Conditioned Counterattack (5)

The weaker the Kung-Fuist, the more he boasts of wisdom and behaves arrogantly.
They swagger, but they are always destroyed by my fists.
-Ivan Petrovich Pavlov-

A dark space.

Ivan Pavlov sat alone on an old sofa.

This was an image-space that reflected his deep consciousness.

The physician persona rested his chin in his hand and watched outside the window.

The window showed exactly the scene Pavlov’s eyes saw, and beyond it, a fight was unfolding.

The opponent was the Little Heavenly Demon, Sherlock Holmes.

The soldier persona, holding control of the body, was steadily pressing the Little Heavenly Demon with ferocious Kung-Fu.

‘The match will be decided before long.’

Pavlov’s physician persona, staying in the image-space, sank lazily into the sofa and yawned, as if the life-and-death duel happening in reality were someone else’s business.

The soldier persona paired with the physician persona was a reliable partner.

Day by day, the side effects from using Two Face alongside demonic arts were stripping away more and more of what made him human, but when facing an enemy who had learned profound Kung-Fu study beyond his wisdom to catch up with, like the Little Heavenly Demon wielding the 1200 Inch Punch, there was no better card.

The physician persona’s job was to proactively modify the body of the Kung-Fuist named Ivan Pavlov so the soldier persona could exert its efficacy.

Through a systematically completed training method, the physician persona trained the soldier persona.

Pavlov, who had long studied the human body, understood it, and learned how to destroy it, also understood how to temper his own body.

Through repeated efficient training, Pavlov’s soldier persona gained senses far sharper than anything comparable to before.

And Pavlov’s distinct Kung-Fu, Conditioned Counterattack, was a study that used nerves whose efficacy had been enhanced—enhanced by the five senses and internal energy strengthened to the extreme through that process.

If an incoming attack matched conditions formed in advance, it executed perfect evasion and counterattack without passing through the brain. Auto Pilot.

Pavlov’s Auto Pilot had already been completed to the level where it could topple even an opponent who had reached a higher realm than him.

Thanks to learning demonic arts, the destructive power of his techniques and more had soared, and thanks to consuming elixirs and Kung-Fu Surgical Operations, his body also became so tough that even among the Russian Murim Intelligentsia—unmatched by other nations’ Kung-Fuists—there was none to compare.

No matter what others said, Pavlov had found the optimal path and ran without stopping.

History belongs to the victor.

A brilliant soldier and physician, he offered everything he had on the altar of struggle and decided to become an avatar of Kung-Fu.

Move faster, and bring down the enemy with stronger power.

That was the essence of Conditioned Counterattack.

Profound enlightenment, the righteous path. That kind of desk-bound talk was nothing but excuses losers made.

The Tai Chi Yodel says.

Intent and Qi come as the lord. Bones and flesh follow as the vassals.

That is, intent is the king and goes ahead, and after it, bones and flesh follow as ministers.

But Pavlov thought differently.

Without a body, even a mind cannot exist.

The king Pavlov served was not something like his own intent.

The Tsar who ruled the great country, Mother Russia, Alexander III, was his king.

The only human who acknowledged him when he was shunned as a heretic for repeating biological experiments.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov wanted to become his fist.

He simply wanted to be a sword held in the conqueror’s hand.

He wanted to be a bolt of lightning that fell on the enemy’s crown.

Even if intent truly was like a monarch that decided internal energy’s nature and a martial art’s efficacy, it could still be used to perfect a superior body.

So Pavlov bent intent and made it submit beneath the body.

Defying old teachings, he stopped thinking for anything other than a single purpose.

What he completed was an unceasing war machine, and a perfect executor of royal-fist authority who carried out commands under any circumstances.

Whoever the opponent, Pavlov’s soldier persona had destroyed them while showing an overwhelming gap.

Therefore, there wasn’t much the physician persona had to do now.

Having always completed full preparations for victory, all he did was occasionally, calmly, wrap Defense Essence around the body the soldier persona moved, or fire Qi-Force Long Needles through delicate circulation.

Since he had handed most of bodily control to the soldier persona anyway, there was no room to attempt anything else.

This was the balance he had studied for a long time.

Pavlov, who had pursued the most efficient path on a knife-edge without letting the physician persona be consumed by madness, held unwavering certainty in the path he chose.

But then.

‘…Strange.’

Why was that?

He should have already cut off his breathing long ago.

So why was the Little Heavenly Demon receiving his techniques in such a perfectly fine state.

-Kwaang!

Pavlov’s right arm, moved by the soldier persona, had clearly wrapped itself in thick Demonic Qi and stabbed in so the opponent couldn’t defend.

Yet the Little Heavenly Demon didn’t care. He walked forward and lazily swung an arm.

Limbs drawing an inefficient curved trajectory.

The speed was slow.

Frankly, it was doubtful whether there was even proper force in it.

Even going all-out would not be enough to stop his brute force, so what was he relying on?

But that hesitation couldn’t affect Pavlov’s movements in the real world, where the life-and-death duel was taking place.

The one moving the body now was the soldier persona.

The intense fighting instinct planted down into the unconscious crushed the physician persona’s hesitation and continued striking.

-Toong!

The thrust, extending a sharp hand-blade, was blocked far too easily.

The Little Heavenly Demon’s arm, extended several times slower, wrapped around Pavlov’s hand loaded with massive force and flicked it away.

‘Impossible.’

A movement like Tai Chi. Yet it was far from a Soft Punch.

The sensations felt by the soldier persona were also shared perfectly by the physician persona.

If what the Little Heavenly Demon was using were the Tai Chi of the Wu-Tang Clan, there would be no reason to be this flustered.

The techniques prepared to overturn the principle of soft overcomes hard would have unfolded quickly through Conditioned Counterattack’s Auto Pilot.

But the moment his hand-blade touched the Little Heavenly Demon’s arm, Pavlov felt an indescribable dissonance.

‘Why is it so hard…’

The Tai Chi Pavlov knew was a Soft Punch method.

A type of Kung-Fu that either lets the enemy’s force flow away, or returns it whole by following circular internal-energy circulation.

But for some reason, the Little Heavenly Demon’s arm was unbelievably hard, and despite taking a powerful impact, his lower body didn’t budge an inch.

The Little Heavenly Demon’s frame was smaller than his.

The total amount of internal energy was unknown, but on this side, demonic arts were being used.

Therefore, if the same amount of internal energy were mobilized, he should naturally have the advantage.

So how could that man receive the technique the soldier persona poured out with all its strength, and still keep advancing one step at a time.

It made no sense.

It felt like he was standing off against Mount Tai.

‘Has he been hiding his strength all this time…?’

Using 1322.77 Pound Weight alone could not receive his technique.

There had to be some hidden Kung-Fu principle.

‘Damn it…!’

Watching from deep within the image-space, the physician persona showed impatience for the first time.

The situation had reversed from earlier.

No matter how many times he struck, it was the same.

Even firing Qi-Force Long Needles using the remaining control did not change the outcome.

With bizarre courage-force that he couldn’t tell where it had been squeezed out from, the Little Heavenly Demon blocked and bounced away every one of Pavlov’s techniques.

He tried, belatedly, to take back the control he had handed to the soldier persona and respond, but it was already too late.

‘Damn British bastard…!!’

A living mountain range was approaching.

Even though his movements had clearly grown slower than before, the Little Heavenly Demon defended every strike without missing a single one, as if he could surely predict where Pavlov would aim.

No matter what technique he used, it was all blocked.

Only then did Pavlov realize.

The reason the Little Heavenly Demon could sweep away all his strikes was simple.

He closed the distance and released momentum, erasing Pavlov’s room to maneuver one perch at a time.

With his range of movement restricted, the soldier persona could only strike along predictable trajectories.

No matter how fast it was, if you knew where it would come from, blocking it was not difficult.

But he still couldn’t guess where the Little Heavenly Demon’s powerful force—still bouncing techniques away—was coming from.

‘In that case—’

He had to take back control, then adapt to the opponent’s Kung-Fu again.

But.

“Grrr!!”

Unlike the physician persona, who quickly found the best move and made his decision, the soldier persona refused to relinquish control.

‘Damn it. Has it been completely consumed by Demonic Qi already!’

Even as regret came crashing in late, the physician persona struggled desperately to seize bodily control.

And in the small gap formed by the tug-of-war between the two personas.

-Kwajik!

The Little Heavenly Demon’s fist exploded.

-Boo-woong!

Pavlov’s body was blasted into the air by the straight punch.

He had shown no sign of applying coiling-thread force, yet for some reason, the army surgeon’s body spun rapidly through the air several times around the deep mark carved into his abdomen before it finally hit the ground.

“Kuhuk!”

From the shock, Two Faces shattered, and the two personas merged.

Pavlov tried to push himself up somehow, but he spilled saliva and blood from his mouth and collapsed face-first into Green Willow Manor’s front yard again.

“Don’t force yourself. Stay down. As you already know, that power is not something a human body can bear.”

“What… do you mean by that?”

“Hm? I thought you’d already noticed. I only returned your power as it was.”

Pavlov’s face stained with shock.

“My. Looks like you don’t know anything.”

The Little Heavenly Demon looked down at him and snickered.

It made no sense.

The form was similar, but what the Little Heavenly Demon used was clearly a different Kung-Fu from Tai Chi.

Hadn’t he received the opponent’s technique and immediately returned the force.

Unable to suppress that question, the moment he activated eye techniques, Pavlov’s two eyes caught a strange sight.

‘That is…?’

A pale ring of internal energy circulating inside the Little Heavenly Demon and around him had taken an unexpected shape.

It was not the circular ring that was like the very symbol of a Tai Chi Boxer.

That shape, twisted at the waist and tightly wound like a rope, was like—

“It’s Figure-Eight Tai Chi, twisting Tai Chi to store force. It looks just like a spring or a mainspring, doesn’t it? The elasticity is tremendous.”

The ring unfurled in an instant, regaining a rounded shape.

The Little Heavenly Demon was smiling smugly down at Pavlov.