Chapter 458: Meteor
Drip-drip, patter-patter—
Blood streamed continuously from Billy's nose and mouth. He glared up at Ren
with bloodshot eyes, sucking in several ragged, wheezing gasps of air before
finally managing to check his trembling frame.
Pulling back the edge of his tailored suit jacket, he drew two military combat
knives from his waist holster, gripping the left one with a standard forward
hold and the right one in a reverse icepick grip as he locked into a feral
stance.
"DIE—!"
Billy exploded forward in a savage rush, slashing wildly with the blades as a
flurry of cold, razor-sharp arcs rained down toward Ren.
Ren shifted his weight backward, dropping into a deep rear bow stance while his
front left leg bent and tucked inward.
His lead left elbow drove upward, his wrist angled downward, while his forearm
executed a rapid-fire sequence of horizontal swats and crushing blocks.
[RYU: DRIVE PARRY]!
Whack-whack-bang-whack!
Ren's fingers hammered repeatedly against the flats of the blades, Billy's
wrists, and his forearms, knocking every single stabbing angle wildly off
target.
—?!
Altering his approach on the fly, Billy slid the right-hand blade down into his
sleeve, letting the hilt press through his elbow joint to launch a blinding
series of vicious, close-quarters elbow strikes.
Whack-whack-whack!
Ren intercepted every single blow with his left arm, his stance remaining as
steady as an iron-clad fortress.
Even when Billy tried to sneak in a sudden knee strike, Ren met it dead-center
with the heel of his palm, crushing the momentum right at the source of its
ignition.
"Ah-ha! That trick ain't gonna cut it either~!"
Ren's pupils vibrated. [ENGINE] fully engaged, he reveled in the exquisite
machinery of his own body mechanics before leaning his torso far back and
driving out a heavy, piercing thrust kick.
[DRIVE COUNTER: RUSSIAN REVERSE KICK]!
Bang!
The kick slammed squarely into Billy's right elbow, instantly shredding the wool
of his suit jacket and sending the concealed knife flying off into the distance.
The kinetic force didn't stop there; it fractured the bone of Billy's elbow
straight through.
—?!
Agony flared through Billy's arm, forcing his eyes wide. He scrambled backward
in a rapid series of panic-fueled hops, sucking air through his teeth.
Left with only a single blade in his left hand, his entire right arm hung
completely limp at his side, dark blood trickling down his forearm to drip off
his fingertips. "SHIT... You bastard..."
When Billy forced his head back up, he found Ren standing completely still,
locked in a solid side-facing guard.
There wasn't a single ounce of wasted motion in that posture. Every inch of his
physique was primed to unleash its maximum output, radiating a bizarre, steadily
expanding presence that made Billy's heart skip a beat.
"—What's the matter?"
Ren offered a slight nod. "Done playing with your little kitchen knives?"
The psychological pressure spiked into the red.
Billy let out a furious roar, winding up and throwing his remaining combat knife
like a heavy ballistic javelin straight at Ren's chest.
Whoosh!
Faced with the incoming blade, Ren dropped his center of gravity into a low
slide, spinning his upper back across the concrete while snapping his legs out
to maintain angular momentum.
[JAMIE: BREAKIN' SWEEP]!
Swish-swish!
The spinning rotation generated a centrifugal sweep that cleanly evaded the
flying knife, allowing Ren to bounce back up off the pavement and close the gap
to point-blank range in a single, fluid heartbeat.
"—?!"
Before Billy could adjust, Ren drove forward off his back foot, unleashing a
devastating, straight-line punch.
MARISA: ROMAN GLADIUS!
Clang!
The heavy blow smashed squarely into Billy's face, snapping his head violently
backward. Without missing a beat, Ren fired a second straight punch, driving his
weight behind it to launch the battered, failing man completely off his feet.
BOOM!!
Billy hurtled backward through the air, his spine smashing violently into the
distant brick wall and spider-webbing the masonry with massive cracks as broken
bricks and pulverized dust rained down like a miniature avalanche.
Crash—!
"[The Caracal] Billy Greco..."
Ren shook out his fist, stepping forward as he closed the distance. "Technically
speaking, your martial arts skills are easily on par with a first-rate fighter;
you could easily make a huge splash in the underground arena."
"So why the hell did you end up in such a pathetic state?"
"...Could it be because you just aren't used to actual fighting?"
Ren answered his own question, weighing the heavy clench of his fist.
"As a syndicate hitman, you're used to using overwhelming, dirty malice to crush
people weaker than you, feeding off easy victories to survive."
"You might look terrifyingly strong on paper, but because you've never actually
traded blows with genuine power, you've never truly fought."
"—That mindset completely choked your martial arts, preventing you from even
operating at your baseline level."
Tap, tap, tap—
Ren's boots crunched steadily against the concrete as he drew closer to Billy.
With each footfall, the asphalt seemed to ripple, tracing out the ink-wash
silhouette of a broad-shouldered, muscular woman in his mind's eye—
Marisa.
