Martial Arts Worlds

"This is… nothing!"

Antonio screamed and grabbed Kiernan's shoulder and made him lose all the feeling in his body with his magic touch.

"?!"

Kiernan dropped on one knee.

And at that moment, Antonio ran his knee into his face and pushed his head back, causing Kiernan to fall backwards onto the ground.

Kiernan's brain was juggling inside his skull, and for a moment, he didn't even know where he was.

However, that state only lasted a second.

He quickly slammed his eyes open, flipped back to his feet, and lunged straight back at Antonio.

"Reigning Fallow!"

"I HAVE SURVIVED WORSE!"

Antonio screamed with a disheveled expression, and then, his hands moved smoothly, and his hands made contact with Kiernan's fists.

Despite the unpredictableness of the Reigning Fallow, Antonio was still able to redirect and parry all of his punches!

'What? I thought that Rendering Edge was the only thing that could stop my Reigning Fallow. Who the hell is this guy?'

Kiernan frowned.

'I guess the universe really is a vast place!'

At that moment, Antonio pushed his arms away and jabbed his fist into Kiernan's chest from three places—the left, right, and center.

"Ah…"

Kiernan's eyes shook.

For a moment, it felt like all of his insides were rocked with a sledgehammer, and for a moment, his heart even stopped beating.

"Paralyzer Fist!"

Antonio's fists rained down on Kiernan, and he hunched down, covering his head with his arms, looking like a turtle hiding inside its shell.

"Kiernan is completely at Antonio's mercy!"

"Why isn't he using those special powers of his?"

"He is probably saving it for later!"

The gods and goddesses were watching with bated breath.

'I will not use my Martial Ability as long as Antonio is not using his power.'

Kiernan thought to himself after hearing the gods talk.

While Antonio hadn't been using any ability so far in the tournament, Kiernan could feel that he was hiding something.

Something powerful.

"Huf!"

Antonio stopped punching and quickly kneed towards his face, but Kiernan immediately put his hands on his knee and stopped his knee kick.

'He expected the knee kick?'

Antonio's eyes widened in shock.

"Iron Smash!"

Kiernan's fist smashed into Antonio's face and pushed his head back, and he immediately wrapped his arm around his neck in a chokehold.

"Trap of the Tiger!"

'I made a huge mistake!'

Antonio thought with his eyes widening in surprise, and he had no idea that Kiernan was such a talented martial artist.

Martial arts existed in the Beast Realm, and he, like every young person of the realm, learned martial arts to defend himself.

However, that had never been enough, as the beasts were simply far too powerful, so they needed something else to fight back.

'Right… This guy is from the Martial Arts World… I should've guessed that I would be no match for his martial arts… But why do I feel like he isn't even doing his best yet?!'

Antonio asked himself with a slight fear creeping into his heart.

In that moment, Antonio tapped Kiernan's arm, which was still holding him in a chokehold, and paralyzed it.

"?!"

Kiernan's arm turned numb, and Antonio was able to easily slip out of his grip.

And then, Antonio screamed with a "Haaah," and attacked straight back at him with a heroic scream.

Since he couldn't use his right arm now, Kiernan just used his left arm and slapped away all of Antonio's attempts to attack.

Antonio kept punching and punching, but whenever he thought that his fist might land at Kiernan, his left hand came and slapped his attack away.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

"…Unbelievable!"

"…Kiernan is completely stopping his attack with just one arm?!"

"…Has he been going easy on him since the beginning?!"

Kiernan looked calm and composed, like a true martial arts master, and Antonio's face was ever-so growing more desperate.

"Rushing Paralyzing Fist!"

Antonio lunged with almost suicidal determination, and Kiernan decided not to defend and instead backed away.

The punch couldn't reach him because he stepped backwards.

"Move."

Kiernan said.

However, he didn't talk to Antonio but towards himself, and at that moment, his right arm started moving once again.

It was like he was ordering his body to stop being paralyzed!

"Krishna's Elbow!"

Kiernan suddenly lunged at Antonio with an elbow strike. It was heading to his abdomen. It was a very unusual move to do at this time.

'…This move will be easy to block?'

Antonio thought with a frown, and he easily caught the elbow, and immediately, his fingers sank into Kiernan's flesh and started turning his arm paralyzed.

"Krishna's Back Fist."

Kiernan followed up with a back fist, and the back of his fist smashed into Antonio's face, crushing his teeth.

"Cough… Ahh..."

Antonio stumbled backwards with a bloody mouth.

'That was a decoy… The elbow strike was never meant to hit me, but instead the back fist to hit me!'

Kiernan stood up and whipped his leg at Antonio's thigh with a thunderous smack that sent shivers down everyone's spine.

"Iron Kick."

"ARGH!"

Antonio gritted his teeth, and he lost the feeling in his left leg and couldn't put any weight on it unless he wanted to really scream in pain.

That scream of pain came as a complete surprise to everyone, as they had never heard him scream that loudly before.

'I am outmatched… He must be the pinnacle of the martial arts… Me, I am just a mere apprentice in comparison.

'Beast Realm cannot compete with Martial Arts World in terms of martial arts… It is just foolish to even think that we stand a chance!'

Antonio thought.

However, he really wasn't a martial artist.

"…We, the mortals of the Beast Realm, used to get eaten, and killed by the murderous beasts. It was an everyday occurrence that we lost one of our loved ones to those horrible beasts.

"…Nothing we did helped us to fight back, and we resigned ourselves to death until the first-ever King of the Mortals found a way."

Antonio said, and then he pulled out a marble-sized pill from his pocket and placed it between his teeth.

"A Pill of Beast Godhood… The First King found a corpse of one of the Beast Gods, who died in a fight against another Beast God, and from the corpse of the Beast God, he created these pills!"

Crack!

Antonio bit through the pill, and at that moment, his flesh started changing and transforming while his heart started humming like an engine.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The shout was mighty and loud.

"…Big God, I suggest taking this fight elsewhere. The Feast Hall is not large enough to handle this, I am afraid."

A God of Beast Realm said.

He already knew what was about to happen, and knew that the Feast Hall would be completely destroyed.

Big God just nodded and snapped their fingers.

In that moment, Antonio, Kiernan, and everybody else that was inside the Feast Hall appeared in the Cloud Fields outside the God City.

It was well-timed too.

Because in that moment, Antonio started growing, and his clothes ripped, but it didn't matter, as crimson fur sprouted out from under his skin.

Soon, he was gigantic—thirty meters tall—with skyscraper-sized horns protruding from his forehead.

The crimson fur covered all of him, and in his hand, a three-pointed crimson trident appeared.

From the lower back, a spiky tail emerged, and now, Antonio looked like a demon spawn from the very depths of hell.

It was random.

Pill of Beast Godhood gave immense power, but what power it gave was always random and sometimes dangerous.

Sometimes, the power could be animal-based… And sometimes completely different altogether… But it always gave strong power.

"This is the power of the mortals of the Beast Realm!"

Antonio screamed hoarsely, and then he lifted his enormous trident above his head and stabbed it down towards Kiernan.

Nobody thought that he could survive that!

"DEMON WOLF!"

Kiernan screamed, and out of nowhere, he turned into a monstrous gigantic wolf, and he jumped out of the way of the trident.

"…He turned into a wolf?!"

"…A gigantic wolf nonetheless. He is as big as Antonio even after that monstrous transformation!"

"HOOOOOOOOOOWL!"

With a howl, a burst of radioactive light erupted from the wolf's mouth, and a ray of destructive energy shot towards Antonio.

It was an atomic breath!

"HAAAAAAAAAA!"

Antonio's shout sounded angelic, like it was echoing across an empty cave, and as he raised his demon trident, a mountain rose in front of him.

The atomic breath still smashed through the mountain without a problem, but Antonio had already moved out of the way.

Swoosh!

The atomic breath kept flying all the way to the distance, and once it stopped flying, a cataclysmic explosion erupted.

It turned the gold sky into a fiery inferno, but with a snap of Big God's fingers, he stopped it from completely destroying the Heavens.

'What a terrifying power.'

Big God thought with a frown.

It had been a millennium since the last Battle of the Champions, and since then, mortals had indeed become dangerously powerful!