CHAPTER 1029: CHAPTER 33: VICTORY ALL THE WAY

"I’m sorry, truly sorry..."

After the competition, it was Lu Xuanyu, the victor, who felt somewhat embarrassed.

"Sword Takeaway" is regarded by Japanese swordsmen as the essence of the Shin Kage-ryu technique. Shin Kage-ryu was the first in Japan to propose the concept of the "Living Sword," advocating not to use killing as the goal, and not to practice swordsmanship by killing. The idea that "reasonable practice is everything" aligns more with modern perspectives than traditional martial arts and fits better with the historical trend of technological progress.

The existing Miao Blade Skill also has a kinship with Shin Kage-ryu. In a certain year of the Xinyou era during the Ming dynasty, the renowned general Qi Jiguang captured the Kage-ryu Sword Manual from an Eastern Ronin on the battlefield. Qi Jiguang created the "Xinyou Blade Method" based on his martial arts after incorporating the Kage-ryu Sword Manual.

"Sarutobi Kageyu" is precisely the ancestor of "Shin Kage-ryu."

Of course, after hundreds of years of development, the two martial arts have long developed their own styles. However, due to the form of the weapons and the techniques, there is still a possibility for mutual reference. And Lu Xuanyu’s friend Chen Feng is the type of scholar martial arts enthusiast who loves to verify these connections.

At this moment, Lu Xuanyu’s ability is enough to master any swordsmanship.

However, this time he felt he didn’t do it beautifully enough.

He sprained at least four of his opponent’s fingers.

The true essence of "Sword Takeaway" lies in the comparison of "force". Weapons that cause damage with a "blade" all have secrets in how they’re gripped. People often don’t grip weapons tightly with all their fingers. Especially with two-handed swords, if all ten fingers are tightly gripping, it means both hands restrict each other, making it difficult to control the "blade" and easily causing the misalignment of the blade and the direction of force — the so-called "blade tendon misalignment" issue.

Even in archery, the fingers gripping the bow do not use the index and middle fingers forcefully, mainly relying on the palm to push the bow to avoid fingers interfering with accuracy.

And "Sword Takeaway" targets precisely this point. In normal double-handed sword grip, the index and middle fingers do not fully exert force or are not used. If at this time, one hand grips the hilt with all five fingers, it can naturally take the sword away.

A similar technical principle might even continue into the confrontation between Sonicon Blades and Magnetic Traps hundreds of years later. Of course, Lu Xuanyu wouldn’t know this. He just felt sorry.

In his view, the most perfect Sword Takeaway should skillfully take down the opponent’s sword, completing it without the opponent even noticing.

He merely relied on his superhuman reaction speed to forcibly seize the opportunity to take the sword. His understanding of swords and blades wasn’t enough, so much so that he injured another’s fingers while taking the sword.

And "injuring a swordsman’s fingers," in Lu Xuanyu’s view, is somewhat excessive.

The Japanese swordsman opposite him didn’t know what Lu Xuanyu was thinking. If he did, he would only curse indignantly, "Versailles!" Indeed, such techniques like Sword Takeaway are rarely used in actual combat from ancient to modern times. Most people do not actively use it in combat; using this means either out of necessity or as a show-off when there’s a significant skill gap.

Lu Xuanyu had no awareness of showing off. He just felt he didn’t do well enough. He indeed had many choices, but "Sword Takeaway" was undoubtedly the most elegant. It was his "job requirement".

And he just felt his technique was not yet sufficient.

Before Lu Xuanyu, most martial artists’ "blocking" and "dodging" heavily depended on "prejudgment". Since the physical structure of humans worldwide is consistent, the possible actions are also limited. "Martial arts faction" only chooses some techniques from these actions to combine, and all martial techniques have common logic. Therefore, a master can foresee actions by looking at an opponent’s shoulder before they make a move and then decide whether to counterattack, block, or dodge.

The action of blocking or dissolving often completes before the attack action is finished.

This is the general meaning of "strike later but arrive first".

But Lu Xuanyu was an anomaly. He relied on his superhuman reaction speed, only beginning to block and dodge after seeing the opponent’s moves.

Generally speaking, doing so would undoubtedly be "half a beat slow". And human reaction speed indeed has a limit.

But Lu Xuanyu had surpassed this "limit".

At this moment, Lu Xuanyu himself was not aware of this. In his long training, he still followed the traditional logic of martial studies to enhance his martial arts, but his superhuman reaction and thinking speed had already surpassed this logic’s limit.

