Unparalleled Duo
Chapter 67 - 67 44 Starting Off with a Victory

67: Chapter 44 Starting Off with a Victory 67: Chapter 44 Starting Off with a Victory The match was the first time that Sun Yixie had shown his hand in front of his peers in the Martial Arts, and the various rumors he had previously created, along with his consistently mysterious power, undoubtedly made this competition the focal point of the second round.

Brother Sun didn’t feel much pressure himself, but his opponent was feeling a great deal, after all, he was uncertain…

This round, his opponent was named Li Yuan, a twelfth generation disciple of the Iron Fist Sect.

The Iron Fist Sect could be considered a rather moderate sect in the Martial Arts of today.

Its first Sect Leader was a lay disciple from Shaolin, originally from Song Mountain’s Shaolin monastery.

After he had braved the bronze men formation, he left the mountain to make his own way in the Martial Arts world, and after several years, he developed a twenty-four move “Eight Forms Fist” based on Shaolin’s Five Forms Fist, then established his own sect and started teaching.

To this day, the Iron Fist Sect has nearly a hundred years of history.

Among the twelfth generation disciples, Li Yuan undoubtedly had high talent and the best martial skills; however, he had started practicing martial arts relatively late, not until he was eleven years old, so he had only seven years of training up to this year.

That is to say, assuming that he started generating Inner Strength a year or two after he began practicing, then in terms of Power, Li Yuan really was not as strong as Sun Yixie.

Because the “five years of Inner Strength” that Sun Yixie had previously gained for free had come from Iron Monk Yi Huai, belonging to the pure Orthodox Inner Strength of Zen, further amplified by his “Reversing Heaven and Earth Heart Method,” the force actually exhibited was certainly much stronger than the five-year power that an ordinary young person would have just started to develop.

If you still don’t understand, let me summarize it again with the concept I mentioned before—Brother Sun’s “purity” of Inner Strength is high.

Of course, martial arts contests are not only a competition of Inner Strength, moves are also very important.

In “The Smiling, Proud Wanderer,” the opponents Linghu Chong encountered generally had more Inner Strength than him, but by relying on his Dugu Nine Swords, he was often able to overcome stronger adversaries because, in that world, the Dugu Nine Swords were the ultimate answer for the “realm of the sword,” winning “with no moves against moves,” remaining invincible in terms of technique.

In the case of Li Yuan and Sun Yixie’s bout, although Li Yuan was at a slight disadvantage in Inner Strength, if he had an advantage in moves, he still had a chance of winning.

“This match will be between Iron Fist Sect’s Li Yuan and Sun Yixie from Hangzhou.”

With the announcer’s declaration, the competition was about to start.

Li Yuan, this young fellow, had thick eyebrows, big eyes, a straight nose, and a square mouth.

His appearance looked spirited; today he was dressed in white attire with a red belt tied at the waist, looking sharp and ready.

As soon as his name was called from the stage, he immediately stepped forward with an arrow step, tapping the ground and soaring up onto the ring.

On the other side, when Sun Yixie, lounging on his “lying chair,” heard his name being called to the stage, he lazily picked up his trident that rested beside the chair and then shouted towards the direction of the ring.

“Ah—”

Just when everyone thought he was going to display some sort of extraordinary Qinggong, they saw…

the guy jog a couple of steps forward, used the trident to support himself with a pole-vault-like move, and barely swung himself from his initial position onto the ring with the help of the trident.

Seeing this, the onlooking Martial Arts experts all showed puzzled looks, unsure whether he was deliberately concealing his strength or feigning foolishness.

However, the expression on Shen Youran in the judges’ seats didn’t change—he firmly believed that Sun Yixie was hiding his strength.

Master Shen had this misunderstanding because Sun Yixie had previously told him that “I, your junior, once received ‘guidance’ from Iron Monk Yi Huai in a Mountain God Temple and was fortunate to have been passed down several years of power.”

This narrative, of course, had been discussed in advance by Sun and Huang, half true and half fabricated; with such an ambiguous description, besides explaining why Sun Yixie suddenly had several more years of Inner Strength, it also claimed that all the martial arts moves that Sun Yixie would use later were taught by Yi Huai, thus covering up the fact that Sun’s sect had other secret martial arts…

Anyway, as long as Shen Youran did not see Yi Huai himself, he could not verify their claims.

“Brother, please.” After climbing onto the stage, Sun Yixie immediately set his trident down, then with bare hands, he cupped his fists and bowed to the other side in greeting.

Li Yuan was already feeling pressure and mystified about his opponent’s strength.

Now seeing that his opponent was forgoing weapons and going to fight empty-handed, his nervousness increased.

“Please.” Greetings still had to be made, so Li Yuan also responded with a bow and immediately took a half-step back and got into position.

Sun Yixie squinted his little eyes and gleaned from the expression and demeanor of Li Yuan that the latter was feeling uncertain.

He laughed inwardly, shifted his stance, and also took a position.

Sun Yixie had his left foot forward, the right foot propped behind, the tip of his toes slightly leading beyond his shoulders, his center of gravity seemingly leaning forward but actually held along his body’s central axis; his left shoulder sank a little, his left fist clenched as if he were holding a shield position in front of his body, his right shoulder relaxed, his right fist also clenched, roughly at the height of his own chin, and his arm shielded his chest.

