Gazing at Yang before him, whose entire body now radiated a strange, otherworldly aura, Sagat too was momentarily stunned.
Then, after a brief silence, he spoke: “Is this for real… is that a resurrection?” “Ah, indeed—alive and kicking, fit as a fiddle!” Yang nodded, his pair of eyes brimming with madness as he stared at Sagat.
Then he even stretched out his palm, displaying the scars and skin that were ceaselessly knitting back together, like a child showing off a brand-new toy, and said: “Although I’d already sensed it long ago, truly feeling this power really does require genuine death after all.” “Just like the Jikui (lit.
‘Self-Devouring’).” Yang explained, “My life energy right now is being consumed at an astonishing rate.
Perhaps in another seven or eight… no, at most another five minutes, I will surely lose my life as my organic components drop to zero.” And yet, even as he said this, there was not the slightest trace of worry on Yang’s face.
Hearing Yang’s words, and sensing the bizarre aura overflowing from him, Sagat now grasped, more or less, just what sort of thing this so-called life energy really was.
Thinking this, after a brief moment of contemplation Sagat said, “Those dark-red wisps of blood-energy that were drifting around you just now… those were mine, weren’t they?” “Correct answer!” Yang nodded, his pair of eyes brimming with madness.
“When you struck my heart with that heavy blow, I abandoned all counterattack and concentrated every ounce of my perception onto this power that springs from both soul and flesh!
Using that Satsui no Hadō (lit.
‘Surge of Murderous Intent’) as the catalyst—” “And then, it was done!
The very core of life!!” Hearing this, Sagat nodded too and said, “I can feel it.
You’re like a lump of charcoal… no, more like a matchstick?
Burning yourself up at an astonishing speed.” “Ah, the cause of your defeat is that that one punch didn’t blast my skull apart outright!” At that, Sagat merely shook his head.
“Defeat?
Victory and defeat are only just about to begin, aren’t they?” “Ah!
Well said!
You’re right—victory and defeat are only just beginning now!!!” Watching Yang, whose mental state was abnormally manic, the whole man looking as though he were high on something, Sagat narrowed his eyes ever so slightly.
No matter what Yang’s mental state was now, there was one thing Sagat could be certain of.
And that was this: with the explosive awakening of this ability he called ‘life energy,’ and the unceasing combustion of his very life, if before Sagat had been a lump of coal, then Yang was a match.
And now, Yang was still a match—but one that had been doused in gasoline.
The burning had grown far more violent; perhaps it would gutter out the very next instant.
But before it went out, there was no doubt it would blaze forth with the most scorching flame of all!
But… a battle between martial artists was never something where overwhelming power alone could lock in final victory.
Without having opened up an absolute gap, this kind of mental loss of control… Just as he was thinking this, within Sagat’s field of vision, Yang suddenly calmed down.
Then, with a somewhat helpless air, he patted his own skull and looked toward Sagat, saying: “Sorry about that.
It’s my first time entering such an over-activated state of life energy—my nerves got a little too excited, my brain was about to fry.” Watching Yang, who had abruptly recovered his composure and calm, Sagat’s heart sank.
Yang, for his part, shook his head indifferently.
Life energy carried a certain degree of addictiveness—except that this addiction was not a chemical dependency, but a psychological one, born from the feeling of being utterly, wholly alive once more.
For this reason, during the first two years after arriving in this world, Yang had always only sold it and never touched it himself.
Thinking this, Yang reflected for a moment, then nodded and said, “Two minutes left… ha, not much time.” With those words, at the far end of the street—Sagat as well as Chun-Li—both of them had already faintly glimpsed flashing police lights and heard the wee-woo, wee-woo of sirens.
As he spoke, Yang clenched his fist and said toward Sagat: “I don’t want to hand the chance to defeat you over to anyone else.
And likewise, you don’t want to be hauled away by Interpol.” “So, there’s no other choice.
Come… let us, at the fastest possible speed, blast each other apart!!” Hearing this, Sagat fell silent for a moment, then nodded and said: “…That suits me just fine.” As the words left him, Sagat too lowered his stance.