{Oh, spot on, little bro!}
Marisa clenched her massive fist, as if physically gripping the fiery fighting
spirit of Pankration and transmitting it straight into her disciple.
{That's a satisfying strike! The sheer feel of hand-to-hand combat, hearing your
bones groan under the load!}
{That exact sensation—}
{It's something you can only ever taste inside the crucible of a real fight. It
feels incredible!}
{Just like top-tier meat and a bold vintage wine; the second you taste it,
you're hooked for life.}
{—That's what real fighting is!}
Billy, of course, couldn't hear Marisa's voice, nor had he ever crossed fists
with a true, equal powerhouse.
Right now, leaning slumped against the shattered brick wall, everything in his
field of vision was blurring and warping into a surreal, distorted haze.
Billy Greco—back on his private charter flight heading toward Tokyo, he had
struck up an idle chat with a flight attendant.
The young, attractive flight attendant had told him she chose this career
because she found the mystery of an altitude of ten thousand meters utterly
captivating.
She said that being up there made you feel like you were someone special,
someone set apart from the world.
The flight attendant had even confessed that sometimes she felt a strange
impulse to crack open the cabin window and just let the freezing gale of the
high-altitude winds wash all over her—though she knew she couldn't, because
stepping outside meant certain death.
To Billy, however, the answer had always been entirely different—"You wouldn't
die."
"Once you become that kind of unique existence, everything around you naturally
warps to fit your environment."
"If you reach that level, even standing ten thousand meters up in the sky, the
thin air and freezing winds would feel comfortable."
Billy Greco had wanted to become a man capable of adapting to anything.
Yet now, as his vision cleared enough to see Ren Shiroki stepping closer and
closer, he realized just how horrifyingly dangerous the reality of true combat
actually was.
Adapting to a ten-thousand-meter altitude?
Before he could even reach that point, he couldn't even adapt to a simple,
two-man brawl.
When it all came down to it, there wasn't even a tiny patch of ground in this
battlefield left for him to stand on...
Billy let out a ragged, low growl, pushing himself off the ruined brick wall and
lunging blindly forward at Ren.
Swish!
His posture was as feral and grotesque as a wild beast, resembling a starving,
man-eating lion making its final, desperate charge.
"..."
Scrape—
Ren pinned his rear foot deep into the pavement, carving a deep trench into the
concrete. He locked his fists tight, dropped his hips, and settled into a
rock-solid Roman Tower Shield stance.
"Hah!"
Ren drove his fists upward, exploding out of his squat as he threw his entire
body forward to intercept Billy's desperate lunge.
BOOM!
Ren's upward strike caught Billy squarely in the lower abdomen, snapping his
body backward mid-air.
Following through seamlessly, Ren leaped upward, clenching his left fist into a
massive battle-axe formation. As Billy began to plummet back toward the earth,
Ren aimed dead-center at his chest and brought his arm crashing down with full
body weight.
Pankration Supreme Secret—
[MARISA: METEOR]!
KABOOM-CARS-SMASH!!
The impact hit with the apocalyptic devastation of a falling meteorite!
The heavy, bone-crushing downward blow smashed into Billy's chest, detonating a
concussive shockwave that kicked up a circular plume of dust and shattered the
surrounding asphalt into a sprawling web of fissures.
"Uwaaah—!"
Billy vomited a torrent of blood, his eyes bulging wide with crimson veins
before his entire frame went rigid, shuddering violently before collapsing into
total, boneless limpness.
"..."
"Hoh—!"
"..."
Ren exhaled a massive, chest-clearing breath, wisps of white steam venting from
his lips. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, standing tall once
more.
The raw psychological pressure radiating from him was so intense, so
suffocatingly heavy, that the local gang members watching from the sidelines
didn't even dare to breathe aloud.
The only sound breaking the silence was the slow, steady rhythm of clapping.
Clap-clap-clap.
[The Second] was applauding, offering his genuine praise to Ren.
"Mr. Shiroki, what a magnificent finish!"
Guevara strolled over in a couple of long strides, pulling up beside Ren with a
wide, bright grin. "Ha, you must've had an absolute blast with that one, right?"
"As a martial artist goes, that was truly a sight to behold..."
Hearing that, however, Ren wrinkled his nose in utter disgust. "A sight to
behold my ass~! Professional assassins make terrible dance partners for a real
duel. You probably felt the exact same way, didn't you?"
Guevara blinked, narrowing his eyes into an amused smile. "Oh? Is that so...?"
Noticing Guevara's playful skepticism, Ren decided to turn the tables and poke
at his logic.
"Mr. Guevara, which part of it are you calling 'magnificent'? Exactly how do you
judge whether a fight of mine is good or not?"
"If an ordinary person were to look at you fighting, what kind of battle do they
actually see?"
"..."
The rapid-fire questioning caught Guevara slightly off guard. He blinked,
crossing his arms over his chest as one hand drifted up to stroke his chin. He
pressed his lips together, lowering his head into deep, contemplative silence.
☆☆☆
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