[82] The Technique of Using Four Ounces to Move a Thousand Pounds

Seeing Eiji retreat, Kuraudo immediately pressed his advantage.

Whoosh!

Amid the howling wind, he relentlessly pursued Eiji, launching a flurry of high-frequency attacks.

He had clearly learned his lesson. Knowing that frontal slashes were easily blocked by Eiji, he now continuously used sweeping strikes, launching furious assaults from both the left and right.

His arm strength was immense, and the white bone nodachi he wielded created sharp, whistling sounds with each swing.

Eiji instinctively felt that such attacks should never be blocked head-on, as his hand bones might shatter in a single strike. Thus, he kept retreating and dodging.

"What's wrong? Weren't you so confident earlier? Come on, excite me more!"

Kuraudo laughed arrogantly while relentlessly pressing his attacks.

From the looks of it, Eiji was clearly being overwhelmed.

Under Kuraudo's utterly savage fighting style, Eiji could only keep dodging, seemingly unable to mount any counterattack.

"Nangou-kun...!"

Ayase's face was filled with anxiety.

If that white bone nodachi so much as grazed him, it wouldn't be a trivial matter.

She was about to step forward to intervene, but as soon as she took a step, Kanata, standing beside her, reached out and stopped her.

"Don't rush. Haven't you seen his fight with me? He's not in any danger right now."

"Huh?"

That's right.

With the help of his intuition, Eiji could predict his opponent's moves in advance, dodging attacks before they even came. This preemptive fighting style allowed him to perform incredibly precise evasive maneuvers.

Though each dodge seemed like walking a tightrope, with each strike nearly hitting him, he miraculously avoided them every time, remaining unscathed throughout.

"First strike, second strike, third strike..."

Eiji wasn't provoked by Kuraudo's taunts. He simply kept counting silently.

At one point, Kuraudo, with a sweeping motion, swung his white bone nodachi horizontally once more.

The power behind it was undiminished.

But as he swung from left to right, the positioning of his feet shifted ever so slightly.

"Now!"

Eiji's eyes sharpened.

He twisted his body, stopping his continuous dodging, and suddenly thrust his blade forward, meeting the heavy strike head-on.

"Fool! With your strength, you can't possibly block this strike!"

Kuraudo's eyes gleamed like a beast's, and he let out a triumphant roar.

"Nangou-kun!"

Ayase watched this scene, her heart nearly leaping into her throat.

Clang!

The shimmering silver blade and the jagged nodachi collided in an instant.

Amid the crisp sound, the silver blade, which should have been instantly overwhelmed, did not crumble as Kuraudo had expected. Instead, it seemed as though a sticky force was pulling his white bone nodachi, guiding it along a circular path drawn by Eiji's sword.

"What the hell?"

Kuraudo didn't understand this swordsmanship, but he clearly felt his rhythm slipping away.

He immediately tried to unleash his strength, pulling his nodachi back from his opponent's blade, but—

"Damn it—!"

He instinctively twisted his feet, and his expression changed.

He realized that his footwork was no longer in sync with his body, and in that moment, he couldn't unleash his full strength.

The human body has a kinetic chain for generating power.   

Typically, this chain starts from the feet, gathering strength from the legs, channeling it through the hips, and finally delivering it through the arms and wrists to execute an attack.

In other words, the feet are usually the starting point of the kinetic chain.

Once the footwork is disrupted, the body's strength cannot be fully utilized. An attack that should have been delivered with the full force of the body is reduced to relying solely on arm strength, leaving only about 20-30% of the original power.

And when a person twists their body significantly, their footwork is very easily disrupted.

Kuraudo had been relentlessly attacking with wide, sweeping motions, unaware that his stance was gradually falling apart.

Eiji understood this principle. By continuously dodging and luring Kuraudo into attacking, he waited for the moment when his opponent's footwork was disrupted and his full strength couldn't be concentrated. Then, he launched a lightning-fast strike.

"Using softness to overcome hardness? Is this a judo technique?"

Ayase recognized the move and couldn't help but feel excited.

For opponents with monstrous strength, techniques that use softness to overcome hardness are the most effective.

In the arena.

Eiji used his sword to draw a circle, guiding the white bone nodachi downward until it struck the ground with a thunderous crash, causing the floor to instantly crack.

At the same time, Eiji reversed his grip on the sword and slashed upward.

The blade arced like a crescent moon, aiming for Kuraudo's throat.

The white bone nodachi was embedded in the floor, and Kuraudo himself, due to his disrupted stance, couldn't mount an effective defense.

This strike was equally unavoidable!

If it landed, Eiji's blade would cut through his throat!

But just as Eiji made this judgment—

A white flash swept by.

The white bone nodachi had somehow freed itself from the floor and was now swinging toward Eiji's head.

Kuraudo had also somehow stabilized his stance, a ferocious smile spreading across his face. The look in his eyes, hidden behind his sunglasses, was filled with mockery.

If this continued, it would end in mutual destruction.

Eiji's body instinctively made the decision. He leaped to the side, dodging the strike aimed at his head, but his own slash missed its mark.

"Oh? You even dodged that strike? Your intuition is quite sharp, isn't it?"

Kuraudo's swing missed, but instead of being disappointed, he grew even more excited.

"Excellent! Defeating a swordsman like you is far more meaningful!"

The second round of their clash ended.

The two stood three meters apart once more.

Kuraudo didn't recklessly attack again. Instead, he stared at Eiji like a venomous snake.

He seemed to have realized that there was an overwhelming gap in their swordsmanship skills. Knowing that his prideful strength could easily be suppressed, he became more cautious.

Eiji took the opportunity to catch his breath.

"Let me correct you. This isn't a judo technique. It's a Tai Chi technique."

He even had the leisure to chat with Ayase on the side.

"Tai Chi... a Chinese martial art?"

Ayase was momentarily stunned. She had heard of this martial art before.

In this world of supernatural abilities, the Chinese Federation's strength was unimaginably vast, especially in the fields of Blazers and martial arts. They possessed a profound heritage that overshadowed most of the world.

Martial arts like Tai Chi, Bajiquan, and Six Harmonies Boxing were all real, and each had incredibly formidable power.

Eiji had once searched for information on these martial arts online, but what he found were only superficial details. The true essence of these arts couldn't be found on the internet.

But even with just the basics, adapting them into swordsmanship had greatly benefited him, granting him the ability to use softness to overcome hardness and to move a thousand pounds with just four ounces of force.

***

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