Into The Woods [Private]

Knight started off with an axe kick to bring his attack momentum up to speed, but the Asura simply swatted that away before countering with her own knife-hand thrust aimed at Knight’s abdomen. The Englishman quickly disengaged when he saw this oncoming attack and twisted his body so that he would cause it to spin off to one side. While in mid-spin, the assassin shifted his body weight to his core which to effectively stabilize his aerial movement which allowed him to flip over into a somersault before he landed on his feet.

A second charge immediately came up after his first and with another offensive push, Knight rocketed towards Chalice to close the small gap between the two of them; however, at the last moment, he performed a short pivot and altered his trajectory a little, with the Englishman now behind Chalice instead of in front where the Asura’s seven arms had conglomerated having thought they would be used to defend against a frontal attack.

With the way things have progressed, the fact remains that Chalice was now a god-like entity, evident in the way she moved – in her graceful, yet calculated attacks and her monstrously powerful, yet refined movements; and under normal circumstances he would have no chance against her. However, with her last flurry of punches, Knight was now able to do partially read Chalice’s Asura attack pattern which, although chaotic, was not unpredictable when it came to certain aspects which was well worth the pain of getting pummeled to the ground like a ragdoll.

In the process of his pseudo-training derived from his sheer determination to fight on in a last ditch effort to defeat Chalice’s Asura form, Knight’s body soon grew accustomed to her movements with ease with every attempt she did. Not only that, with her recent relentless exertion, it increased the level of control Knight had with his own fighting style until she was finally able to give Knight time where he was finally able to create a solid plan of attack to counteract for each and every anticipated counter. Now it was time for him to prove to himself that he can grasp the pebble from the master’s hand.

0.277 seconds – it was the time it normally takes for an experienced fighter to react, though at Chalice’s level of physical mastery; the Englishman considered that she would be able to react to that at a much faster rate, and hence the reason why he suddenly changed his course so as it would take her mind a longer time to process the sudden information. That split-second gap was all he would need before he, with a well-placed moonsault kick, Chalice was launched into the air.

In an attempt to compensate for her slight mistake, the Asura allowed her body to relax itself, with one of her eight hands now already primed to block yet another attack. At that point though, such an act was far too late as Knight smashed his fist into Chalice’s gut which caused a jolt of pain to run throughout the young woman’s body, the damage made apparent by the grimace on her face.

Not wanting to waste this chance, the assassin continued to unleash an unholy barrage of lightning-fast punches before ending the combo with a powerful forty-five kick which hammered down the Asura with the armored bluntness of his boot-heel to send the battered Lady Commandress crashing, her prone body now directly above him.

With the force of a bullet train, Knight allowed gravity and momentum to smash his fist straight into Chalice’s stomach just as his body came to rest on top of her while he straddled her. Without mercy, Knight continued his assault on his teacher despite the burning pain his fists had caused him as punch after punch came down onto Chalice with the intense desperation of a man who gave everything he had into this one last attack; he needed to, for after this, he would be nothing more than an exhausted and empty shell.

It would take one last punch from an extremely exhausted Knight to end things off after his last attack finally knocked Chalice unconscious as her Asura form broke out to leave nothing but a naked young woman who had passed out from the fusillade she had endured. He had done it; he beat Chalice once again with nothing more than his martial prowess to help him on. Tired, out of breath, but content with his performance, the young man allowed himself to fall asleep then and there with a smile plastered upon his face.

While he would later learn that his teacher had held herself back during the encounter, for Knight to manage the feat without using any techniques whatsoever was praiseworthy in the highest order. He deserved the title of his new office, and as soon as he woke up from his exhaustion-induced somnolent state, Chalice herself would tell him the great news.

He was now a Lord Commander.