Immediately I felt the side of my cheek get cut, as I barely managed to dodge his first strike.

“In a battle without weapons, he whose body is a weapon will come out victorious.”

Yanho’s taunts did little to phase me, Teloro was also a man with a dangerous physique, as were many other challengers I had fought since.

Indeed his ability to cut was impressive but that was if I let myself take such an attack.

It seemed his aim was to freak me out and wait for me to make my first move, anticipating me to make some distance between us.

Yanho was fast, it was his absurd levels of speed and high battle damage and most likely defense that probably granted him his Rank, but he wasn’t at levels I hadn’t seen before. Most Martial Artists when faced with such a deadly opponent would work for the counter, and do their best to dodge his deadly piercing and slashing techniques.

But my battle instincts told me differently, in order to activate such an effective move he needed space to execute a broad chopping or thrusting motion.

After Yanho’s initial intimidation attack I changed my stance and moved forward towards him, and positioned myself in a way to where his left leg and right leg were diagonal to my own.

This was a leg positioning based, wide battle stance, from the Boxing Manual.

Although at my Inner Energy manipulation level it took some time for me to accumulate lots of the Energy into a certain part of my body, despite my fast action, I still managed to load my fists with a good amount of Inner Energy.

Immediately I dipped my head away from his comfortable striking range, and unloaded on him a Boxing Combination consisting of an Overhead Cross, consecutive right then left Uppercuts, followed by a barrage of Body Shots, and Jabs and Hooks to the Face.

This was my first time trying out such a striking combination in combat, but I had practiced it many times while shadow training, I felt like it came out a bit rough, but as my strikes came out I got more comfortable as the fight progressed.

In the Boxing Manual there were 4 types of punching, the Jab, Cross, Hook, and Uppercut; and several variations of each of those in between.

It was an aggressive and efficient punching system that focused on the vulnerable parts of the face and body, and I very much liked it.

Yanho was initially surprised that I chose to take him on at close range despite his striking technique.

Immediately he positioned himself to strike me with his same technique again, but I anticipated such an action and had already dipped under his strike.

That is when I unloaded my powerful punch combination.

My moves had caught him off guard, he attempted a defensive maneuver and tried to push my punch away with his, but I still managed to slightly strike him.

His action actually caused damage to my hand because of his sharp bone edges, but I ignored the pain and continued on with my combination.

As soon as I landed my right Uppercut I realized why this man was so confident, his Body Forging Art was insane, I immediately felt like I was hitting a solid plate of metal.

Despite that I followed through with my left Uppercut and with the rest of the Combo.

After his initial attempt to block my attack Yanho found himself unable to stop my flurry of strikes.

The genius of the Art of Boxing was its masterful understanding of stance and positioning.

I had positioned my stance, in a way where after each strike, I slightly shifted my stance, to where I was in a position that interfered with my opponent's own comfortable attacking stance.

After each successful strike not only did I cause damage, but I also threw him off balance and destroyed his posture.

To my surprise, after my first strike I successfully managed to connect with every consecutive punch afterwards.

I knew that my Inner Energy fortified punches were causing Damage, but the ache I felt in my fists made me doubt who was getting more hurt after each punch, him or me.

After my last Hook to his face, Yanho managed to recuperate from his stunned state, and countered me with his version of reverse Windmill Kick, aiming his chopping leg straight down my neck.

This was the difference between his attacking power and my own, I knew that if he managed to successfully strike me he could seriously maim me or probably even take me out.

I immediately dodged by diving to the ground and rolling away.

Now I had no choice but to work the counterattack; with one strike Yanho had successfully moved the fight into his initial plan of action.

Immediately he hounded me down with strike after strike.

It was like a rolling wheel of blades was coming after me.

I had no choice but to backwards dodge his strikes, backwards flip away, or very riskily parry his strikes.

My room for error was minimal.

Kemoro had told me about how the school specialized in training and cultivating the strongest Bone Structure Physique in Martial Art’s, so they have almost unmatched offense and natural defense.

They also possess Martial Arts based on the pointiest and sharpest parts of the human body.

It was perfectly fitting of his Physique, akin to the movement of a person with blades for arms and legs.

I considered taking the fight to the ground, as I didn’t want to fight on the defensive.

But something gave me a bad feeling that it wouldn’t go so well.

Most of the time the act of a Ground Takedown would put me in a vulnerable position before and after the maneuver, giving my opponent the chance to strike.

When I went for a Groundfighting finish, I would count on taking damage in the process.

But I had a sense this man was waiting for such an opportunity to arise, as from the start he left himself too open for such types of attacks, as if goading me.

Many of my enemies had seen me fight more than once, it was only natural they had developed counter strategies to my Fighting Style.

This was why Kemoro believed it was so important not to be too attached to one single technique or fighting style, and that included Ground Fighting as well.

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Suddenly Yanho stopped his barrage and slowly changed his stance.