Golden vital energy began to surge forth from every inch of his skin, taking shape as a visible gold, then mingled with the faintest hint of dark-red flames of energy.
His legs slightly bent, the ceaselessly accumulating pressure drove Sagat’s feet into the ground, the shattered concrete cracking beneath them in spiderweb patterns.
Everything—stamina, fighting aura, killing intent, the pride of an emperor, three years of all his humiliation and obsession.
Even though this was their very first meeting, for some reason he could not name, feeling Yang’s madness, Sagat simply, inexplicably, wanted to win.
And Yang, in turn, raised his right hand.
Five fingers pointing up, his slender fingers pressed together into a blade.
The raging life energy churned ceaselessly like boiling oil.
The two moved at the same instant.
No signal, no agreement—just a tacit contest of who could amass the winning strike at the fastest speed.
Like two gunmen facing a pile of parts, with no superfluous procedure whatsoever, purely a contest of who could assemble faster.
Soon, the first one to finish charging emerged.
Sagat charged out first.
With his power driven to its utmost, his figure dragged a dark-red afterimage through the black night, every footfall stamping deep craters into the concrete.
In but a flash, he crossed the distance of a dozen-odd meters to arrive right before Yang.
Back then, as the Emperor of Muay Thai, Sagat had been defeated by Ryu’s Shoryuken.
And so, beneath a waterfall deep in the mountains, against the immense crashing of the current, Sagat had practiced over and over.
At last, under that extreme resistance, he had succeeded in twisting the explosive force and speed of his waist, abdomen, shoulders, back, and fist-peak into a single bundle—and in the instant he blasted it forth, the bursting spirit of it sent the very waterfall flowing in reverse.
And now, with low stance and sunken body, twisting his waist and rotating his shoulders, he poured into his fist-peak all his fury, savagery, obsession, killing intent, and the fire of vengeance—every last bit of it channeled into the blow.
There was no flashy technique to it whatsoever—just the swing of his right arm in the instant he leapt up— The solid muscles of his arm bulged taut, and along with a wind as malevolent as the wailing of ghosts, it left a crimson afterimage in the air.
Within Sagat’s single eye, a bloody light erupted—Mōko Shōryū-ha (lit.
‘Fierce Tiger Rising Dragon Break’)!!!
Seeing Sagat’s fist-edge already closing in upon Yang, Chun-Li, Kure Fuusui, and the others instinctively held their breath as well.
Then, a tooth-grindingly sharp shattering sound abruptly rang out.
Yet feeling the sensation of striking flesh and blood, on Sagat’s face there was not even the faintest trace of excitement.
A fighting aura eruption—Yang’s left hand smashed down first, and in the very instant it collided head-on against the Mōko Shōryū-ha, it was blasted to pieces outright!
His forearm twisted off to one side from the middle, ghastly-white shards of bone piercing through skin and flesh, dripping blood flying wildly everywhere.
With the transmission of the force, Yang’s entire arm was then flung backward like a boneless strip of cloth, scattering countless droplets of blood.
But what suffocated Sagat was this: as the left arm was blasted apart, the force of the Mōko Shōryū-ha was deflected along with it—and the expression on Yang’s face held not even the slightest trace of pain.
Indeed, it brimmed with a kind of sickly, ecstatic glee.
His right arm raised high, the surging life energy compressed to its limit—not bright, yet giving the impression that the whole world had darkened along with it, leaving only that high-raised right hand drawing every gaze.
“Life energy, propel—” In the next instant, Yang’s hand-blade carved down from above into Sagat’s left shoulder, his collarbone shattering the very moment of contact.
But it did not stop.
The hand-blade continued downward, slicing open pectoral muscle and ribs, cutting into the core of his abdomen, slanting across from the left shoulder over the chest, all the way to the right flank—as though to cleave Sagat’s entire body open at a diagonal!
“Jigoku Sōsō Shutō (lit.
‘Hell’s Funeral Knife-Hand’)!!!” ____ 👻🔥P- Walnut-chan🔥👻 🔥 New history: Path of Elation in Warhammer 40K Help us hit our targets: