Chapter 1095
Chapter 1095 - 1081: Counterattack
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White Jade’s arms flailed wildly as the eight-limbed warrior unleashed a move called "Sweeping All Directions," truly striking out in every direction simultaneously.
Yet if it were just multiple arms without precise control, they would still be meaningless in high-level combat... What truly terrified the knowledgeable warriors was the young man’s each arm executing refined and accurate attacks.
Heavy-boxing, Fast Fist, Punch Boxing—the three basic punches were used in succession, as the Circular Dance of "Eight-handed" tore, shattered, and heavily struck everything before him.
And yet, this was merely the outer layer of this round of assault.
"Brutality."
The rampaging Vines around were the true sweepers, eradicating everything in their vicinity.
However, this War God-like outburst failed to hit anything...
"3, 7, 11."
"Speak human."
"One second, seven moves (including Shrink Land), eleven steps. He walked a full circle around you, and you didn’t even see his footprints."
"...Next time, just tell me the counter-strategy directly."
"In two seconds, burst out. Retreat quickly to the southwest."
After a brief inquiry, the time had come, and the Flaming Flowers summoned by Lu Ping’an once again deterred the opponent trying to close in on him.
He took a deep breath, Flames gathered at his feet, and as the Flaming Runner, he tried to widen the gap.
In a mere dozen seconds of entanglement, the tide of attack and defense turned, forcing Lu Ping’an into a dead end.
"Get out of my way!"
With a roar, Lu Ping’an’s "Eight Arms" erupted once again.
And until now, all he had used were "area attacks," simply because...
"Why can’t I capture his movements? There’s no reason he should be able to avoid the Observation of my eyes. It doesn’t seem to be absolute speed either."
"He now... with Law Peak combat power, his physical condition is quite average, actually not as fast as you. But he’s just always acted in your blind spot. Those seemingly fast movements are also illusions, just him ’just so happening’ to use Shrink Land, just so happening to turn in advance, omitting the critical motions, looking a bit like... ’frame skipping’."
This was what Big Cat referred to as "one second, seven moves," and it also measured the combat rhythm of a high-level Fighter.
Within a unit of time, how many effective operations you can perform, this isn’t as simple as how many punches can you throw in a second.
𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚
Just in that brief burst, the opponent completed actions like "Shrink Land," "Abrupt Stop," "Instant Step," "Stomp Burst," and those eleven steps actually changed direction four times, launching attacks thrice.
Big Cat directly reported the numbers because, in the domain of high-level Fighters, this is "fundamental."
For real old stagers, just hearing this number alone is enough to understand the opponent’s level of control over their "Body."
"Am I about one move per second?"
"...You haven’t even broken through the concept of one move per second. Here ’move’ refers to effective control, ’Mastery,’ your ability to modify original actions. You think about throwing a punch and you just do it, but in the process, stopping the fist and then switching to a kick, that’s one move. This is the ’Technique’ of a high-level Fighter."
The tactics of actual combat have many intricate names, but in result, Lu Ping’an was simply unable to grasp the opponent’s actions and trajectory.
All predictions were wrong or might have been right at one time, prompting Lu Ping’an to make decisions, but once the opponent successfully anticipated and switched to a different set of actions, they naturally became wrong.
"...This doesn’t mean that a high-level Fighter competing against a low-level one is simply an overwhelming victory."
"The control over the Body is not on the same level. With the same machinery, your opponent can truly exert ’one hundred percent,’ while you, at best, are only pushing to an extreme of ten percent or so."
Originally, Lu Ping’an knew that even if the opponent successfully performed a God’s Descent, they should still be constrained Above the rule level and should be easier to handle.
But now, if it wasn’t for being forced to reveal a card like "Multi-armed War God" right from the start and resorting to large-area AOE at all costs, he might already have been closed in on.
For the first time, facing an opponent with a "weaker" actual strength, Lu Ping’an was completely crushed in terms of technique and combat experience.
A Fighter is all about the technique of controlling the Body. Perhaps the opponent has lost those cool combat skills and powerful traits of a high-level Fighter, but just with those thoroughly tempered combat techniques and experience, they are not something the current Lu Ping’an can hope to compete with.
