Max pulled back fluidly after the explosive exchange, repositioning his feet into a loose, adaptable stance on the polished floor. He had to admit, internally, that he was thoroughly impressed. With the power of his Vow firmly in place, he was operating at a level that was practically superhuman.
He knew that with a bit more capital and resources allocated to his advancement, he would certainly be classified fully as a Superhuman. In his current state, his tactical calculations assumed that the only individuals capable of truly going toe-to-toe with him were other Superhumans. Even Ramon, with all his technical genius, had only been able to match him because of the raw, artificial power of the Exoskeleton, and Max had still emerged victorious in that encounter.
To find a flesh-and-blood opponent who could still offer him a genuine, unassisted challenge was an unexpected delight.
’I suppose I shouldn’t be entirely surprised,’ Max mused, his sharp eyes tracking her subtle weight shifts. ’There will always be outliers out there. Darius from the Black Hounds had those bizarre, erratic fighting techniques, and even Darno managed to catch me off guard with his defensive capabilities. This woman... she might not technically be a Superhuman by definition, but she is certainly radiating the lethal aura of one while using that blade.’
Little did Max know that inside Abby’s mind, a chaotic array of frantic thoughts was spinning completely out of control.
’What do I do now? Do I actually press the advantage and try to attack him, or do I just stay entirely on the defensive?’ Abby glanced over her shoulder for a fraction of a second, her heart hammering against her ribs. ’I hope his leg is okay. I didn’t mean to strike his shin that hard...’
"What the hell are you doing, Vera!" Sarah shouted from the sidelines, her voice cutting through the localized silence of the platform. "So what if their leader is a little bit tougher than the average street thug? If he doesn’t drop to the floor after one clean swing, then you swing again! And if he doesn’t go down after a hundred swings, then what do we do, girls!"
The entire contingent of the Fallen Rose raised their wooden swords and roared back in a thunderous, bloodthirsty unison.
"KEEP SWINGING!"
In a strange, visceral way, although Sarah’s demands placed an immense amount of pressure on Abby’s shoulders, the collective roar of the gang lit a sudden, roaring fire deep within her. Her muscles began to twitch with a dormant, aggressive instinct. Her body was screaming at her to move, demanding that she unleash the weapon in her hands.
’I’ve swung this blade and beaten down rival mob members before,’ Abby told herself, her jaw tightening as she steeled her resolve. ’All I have to do right now is close my eyes and imagine the person standing in front of me isn’t Max. Even if I manage to best him in this spar, it will be fine. I can still use my authority as leader to convince them to form an alliance with the Billion Bloodline group. But for them to listen to a single word I say... I have to convince them right now that I am not Abby. I am Vera of the Fallen Rose!’
With her mind fully locked into the persona, Abby let her body take over. Her legs exploded into motion, covering the distance between them in a series of rapid, jagged strides with the heavy bokken tucked tightly by her side. The moment Max came within her striking radius, she brought the weapon up and swung down with terrifying velocity.
Max shifted his weight, avoiding the linear strike by a mere fraction of an inch. He could hear the sharp, ominous whistle of compressed air as the wooden blade tore through the empty space he had occupied a millisecond prior. Before he could reset, Abby brought the weapon back toward her body in a fluid transition and struck again, continuously resetting her footing to alter the angle of her assault.
Each time, Max was forced to dodge sharply, his reflexes pushed to their absolute limits. Every time he attempted to drive his momentum forward to close the distance for a counter-punch, a heavy, descending strike would manifest directly in his path, forcing him backward.
’This is insane,’ Max thought, a bead of sweat cutting through the dried blood on his temple. ’Even though it’s just a wooden practice sword, it feels like if I let that thing connect cleanly, it’s genuinely going to slice me apart. It seems she’s stopped playing around and has started to get deadly serious.’
"Haha!" Shooting cheered from the sidelines, pointing her own weapon toward the stage triumphantly. "How do you guys like the view now? It looks like your big, bad Boss is on the run, and there’s absolutely nothing he can do but dodge our leader’s pressure! Sooner or later, his footwork will slip, he’ll get struck, and he’s going to feel the pain!"
Although Shooting was brimming with confidence, as her eyes swept across the spectators, she noticed something jarring. While many of the lower-tier Billion Bloodline members appeared visibly worried for their leader’s safety, the inner circle, the core group standing together near the front, showed no signs of fear or panic whatsoever.
Shooting recognized them; they were the same high-caliber fighters who had impressed the Fallen Rose during the initial scuffle in the hall. They possessed a deep, fundamental understanding of high-level combat, and more importantly, they knew the true, terrifying limits of the man in the center of the square.
As another heavy sword strike came whistling toward Max’s collarbone, he didn’t slide backward this time. Instead, he positioned his hands in a rapid, counter-clockwise motion, one hand high, one hand low, and slammed his forearms directly into the flat of the incoming wood.
He didn’t dodge. He forcefully whacked the blade entirely off its intended course.
Abby’s eyes widened as her weapon was deflected, but the muscle memory of her vessel drove her to continue the onslaught. A relentless barrage of strikes rained down from multiple angles, but no matter how chaotic or deceptive the trajectory, Max met each one with a precise, heavy deflection, his forearms acting like iron shields to whack the wood away at the exact moment of impact.
Standing among the spectators, one person was staring at the exchange in utter, open-mouthed disbelief.
"Hey... hey! Isn’t that my exact martial arts technique?" Darno stammered, his arm twitching as he watched the stage. "He’s copying my blocking forms perfectly. What the hell?"
Although Max’s bone density wasn’t naturally as dense or specialized as Darno’s due to the specific nature of Darno’s physical structure, the overarching power of Max’s Vow upgraded his entire physical vessel as a collective whole. His arms were more than durable enough to withstand the impact, and with his enhanced perception and speed, he was able to execute the deflections at the perfect macro-second.
"Right," Wolf commented from the sidelines, a wry smile touching his lips as he watched their Boss systematically neutralize a Syndicate leader’s weapon style. "Because he’s always managing the business logistics and organizing the empire from behind a desk, we sometimes tend to forget the most basic fact about him. When it comes to pure combat... Max really is an absolute genius."