Watching Yang shatter the bruised blood within his own arm with a chop of his hand, watching that swollen flesh smooth itself back out within the span of a few breaths, hearing Yang’s words, feeling those eyes—calm as a well yet scorching hot—lock onto him once more.
Those eyes.
Calm, focused, brimming with an almost insane fire.
An inexplicable sense of familiarity made Sagat’s single eye contract.
He had seen eyes like these before.
Just a few years ago, in the ring where he became the Emperor of Muay Thai… Even now, Sagat still remembered—that young man in tattered training robes had looked at him the very same way.
Even though he was at an absolute disadvantage, even though he had been beaten until his whole body was a mass of wounds, he had never once flinched, always fixing him with those eyes ablaze with fighting spirit.
“Ryu…” A low growl rolled up from the depths of Sagat’s throat.
It was not anger.
It was something deeper, heavier, more searing than anger.
He could feel the scar on his chest aching—it was humiliation, it was obsession, it was the nightmare that jolted him awake in every midnight dream of the past.
And that nightmare seemed to be standing right before him now, looking at him with the exact same gaze.
“You think you’re worthy… of looking at me with eyes like that?!” Sagat’s voice erupted, and this even left Kure Fuusui, standing to one side, baffled—when he was so clearly at an absolute advantage, why did this great hulking man instead look like the one whose composure had cracked?
And while Kure Fuusui was still puzzling over this, Sagat had already bared his claws and fangs like an enraged tiger.
Blood-energy surged across his entire body, and faintly, even a trace of blood-red flames of energy emerged.
Under the shroud of that energy his bronze-colored muscles took on an unnatural hardness, the veins on his forehead bulged, and from his sole remaining eye burst a terrifying murderous light.
Sensing the abnormality in Sagat’s state, Chun-Li’s pupils abruptly contracted.
“Yang!
Retreat, now!!” As she shouted, Chun-Li, casting all form and method aside, shot toward Sagat like an arrow loosed from the string.
Her right leg, wrapped in fighting aura poured forth with all her strength, swept across in a horizontal kick aimed at the back of Sagat’s knee.
She knew there was no way she could bring him down, but she only needed to force him to divert his attention—then Yang would gain even a fraction of a second more to catch his breath.
Sagat merely turned his gaze toward Chun-Li behind him, and then his left arm, like a flipping iron pillar, swung backward wrapped in the explosive crack of sundered air.
Blood-energy burst forth, that forearm so thick and stout one could not tell whether it was an arm or a leg, the muscles beneath the bronze-colored skin heaping up layer upon layer as it howled toward Chun-Li with a vicious wind.
Yet sensing Sagat’s offensive, Chun-Li did not dodge—or perhaps her ankle had already swollen from the collision in their earlier exchange, leaving her unable to channel force smoothly—so Chun-Li chose to stake all her strength on the heavy blow rushing toward Sagat.
And facing this onrushing gale, Chun-Li merely crossed both arms to simply guard her face— “BAM!!” A dull crash of impact exploded out.
Chun-Li opened her eyes.
She had not felt the impact she had anticipated.
Charging forward at astonishing speed, Yang had thrown up a kick, his hardened knee colliding against Sagat’s arm.
The tremendous force knocked Sagat’s arm back, while Yang too was driven back half a meter by the recoil.
Faster?!
His attack intercepted, a flicker of disbelief surfaced in the depths of Sagat’s eye.
He could clearly sense it—even though Yang had taken more severe injuries in their earlier exchange, his speed, his power, even his angles had all somehow improved instead.
And Yang clearly took no notice of any of this; his eyes simply stared dead at Sagat, feeling his own potential welling up in an endless stream, as he ground his teeth and growled low: “Sister Chun-Li!
Strike!” Before the words had even faded, Yang’s form had already launched itself out like a cannon shell.
His right foot stamped down hard on the ground, gravel scattering, his whole body becoming a streak of afterimage that lunged straight into Sagat’s inner range.
And Chun-Li moved in that same instant—she did not hesitate, did not even have time to consider how Yang had just leapt several meters in a single moment to block in front of her.
Or perhaps Chun-Li no longer cared; she simply followed Yang’s figure on instinct.
Her right leg, aching and unable to push off the ground, so she channeled force through her left leg instead, her whole body cutting in from the flank into Sagat’s blind spot, like a short blade thrust out from the darkness.
Energy coursed through both her arms, heedless of the Kikoken’s backlash, and in concert with Yang’s movement she launched a fierce assault toward Sagat’s lower back.
And feeling the pincer attack from both front and rear, a flash of savagery crossed Sagat’s single eye as well.
Without hesitation, his right arm smashed forward toward Yang, his left elbow ramming backward into Chun-Li’s hands.
Meeting attack with attack, countering violence with violence, no need for defense—his reach, his power, his bone density, combined with the strike-specialized four limbs and eight points of contact of Muay Thai, gave him every confidence that he could knock both of them back at once before their attacks ever reached him!
But his right arm struck nothing but air.
Just as Yang had conceived—having lost an eye, the Sagat of now clearly had not yet grown accustomed to the restricted field of vision that came with a single eye.
Veering off to one side at astonishing speed, combining the centrifugal force of his rotating waist, Yang tensed the muscles across most of his back, his furious fist clenched and held to one side of his jaw, the tightly gripped fist as if condensing the entire center of gravity of his body.
Before it had even swung, the muscles all over his body began to tremble ceaselessly, like a shot-putter who had readied himself for the throw.
In the instant Sagat’s attack missed, he abruptly exploded, and accompanied by the droning hum of the air a fist blasted out, striking against Sagat’s cheek and rippling out a wave of impact.
Along with the pain, Sagat’s vestibular system took the shock, his soft brain colliding endlessly within the cranial cavity, his sole remaining eye clouding over in dimness, even his very thoughts coming to a brief standstill.
And hard on its heels, accompanied by the orbs of energy surging out from Chun-Li’s arms, that true qi impact—like searing flame yet more scorching than fire—once again jolted Sagat awake.
An inexplicable irritation coiled around Sagat’s heart—it was Yang’s condition.
Amid the collision of flesh and blood, Sagat could clearly sense it: the bruised blood within this young man’s body was being devoured by his revitalized bodily tissue, the torn muscle fibers being rewoven anew.
With every breath, every heartbeat, this young man’s body was growing tougher, more nimble, more powerful.
It was as if his attacks had not truly worn the youth down at all, but instead were like a whetstone and a forge, compelling this young man to adapt faster, to purify faster.
Another one… another one of these people!!
“You’re all… the same!!” As the words came, a chilling killing intent burst from Sagat’s eye.
He spread both arms to the sides, easily shattering the orbs of energy Chun-Li had gathered, yet Sagat paid Chun-Li no mind whatsoever—he merely mixed his crimson killing intent into his energy, transforming it into flames of aura that erupted across his body, then continuously condensed, compressed, and condensed again upon his fist, wrapping that fist—already like an iron hammer—into a mass of burning blood.
Just from watching, Chun-Li’s pupils beside them shrank to the size of pinpoints.
Then, Sagat went so far as to blast every ounce of his strength into Yang’s body from a near point-blank distance— “DIE!!!” ____ 👻🔥Whant more?: Walnut-chan🔥👻 🔥 New history: Path of Elation in Warhammer 40K Let’s reach these milestones together: