Sure enough, before Kay could press his advantage, the Black Knight sprang back up with a classic kip-up.
Seriously, for a corpse that's been dead for twenty years, the best case scenario is a mummy—where does it get the skin and, more importantly, the muscle tissue to perform a kip-up while wearing over a hundred pounds of armor? The physics are truly baffling.
Which just goes to show you, magic is wild.
Seeing the Black Knight charge at him again like a raging bull, Kay sighed. This is why he hated fighting the undead up close. If it hits you, you're dead or seriously injured. But if you hit it, the opponent just doesn't care. It's totally unfair.
Especially since so many of Kay's spells are off-limits, it makes things even harder.
However, since he agreed to the duel, there was no backing out. Kay didn't flinch. This time, he didn't overthink it, just clenched his fists and met the charge. It's not that Kay couldn't end the undead Knight with the divine swords tempered by dragon breath.
But he still chose to show respect to Tristan. Even though this was just a puppet, Kay intended to defeat him honorably. The two swords were set aside from the start, reserved for the very end of the fight—to grant Tristan a final moment of glory.
Until then, Kay would treat this fight seriously.
So, Kay met the charge empty-handed.
The crowd gasped at this sight. To a regular person, a fight where one side has a weapon and the other is unarmed clearly favors the one with the weapon. Kay going bare-knuckle against the Black Knight seemed like a guaranteed disadvantage!
But those familiar with Kay knew better. The people who truly understood him knew that Kay was often at his most powerful precisely when he dropped his weapons.
Before the shouts died down, Kay shot forward like a flash of lightning, aggressively closing the distance and invading the Black Knight's attack range. The Black Knight wasn't truly alive, so his reaction speed wasn't nearly as sharp as the real Tristan's.
He didn't even have time to attack before Kay had breached his defense!
Kay opened his hands, his right hand shooting past the Black Knight's sword-wielding right arm and slipping under his armpit. At the same time, Kay's foot stomped hard between the Black Knight's legs. Stomping, driving with the legs, and twisting at the waist—the motion flowed through his body like a relay, similar to an Olympic thrower, where the power of every part is focused on the projectile. Only for Kay, all the power concentrated into his left shoulder.
BAM!
A huge, dull thud echoed through the arena, and within that sound, a barely perceptible crack of bone breaking. The armor on the Black Knight's chest buckled inward, and his whole body flew backward like a cannonball.
Baji Quan - Iron Mountain Lean!
As mentioned before, Baji Quan (Eight Extremities Fist) was Kay's style in his previous life. Baji is a close-range, powerful, and unadorned style that focuses on lightning-fast strikes. Its techniques emphasize short, powerful bursts and direct, forceful attacks. It truly embodies the core principles of using the shoulder, hip, elbow, and back in combat. Baji Quan generates power from the heel, flows through the waist, and explodes out the fingertips, giving it immense, combat-focused power—it's said to have the force to "shake the mountains and collapse the skies."
This fighting style is all about efficiency and pure destructive power. The ultimate move, the "Iron Mountain Lean," is the pinnacle of the style. The key to the "Lean" is closing the distance, getting as close to the opponent as if you were "kissing" them, and then hitting them with the shoulder. While it looks like the power comes from the shoulder, it actually combines the rotational force of the hips and waist, channeling the entire body's weight into the opponent, causing severe damage. Against a true master, a hit like that would be instant death or a critical injury.
That's why students of Baji Quan are taught ethics first; the training is for fitness, not for violence. Disciples are discouraged from truly using the style in a fight, out of fear of the negative impact it could have.
So, in his last life, Kay only used his full strength a handful of times. He didn't have many chances when he was in the military; they didn't encourage hand-to-hand combat—it would be insane to use your fists against someone carrying a rifle.
He used it even less when he became a cop. Police work adheres to the principle of minimum force, focusing on subduing suspects, not injuring them. So, Kay usually used grappling moves during arrests, rarely Baji Quan.
It sounds crazy, but Kay was a cop for seven years and barely touched his sidearm. If the precinct didn't have a firing range, Kay thought he might forget how to shoot completely.
Kay trained in martial arts for over a decade, but it had little practical use in real-world combat. That's a little unfair to say, though, since training certainly gave him an excellent foundation. But sometimes he couldn't help but feel that way. Like every kid who trained, he dreamed of being a martial arts hero, but unfortunately, he lived in the modern world. He just never got the chance.
Now that Kay has crossed over into this era, he finally has a purpose for his skills... but now he kind of wants to go back to the peaceful, modern world.
Guess that's just human nature—always wanting what you can't have.
The moment the Black Knight was sent flying, Kay didn't stop. On the contrary, he didn't let up. He surged forward, his feet scraping the ground and leaving two long marks in the dust.
The old saying goes, when fighting, you must "pursue the wind and chase the moon without ceasing," never giving the enemy a moment to breathe.
Attacking hard and fast, breaking the opponent's defenses, and following up relentlessly are Baji Quan's hallmarks. The instant he sent the Black Knight staggering with the Iron Mountain Lean, Kay moved with his intention, following a straight line right into the Black Knight's centerline.
In a human body, vital organs like the spleen are concentrated here, making strikes to this area instantly damaging. While this doesn't matter much to the Black Knight, it's just Kay's ingrained habit of attack.
Kay moved with the speed of a snapping bowstring and the force of an exploding thunderclap.
His fists became blurs, raining down strikes on the Black Knight's body. The sounds were deep thuds, rapid and dense, like rolling thunder. The Black Knight had been blasted backward by the Iron Mountain Lean, and though he maintained balance through sheer combat instinct, he couldn't get set before Kay's whirlwind of attacks hit him.
Against Kay's devastating momentum, the Black Knight could only play defense.
There was no other choice. Baji Quan dictates that force must be sudden and fierce, catching the opponent off guard. It requires unstoppable momentum. Every punch uses the entire body; the force is generated internally and explodes outward. Every part of the body is coordinated and launched simultaneously, unleashing the full potential of human power.
However, since the Black Knight isn't alive, after the initial shock, he immediately abandoned defense and chose to trade blows!
Since they were fighting at close range, the Black Knight couldn't, and didn't have the chance to, use his greatsword. So, he just held the sword in one hand and used his free hand to counter-attack, hoping to push Kay back and create more space for himself.
Faced with the Black Knight's straight punch, Kay took a side-step, moving to the Knight's flank, and immediately threw a straight punch down at the joints of the Black Knight's extended arm.
CRACK!
The Black Knight's arm was broken by Kay's blow. But Kay didn't let up. After knocking aside the straight punch and leaving the Black Knight's core exposed, Kay immediately followed with a punch straight to the Knight's throat, forcing the Black Knight's body to involuntarily tilt backward.
Seizing the moment when the Black Knight couldn't retaliate, Kay's fists instantly fell like rain on the Black Knight's face.