Shattering Common Sense
“Whew.”
The moment his lead kick dug into my side—
Thud!
My rear leg had already come up.
Crack!
He staggered.
I had swept out his front leg — the very leg anchoring his stance — with my rear foot. His front kick, which had driven deep toward my ribs, had barely grazed me. Rotating my torso as I threw the low kick had let it slip past.
Momentum still alive in me, I shoved forward the instant my rear foot touched back down, stabbing out my rear hand. He, still wobbling from losing his lead leg, raised his guard to shield his face.
But.
Thock.
The instant my rear hand smacked into his guard, I seized his wrist, pivoting off the outer angle as I slipped out of range of his lead hand. Escaping into his blind side, I lashed out with my rear leg once more.
Smack!
When the calf kick bit into the side of his shin, he lurched again, hard. Dragging down the wrist I'd caught while kicking his calf, I buried a lead uppercut into him.
In that instant he dropped back, leaning his upper body away, and my fist grazed past him by a hair.
“WAAAAAAAHHH!”
Another roar erupted from the crowd as he sank onto his rear foot and fired back a counter rear hand.
Thud!
I pulled down the arm I'd raised for the uppercut, wrapping my head, and took the punch on my guard. His weight-loaded rear hand drove the impact through the guard — but that was all it did.
Right there, I whirled from hips through shoulders and launched a spinning back elbow.
Crack!
The elbow sweeping around as I turned clipped his forehead — he'd been trying to dig into my half-turned back.
Rotating my upper body nearly into giving him my back while keeping my guard, my half-formed prediction had paid off beautifully.
A little higher, and it would've been a knockout.
Just as I was licking my lips inward—
“WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
The opponent, dropped to one knee for an instant, tried to spring straight back up even with his back exposed.
I didn't climb onto it. Pretending I would, I looped one arm around his neck — and the moment the fooled bastard grabbed my wrist to defend, I flicked out my opposite leg and swept it.
Whap!
He flailed, wavering, and barely recovered his balance before spinning his body around. Somewhere along the way his back had met the cage. In the stance he held now, guard welded tight to his face, there wasn't a shred left of that predator's poise — the one who'd held his spear behind his shield, waiting for openings.
“Hah······.”
In that pause, I settled my breathing. Just standing here, face to face with him pinned against the fence, the pressure had to be crushing him.
Meanwhile, Raoul Bisio could not accept the situation he was in.
What is this?
Since completing his system, no one had ever pierced his defense. Opponents had only ever hammered on his shield until they got speared and knocked out, or bled out and accepted defeat.
He had a counter prepared for every attack card his opponents could hold, which was why he could always toy with his prey at his leisure, feeling like the hunter. And yet, in this moment, he had met an opponent against whom not a single one of his defensive cards worked.
······How is this possible?
He'd studied his opponent, watched the sparring footage over and over. Most of it was against amateurs, which had been disappointing. But he'd still been able to catch glimpses of technique — talented, sharp instincts. Exactly that level, no more. That was certain, and yet—
You're telling me all of that was a bluff?
No.
That wasn't it.
There's no way you could fight like this — operate like this — in sparring······.
That was precisely why he was being torn apart one-sidedly right now. Taking a jab on the head to break the fist, predicting the takedown and cracking it with an elbow — how could anyone ever deploy that kind of thing in sparring?
Buting and elbows were forbidden techniques in the first place because of the injury risk, and if you anticipated a takedown coming, the proper answer was to safely dig an underhook or sprawl. This all-or-nothing counter-fire was, if nothing else, a variable no one had ever heard of or seen before.
What in the world was this bizarre — no, outright grotesque — style of fighting?
The instant the question flashed across his mind, a single answer surfaced with it.
Pankration.
A remark he'd laughed off.
But maybe that one line was, in truth, the very identity of the man in front of him. The fear of the unknown flooded his skull. It was what kept him hesitating with his back to the cage. At least it beat flailing around in a panic.
His opponent didn't wait, though. While his lead leg was still buzzing and numb, too dead to move properly, another calf kick came in — and the instant Raoul Bisio pulled his leg away, the man planted his lead foot and swung.
Whoosh!
With nowhere left to retreat, Raoul Bisio dropped his stance, slipped the wide hook, and tried to weave his way out. In the split second he moved laterally, his opponent grabbed the back of his neck with the hooking hand and dug in an uppercut. No — he thought it was an uppercut. It sank into his side instead.
WHAM!
The liver shot hit him on the exhale, gouging into him, and Raoul Bisio went white with shock. He had never once allowed a clean punch in his career — and the moment that weight-loaded fist buried itself in his flank, the impact felt like his organs had ruptured, and his legs gave out.
Hit by the liver shot, spinning as he fell, the man grabbed the fence without even realizing it.
Of course, that was a foul. I didn't care. I was used to fighting unbound by rulesets or confined space in the first place.
Smelling blood, I didn't rush.
Calmly, I slipped into Raoul Bisio's blind side and threw an uppercut, then a hook. Both punches landed clean — one on his chin, one on his temple, his head still bowed with his hand clamped on the fence.
CRACK!
