Prominent Leg slowly straightened, his face was a ruin, smeared with blood, one eye swollen shut. Yet a calm, almost serene smile lingered on his lips.
He extended his hand, and with slow deliberation, a small black pouch shimmered into existence. Opening it with care, he withdrew a glass vial filled with a thick, crimson liquid.
He raised it to his lips and drank.
A wistful look crossed his face as he stared at the empty bottle, then he exhaled softly and tossed it aside.
That was when something shifted—something that drew a dark frown from the military man.
Prominent Leg's wounds began knitting together. The blood on his face evaporated like dew under sunlight, and a faint glow returned to his skin, lending it a vitality that hadn't been there moments before.
"...Oh? So you had a trick up your sleeve after all."
Prominent Leg offered a lazy shrug.
"Haha… I stumbled upon this little hotcake somewhere deep in the Empire. They call it the Red Miracle. Strange drug, heals just about anything. Rare, of course. But you can't really fault a senile old geezer like me for playing a little dirty, eh?"
The military man stared, stone-faced.
"It doesn't matter what trick you pull. I'll just break you again."
Prominent Leg grinned wide.
"Ohooo! I like that fire. But I've already figured you out."
He shifted his stance.
A low hum began to resonate from his frame as soft yellow essence threaded through his limbs. The air around his legs rippled—warped, like heat rising off sun-scorched stone.
The military man's expression tightened. His grip firmed around the hilt of his broadsword as the battered old warrior stood poised to explode.
He glared at Prominent Leg and muttered:
"Finally."
The Duke exhaled—a long, measured breath—and smiled.
"Boy… you have no idea what's coming."
Then his legs vanished in a blur.
The ground beneath him detonated as he launched forward—not with a sprint, but a kick so forceful it cracked the earth. Afterimages shimmered in his wake.
The military man barely got his blade up in time.
Prominent Leg's heel slammed into the broadsword like a meteor crashing down from the heavens. The sheer impact sent the soldier skidding backward, his boots carving deep trenches in the soil. His arms buckled, trembling from the blow.
And before he could even blink—
Prominent Leg was airborne, twisting mid-air like a spinning top caught in a cyclone. His opposite leg cut through the air in a vicious roundhouse, aimed squarely at the man's skull.
The military man ducked—
—but not fast enough.
A crescent of fire erupted from the arc of the kick, tearing through the space where his head had been. The heat grazed his cheek, burning hot enough to sting.
His eyes widened for the first time.
"Fire?"
Prominent Leg landed lightly, knees bent, legs coiled like springs.
"Not just fire, boy."
Then—he flickered.
One moment, he stood firm. The next—gone.
A brutal knee drove into the military man's gut before he could react. The air fled his lungs in a gasp drowned by blood. He staggered—
Then a spinning heel cracked into his ribs, the blow hurling him sideways like a ragdoll. He crashed through a crumbling wall, stone exploding around him in jagged bursts.
But Prominent Leg didn't stop.
He leapt, twisting mid-air—
"Heaven's Descent."
His leg came down like a guillotine from the sky.
The military man rolled just in time—
The ground ripped open as Prominent Leg's heel struck, a sharp crack echoing across the battlefield. The earth fractured beneath the blow, fissures spiderwebbing in every direction. Dust surged up in a wave, and the shockwave blasted nearby soldiers off their feet, scattering them like leaves in a gale.
The military man scrambled upright, breath ragged, blood running down his chin. His chest heaved with effort. Cracks lined his lower armor, deep and spreading.
And Prominent Leg?
He stood at the center of the crater, one leg still embedded in the shattered earth. Slowly, he lifted it out, fragments of stone crumbling from his foot.
Then he rolled his neck with a satisfying crack, eyes burning with quiet fire.
"How about now? Is this enough for you to use your talent?"
The military man wiped the blood from his mouth, then grinned.
"Barely… but I can see where your name truly comes from. It's your true name, isn't it?"
Prominent Leg chuckled, then looked down at him.
"Telling you my true name would make things a little too obvious. And where's the fun in playing all my cards at once? But maybe I'll reconsider… if you retreat now and stop attacking my home. You can always come back in twenty years—after I'm dead."
The man gave a dry laugh, then the steel returned to his eyes.
He surged forward with raw force, hurling his broadsword in a deadly arc—
But Prominent Leg was already gone.
"Too slow."
His leg snapped out, unleashing a blinding flurry—
"Hundred Heavenly Kicks."
The air screamed as afterimages erupted around him—dozens of blazing kicks, each one crashing down like a cannonball, each one cloaked in fire.
The military man raised his sword just in time.
The impacts hammered into him, relentless. Each strike landed with surgical precision, driving him backward. His boots scraped deep into the ground, his muscles strained against the storm—yet the blows kept coming. His sword groaned, the metal cracking beneath the punishment.
Then came the final kick.
Not fast.
Not flashy.
Just… inevitable.
Prominent Leg's heel drilled into the sword with a sound like a mountain splitting open.
The weapon shattered—a burst of sparks and metal—and the military man flew, his body tearing through the battlefield like a meteor. He crashed through rubble, tore through earth and stone, before skidding to a halt—half-buried in the wreckage.
Silence.
Prominent Leg exhaled. Steam hissed from his legs. His body throbbed with pain. Each breath burned his chest.
But his grin was feral.
"That's what happens… when you wake the old dogs."
Then—
A hand emerged from the debris.
The military man pushed himself up, body battered, armor shattered—yet his eyes burned with a wild, ravenous light.
"Good."
He spat blood, his voice low and steady.
"Now I don't have to hold back either."
Prominent Leg's grin widened.
"Heh… heh heh… did I make you angry?"