"That thing about one move per second, why didn’t you teach me before?"
"Teach you? Could you learn it? It requires complete control of the Body. At least starting from a Sixth-Level Fighter, and only at seventh and eighth order can you practice it decently."
Initially, when Lu Ping’an decided to follow this path, it was because his control over the "Body" was too poor, which resulted in his Spirit Ghost System being merely Flat A, totally unable to reach its potential.
Now, he has seen the ’limit,’ yet he’d rather not have encountered it....
"Tyranny..."
Fortunately, his tentacles were a part of his body, even if the large-scale attacks were low in consumption, he could protect himself and try to hunt again...
"...How is that possible!"
It was in the midst of the tempest of tentacles thrown by Lu Ping’an that this man walked in, calm and composed.
Not fast, not slow, occasionally taking a slight detour, sometimes gently bowing his head... the tentacle attacks seemed to coordinate with him, just brushing past his skin.
Countless tentacles, as if a breeze on the face, just "happened" to be bypassed by him.
If he weren’t the one who initiated the attack, Lu Ping’an would have doubted if this were a fixed match.
"He has observed enough and has figured out the current limits of his physical functionality, the fight next is going to be tough."
Well, it appears that the reason he has held out until now was simply because the opponent was warming up.
Looking at "Arkur" passing through his vine network with an unconcerned air, Lu Ping’an felt his scalp tingle.
He couldn’t help but remember the past, the ultimate fate of that Sophist, who was hammered to death within ten seconds... Back then, his hardware wasn’t nearly as good as the current Li Fan, yet the opponent was a Quasi-God Descent akin to Big Cat.
"Heh, both are Quasi-Gods, but worlds apart. If face to face, I could hammer him to death with one hand."
But now, the Quasi-God Descent flexed his arms, looking ready to hammer Lu Ping’an himself to death with one hand.
At that moment, Lu Ping’an tried every possible means to obstruct, but it was all in vain.
The immense gap in "combat experience and technique" meant that every look and movement Lu Ping’an made was instantly uncovered, even preemptively predicted and blocked.
Shrink Land to increase distance? Useless, the opponent had already stopped at your Shrink Land coordinates.
Rebounding tentacle attack? Meaningless, the opponent, with his eyes closed, could predict your overly "simple" movement trajectory.
The absolute superiority in strength seemed to foretell that Lu Ping’an had no chance of victory... In fact, the Emcee above seemed to have nearly declared Lu Ping’an’s defeat in advance.
"Tch, that Arkur, really shameless, going after a kid..."
The absolute dominance of strength created an inescapable predicament, and when Arkur once again stood before Lu Ping’an, perhaps in everyone’s mind, it was all over.
No wonder he dared to waste time earlier, the huge gap in strength gave him absolute confidence in resolving the issue within two minutes.
And now, the fight had only been going for tens of seconds...
"Young man, you’re quite good. But, too young, let’s end it here..."
The unhurried punch headed straight for Lu Ping’an’s face, and as the victim, he saw through everything and tried to dodge... Yet the fist was always waiting for him at the endpoint.
Was it a magic trick? But Lu Ping’an, having been taught, knew it was just his opponent "changing" constantly, and all his struggles were part of the opponent’s calculations.
Struggling seemed to have already become meaningless.
Having come so far, was Lu Ping’an just supposed to watch helplessly as he was knocked out with a punch and then eliminated?
Suddenly, the punch was weirdly caught by the "young man."
Grasping the fist, his expressionless white eyes, however, did not look at his opponent.
This move, even the Quasi-God Arkur, showed a look of astonishment.
A punch landed directly on Arkur’s face.
Then, before he could react, he disgracefully toppled over, lying face up to the sky, with a bewildered look in his eyes.
Whatever position Lu Ping’an was in just a moment ago, now he was in the same.
This scene, even the Deities, opened their eyes wide, not understanding what had just happened.
"Like bullying the weak? Fine, what goes around comes around."
— End of Chapter 1095 —