Although Black Smoke possessed the power to erase anything he touched, the ability was limited to his body from the knees and above, and it came with certain conditions. After all, if his power applied to his feet as well, it would erase the ground, making him unable to even stand on it. In addition, this power of erasure required him to be standing on ground that was originally magma, so it ceased to function if he was in midair. For those reasons, Stein decided to put his accumulation of seventy years of experience to use against Black Smoke.
Black Smoke was speechless. Even though he should have clearly taken the initiative, he couldn’t believe that not only wasn’t Stein at the end of his fist, he was actually close to his chest. And even more unbelievable was the fact that Stein had caught Black Smoke’s ankle with his toes just as he was about to throw his punch, flinging him up into the air.
I was overwhelmed by conventional martial arts?!
Unless Stein had a perfect grasp on Black Smoke’s movements and performed his martial technique with perfect physical control, exactly as he envisioned it, there was no way he could have thrown Black Smoke—a creature that had mastered a variety of monk-slaying techniques—using only his foot.
I understand now. He hasn’t grown weaker. This is the optimal solution, which he determined from his accumulated experience. Completely unmatched in martial arts, Black Smoke was all but defeated and could do nothing against Stein, who moved his left leg forward into a stance again and raised his fist.
Forgive me, Black Smoke whispered in his mind. Who were those words directed at? Were they meant for Stein, who hadn’t been able to properly settle things back on the Boiling Mountain? Or perhaps...for his brothers?
There was the sound of a mirror cracking.
“Black Smoke!”
Purple Smoke?! Stein reacted to another deep voice he hadn’t heard in seventy years and dodged the burning purple fist that had suddenly intercepted Stein’s attack.
This was a powerful creature who had been born later than Black Smoke. Although he had participated in the attack on the Boiling Mountain, he had somehow managed to survive the attacks by the Hero’s party and had also lived through many battlefields after that. His name was Purple Smoke. The experience he had accumulated was near the peak, making him one of the strongest monk slayers in the later stages of the great war.
According to my muscle perception, he shouldn’t have been here a moment ago. Either this world brought him here by force, or there really is some kind of malfunction going on. For some reason, this monk slayer made of boiling, purple lava hadn’t been caught in Stein’s net of perception when he had been scanning over the battlefield. He had suddenly appeared out of thin air, further suggesting that this virtual world wasn’t functioning normally.
“Let’s do this, Black Smoke!” Purple Smoke stood next to his older brother.
“O...kay?” Black Smoke shook his head in a bit of confusion, then turned to face Stein.
This would seem like a natural scene since the two of them were brothers, but it looked completely absurd to Stein, who knew them personally.
Such nonsense. If you’re going to re-create them, do it properly. Black Smoke was perfect until a moment ago, but the determination in his muscles is wrong now. Uncharacteristically for him, Stein was a little irritated at this fake world.
Both Black Smoke and Purple Smoke were fighters who’d wished for a fair duel with Stein and had been defeated thus. Stein was certain that this would remain true no matter how much danger their brothers were in, yet the two monk slayers in front of him thought it was natural for them to team up. In other words, Stein had realized that this world of calculations was unable to properly reproduce his old archenemies.
Then, something even more irritating took place.
“Let’s flank him!” Purple Smoke circled around behind Stein with incredible speed, while Black Smoke remained in front, putting Stein between the two slayers.
Purple Smoke had no special abilities; all he possessed were his speed and accumulated experience. He was skilled at closing the distance with his speed and slaughtering his opponents with his honed martial arts prowess, and he was also very skilled at escaping. As a result, he had somehow continued surviving the deadly battlefields where the Hero’s party had rampaged, and he eventually became one of the most studied monk slayers. However, Purple Smoke was a strangely mentally unbalanced monster, and although he had been shameless enough to run away, gain more experience, and prepare for the next time, he’d never tried a surprise attack from behind, instead insisting on head-on deadly confrontations.
How can I fear Purple Smoke when he lacks his usual persistence? Who would fear Black Smoke when he’s started finding that behavior natural? Stein was at his limit. If this place was going to dishonor the memories he’d built through battle, he had to correct things at once.
“Rah!”
“Yah!”
Stein was assaulted from both sides: with a fist of black lava that burned everything from the front and a fist like purple lightning that even left afterimages from the back. However...a person’s personality was the product of their accumulated experience. In other words, it was the result of training their skills, so could someone truly fully utilize their skills when their personality and thought process were different? They couldn’t, not in this situation at least. To begin with, if these two had possessed their original personalities, they would know what would happen if they carelessly got within reach of Stein’s fists: There was absolutely no doubt that they would die.
How can he notice an attack coming from behind him?! Purple Smoke was shocked as his fist didn’t connect with Stein.
Stein’s muscles moved gently, using the minimum effort necessary to dodge Purple Smoke’s fist, then he caught Black Smoke’s foot much, much more easily than the previous time and tossed him slightly off the ground.
“Hah!” Stein cried. Go to sleep. This time, he swung his fist to finish off his old enemy for good.
“Thank you for everything.” Perhaps because he was on the verge of death, Black Smoke returned to his normal self and briefly thanked his archenemy before being extinguished.
“Black Smoke?!” But Purple Smoke couldn’t tolerate watching his brother getting killed right in front of him.
Next, Stein turned around to put his other old enemy to rest, moving his body slightly to the side to dodge Purple Smoke’s fist. Although that punch seemed like it had the same speed as earlier, Stein became more vigilant.
This copy of Purple Smoke has improved a little, Stein thought. Purple Smoke’s speed hadn’t changed; it was his martial technique that was different now. There was no intent.
It was said that master monks could sense their enemy’s intent to attack and preemptively avoid it. This was the technique Stein had used to dodge the attack coming from behind him. No matter how fast the attack was, it was easy to deal with if he knew his enemy’s movements in advance. Of course, Stein was also at that level, but conversely, there were techniques that erased that intent that could be used against his fellow monks, even killing them. Purple Smoke’s intent to punch and kill carried by his fist had been completely hidden, meaning that he was regaining the skills worthy of giving him the name of monk slayer.
However, the two of them were already within killing range of each other, so a conclusion would be reached soon.
“Impossible!” Purple Smoke was shocked for the umpteenth time.
If there was anything truly unfortunate here for Purple Smoke, who was using all of his experience in a life-and-death battle against Stein, it was that he had not been perfectly re-created yet. And that was why he fell for this little trick. Stein did the opposite of erasing his intent: He assaulted Purple Smoke with a storm of easily over a thousand imaginary fists. If Purple Smoke had been properly re-created, he would have probably realized that they were nothing but intent-filled illusions, but since he was only halfway to his original self, the monster reacted completely to them.
A straight punch! From the right! Even though this Purple Smoke was just an imitation, he was still a monk slayer who’d lived until the end of the great war. In but a brief moment, he sensed Stein’s true intent among the thousand false moves and tried to dodge the attack before it reached him. But for some reason, his leg was kicked and smashed.
Is it even possible for a living creature to have their consciousness and body move completely separately?! Purple Smoke immediately grasped Stein’s technique and realized what had happened. Stein had earnestly tried to throw a straight punch with his right fist, but his body had moved differently and kicked Purple Smoke’s leg.
This is it! Purple Smoke learned even that unexpected technique in an instant, and as his final, vain struggle, he intended to correct his posture with his mind while his body threw a desperate punch at Stein.
However, Stein dodged even that. The legendary monk had perfectly grasped Purple Smoke’s movements through simple kinetic vision and direct observation. He once again dodged Purple Smoke’s attack with the least movement necessary, and this time, he unleashed a right hook with all his might, exactly as he intended it.