This extremely refined stance, very common in modern mixed martial arts, was completely unprecedented in the Martial Arts of the Great Ming, because it was fundamentally different from the ancient martial arts that were based on horse stance.

“Hiss…

What kind of stance is this?”

“Sect Leader Wang, have you seen this?”

“I’ve never seen this before…

it doesn’t seem to make sense.”

“What nonsense, without the horse stance, where does the power come from?

Isn’t this going to get knocked over at the slightest hit?”

Sun Yixie hadn’t even made a move yet, just taken a starting stance, and the crowd of Martial Arts predecessors below the stage had already started a bustling discussion, especially those experts who specialized in fists and palms, reacting much like a group of ancient astronomy enthusiasts hearing about heliocentrism for the first time.

On the stage, Li Yuan was even more confused, wondering what kind of boxing this Mr.

Sun was going to fight, and if he was sure he wasn’t here to play the fool.

He wasn’t…

This stance was something that Sun Yixie had figured out based on his memories from another universe of several comics and some fighting match highlights, along with some practical training.

He found that starting with this position, he could bring out the strengths of his unconventional “Dragon Dog Boxing” even better.

It must be said, although Sun Yixie was not as fast as the average person on the traditional path of diligent study and practice, he was a true genius when it came to developing unorthodox shortcuts based on his own understanding.

The next second, one could see on the stage, Sun Yixie taking the initiative to attack, moving as if he teleported, and in a flash, he was right in front of Li Yuan.

With the support of Inner Strength, he could leap forward in a unique manner that not even modern mixed martial artists could achieve; not only was his speed astonishing, but his stance also remained unchanged after moving.

This blend of ancient and modern, taking advantages from both, was a surprise attack that caught Li Yuan completely off guard.

Li Yuan was about to respond with a punch when he didn’t expect…

Sun Yixie suddenly stepped on one of his feet with the tip of his left foot, and then Sun Yixie’s right fist launched a jab at Li Yuan’s face like lightning.

This was also an insight Sun had gained during his own practice: in this stance, as long as the toes, shoulders, and eyes were kept in a straight line, wherever the tip of the front foot could step, the fist could surely hit when thrown.

“What the fuck?” Li Yuan was stunned, not only by the light punch but also by this incredibly rapid striking technique, which he had never seen before, and the foot-stepping…

It was also not found in the traditional martial arts routines based on the horse stance.

Slap—

By the time Li Yuan’s move was made, Sun Yixie had cleverly withdrawn his foot, using his left forearm as a shield to parry, leveraging the opponent’s strength to hop backwards and easily neutralize Li Yuan’s attack, and regaining distance.

Li Yuan’s move was already hasty, and combined with being stepped on and punched in the face, the power of his move was reduced to sixty or seventy percent by the time it was let out.

Now, after being deflected by his opponent, he had essentially exerted effort for nothing, whereas his own face still throbbed, dealing a heavy psychological blow.

“Heh…” After an exchange of moves, Sun Yixie couldn’t help but laugh, thinking this opponent really didn’t have much strength after all, and that he was too strong.

However, his laughter faded quickly because after that exchange, Li Yuan was no longer puzzled.

He very decisively set himself as the “weaker” and made up his mind to use his ace.

Thump thump thump…

After a moment, a series of footsteps suddenly erupted from the stage, and then Li Yuan’s body surged with energy, he leaped into the air, and came down diagonally towards Sun Yixie from above.

The so-called “Eight Forms Fist” was based on the Five Forms of tiger, crane, dragon, snake, and monkey, with the addition of swallow, elephant, and rat.

The twenty-fourth move “Dangerous Elephant Piles Up,” was the final killer move of this set of boxing because it was launched on the premise of “sacrifice,” so it was usually used only when the practitioner admitted inferiority to their opponent.

At this moment, Li Yuan intended to go all out against Brother Sun.

Little did he expect, as soon as he was about to make his move, Sun Yixie read the intent to fight to the death in his eyes, so at that critical moment, Brother Sun did something that no one expected.

He…

actually picked up the trident he had initially placed at the edge of the ring.

When Li Yuan saw this action, he was fucking shocked, but it was already too late.

He was mid-flight and couldn’t halt his momentum.

As a result, this brother was swept down in mid-fall by the retreating Sun Yixie, who had reached the edge of the ring, and he fell to the ground below the stage, tumbling over.

Of course, Sun Yixie had also held back, using the broad side of the trident, similar to the way one might swat a fly, so ultimately Li Yuan only lay there for a while and didn’t suffer from torn flesh or fractured bones.

Unfortunately, Li Yuan no longer had the strength to continue fighting.

When the announcer came up to declare the result of the match, many wanted to curse Sun Yixie for his despicable and shameless victory, but upon careful thought…

it seemed like Sun Yixie never said that he would fight unarmed against the opponent; he had just placed the trident on the stage and left it there temporarily, but he never said that he wouldn’t use it.

It was only his initial pole-vault move and setting down of the trident that made everyone, including Li Yuan, misunderstand his intent.

Therefore, even though many felt that his victory was a bit underhanded, they could only accept it because he hadn’t broken any rules.

In this way, Sun Yixie easily made it through the second round, and still, he had not displayed much of his martial skills, his power…

remained a mystery.

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