The corpse advanced.
It didn’t run. It didn’t roar. It didn’t even assume a stance Adrian recognized.
It simply slid its right foot forward and vanished.
Adrian tilted his head on instinct.
A fist covered in blue light tore through the space where his face had been. The pressure ripped several strands of hair from his head and struck the rusted vehicle behind him.
The car door caved in until it touched the driver’s seat.
Adrian didn’t have time to admire the result.
The martial artist swung his elbow.
Adrian raised both forearms. The impact hurled him into the vehicle and finished crushing the door. Metal warped around his back as a sharp pain shot through his arms.
The corpse kept advancing.
Adrian launched himself over the hood an instant before a downward kick split it in half. He rolled across the pavement, regained his footing, and retreated three steps.
His forearms burned.
This wasn’t the vague sensation of a dream. He could feel every muscle that had absorbed the impact, the trembling of his bones, and the heat of blood gathering beneath his skin.
A window appeared before him.
[Temporal Projection stabilized.]
[Current attributes synchronized: 100%.]
[Pain feedback: 100%.]
Adrian moved his fingers to confirm nothing was broken.
"At least it’s honest."
The martial artist turned toward him.
The black uniform was torn across the abdomen. A wound cut through the corpse’s side, but it didn’t bleed. Its skin was stone gray, and a blue line ran from its chest to its empty eye sockets.
Adrian opened his status window.
[Adrian Vale]
[Class: Infinite Sovereign]
[Registered Classes: 0]
[Combat Skills: 0]
His physical attributes remained enhanced. The speed with which he had avoided the first punch would have been impossible for him the night before.
That didn’t change the main problem.
His opponent was still faster.
The corpse stepped forward with its right foot again.
Adrian leaped to the side.
The blue fist passed beside his jaw. He was expecting the elbow this time and ducked before it swept over his head. The third attack was a rising knee.
He blocked it with his palm.
The force bent his wrist and drove him backward. The martial artist landed, pivoted on his left leg, and unleashed a low kick.
Adrian jumped over it.
Two palms covered in blue light struck his chest in midair.
The impact emptied his lungs.
He flew backward, crashed through the windshield of another vehicle, and landed among ancient shards of glass. The car’s roof collapsed beneath his weight.
Adrian tried to breathe.
His lungs responded with a stabbing pain.
[Minor injury detected.]
[Two ribs bruised.]
[Pain feedback remains active.]
"I already noticed."
The corpse appeared beside the vehicle.
Adrian dropped off the opposite side as the martial artist’s fist punched through the roof. Gray fingers closed inches from his shoulder.
Adrian kicked the elbow joint.
The arm bent, but the corpse showed no reaction to the pain. It twisted its trapped hand, tore away an entire section of the roof, and threw it.
Adrian raised a piece of a car door to block it.
The two pieces collided. Rusted metal shattered, and several sharp edges sliced open his cheek. A drop of blood fell onto his shirt.
Adrian ran his thumb across the cut.
The blood was warm.
The martial artist stepped out of the vehicle’s remains and placed his right foot forward again.
The same distance.
The same angle.
The same movement of the shoulder.
Adrian stopped watching the force behind the attacks and started watching what happened between them.
Right foot.
Straight punch.
Horizontal elbow.
Rising knee.
Low kick.
Double palm strike.
The corpse had used the same combination twice.
This wasn’t a conscious fighter. It was a body repeating what its muscles still remembered.
That made it dangerous.
It also made it predictable.
Adrian assumed a light guard and shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet.
"Let’s go again."
The corpse slid its foot forward.
Adrian moved first.
The blue fist passed beside his ear. He ducked beneath the elbow, deflected the knee with both hands, and jumped over the low kick. When the two palms appeared, he crossed his arms.
The impact still hurled him several yards, but this time he landed on his feet.
The martial artist didn’t pursue him immediately.
It returned to its original position.
Right foot back.
Shoulder relaxed.
Both hands open at waist level.
Adrian smiled faintly.
"Six movements."
The creature tilted its head.
Then it repeated the first.
Adrian avoided the punch and drove his fist into the exposed ribs. He felt one of the bones break beneath his knuckles.
The corpse didn’t stop.
Its elbow struck Adrian’s shoulder and tore a grunt from him. The knee rose. Adrian avoided it, took the edge of the low kick against his calf, and blocked both palms before they could hit his chest.
This time, the martial artist added a seventh movement.
Its forehead slammed into Adrian’s.
The world turned white.
Adrian staggered backward. Blood ran from his eyebrow to his left eyelid.
[Minor concussion detected.]
[Motor response temporarily reduced.]
"Seven," he corrected.