At this moment, he only felt that his "technique" was not good enough. Based on the rationale of moves, he speculated that a true Sword Saint relied on experience for prejudgment, then took the sword in the force contest, so he felt that merely making up for experience with reaction meant that he was on the "technically insufficient" side. He had not yet thought about finding a technique to exploit this reaction.

However, after chatting with Bruce, Lu Xuanyu adjusted his mindset. His thoughts had already been withdrawn, and he began to view his match from a more objective perspective. Once he realized that his "technique was incomplete", he was already on the path to a higher level.

From the fourth day on, a new "cross-style exhibition match" was added to Lu Xuanyu’s preliminary matches. These exhibition matches mainly involved battles among opponents already eliminated by Lu Xuanyu. Some contestants had already lost, so they didn’t care too much about losing face. At this point, getting more appearance fees was also nice. Moreover, all martial artists naturally cared about one question: the so-called "no second in martial arts", and everyone was curious about which technical system was the most effective.

This was precisely a stage.

After this, Lu Xuanyu welcomed his first full armor combat match.

Xiang Shan initially didn’t want to add this match. The reason was that full armor combat required using the "armament structure of the 13th to 17th-century Eurasian continent" and "must use materials existing in history". Supplementary rules included "if the era and region the contestant is reenacting (usually the 13th to 17th-century Eurasian continent) truly lacks protection for certain parts, then hidden compliant protective components beneath historically accurate appearances must cover these areas".

Every rule made Xiang Shan exclaim "antiquated" and "unreasonable" — of course, to someone like Chen Feng, it was Xiang Shan who seemed unreasonable. Bringing a bit of "verification" into ancient martial arts restoration made it interesting.

Lu Xuanyu eventually walked on the battlefield wearing Mountain Pattern Armor of the late Song Dynasty, paired with a face armor of the Ming King’s angry countenance. Besides the technology-inspired electroplated decorative patterns and Superman Enterprise trademark, it was basically consistent with history.

"Electroplating treatment is the final stubbornness of Superman Enterprise’s corporate culture," Xiang Shan asserted.

The match itself was rather uninteresting. Lu Xuanyu’s physical advantage was further amplified in this round. Full armor combat contestants compete wearing dozens of pounds of armor. However, Lu Xuanyu’s prosthetics don’t get tired from the weight nor lose force due to fatigue.

In the end, Lu Xuanyu nimbly circled behind his opponent, grabbed the opponent’s shoulder with one hand holding a weapon, and used wrestling with the other hand to topple the opponent. The opponent couldn’t get up.

He seemed to feel the experience from the previous jujitsu matches recombining within himself.

Lu Xuanyu still didn’t know what result this combination would have.

Then came the crazy day of boxing.

Due to the previous boxing matches, half of the boxers nearly humiliatingly chose the point system. For boxing, where there are numerous strikes, the "point system" is uncommon. This might lead to a ridiculous development where everyone seeks not-so-effective hits that score points and abandons the possibility of a one-hit KO. Then, some guys battered all over the field might find they actually have a higher point in the end.

Xiang Shan’s supercomputer has had countless AIs confirm this point.

The spectacle of this is also very poor.

Generally speaking, only quite amateur amateur matches choose such a boring rule. Two amateur boxers indeed are hard to expect to deliver a KO.

However, those professional boxers couldn’t hope to KO Lu Xuanyu either. As for "advantage"...

A prosthetic boxer unafraid of injury, seeking to gain an active offensive "advantage" in a match, is too easy.

He wasn’t afraid of injury; injury to him was just "replacing parts".

But there was still a portion of top boxers who rejected such rule additions.

Firstly, even though Lu Xuanyu was strong at this moment, weaknesses such as the liver area and solar plexus no longer existed for him. However, he could still be concussed. Many heavy fist hands still harbored the idea of knocking Lu Xuanyu out.

Furthermore, these top boxers had hardly fought under "point scoring system" rules. Their technical systems existed for "knocking out" and for "winning". They themselves were not accustomed to fighting under the point system.

Adding this set of rules, conversely, disturbed their original technical systems.

The heavier weight class boxing kings chose to maintain the original rules.

But Lu Xuanyu didn’t mind.

Boxing was already the technique he was most familiar with. Xiang Shan’s sparring robots most excelled at displaying straightforward boxing techniques. And those boxers attracted by the sparring robots were all of boxing king caliber.

He had already witnessed the pinnacle.