CH15: The Son of Lionheart

***

CH15: The Son of Lionheart

Strength is king.

Before unrivalled strength, all schemes become irrelevant.

This was the prevailing impression amongst the people of Arun.

It affected every facet of their life including their society, culture and technology.

These thoughts flashed through my head as I took an orthodox boxing stance.

The distance between myself and the man closed as we got close and personal.

The man didn't take a proper stance and just threw a fast, strong punch.

I managed to dodge the punch by leaning to the side. I retaliated with a counter jab to the body before quickly opening the distance again.

I felt a pain in my hand from the punch.

Different people used mana in different ways. There were some types of people that used the mana to strengthen their physical attributes. It seems my opponent was such a person.

I felt like I punched brick instead of flesh which was why I had to back out to recuperate.

At least now, I knew what I was up against.

I could see the surprise in the man's eyes from the first exchange. I felt like snickering but I stopped myself.

There was still more to do.

We closed the distance again.

He threw a punch which I parried with my guard and quickly threw a liver blow. Unfortunately, the blow was shallow since the blow I parried destabilised me a bit.

This time though, I didn't retreat. I held my ground and threw a right jab to his face. He blocked the punch with his palm.

I quickly pulled my hand back and threw another jab, but with my left.

He used his natural speed to evade.

He tried to back out but I didn't allow the distance to grow.

I threw quick successive 1-1-2 jabs.

The man finally grew tired of the barrage and forcibly threw a punch through my flurry.

I only managed to dodge by executing a backflip ahead of the path of the punch. I pulled back quickly after the flip.

It was the man who took advantage this time. I saw a powerful punch heading to my face the moment I pulled back.

My body moved by reflex as I brought my figure down and rolled past the man's body to dodge the powerful punch.

I drew far away from him.

This time, I wasn't able to stop myself from smiling.

First, the danger I was in was awakening the fighting instinct from my previous life.

I had lived a quiet, peaceful life so far in this second life of mine. I was hardly in any true danger. Even when I was fighting those thugs previously, I was assured of escape so I wasn't truly afraid.

However, this man was different.

His killing intent was true.

People in my previous life argued if killing intent was a real thing. People in life and death fights would tell you it is.

There was no doubt about it in the world of Arun.

People, especially the strong ones, could project their intents through their mana. And this man was projecting it strongly.

If I were an ordinary fourteen year old, I should be paralysed by it. Fortunately, this wasn't my first dance with death. Rather than fear, I was getting excited.

The excitement was waking the instincts of my previous life and merging it with my adolescent body.

The second reason for my smile was the validation of my hypothesis.

People in the world of Arun were born strong and only cared about strength; speed, power, endurance...

They focussed on increasing their strengths indefinitely. And nothing achieved this better than using mana. So they focussed on using their mana to improve their bodies.

However, the situation was different for people in my old world.

We were born weak. Plus, there was a limit to how much or how far we could improve our strengths.

Humans in my old world had a physical limit their body couldn't overcome.

So, did they stop growing stronger?

No!

We found a way... because we had to.

Being born weak isn't a crime. The crime was remaining weak!

We didn't allow ourselves to remain weak. We clawed until we were strong. Even when we reached our limits, we didn't stop.

We found new ways to increase our strengths.

Some of us used tools to strengthen themselves while others used techniques.

The latter set of people leveraged on the weak physique given to them by nature to call upon a greater strength in a split moment.

The people of Arun also used tools to increase themselves, however, they didn't use techniques!

They were born strong, and could indefinitely become stronger. There was no limit. If they didn't have enough strength, they'll go back to acquire more mana to increase their strength.

There was no reason to learn techniques.

I noticed from fighting the thugs before. They knew nothing about fighting techniques. They just used their superior strength to throw powerful strikes; superior speed to evade attack; powerful bodies to endure more stress and so on.

This was the difference between us.

In my eyes, many of the things they did had a lot of waste. Waste that I couldn't afford because I was innately weaker but they could afford because they were innately stronger and had mana

However, in their lack of technique lies my key to survive!

I took a very deep breath.

Breathing techniques helped channel the limited energy in our bodies fully to our will.

I changed to a southpaw boxing stance.

Stances were used as platforms to shorten the timing of our attack, reduce the available area for our opponents to hit, increase our chances of dodging a strike, confusing an opponent and, in some case, control where we get hit for a chance at a successful counterattack.