The corpse threw a straight punch.
Adrian raised his guard too late.
The knuckles struck his side and hurled him into a concrete pillar. The structure cracked behind him. Pain lanced through his ribs, and for the first time, he considered the possibility of waking up before winning.
He didn’t know how to return to the present.
He also didn’t know what would happen if he died here.
The temporal window hadn’t given him rules, a tutorial, or a useful warning. It had simply thrown him ten thousand years into the future in front of a corpse capable of crushing steel with its bare hands.
Adrian spat blood onto the pavement.
"I suppose there’s no point in asking."
The martial artist positioned its right foot.
Adrian didn’t move.
There was something else within the sequence. A variation he hadn’t understood because he had been too busy preventing the corpse from breaking his head open.
The first punch always targeted the face.
The elbow adjusted toward whichever side he dodged.
The knee prevented him from entering its guard.
The low kick forced him to jump.
The palms struck the target while it was airborne.
And if someone managed to stay close after the palms, the headbutt ended the fight.
They weren’t seven separate attacks.
They were a cage.
Each movement forced the enemy into position for the next one.
The technique didn’t pursue its opponent.
It decided for them.
Adrian remembered the cuts in the pavement beneath the corpse’s feet. The repeated marks surrounding the body. That warrior must have executed the same sequence hundreds or thousands of times before dying.
The muscle memory had survived.
The ability to adapt had not.
Adrian stepped away from the pillar and let his left arm hang lower than necessary.
A deliberate opening.
The corpse’s blue eyes burned brighter.
[Unknown martial technique detected.]
[Analysis unavailable.]
"I don’t need you to analyze it for me."
The right foot slid forward.
Adrian didn’t dodge the first punch outward.
He stepped inside.
The fist grazed his temple and split the skin, but Adrian was already inside the elbow’s range. He planted one hand against the corpse’s biceps and shoved its shoulder before it could complete the rotation.
The elbow passed behind his head.
The knee rose.
Adrian turned his hips and absorbed it against the outside of his thigh. The pain was immediate, but he kept both feet planted on the ground.
The corpse tried to execute the low kick.
It had no room.
For the first time, the sequence stopped.
The martial artist remained motionless for a fraction of a second, trapped between the fourth and fifth movements.
It was exactly what Adrian had been waiting for.
He drove the heel of his palm into the corpse’s throat.
Its head snapped back, but its body barely moved. A gray hand closed around his wrist with enough force to make his bones creak.
Adrian didn’t try to break free.
He planted his foot on the corpse’s knee, jumped, and used his enemy’s grip as leverage. His body rotated in the air. He swung one leg over the martial artist’s shoulder and trapped its head between his knees.
The corpse recovered its balance and tried to slam him into the ground.
Adrian squeezed his legs together, seized its jaw with both hands, and twisted his entire torso in the opposite direction.
The corpse’s strength worked against its own neck.
The first vertebra held.
The second cracked.
Adrian kept twisting.
The neck broke with a dry snap.
The body took two aimless steps. Adrian released its head, landed on one knee, and moved away before the corpse collapsed beside him.
The blue light vanished from its eyes.
For several seconds, the only sound was pieces of concrete falling from the surrounding buildings.
Adrian breathed slowly. His wrist was swollen, one leg was trembling, and every breath reminded him of the blow he had taken to the ribs.
Even so, he was still conscious.
And his opponent wasn’t.
[Future warrior defeated.]
[First temporal victory recorded.]
[Class Soul detected.]
A blue sphere emerged from the corpse’s chest.
It wasn’t entirely solid. Inside it, a silhouette performed a sequence of movements too fast to follow. Every strike produced small, glowing fractures, as though its fists were breaking more than just the air.
The sphere floated in front of Adrian.
[Absorb?]
Adrian raised his hand but stopped before touching it.
"First, tell me what I’m buying."
The sphere’s information unfolded.
[Class Soul]
[Class: Starbreaker]
[Rarity: Unregistered]
[Type: Martial Combat Class]
[Core Principle: Each consecutive strike fractures the target’s structural integrity.]
[Present-era registry search initiated.]
The window remained empty for several seconds.
[No matching class found.]
[No evolutionary predecessor found.]
[No present-era awakening record found.]
Adrian looked at the corpse. Its black uniform didn’t belong to any academy he recognized, and the technique he had just faced wasn’t recorded among the modern martial arts.
One final line appeared beneath the class name.
[Estimated origin of Starbreaker: 4,163 years after your era.]
Adrian looked again at the blue sphere suspended in front of him.
His first profession wasn’t rare, epic, or legendary.
It didn’t exist yet.
[Absorb Starbreaker?]