SMACK!
The power drained out of the man who'd been hit by blows he never saw, and he collapsed on the spot. Even so, he held onto the fence with one arm fully extended. Even unconscious, he'd fought to the very last not to fall.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
As cheers poured down from the stands, I turned away without throwing another strike.
At the same moment, the referee diving onto Raoul Bisio from behind called the hunt.
“It's over!”
A shiver ran through me.
“It's been a while. This feeling.”
The sensation of finishing a man still soaked through every inch of my body.
“Unbelievable······.”
As I approached the fence, I could see the head coach and Namrae standing there, faces frozen in astonishment.
“I knew you'd win, but I never imagined you'd win like this.”
“Who ARE you!? Are you seriously Shin Yugyeom? What even is—!”
It was only natural that they couldn't believe it even with their own two eyes. The stands had practically been a cauldron of madness.
“WAAAAAAH······.”
“He's, he's built for the pros, I swear.”
I gave them a pleasant smile and walked toward my fallen opponent. Until the referee declared the end, he'd been my adversary, my prey — but now he was nothing more than a fellow professional.
“Ah······!”
Raoul Bisio had come to in the meantime, and shook his head where he sat slumped against the fence. From his stiff expression and vacant eyes alone, I could see just how painful it was for him to swallow this desolate result.
“You gave it everything!”
Raoul Bisio's coach said, laying a hand on his head.
“You just ran out of luck. You met a champion-level fighter in your debut. You fought hard!”
“I'm sorry, Coach.”
Raoul Bisio spotted me and pushed himself upright. We took our places on either side of the referee. Soon the referee hoisted my hand into the air—
“By knockout at 2 minutes 14 seconds of Round 1, your winner — the fighting prodigy from Korea! SHIN YU GYEOM!”
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
Another colossal roar filled the arena. When I turned my head toward my opponent, the man wearing an expression of tangled emotions swept the shadow from his face and offered his hand first.
“You're really sixteen?”
“That's right.”
I clasped his thick hand.
“So that's why your jab was so heavy.”
“Well, what can I say? Your face is clean as if you've never fought a day in your life, and my face and right hand look like they got demolished. Good thing you shook with your left.”
“I'm sorry.”
“No. If I could have, I'd have done the same. This was no joke, you know?”
“Still — it's over now.”
“Was that too part of this martial art of yours, Pankration?”
Only now did his eyes show that he genuinely believed me.
“Something like that. If you dig deeper, there's Pygmachia and the cestus······.”
“······?”
“It's closer to ancient boxing, but it's used in Pankration too.”
“I see.”
Raoul Bisio nodded.
“Someday, I'd like to learn it. To put that kind of power behind a hand like a kid's. My whole side still feels like it's been blown open. Future champion.”
“Thank you. I respect you too — champion.”
When I clapped his shoulder, Raoul Bisio pulled me into a brief embrace.
“Congratulations, young friend!”
He stepped back and released me. Then the ring announcer, who'd been waiting with a microphone instead of a number card, took the baton.
“Shin Yugyeom! Congratulations on your victory! What an absolutely, INCREDIBLE professional debut!”
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH······.”
“Can you hear that roar? How does it feel right now?”
I spoke into the microphone.
“Pretty memorable. I had fun, I won, and the crowd's cheering me — feels like I own the world.”
I didn't mention that I'd longed for this moment, but I answered with everything I had, and the ring announcer pressed on.
“At the press conference you said you'd learned an ancient martial art called Pankration while speaking Latin. Honestly, today's fight did feel a little different. Was it more than just a concept?”
“Yes. I do apply jiu-jitsu and MMA-style techniques, but from here on I intend to fight on a Pankration base. Pankration isn't the name of any specific technique — it's closer to a way of fighting. The way mixed martial arts itself is a ruleset that blended multiple disciplines and codified them.”
“I see. No wonder we found it so striking. The result was something nobody predicted, but it was the content that felt utterly unprecedented. We're eager to see what comes next — do you have any goals?”
“To complete the strongest martial art in human history.”
I continued.
“And to prove that fact through my own existence — that's my goal.”
“So you're aiming to become a world champion? Like Royce Gracie?”
“Who's that?”
Tilting my head at a name I didn't know, I said what I came to say.
“Forget all that. I beat the Senkai Featherweight Champion, so bring me the strong ones. KFC Featherweight, or a division up at Lightweight, I don't care. Fighters from other promotions, like this time. Champion, contender, ranked — I'll fight any of them, so contact me. As you can see, I'm not injured, so I can fight right now.”
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”
The stands exploded with cheering.
After the fight, I stepped down from the cage and made for the waiting room through the endless, unbroken cheering and standing ovation. Until I reached it, my ears felt packed with cotton, my mind blank — like I was underwater. But the moment the waiting room door closed behind me, I woke as if from sleep, feeling the air of reality prick against my skin.
There, a crowd of people had arrived ahead of me and were waiting.
“That was INSANE!”
“Absolutely unreal.”
“Congratulations.”
“Congratulations, Shin Yugyeom!”
I smiled brightly. With the bill tucked away in my chest pocket.