Chapter 1417 - The Hunter, the Swordsman, & the Monk (3)

A single misconception had led to disastrous consequences: in an instant, the Sword Saint had one of his most powerful attacks reversed on himself, leaving him disarmed, in both senses of the word.

After reversing the blow, the monk immediately moved to follow up, his hand piercing forward like a spear, seeking to finish what he’d started. However, despite the circumstances, the Sword Saint reacted quickly and propelled himself backward, making the monk’s strike miss as he wrapped his legs around the extended hand.

The monk used his other hand to pierce the thigh of the Sword Saint who’d trapped him in a mid-air arm-bar, but the old man quickly pulled and twisted, leading to a loud cracking sound before he kicked off the body of the monk and sent himself flying away.

During his retreat, he flew over and grabbed both the severed arm and his sword out of the air as the monk didn’t follow, but looked at his dangling arm, a hint of admiration in his eyes.

Jake, who’d been watching the fight but hadn’t outright stepped in yet, caught the gaze of the Sword Saint, who looked up at him while sending a telepathic message:

“The choice is yours, but I’ll need a minute or two if I want to reattach my arm,” he said, not outright asking for assistance, but leaving the option on the table, pretty much giving Jake one of two pathways.

Either he could stay back and continue watching the fight, now with the monk having a massive advantage, or he could choose to step in, let the Sword Saint recover somewhat, and then take things from there.

It more or less came down to whether Jake believed he could beat the Eastbound Monk alone, and if he wanted to truly just be a spectator. Even in the scenario where he could beat the monk, it would only be after he’d taken down the Sword Saint, who Jake knew had way more tools in his repertoire.

In the end, the choice was rather easy for Jake to make as he stepped down and teleported right in between the Sword Saint and the Eastbound Monk. The monk had already popped his arm into place and was moving it around as he looked at Jake and smiled, giving a polite nod.

Having seen the duel between the two, Jake had gotten a little excited to give it a go himself, making him summon his two katars. He’d expected the monk to retrieve his staff, but he didn’t even attempt to as he instead took a stance Jake immediately recognized.

Soulfist Daolord.

It was nearly identical to how the image of the Daolord had been standing within the Colosseum of Mortals within Nevermore. Evidently, the monk had already learned some from that palace.

Behind him, the Sword Saint had already taken his arm and was pressing it against the open wound where his arm had gotten cut off, all while he was attempting to dispel the energy lingering around the wound. While the cut was clean, making it easy to reattach the arm, the issue was that the slash had contained a lot of energy, which had to be addressed before the arm could be mended back on.

Buying time for the Sword Saint to do that was definitely a side objective as Jake charged forward, having his turn to face the monk and see just how good he was in melee combat. Admittedly, the Sword Saint was superior to Jake in sheer skill, but the old man lacked an overpowered Bloodline giving borderline precognitive abilities that would allow him to dodge pretty much everything.

One other reason Jake wanted to fight the monk was to test his redirection ability. To be able to revert the Sword Saint’s Glimpse of Spring: Stormcut was far beyond what Jake thought the man could be capable of, especially as it was done from a rather precarious stance and with no preparation. Granted, the monk had definitely fooled them into believing he had to use the redirection move into the ground based on how he’d actively avoided using it in the sky. At least Jake believed he did, though there could be more to it. The only way to find out was to do a bit of testing.

Jake started his assault with a few simple cuts and stabs, all of which the monk easily avoided. Upping the tempo, Jake’s slashes got faster, making the monk also have to block. Given he was bare-handed, Jake had hoped this would prove difficult, but a whitish energy enveloped both of his hands, allowing him to deflect and even block the katars with them.

So he’s learned that, too, Jake concluded, recognizing the traits of this skill. It was one thing that pretty much all monks of the Fist Palace learned, as it would allow them to face weapons using their bare hands, and also one of the reasons why the Soulfist Daolord was called that in the first place. As Jake understood it, the skill effectively coated the monks’ hands with parts of their souls and Willpower. Clearly, it was a lot more complicated than that, but it was the crux of it anyway.

Considering the complexity alone, it should be evident how difficult something like that was to learn. Many monks never qualified to reach the upper ranks of the Fist Palace because they failed to properly comprehend and upgrade this skill. Nonetheless, this monk’s application was quite impressive, in Jake’s estimation.

“And people call me Jake of all Trades,” he muttered his pun aloud while exchanging blows with the monk, both of them still only trying to measure their opponent.

“I wouldn’t classify myself as any kind of tradesman,” the monk replied, sounding genuinely perplexed by Jake’s comment, once more showing that while the Myriad Tongues skill was absolutely overpowered, it still wasn’t perfect when it came to dumb self-invented puns.

