement of the air and the old man's intent, but his opponent's reach and speed were completely overwhelming. The rush of wind around the armor literally jerked his body, throwing him off his perfect balance point.

CRACK!

The hard, heavy bamboo struck him directly in the thigh. Dave felt a massive force nearly tear his tendons and crush the muscles beneath his skin, paralyzing his entire leg. The boy lost his footing on the slippery plate, and a split second later, a second, unnaturally swift downward slash struck him straight in the collarbone, throwing him onto the hard, snow-covered stone of the arena. Dave rolled across the basalt, gasping heavily into his compressed lungs. The pain in his shoulder and leg was searing, almost blinding, but the boy instantly, with ruthless discipline, suppressed any emotional reaction to the suffering. For him, pain was not a cause for panic—it was merely dry feedback about a mistake.

He pushed himself up immediately, cushioning the slide of his bare foot on the wet plate and ignoring the tearing sensation in his damaged muscles. In a split second, he fell into his habitual gesture of deep calculation, narrowing his sapphire eye.

Using these methods separately on such an armored foe is pure suicide, he thought, analyzing the movements of the approaching steel fortress, which was already preparing for another murderous swing. The precision of the Quick style alone lacks the penetration power to force through this thick plate armor before the old man crushes me with his tonnage. On the other hand, Napierdalanka alone needs split seconds to weight and rotate, which makes me an easy target to counter at his inhuman speed. I must achieve a complete fusion in a single strike. I must strike with the black Gōtai armoring to shatter the outer steel of the plate with a phase strike from zero distance, and in a split second, precisely through the resulting crack in the plate, drive the physical pressure of the Quick style fingers directly into his nerve node. Two strikes in one impact.

Dave cast aside all calculations and surged directly into a counterattack, closing the distance instead of increasing it.

A hot, rapid wave of sapphire KAI energy erupted from the depths of his soul. Dave channeled it directly into his hands. The black, shining coating of the Gōtai armoring instantly covered his forearms, hands, and fingers, shielding them from the frost. It was not a plain, monotonous black, however. Similar to the red ornaments of Luffy's armament haki, sharp, sapphire patterns and veins of burning soul energy began to shimmer across the basalt-black, metallic structure of Gōtai, running along his tendons and knuckles like mystical conduits. However, the boy took extreme care to ensure his joints remained completely relaxed and springy—his arms moved with inhuman, whip-like elasticity, maintaining full flexibility and speed despite the density of an armoring harder than solid metal.

The old man unleashed a powerful, diagonal slash with the bamboo, aiming straight for his neck with the intention of ending the fight.

Dave executed a sudden, low Krok Rysia, slipping directly beneath the staff's deadly trajectory. The distance between them shrank to zero. With his left, armored hand, he blocked the old man's right arm, absorbing the giant momentum of the armor onto his chest and cushioning it by tensing his core, and with his right hand—formed into a hard Gōtai fist—he delivered a powerful, whip-like blow of the Napierdalanka style directly into the side segment of the master's steel breastplate.

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The black fist collided with the metal. Exactly in the split second of contact, Dave released violently compressed energy from his soul.

BOOOM!

The roar of the impact shook the entire clearing. The thick, hardened steel plate of the armor cracked with a loud, dry snap and dented deeply inward, torn by a wave of destructive kinetic resonance. Dave did not withdraw his hand even by a millimeter. Exactly through this fresh, jagged crack in the steel, he straightened his fingers into a hard, narrow wedge and drove a precise, physical pressure directly into the nerve node hidden deep beneath the old man's armpit.

The effect was instantaneous and completely ruthless.

The physical paralysis cut off all motor function of the left side of the old man's body in a fraction of a second. Sensei's left arm fell limply, releasing the bamboo staff, and his armor emitted a metallic screech of helplessness as the master lost his balance and swayed on the snow-covered plate.

It was the perfect moment. A clean, clinical victory over the legend was within reach. Seeing his indisputable success, raw, deeply suppressed emotions suddenly won out within Dave. Adrenaline, massive, predatory pride, and wild combat excitement flooded his mind in a hot, uncontrollable wave. The boy clenched his right hand into a fist and drew his arm back, acting on pure, murderous survival instinct, forgetting all limitations.

A powerful, monstrous roar of energy suddenly tore from the depths of his soul, shaking his own vessel. Dave instinctively, under the influence of this emotional spike, unleashed Hazetsu KAI.

This was no ordinary energy of the splotches he was used to. The air around his fist violently warped and heavily thickened, and the black coating of Gōtai armoring on his hand began to steam with a thick, sapphire mist. In a fraction of a second, around his arm, powerful, destructive discharges of lightning erupted, colored a deep, dark Prussian blue with almost pitch-black, tar-like cores. These lightning bolts did not resemble the bright, clean sapphire of his traditional magic—they were heavy, slow, almost solid, and literally tore the structure of the air, leaving behind micro-fractures in space. Dave surged forward with fury, carrying an absolute pressure of will, ready to finally crush the old man with one ultimate blow-ram.

