Chapter 433: Visiting Hours
Morning. The Three Wolves sector checkpoint.
Himuro Ryo took a slow drag from his cigarette, leaning back as he watched the
perimeter clear out.
"Just an honest street brawl, huh? If you look at Shiroki-kun through that
lens... I guess it all makes sense."
The bald lieutenant in the arm cast scoffed. "Sounds to me like you just gave up
on trying to understand him."
Himuro smirked, exhaling a quiet plume of smoke.
The rout was a textbook chain reaction.
The moment the first outlaw abandoned his pride and fled into the alleys,
hesitation metastasized through the remaining ranks. The mob's charges grew
timid, their formations splintering until they couldn't even coordinate three
men at once.
Himuro watched in grim awe.
On paper, the outlaws held every conceivable advantage: numbers, weapons,
terrain familiarity, fresh stamina. Yet the reality playing out across the dirt
was a one-sided slaughter.
Every time a stray punch managed to graze Ren or draw a trickle of blood from
his nose, Ren answered with a devastating counter that permanently removed the
attacker from the fight.
BAM!
Ren drove a drunken-style palm thrust straight into another thug's sternum,
folding him in half.
Shick—!
A throwing knife whistled in from the shadows. Ren swatted it out of the air
with a casual knife-hand chop, sending the blade clattering harmlessly against
the asphalt.
Clang!
"—?!"
The slender knife-thrower met Ren's single, glowing eye and felt his scalp go
numb with ice. He turned on his heel and bolted without throwing a second blade.
Ren understood the psychology intimately.
That's the trap.
Those retreating thugs hadn't lost their physical capacity to fight. They fled
because their minds had already accepted defeat.
They held the "Advantage."
And an advantage is a toxic illusion. It makes a man defensive. It makes him
calculate his safety. It breeds hesitation. The second a fighter tastes genuine
lethal danger, the desire to preserve his edge takes over, and his frames begin
to rot.
When a man holds all the cards, he fights within the comfortable limits of
common sense.
The moment a battle exceeds that threshold, trying to "protect the lead" strips
him of the courage to trade life for life. In that instant, he becomes weak.
Just like Mohammad Alai Jr.
Just like the thugs collapsing around him.
"Next!!" Ren roared, his voice cracking like thunder.
Of the hundred-plus outlaws who had set up camp at dawn, fewer than a dozen
remained on their feet.
Himuro and the bald lieutenant swallowed hard.
This is the [SOUL COMBATANT].
Within minutes, the final stragglers broke, scattering into the maze of
shanties. The bustling staging ground was left a ruined wasteland of broken
barricades, bent pipes, and scattered pools of blood. Not a single enemy
remained standing.
Yet the tension in the air hadn't dissipated.
Farther back, among the tenement shadows, the crowd of spectators had grown.
Silhouettes who rarely showed their faces in daylight were stepping into the
open—the true, reclusive killers of the Three Wolves sector.
"..."
The bald lieutenant grimaced, holding his cast. "I'm getting out of here before
I catch a stray bullet. Later, Shiroki-kun."
Himuro stayed put, leaning against the breached gatehouse to monitor local comms
while keeping an eye on Ren.
Midday arrived, the autumn sun climbing overhead.
Ren spent the lull refueling on water and dry rations. After leaning against a
pillar for a brief twenty-minute nap, he woke up, cleared a patch of level
ground, and dropped into a complete split.
Bare-chested, an oil-and-blood-stained jacket draped loosely across his
shoulders, his tattered trousers covered in dust, Ren showed zero regard for his
appearance. He inverted himself into a handstand, twisting his hips and shifting
his weight between his palms with mind-boggling flexibility.
Tap, tap, tap.
Half an hour later, three figures stepped through the long gatehouse tunnel.
Himuro was the first to spot them, raising a hand in greeting.
It was the Soul Combat Hub crew: Fusui Kure, Arisa Sakurai, and Marco.
Before leaving Tokyo, Ren had arranged for Fusui to drop off fresh supplies
after twenty-four hours to check the baseline.
When Arisa had seen Fusui packing gear, her eyes had lit up: "Woo-hoo!"
She never missed an opportunity to tag along for a show. She begged Fusui to
bring her along and dragged Marco as muscle.
"Oho~!"
Fusui stepped into the sunlight, shielding her eyes with a gloved hand. Her
black-and-white eyes scanned the carnage before landing on Himuro and Ren.
"Giinokuniya's dispatch was on point. Ryo-chin, you're really here!"
Himuro smirked, waving back. Though they had never met in the flesh, they had
exchanged tactical briefings over encrypted channels regarding the Secret Key
Cards.
The four gathered near the breach, watching Ren finish a core rotation.
Himuro tossed his cigarette into the dirt, exhaling. "Watching Shiroki-kun... I
finally understand what he meant about seeking strength through difficulty."
"Only by hurling yourself into the fire can you forge a style as raw and direct
as that Pankration. It's terrifyingly effective."
Ren laughed from his stretch, looking up at them. "If my search for strength
stopped at physical martial arts, my Masters would never let me hear the end of
it."
He wiped his brow. "Honestly? I'm still lightyears away from where I need to
be."
Himuro blinked. "You're kidding, right?"
He couldn't fathom it. A man who had just pulverized a hundred-man armed
garrison with ancient Pankration thought he was lightyears away?
Ren took a cold water bottle tossed by Fusui, dumping half of it over his head
and gulping down the rest.
"Phew—!"
He shook the water from his hair, grinning. "There's a monster inside this Ward
I'm dying to face. To me, he represents true difficulty—visible, undeniable
strength."
"Before I track him down, I need to get my hands dirty against some real
heavyweights to heat up the engine."
"It's going to be brutal. I might actually get killed in here."
Himuro watched him closely. The words were grim, but Ren's grin was radiant.
To look forward to death with that kind of smile... what kind of monster is he
trying to surpass?
Himuro's gaze drifted toward the perimeter.
Fusui's eyes narrowed as well, her sniper instincts tracking the same vectors.
From the surrounding alleys and rooftops, solitary figures were emerging.
Some carried iron rods. Some carried long nodachi blades. Others held weighted
chains, spiked knuckles, or walked empty-handed.
The true predators of the Three Wolves sector. Ex-convicts, lone-wolf martial
artists, underground assassins, and wandering slashers who lived in the Ward
simply because it offered a place where they could kill without legal friction.
They had waited patiently for Ren to catch his breath. Now, they were stepping
into the ring.
"They're here," Himuro said, his voice dropping an octave.
"Don't take them lightly, Ren. Some of these guys are still active in the
darkest corners of the global circuit. They stay in the Ward because they love
the slaughter."
"In other words... just like you, they're here for blood."
Ren dusted off his trousers, stepping back into the blood-spattered dirt of the
camp.
Ordinarily, taking down a hundred men would leave a fighter running on fumes.
Yet Ren felt shockingly weightless. His chest was humming, his pulse racing with
the high-torque joy of a boy about to open a new present.
A punch? A kick? Maybe another diving headbutt?
Whish! Whish-shish!
Ren dropped into his side-facing stance, his feet skipping in time with his
breathing.
His fists were already blurring through the air before the enemy even crossed
the line.
Screee—!
☆☆☆
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