“But you are skilled in many different things,” Jake partly elaborated what he meant as he tried to stab the monk in the stomach, only for his opponent to push his blade to the side and counter, a fist flying for the hunter’s face.

“That I cannot deny. I like being a student,” he responded while Jake ducked under the fist and kicked the monk, who blocked it by raising a knee.

“Just how many teachers do you have?” Jake asked, diving after the monk while unleashing a flurry of cuts, none of which successfully landed.

“What a complicated question,” the monk said, going on the offensive himself after having weathered Jake’s assault. “Many have taught me formally, but most I consider teachers have imparted their lessons through exchanges similar to these. In fact, I dare classify the two of you as teachers, and I hope that this encounter will also prove a valuable moment of learning for you.”

He said this in between a hail of fists, his hand transforming mid-blows, taking on many forms. Some were tight fists that fell like hammers; others were palms that seemed to radiate shockwaves whenever they hit something, while a third transformed into spear hands, seeking to pierce through anything they encountered. This didn’t include the occasional claw that tried to grab, or the many other rare variants of attacks he mixed in.

 This was one of the definite advantages of fist arts. The hand could transform into many shapes, enabling a variety of attacks suited to the situation. They were also incredibly good at disarming others, something Jake had especially seen Carmen do. In some ways, the Path of those from the Fist Palace and that of a Runemaiden were quite similar, though Runemaidens were far more extreme.

A Runemaiden forged her entire body to be like a living piece of armor, making them incredibly durable, with their hands becoming the most resilient of all. This allowed them to grab swords to block them, punch spears to deflect them, and not even bother blocking many attacks, instead just taking the blow with their body to land a counter.

The monk in front of Jake was far from as durable, but he did have the option of catching Jake’s katars and trying to disarm him if he got the opportunity to. Of course, katars in particular were borderline impossible to wrestle away from their wielder due to how the handle worked, and due to Fangs of Man, the monk’s attempts to quite literally break Jake’s wrists by punching the side of his weapon and making his hand twist failed.

“I look forward to seeing what kind of lesson you’ll impart, then,” Jake answered after a bit, as more than three hundred blows had already been exchanged, neither landing any attack of consequence.

Between the two of them, Jake was slightly faster and naturally far superior at dodging, while annoyingly, the monk was more skilled in melee combat. Did Jake ever train himself in melee combat? No, not really, not since integrating Sim-Jake and all that, which was admittedly a very long time ago. Given that, it shouldn’t be a surprise, and Jake expected – or at least really hoped – that the monk spent a lot more time learning fist techniques than Jake did practicing melee combat.

However, the Sword Saint was still better, and while the old man was fast and strong, Jake surpassed him in both of these areas when time magic fuckery wasn’t in play. Between that and his superior innate senses, he ended up being the first one to teach the monk a valuable lesson.

After dodging a blow from the monk, Jake purposefully left a small opening he just knew no one could resist going for. As expected, the monk tried to land a quick jab, only for a second Jake to suddenly appear, stepping to the side, seemingly intending to stab the monk in the neck.

Reacting quickly, the monk exploded with mystical scriptures in an attempt to push Jake back, but with Pride, it was resisted, and Jake stabbed the monk square in the stomach, his katar penetrating deep. At the same time, his Eternal Shadow was only pushed back and started slowly dispersing, and to the surprise of both Jake and the monk, it whipped out a bow and shot off an arrow quickly before actually turning into cursed mist.

The arrow struck the Eastbound Monk in the shoulder, making him flinch and giving Jake the chance to land a second cut before he was finally forced away. Stumbling back, the monk was breathing heavily while looking impressed.

“What a wonderful skill,” he said with a smile. “Did you learn it within this world?”

“Something like that,” Jake answered, not seeing any reason to share the entire story of the mythical skill with his opponent.

“It shows,” the monk nodded before slightly shifting his stance, ignoring his wounds. “Now allow me to show off an ability of mine. One also born of inspiration gained within this world.”

The air around the monk seemed to shift as Jake momentarily felt like he saw three of his opponent right before he moved. With speed equal to before, the monk attacked, once more with nothing special going on at first. Jake moved to dodge; however, suddenly his danger sense warned him.

Jake abandoned his attempt to avoid the blow and instead blocked, sending him skidding back, a look of confusion on his face. The monk gave chase, striking with his palm this time, and once more, as Jake was about to avoid it, he stopped himself and instead tried to block, resulting in an invisible shockwave of force shooting through his body, sending a rush of pain through him.