Sensei, with his left side still paralyzed, froze in absolute shock. His clouded eyes widened violently beneath his visor as he registered the dark-blue, powerful discharges of Hazetsu. He felt an absolute, overriding pressure of will that physically struck his consciousness, trying to bring him to his knees in the snow. The old master instantly understood that if he took this strike head-on, even from a beginner, this destructive force would tear his body apart from the inside and break all his bones.

Acting in a fraction of a second, the old man strained his own soul to its absolute limits. He concentrated all his massive, overriding will in his right, free hand, forgetting the paralysis of his side.

He unleashed his own Hazetsu KAI.

Around the old man's right, massive fist, powerful, destructive lightning bolts of a deep, orange-and-black tiger's eye color exploded. The air between them cracked with a terrifying, metallic hiss as the two overriding, absolute auras collided in a deadly embrace.

Their fists shot forward with inhuman power. And they never physically touched.

Between their hands, an invisible, massive, incredibly compressed barrier of pure, condensed will formed, pushing them apart by a distance of several inches, creating a vacuum. Hell broke loose. The dark-blue and orange-and-black discharges tore through the falling snow, melting it in mid-air and turning the entire arena into plumes of hot, hissing steam. A massive, deafening roar—infinitely louder than a thunderclap—echoed with a roaring resonance through the entire basalt valley, causing the surrounding cliff walls to tremble, and avalanches of stone and snow slithered down from their peaks directly into the forest wilderness.

However, the pressure and power of the old master's will were infinitely deeper, tempered in hundreds of real battles.

The old man's orange-and-black lightning easily broke through, crushed, and stifled Dave's unstable, dark-blue flame. The force of the massive, kinetic recoil struck the boy with the power of a rushing battering ram. Dave was thrown back dozen meters with powerful momentum, completely helpless. He flew across the entire width of the arena, breaking a dry branch along the way, and crashed with a loud thud into a drift of deep, fresh snow at the very edge of the clearing.

He lay there motionless on his back, violently, widely, and heavily gasping for freezing air into his burning lungs. His body was completely exhausted, every single muscle trembling with helplessness after such a sudden discharge of soul energy, and the black, sapphire-ornamented coating of Gōtai slowly vanished from his hands, giving way to pale, wounded skin.

An absolute, dead, and freezing silence fell over the valley, broken only by the low whistle of the cold wind between the basalt pillars.

The old man stood in the very center of the arena, breathing heavily, slowly fading orange sparks still drifting from his right hand. The cracked, ruined plate armor steamed from the horrific tension. Slowly, with clear, physical effort, the master imposed his will on the paralyzed left side, forcing the blocked nerves to work again. He pulled the ruined, cracked helmet from his head and threw it with a deep clang onto the stone.

He walked slowly to the snowdrift where the boy lay. His predatory, tiger eyes burned with deep, nabożne disbelief.

"I didn't know you had awakened Hazetsu KAI, kid..." the old man rasped, spitting blood onto the white, pristine snow at his feet. "Even among isekaiers—and I am one myself, so I know how it goes—this is a damn rare and dangerous gift. Most of those summoned here are just whiny crybabies who bite the dust at the first sign of real trouble and can't do shit. And as for the natives of this world? For them, it's an absolute anomaly, as rare as water in a desert, a legendary occurrence that ordinary mortals only hear about once every hundred years. You have something truly terrifying inside you."

Dave did not answer right away. He lay with his sapphire eye half-closed, feeling the cold snow under his back slowly cool his red-hot, battered body. However, that same annoying, brassy, and predatory smile full of proud satisfaction slowly, with the utmost effort, returned to his bloodied lips.

The old man extended his massive, rough, scar-covered hand toward him. Dave gripped it firmly and, with the master's help, slowly stood up from the snowdrift, swaying slightly on his feet but maintaining his footing.

"End of katorga for today," the old man spoke raspy, slapping his healthy shoulder hard, causing the boy to bend his knees. "We're both barely breathing, and this iron is about to fall off me. We're going to rest and warm up by the fire. But tomorrow morning, we're going to my house. I want to give you something, and we need to have a serious talk about your future."

Dave nodded slowly, pushing his snow-wet, dark blond hair back from his forehead.

"Anyone who has awakened KAI on this continent can sense the energy of others," the old man added, looking around the gray, misty peaks of the surrounding cliffs with sudden, unprecedented gravity in his voice. "And using Hazetsu KAI is like lighting a great, destructive bonfire in the middle of a starless, silent night. It is the most noticeable of all forms of soul energy. Potentially problematic, extremely nosey, and dangerous individuals will probably start sniffing around this place soon, trying to find out who triggered this explosion. Therefore, for pure peace and quiet, tomorrow we move to my place."

Dave looked toward the darkening, winter sky, where the first stars were beginning to shine. In his weary soul, an incredible, predatory satisfaction smoldered. He had paired precision with destructive force, touched the very peak of his soul's power, and tomorrow he was to learn its ultimate secret.