Darno’s arms stayed locked in the same guarded position they had been in before, but this time, he began to advance.
The movement was slow, deliberate , a measured prowl rather than a rush. His feet slid across the mat with barely a sound, his body held perfectly upright. To anyone watching, it almost looked like he was walking in slow motion.
Wolf tilted his head slightly. In theory, he could simply step back and circle around the platform. If this had been a real fight, he could have disengaged entirely, retreating and waiting for a better opening. At this pace, Darno should never have been able to corner him.
So why does it feel like he’s closing in on me?
Wolf’s sharp eyes followed the subtle shift of Darno’s shoulders, the slight rotation of his hips that kept his center of gravity perfectly balanced.
’Based on his slow movements... and how solid his defense is...’ Wolf thought. ’Then that means his entire fighting style is reaction-based. He’s built for counters. He’s drawing me in.’
It explained the guarded stance, the stillness, the way he hadn’t thrown even a single real attack until now.
Wolf exhaled quietly through his nose.
Fine. Let’s see how good you are when someone breaks your rhythm.
He leaned his body back to the side, bending his spine in a way that seemed almost inhumanly flexible. Gasps rippled through the crowd of Fortis guards as they watched him contort. He looked like he had no bones, like his upper half was floating on invisible wires.
Many of them still couldn’t figure him out.
He doesn’t have a style, they thought. He moves like he’s improvising every second.
What they didn’t realize was that was exactly what made Wolf terrifying. He wasn’t using a formal style. He was using pure instinct honed through hundreds of deadly fights.
As his torso whipped back, Wolf’s leg lashed out like a whip , a blur of muscle and motion, a kick with the torque of a golf club pulled to its absolute limit.
CRACK!
The sound echoed like a gunshot. The air seemed to shudder around the kick.
And then,
Smack!
Darno’s arm moved, just once, clean and precise.
His right hand flicked up toward the top right corner of his guard, intercepting the kick. The strike shuddered against his palm like it had hit a stone wall.
The crowd went silent.
The guards had seen Wolf’s earlier fights. They had seen men collapse from his casual strikes. Even from where they were sitting, they could hear the force behind that kick.
And Darno had blocked it.
His arm barely even shook.
It was as though his entire body had absorbed the shock and instantly rebalanced itself. His feet didn’t slide back. His posture didn’t break. His gaze didn’t even waver.
The same man who always boasted, always joked, always treated everything like a game... was now standing like an unshakable fortress.
He’s not just strong... one of the guards thought. He’s terrifying.
Darno’s lips curled faintly.
He stepped in closer, rolling Wolf’s leg off to the side with a twist of his wrist. It was so fluid it looked like water pouring around a stone.
Then, in the same motion, his right foot snapped forward.
At first Wolf thought it was a low kick aimed at his shin. He dropped his guard down to check it , only for his instincts to scream at him a moment later.
It wasn’t a kick.
It was a sweep.
A true sweep , not the kind used to knock someone flat, but a razor-sharp half-moon sweep that lifted just enough of Wolf’s leg off the ground to unbalance him without actually toppling him.
Wolf’s heel lifted an inch. His weight shifted.
And in that moment, Darno stepped forward again.
The pressure hit Wolf like a physical wave.
Darno was so close that his presence felt like an invisible force pushing against Wolf’s chest, making him stumble back without thinking.
Wolf tried to reset, but his leg was still half-lifted from the sweep. His balance was compromised.
Too close,
Then came the fist.
Darno’s other hand , the one that hadn’t blocked the kick , shot forward in a piston-like strike aimed directly at Wolf’s stomach.
WHUMP!
It buried itself deep.
Wolf felt the knuckles grind and twist as they dug in, and then his whole body was launched backward. His feet left the ground, and he hit the mat with a heavy thud .
The entire room froze.
Darno straightened slowly. His arms lowered from their perfect guard, and he flashed a wide grin.
"Haha," he laughed, his voice booming through the stunned silence. "Not so smug now, are you? Dropped by a single attack."
Cheers started to rise from the Fortis guards, swelling like a storm.
Darno, emboldened by their voices, let go of his form entirely. He swaggered forward, rolling his shoulders, just like he usually did when he knew victory was already his. This was what he always did once opponents crumbled , he taunted, he toyed, he finished them off like a lion batting at its prey.
But this time... something stopped him.
Wolf’s head lifted. His eyes locked on Darno’s. And they weren’t the eyes of a man who had accepted defeat. They were wild. Fierce. Hungry. Like a beast crouched at the edge of a killing lunge. Darno froze.
Every instinct he had screamed at him to stop. If he took another step without taking this fight seriously, he would regret it. He could feel it in his bones.
Wolf’s lips parted just slightly. His stance shifted. He was about to pounce.
"END!"
Max’s voice cracked like a whip.The shout cut through the tension like a blade.
"This is just for an assessment," Max said, tone firm. "There’s no need for the two of you to get injured."
For a second, neither fighter moved.
Then Darno relaxed, lowering his fists and casually turning away as if the whole fight hadn’t mattered to him at all. He sauntered back toward the other guards, soaking in their cheers like sunlight.
Wolf slowly pushed himself to his feet. He almost looked... disappointed.
"A Rank," Wolf announced flatly. "You have been granted an A Rank."
The crowd erupted.
Cheers, clapping, even a few triumphant howls filled the training hall. Darno raised a hand lazily to acknowledge them, grinning ear to ear.
It was the first A Rank any of them had heard Wolf give today. To them, it was monumental , though none of them realized that Wolf’s ranking scale reached far beyond A.
Wolf strode back toward Max, wiping a smear of saliva from the corner of his mouth with the back of his wrist.
"That one is unusually good," Wolf muttered under his breath so only Max could hear. "Too good to be working in a place like this. Although I called him A Rank, that’s just based on what I saw here. There’s a good chance he might even be higher."
"Higher?" Max repeated quietly.
"I would be careful," Wolf said, his orange eyes narrowing. "You don’t know who his teacher is. If someone made him that good, they might not appreciate you pushing him too far."
Max said nothing, but his expression sharpened slightly.
Interesting... very interesting.
With Wolf standing there nursing his stomach and Joe still rubbing his shoulder from his earlier defeat, the assessments still weren’t over.
Max rolled his neck, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"Alright, alright," he said, his voice carrying across the room. "How about for the next assessment... I’ll give it a go."