Wanting to avoid whatever was going on, Jake tried to attack, which was when he finally started to get an idea of what was happening. Stabbing forward, the monk dodged as seemingly two additional copies of his upper body’s outline appeared on each side of his waist, and by the time Jake’s hand was fully extended, the monk had moved and fully merged with one of those outlines as he punched Jake in the gut while he was still distracted by whatever sorcery his opponent had pulled off.

He had taken the blow on purpose, having already felt the danger if he fully committed to his attack, but the data had been good enough to make Jake try to attack again. Once more, he struck, and once again, it looked like he hit the monk, which, technically, he did. He had struck one of the three outlines, but the monk had already manifested within another one of them and attempted to punch Jake again.

This time, it was dodged as both of them moved away from one another, neither having suffered any damage from that exchange. For a brief moment, they merely looked at one another before both of them charged at once. This time around, Jake purposefully ignored his danger sense and didn’t block the blow of the monk, as he wanted to see why his danger sense was warning him in the first place.

It ended up being more or less what he’d expected, as when he dodged the initial hit from the monk, two outlines suddenly appeared, one of them punching towards where Jake was dodging. The monk manifested within it instantly, landing a spear hand that penetrated slightly into Jake’s shoulder, but it didn’t have time to get very deep before the hunter successfully retreated.

“Now that is an impressive skill,” Jake said, noting his small flesh wound. “Let’s test its limits.”

Exploding forward, Jake tried to attack yet again, finding his blow avoided like every other time, and when the monk countered, rather than dodge to the side, he tried to leap backward, only for one of the outlines to lunge toward him, still resulting in him having to block.

Engaging again, Jake launched several light jabs, with the monk easily avoiding all of them, before he finally went for his true attack. With one hand, he punched forward and made it explode with arcane energy while following up with a powerful stab using the other one.

The explosion struck the monk, but his dodging skill still worked as he avoided the stab... having clearly not realized that even this “true attack” was also just a feint. Jake’s hand, which he had used to punch earlier, suddenly had a bottle in it, and with a flick, he launched it at the monk’s face, right into the outline he manifested, splattering the necrotoxin all over him.

Recoiling as his skin started undergoing necrosis, the monk stumbled backward, quickly wiping off whatever poison he could. Using poison like this was far less effective than injecting it, but it had proven Jake’s theory:

Whatever the monk did took active decision-making and control. In other words, if he didn’t see an attack coming, he couldn’t avoid it. Plus, there were always three outlines, meaning he had to appear within one of them, no matter what. It was similar to Jake’s Eternal Shadow in some ways, though clearly far weaker. Far more usable, too, but far weaker for sure.

With that tested, Jake moved on to the next theory he wanted to confirm. Once he could get the opportunity to, that is. While Jake had gotten some insight into the monk’s odd dodging skill, that didn’t mean he could handle it all the time, resulting in several wounds while he got more familiar with what he was dealing with. He was making progress, though, and was dealing with the monk’s skill better as the seconds passed until, finally, he believed he saw his opening.

The monk had avoided one of his swipes, and he tossed another poison bottle, which the Eastbound Monk had been prepared for this time. He raised a hand, blocking it while floating backward out of Jake’s range. The hunter, however, dived forward, Eternal Hunter winding up as energy revolved around it, and then he punched forward.

Rupturing Fang went straight for the monk’s stomach, only for a palm to intercept it, Jake seemingly having been baited into using a powerful skill. Eternal Hunger stopped dead in its tracks when it touched the monk’s palm as the man twisted his body and formed a spear hand that pierced toward Jake’s exposed shoulder... only for the monk to freeze entirely.

Jake looked at the monk, briefly activating Primal Gaze and taking a brief pause to retreat back and out of range of the monk’s stab. Once the monk could move again and realized his attack had missed, he did something rather unexpected.

He proceeded to redirect the spear hand and strike his own shoulder, piercing a hole through his body and making him grimace from the pain. In reply, Jake grinned, having a far better idea of how that redirection skill worked now. It was necessary to redirect the energy somewhere, and if he failed to do so, he would likely suffer disastrous consequences. The only way to redirect was through physical contact with something; in this case, with Jake having successfully dodged, his own body.

At the same time, while Jake was feeling happy about having somewhat figured out the monk, the Sword Saint floated forward, rolling his shoulder where his newly reattached arm was back in place.

The monk raised his hand and formed a seal, his body healing again as he regarded the two of them with a smile. “I hope you’ll forgive me if you consider this underhanded, but given it’s part of the event...”

Jake was unsure what he was referring to as the monk summoned a sword that didn’t at all look like a weapon he normally used, but he immediately realized as his eyes opened up wide.

Well, shit.