“Today is the day that I Yanho, Diamond Bones Schools, “Genius Child Complete Diamond”, take down the nuisance of Martial Citadel once and for all, that is unless you are willing to give me all the magical weapons in your possession, then perhaps I’ll consider sparing you.”

So this guy was just as greedy as everybody else, his whole quiet killer character was just a farce.

In the end he was just as foolish and grimy as the rest of the people in this City.

“You're a fool if you think I will give my weapons to a broke idiot like yourself. I have those things for one purpose only, to make me money, the fact that you’re a Ranker and yet are still vying for the scraps of someone Ranked lower than you brings me unending amounts of joy. This City really is much too broke, I feel bad for the Citadel Mayor.”

My taunting words hit him where it hurt him most.

A true Expert would never let his opponent get a hold of his emotions, but right after my pointed words I saw the expression in Yanho’s face change completely.

He went from calm, calculative, and collected, to enraged and murderous.

It seemed the nerve I struck was more sensitive than I thought.

“ You're going to pay for those words!”

Immediately Yanho dashed at me at breakneck speeds, as I maneuvered myself again in a position where I barely managed to dodge.

His missed forward finger jab, struck a building wall that I had come against, and used to jump away from striking range.

Immediately he had penetrated it like a knife through butter, and proceeded to slice the building wall in half.

The Genius Child was certainly going for the kill, but I wasn’t afraid; I decided I was going to go for internal damage and see if I could come out on top.

Again he lunged straight at me and with his new penetrating stance technique, in his anger he was becoming too predictable, he was too confident in his ability to tank my attacks.

After barely dodging his fast barrage of attacks, I stomped on the ground and lifted up many of the bricks in the ground and kicked them straight at him.

Heavenly Hop had used a similar technique on me before, so I knew the Martial Nerds of this City would have no way of saying I was using weapons.

I Kicked one brick after another straight at his body, and brick after brick he either tanked with his body or destroyed with his hands.

“If you think you can hurt me with these measly bricks your taking my schools’ Body Forging Arts way too lightly, Teloros Callous Way Dojo doesn’t come close to Diamond Bones Schools in terms of Body Cultivation, only Peak Martial Body Institution, and Unyielding Dojo, could be said to have a better Body Cultivating Art than us, and that’s debatable. Give up already and let me crush your weak bird-rat bones!”

I ignored him and continued to stomp on the ground in a circle around him, and propel at him all the bricks that flew up into the air.

Soon Yanho gave up defending.

“Enough!”

He grabbed a brick straight from the air and threw it at me, and darted right on after me with the same piercing stance.

His brick managed to interrupt my stomping, and force me to defend, but by that point all my intended work had been finished.

As soon as I deflected the Brick, I parried his oncoming strike, except this time he did manage to cut my shoulder, I ignored it and moved away from his range of attack.

Seeing that he drew blood he menacingly went after me intending to deliver the final blow.

As soon as he entered my striking Range I stomped hard into the ground, and now that the exposed ground underneath was free of bricks, a cloud of dust flew up into the air and surrounded both of us.

Having memorized his position, and knowing that his visibility was obstructed, I moved forward and positioned myself in striking range.

For a while now I had been building up the Inner Energy right at base of my hand in my forearm, and as soon as I positioned myself were I knew I could deliver the perfect strike, I unloaded all my strength and punched him straight into his liver.

Although I hit part of his ribcage, for the most part that spot was bone free, so I didn’t take so much damage.

Immediately I heard him growl in pain.

I didn't immediately move on to my next punch I held my fist against his body and before I removed it I released my charged up Inner Energy straight into his body.

Again I heard him yell in pain, and predicting a possible counter strike I rolled under any incoming strike, and followed through with the combo.

Liver, kidney, stomach, neck, temple, back skull, and lower back, I wreaked havoc in his body with internal damage.

After the second strike I felt no resistance from him, and after striking his stomach, the dust cloud had dispersed.

In front of me I saw a man bending over in pain, with eyes that were bloodshot red.

I struck him in his temple, struck him in the back of his skull, and finished him off with a kick to his lower back.

As soon as I kicked him, he flew forward and dropped to the ground.

After a while I realized he wouldn’t be coming back up any time soon.

With my new move, I had created, I had managed to defeat one of the toughest opponents I had faced thus far, Diamond Bones School's “Genius Child Complete Diamond” and came out on top.

The surrounding people looked at me in awe, this time my victory was not only decisive but it also looked pretty, no Groundfighting or submissions.

The real spectating Experts had nothing to say.

Of course that didn’t stop Yanho’s fellow schoolmates from yelling and screaming that I had cheated or proceed to challenge me to a duel as well.

Knowing that the rest of them were trash compared to Yanho, I ignored them and started to walk away until I left the scene.

Ever since that day I earned a lot of respect thanks to that victory, but as it turned out, I later found out that I also managed to raise some eyebrows from those on the top and from my teacher Yupow.