For some reason, I felt like I was staking the techniques humans of my old world refined for many years to strengthen and perfect. I was willing the techniques I learnt for years to fight against the brute strength people of Arun were proud of.

Unknown to me, I released the fighting intent that a fourteen year old shouldn't have.

I moved closer to my opponent. However, unlike him, I didn't stand straight. I weaved my body from side to side.

Peak-a-Boo

Against someone who hadn't faced this before, it would throw off his aim for my head. Plus, I had a deep guard tucked in which would protect my body.

However, I wasn't concerned about a strike to my body.

Why?

Because I knew the man would only go for my face.

Techniques like slowly wearing down the opponent with body shots by knocking out air to the lungs was foreign to them.

They only thought about throwing a good punch to the head to knock their opponents out.

This was why I knew weaving around would work.

A punch came to my head, but I had weaved it away.

One more thing, in order to fight other human beings, people from my world came up with techniques to read the opponent. Looking at the angle of the body and movements of joints was enough to tell when and where an attack was coming.

I could read all the signs this man's body was telegraphing.

I knew I only had one chance. I probably won't get another opportunity. This flurry would be my only chance.

I weaved to the right, threw a right gut punch as my body leaned to the left. A left body shot as I was weaving right.

My punches rocked his body and caused him to move back a bit. I went for a quick, 1-2 combination.

The people of Arun didn't know about combinations. They only threw one punch at a time. So, he had tried to attack when I threw the first lone jab.

This only opened him to the following double jab.

He tried to step back, but I kicked the back of his right knee, causing it to buckle and lock him in place. I went full in with my combo of punches. Then, I saw an opportunity.

I landed an uppercut!

He wanted to use the force of the punch to step back, but I kicked the back of his left knee, once again locking him in place.

He threw a disappointing hook which I read even before he threw it. I dropped under the hook and countered with a liver punch. Without stopping, I went in and delivered another uppercut.

He stepped back again.

I raised my leg as if to kick him again. He reacted to block the kick.

Unfortunately for him, that was just a feint. Another techniques weak humans from my previous world used to fool their foes.

Instead of a kick, I threw a punch squarely on his face.

Blood trickled down his nose.

Both of us were stunned.

I made a forking Champion bleed.

However, I couldn't let up. The opponent made a mistake of being stunned in a fight.

This was the opportunity to end it!

I threw a right jab.

I noticed the man's body react. So, I halted the jab into a feint, then threw a left hook. Surprisingly, the man's body reacted once again.

He managed to dodge my hook by a hair's breath.

I was shocked.

Not only by the dodge, but also by the man's eyes which I saw in that split second.

The dodge wasn't instinctive. The man saw my every move.

However, my expression turned into a mocking smile.

Boom!

A hard left roundhouse kick hit his face, sending him flying.

Misdirection!

Another fighting technique we weak humans came up with.

Humans experienced tunnel-vision whenever they focussed on something. They naturally throw-out unnecessary information.

Scientist in my old world estimate that humans have a 220 degree field of vision, however, we only take in what's within 120 degrees. The rest is ignored to prioritise useful information.

Our field of vision shrinks further when we try to focus on one thing.

Misdirection takes advantage of this knowledge.

The feint was to send a cue to his brain to concentrate on the next attack. He was completely focussed on my next attack, which was why he was able to dodge it.

However, it came at a price.

His vision tunnelled on the hook he dodged. He didn't see the kick following the hook outside his now narrowed central vision.

He didn't notice the hook was actually me twisting my body for the kick.

The kick hit him with everything I had. So much so it sent him flying face first into the ground.

I looked at the man as he slowly got to a prone position. I could tell from his movements that the kick knocked some spunk from him but it wasn't enough.

I rushed to him and tried to grapple him from the back.

But then, he shouted,

"ENOUGH!"

A burst of mana shot out of his body which sent me flying.

As I was getting up, I saw the man above me.

"You did well, but this is the end."

Boom!

A mana infused punched hit me on my jaw, rocking my brain within my skull.

I lost control of my body and my vision blacked out.

Just before I fully lost consciousness, I think I heard the man say,

"Lionheart, if you are watching, I know you must be proud of the cub Amelia bore you with her life. Even without mana, he isn't sheep. He truly has a lion's heart."

(To be continued...)