Martial Arts Worlds

Kiernan smacked Dante's flaming jabs away, but then his instincts screamed danger, and he quickly lifted his right knee.

SMACK!

With his right knee, he blocked Gunwoo's sneaky kick aimed at his ribs and quickly swung his hand towards him.

Gunwoo guarded his face, but Kiernan still smacked him away with a swipe of his fist.

But he spent a fraction of a second too long focusing on Gunwoo, and Dante immediately punched through his defenses and landed a solid hit on his cheek.

SMACK!

Kiernan stumbled back with his brain rocking inside his head, but he immediately switched back to his defensive stance.

There was nothing else he could do than rely on his defense while trying to do a few counterattacks every now and then!

Dante punched straight, but Kiernan quickly sidestepped and swung his fists towards him in response.

Kiernan's punches missed as Dante weaved in and out, gracefully dodging each blow, and when Kiernan's punch flew past his face, he responded with a punch to the chest and then at the rib cage.

SMACK! THWACK!

"Urgh!"

Kiernan groaned in pain as he stumbled backward, and then Gunwoo launched at him with a series of rapid punches and kicks.

"Rendering Edge!"

Slightly late, Kiernan responded with his defensive wall, but few of those immensely quick punches flew past his defenses and landed across his body.

It wasn't just his legs that were quick—Gunwoo was also an extremely quick puncher, and it showed because Kiernan could barely react to them!

At that moment, Kiernan saw the two young men attacking him at the same time and knew that he couldn't defend himself with Rendering Edge alone.

"Ghost Spring!"

Kiernan, with a quick step, multiplied into nearly a dozen ghostly afterimages, but Dante and Gunwoo swiftly punched through all of them.

However, when they punched through the last ghostly afterimage, they noticed that Kiernan was nowhere to be seen.

"Did he run away?"

Gunwoo asked.

Dante frowned, but then his eyes widened in shock, and he screamed.

"LOOK OUT!"

Gunwoo turned around, but too late, as Kiernan's low kick smashed into his knees, causing him to collapse in pain.

"Iron Style, Celestial Scythe!"

"You fucker!"

Dante lunged forward, but shockingly, Kiernan also lunged straight at him, and before Dante could throw a punch, he sent a powerful knee strike to Dante's stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

"Urgh…"

Dante stepped back and wanted to quickly fight back, but then he noticed Kiernan's unpredictable strikes heading in his way.

'W-what… so many?!'

"Iron Style, Reigning Fallow!"

Desperately, Dante tried to weave through all those punches. They were so unpredictable that they kept hitting him from every angle.

"Shit!"

Dante hunched behind his guard and desperately tried to block the strike while waiting for Gunwoo to stand up and help him!

'Come on, stand the fuck up!'

However, at that moment, he saw Gunwoo stumbling back to his feet with great difficulty.

The Celestial Scythe technique perfectly landed on Gunwoo's kneecaps, which greatly hindered his movement. Therefore, he couldn't use his movement speed anymore on this fight!

'T-this was Kiernan's plan all along. He wanted to cripple Gunwoo's speed and then force me into defense.

'I am a striker, and defense has always been my weak part, but I usually can deal with my lack of defense with my dodging abilities, but I can't dodge these unpredictable strikes at all!

'He is using perfectly our weaknesses against us!'

Yet, despite the fact that he couldn't use his movement speed, Gunwoo wasn't completely useless either!

Gunwoo punched behind Kiernan's back, but he was ready for it, stopped attacking Dante, and backed off, dodging the punch with inches to spare.

"What took you so long? Shit…"

Dante asked while feeling like his arms didn't even belong to him anymore, as they were all numb.

"Standing alone is fucking difficult… Whatever, we should still be able to defeat him. I don't know about you, but I won't fucking lose two versus one."

Gunwoo said with a serious look.

He had dropped his happy facade and was now completely focused on the battle ahead after losing his greatest strength—his speed.

"Iron Style, Lightning Flash!"

Without any warning given, Kiernan lunged forward so quickly that they didn't have any time to react, and he flashed past the two young men, leaving behind two deep cuts across their chests.

SPURT!

Blood sprayed like a crimson fountain.

"?!"

Dante's eyes shook as he never expected that Kiernan also had this level of speed and accuracy in his attacks.

It was almost like he was facing Gunwoo in a fight, but obviously, his speed wasn't quite at the level of Gunwoo's, but it was still extremely impressive.

'Just… what is his limit? How many techniques does he actually have? If he had that kind of speed, why hadn't he used it beforehand?'

Gunwoo wondered, but then he realized it and felt his heart skip a beat.

'I see… He wanted to cripple my speed before doing this, as if I still had my previous speed, I could've easily dodged it, but now, there was no way I could have!'

Gunwoo's expression turned grim as he never expected the measly choreboy of Yokai Dojo was such a ferocious fighter!

"…"

Kiernan looked at his boots, and they were all worn out, barely holding together, and the soles of his feet were red and bloody.

'I can't use that technique anymore. It's why I don't use Lightning Flash, as it completely ruins my feet, and my movement speed is now halved for the rest of the fight.

'However, I had to do it. They will be even more scared to do anything as they think I can move with that speed for the rest of the match.

'Thus, they will come to fight at close quarters, and when they do, I will reveal another part of my plan that should be enough to end this fight.'

Kiernan thought and moved back into his sprinting stance.

"Don't let him use that again! Just rush at him!"

Dante shouted and immediately lunged towards Kiernan. Gunwoo did the same, but because of his crippled speed, he moved much slower.

However, at that moment, they heard a twig get crushed under a foot, and when they looked over, their eyes all rounded in surprise.

"…"

In silence, Arakawa Aoi walked over to them, her black hair flowing in the wind, her eyes distant and unreadable as she stared at them.

But then, her eyebrows knitted together, and she simply shook her head.

"I…"

Dante and Gunwoo suddenly lowered their heads and stopped fighting as soon as she appeared.

'Why would they stop fighting just because of her?'

Kiernan frowned.