Martial Arts Worlds

The fog shrouded the landscape, but every now and then, people were running through the forest in the distance.

However, because of the fog, it just looked like a bunch of shadows making their way through.

"Argh…"

Arnie grabbed his head, shook it violently around, clenched his fists, and screamed like a madman.

'I just need to be prepared for the stretchiness of his limbs. It should be easy enough.'

Kiernan thought to himself.

At that moment, Arnie sprang forward like a coil and brought his fist forward—Kiernan expected it to stretch—but it didn't.

'It's not stretching? What?'

Kiernan was about to move his right hand to intercept the punch, but then he could feel the violent wind around the fist and knew that punch packed some serious power!

'Strong…'

Kiernan crossed to the left—the punch went by—and he speared his spear-hand towards the exposed neck.

At that moment, Arnie caught the spearhand, crushed Kiernan's fingers under its grip, and pivoted to throw him down.

Over his shoulder, Arnie smashed Kiernan down to the forest floor, his back colliding with a loud thud, and blood gushed out of his mouth.

'What an insane strength…'

Kiernan gritted his teeth, kicked his leg up, and stomped Arnie in the face—it made him stumble back—and then Kiernan jumped back to his feet.

When he looked at his right hand, his fingers were all broken, except for his thumb.

However, despite the pain, he contracted his broken hand into a fist and raised it again—he slid his foot forward and took the defensive stance.

"Bone Harmony…"

Kiernan said.

"Hahahaha…"

Arnie started laughing, his angry expression vanished, and a deep smile stretched across his face—he looked like he was floating with happiness.

"Happy Persona~"

He said.

'Happy… Persona? Don't tell me that he has multiple personalities, and with each personality, he has a different physique?

'The scared persona had stretchy limbs, anger had superhuman strength, and what about happy?'

Kiernan frowned.

He had seen his fair share of weird people and physiques, but this was really getting ridiculous—the world was indeed a strange place.

Arnie stepped forward with the tips of his feet, looking like a ballerina, and crossed the distance between them with a graceful leap.

It was quick—and the tips of his fingers got glued together—as if they were now the perfectly formed beak of a swan.

With those beak-hands, he stabbed towards Kiernan's throat—they were fast!

"Rendering Edge!"

A mighty wall of the fortress stood behind him—the black fortress of defense—and his hands parried the strikes.

However, Arnie's hands were so fast that they bypassed his defenses, and the beak pierced Kiernan's chest.

It left behind a shallow wound.

'Quickness is this personality's physique?'

Kiernan thought and swung his fist in retaliation—the light-footed Arnie dodged them all—but he kept punching and punching.

While dodging, Arnie backed away all the way to the fog-shrouded tree, and his back soon pressed against the rough bark.

"Iron Smash!"

Kiernan's fist appeared before his face—Arnie saw the fist come near his face and ducked under it—the fist smashed into the tree.

Boom!

The tree got knocked off its roots and fell to the ground.

"Heh~"

With a quiet laugh, Arnie's face suddenly turned from happy to angry.

Arnie slashed his hands through Kiernan's thighs, then punched him in the jaw, and wrapped his arm around his neck before throwing him to the ground.

Kiernan felt his world turn upside down, and with his back crashing against the floor, he saw another fist crashing down at him.

He rolled out of the way, whipped his leg across Arnie's angry face, and quickly scrambled to his feet.

The blood trickled down his legs.

'It looks like he can also change personalities on the fly.'

Kiernan thought.

He didn't want to spend too much time fighting with Arnie, as this was a good opportunity for him to improve his ranking even more.

The longer it took for him to finish off Arnie, the more people would enter the forest—it included weaker fighters—who would be farmed by others to get through the forest quickly.

The pain of entering the forest among the first ones was that you had to fight a strong one.

'Fine, I'll do this.'

Kiernan moved into the horse stance—the one from the second event—and put his right fist right next to his body.

Arnie, growling like a mad beast, dashed forward with his fist ready and brought it over Kiernan's head.

"Straight Impact!"

Kiernan punched forward—the shockwave from it pushed Arnie a step backward—and he then lunged forward and grabbed the collar of the angry man.

"Sceneric Shift!"

With a throw over his head, Arnie got smashed into the ground, landing straight on his head and bringing some head damage.

"Crack!"

Kiernan stomped on Arnie's face and cracked the ground under his head—the force of the blow was immense—and Arnie's eyes rolled back into his head.

"Whew…"

Kiernan breathed heavily and then turned around, limping away, but then he felt a hand grab his shoulder.

'I thought he was unconscious?!'

He turned around and saw bloodied Arnie looking back at him—his eyes were white—and it was clear that he was unconscious.

'Now what the hell is this personality?'

Arnie drooled blood, and then he punched Kiernan in the face, pushing him a step back, and continued raining punches.

Despite the initial shock, Kiernan stepped forward and slapped the punches away with the Rendering Edge's ultimate defense.

The fists and hands smacked—the two locked in a brutal battle—and Arnie kept changing the trajectories and the speed of his punches.

He was trying everything to trick Kiernan into overcommitting and missing one of his slaps so there could be a counterattack opportunity, but he wasn't falling for it.

Kiernan was patient and perfectly blocked the punches.

'This one is not that strong.'

He thought to himself, ducked under the unconscious Arnie's punches, and uppercutted him in the jaw.

Arnie's head got blown back, and he fell down on his back—this time around, he stopped moving altogether.

'A last-ditch effort. It must've been one of Arnie's multiple personalities trying to keep up the fighting, even though his body had finally given out.'

Kiernan thought, and then walked away, victorious.