They arrived at the same time, their elbows colliding at the arena’s center with a deafening BOOM.
A shockwave burst outward, kicking up dust and sending debris skittering across the stone.
Lucas was driven back several feet, his boots carving shallow lines into the ground before he regained his balance.
Reese was already moving.
He surged forward like a beast unleashed, snapping his leg into a vicious front kick.
Lucas tilted aside, letting the strike pass inches from his body, the displaced air brushing against his clothes.
He countered immediately, driving his fist toward Reese’s jaw.
Reese raised his guard in time, though the blow still snapped his head to the side.
He grinned.
Using the momentum, he reached for Lucas, intent on dragging him into close combat.
Lucas anticipated the move and disengaged, flipping backward twice before landing several meters away without a sound.
For a moment, silence settled over the arena.
The two men stood motionless, watching one another, assessing, calculating.
Then—
BOOM!
They vanished.
The force of their acceleration shattered the silence, another sonic boom tearing through the arena.
The trainees could no longer follow them, not even Yasin.
Their eyes darted across the battlefield, searching for movement, but all they saw were flickers—a blur here, a shadow there.
Then—
BANG!
The sound of bodies colliding echoed through the arena.
Another flash.
Another impact.
Another burst of displaced air.
The fight had become impossible to watch, leaving the trainees to experience it through sound alone.
The fighters moved with the familiarity of men who had performed these motions thousands of times, without hesitation or wasted movement. Every step, twist, and shift of balance was executed with frightening precision.
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They weren’t merely skilled.
They were refined—weapons that had learned to move like men.
Reese attacked like a ferocious beast, his fists hammering down with enough force to shatter bone, his kicks cracking through the air, his elbows swinging with the efficiency of an executioner’s axe.
Yet there was nothing careless about his aggression.
Every strike flowed naturally into the next, as though he never needed to think about what came after. His body simply knew.
Lucas was different.
Where Reese was violence, Lucas was control.
He moved with unnatural elegance, like a dancer—or a swan, if swans could move at blinding speeds and break concrete with their limbs.
He slipped beneath punches, twisted away from kicks, and redirected attacks with minimal movement.
While Reese threw ten attacks, Lucas might throw one, but every strike had a purpose.
Disorient.
Interrupt.
Counter.
Exploit.
Reese wanted to overwhelm his opponent.
Lucas wanted to understand him.
Once he did, every movement became a response.
Another explosion sounded, and the fighters separated.
Reese stepped forward, firing a jab at Lucas’s face.
Lucas raised his arm to deflect it.
At the last moment, Reese changed.
His shoulder dropped, his hips shifted, and the punch vanished.
Instead, his entire body lunged forward.
A tackle.
Lucas’s eyes widened.
Shit.
If he gets his hands around me, this is going to be a pain in the ass.
He tried to retreat.
Too late.
Reese’s arms locked around him.
Lucas struggled, driving his fists into Reese’s face and ribs, but Reese barely reacted. The difference in their strength was immediately obvious.
With a roar, Reese lifted him.
Then—
BOOM!
Lucas slammed into the arena floor.
The impact trembled through the ground, dust erupting around them. Pain shot through Lucas’s body—real pain, the kind he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He barely had time to recover before Reese seized both his legs.
Lucas’s expression changed.
“Oh, come on—”
Reese swung.
Lucas flew across the arena and smashed into the wall.
CRAAASH!
Stone cracked beneath the impact, fragments raining down as dust swallowed the area.
The trainees gasped.
“Did he just—”
Something moved inside the cloud.
Lucas.
His body twisted in midair, and at the last moment, he planted both feet against the damaged wall.
The stone cracked beneath him.
Then he pushed off.
BOOM!
Lucas dropped lightly to the ground and straightened, dust clinging to his clothes. He brushed it from his shoulder, then looked up and smiled.
Not nervously.
Not through pain.
He smiled with genuine excitement.
“There you are.”
Reese’s expression shifted, a grin spreading across his face.
“Finally.”
He lowered his stance, relaxed his shoulders, and raised his hands.
The playful atmosphere vanished.
For the first time, both men looked completely serious.
The trainees stared.
They had seen power before, speed, and pain, but this was something else.
They couldn’t follow the fight. These men moved beyond the limits of human perception, and somehow, they still didn’t look as though they were fighting at full strength.
They looked like they were enjoying themselves.
One trainee whispered, “What the hell are they?”
Another swallowed.
“We’re supposed to reach that level?”
Yasin didn’t hear them.
His eyes remained fixed on the arena.
While the others watched in awe, something stirred inside him.
For most of his life, Yasin had never known what he wanted. He had no great ambition, no grand dream, no destination he desperately wished to reach.
He had simply kept moving because there was nothing else to do.
But now, for the first time, he saw something worth chasing.
Not power for its own sake.
Not strength born from fear.
Something deeper.
He wanted to move like them.
He wanted to understand what they understood.
One day, he wanted to stand in that arena and make someone look at him the way he was looking at them now.
Yasin clenched his fists.
Something unfamiliar burned in his eyes.
Determination.
For the first time in his life, he had found a destination.
And the distance between himself and those two monsters no longer frightened him.
It excited him.
In the arena, Reese and Lucas stared at one another.
Then both disappeared.
BOOM!
The next exchange began.