Tornado-like wind danced through the bamboo forest, carrying the scent of damp earth and crushed leaves.

At just three inches inside the bamboo forest, a cracking sound echoed as Kang's muscles coiled as he clenched his fist.

His first punch landed at Kai's temple like a hammer blow, which made Kai's skin duck inside.

Kai's head jerked aside, followed by a speeding wind that brushed across his ear like a spear.

As Kai's head stopped moving, he drove his right arm upward, surging it toward Kang's ribs, which echoed like hitting a solid oak.

A grunt escaped from Kang, but he didn't budge; he simply smiled, letting a cruel slash draw across his face.

"Is that all you've got, kid?" Kang spat, before launching a furious combination of punches at the boy.

Blocking and dodging the punches wasn't just a fight of finesse; it was a raw, brutal demolition, fists meeting forearms with sickening, meaty thwacks.

After managing to save his face from getting another punch, a hook from Kang split Kai's lip on the right side. Immediately, as the punch drew back, warm blood filled Kai's mouth.

Spitting the blood, Kai returned a straight punch toward Kang's nose, cracking the bone in it and bending it sideways.

Feeling cartilage crunch under his knuckles, Kai moved two steps back and began panting heavily, inhaling and exhaling the dusty wind that had swelled up around him.

Blood spurted out from Kang's nose, painting his cheeks to his chin red. When Kang wiped the blood from his face, a wet, gurgling sound echoed from him, followed by a grin that made the air itself bend.

"Is that your best punch ever made?" Kang's eyes turned reddish as he gazed at the boy panting heavily.

He dashed forward again, moving like a snake through the bamboo, and landed three blows on the kid's face.

They moved through the bamboo, their aligned punches breaking and crushing down huge numbers of bamboo trees.

Every kick, every punch, and every move of a boot kept on letting air, dust, and leaves gush out, turning like a fog and changing the serene grove into a wrecking zone.

Inside a bamboo planted in four ways, a kick from Kang missed Kai's neck but connected with a thick bamboo stalk.

There, a loud, fibrous CRACK echoed, and for a split second, the tall bamboo tree shuddered, then toppled with a groaning sigh.

The canopies of the tree fell, crashing down between them and showering them with green leaves.

As Kai noticed a slight opening at the side of Kang as the leaves cloaked them in, he ducked under a wild swing and drove his shoulder into Kang's waist, sending him back into another cluster of bamboo.

The impact shook the trees, letting the birds that stood at the canopies of the bamboo trees, not affected by the fight, burst into the sky.

Kang roared, wrapped his arms around Kai, then lifted him off the ground and slammed Kai down onto his back.

The air exploded from Kai's lungs the moment his body hit the ground.

Before he could roll, Kang's boot stomped down, but Kai twisted desperately, and the heel slammed into the earth beside his head, digging a furrow in the soil.

As Kai scrambled up, dust shot up and mixed with the blood in his mouth, and for a split second, his vision swam.

Before he could think, Kang was already on him, punching him like a boxing bag.

They traded blows that landed with a steady percussion of impacts that echoed with thud-crack-thump sounds.

At the center of the clearing their relentless fight had created, rustling leaves drowned beneath their feet.

Every hit Kai landed seemed to only feed Kang's fury, but Kai's blocks kept on rattling his bones.

As he saw an opening when Kang overextended on a right cross, Kai pivoted, putting all his weight into a counter, and surged a punch at Kang's head.

Kang's skin bounced as a drying jolt traveled through his skull.

And for a split second, Kang's guard dropped. When he raised himself, he saw Kai surging toward him at great speed with a finishing strike.

…

At the far distance from where Kang and Kai were, Wang walked, placing his steps slowly, that seemed to shake the pieces of bamboo lying on the ground like sand.

He ignored the chaos at his left side and the groans of the fallen elder monk at the entrance of the temple, and locked his gaze on the weakened Clara.

And when he reached Clara, who was trying to crawl away from where the bamboo had struck her, he smiled.

He bent down, wrapped his fingers around the collar of her shirt, then dragged her up.

Clara cried out as her feet scrambled for purchase, but Wang's grip was as strong as iron. Looking at the lady helplessly wrestling her way from him, he moved forward.

Wang hurled Clara behind him like a sack, and moved toward the exit of the bamboo forest where the sound of the brutal fistfight kept on echoing like drums.

Clara's boots scraped and kicked up dust and leaves while her sobs came in short bursts, mirroring her pain in gasps.

Wang's face remained with a cold focus that made no leaf spin at his front. And when he reached the edge of the forest, where two tall bamboos had created a wall of ember and green, his jaw tightened.

There, the sounds of the fight were clearer: the grunts, the impacts, and the cracking of wood.

Through a gap in the stalks of smaller bamboo, he saw the kid's bloody face and Kang's wounded body.

And when he saw the kid land a solid blow on the temple of Kang, sending Kang back, a crackling knuckle sound echoed around him.

Deep down, clinical understanding struck him: Kai was winning, and there was something to be done.

A flicker of annoyance crossed Wang's face as he tightened his grip on Clara's collar, making her gag.

"KAI!" Wang's voice echoed in a sharp, commanding bark that cut through the holes in the stalks and slammed into the violence of Kai and Kang.

At that instant, the voice javelined through Kai's concentration, letting his head snap toward the source.

Kai's eyes narrowed in combat focus, then widened in shock.

His heart heaved as he saw Clara helplessly trying to detach herself from Wang. Sweat beaded on his face as he saw Wang raise a hand and slap it on Clara's neck.

At that instant, Clara crumpled on the ground at Wang's feet, her face turning pale and streaked with dirt, tears, and blood.

And above Clara was another fist raised and waiting to be slammed on her.

Noticing a slip in Kai's movements, a savage grin splattered on Kang's bloody face. And for a split second, Kang lowered his shoulder and charged in a full-blooded bull rush powered by pure malice.

When he reached Kai, his shoulders drove into the kid's chest like a battering ram, vaporizing the air in the kid's throat, leaving only a soundless gasp.

Kai flew backward, his arms flailing, and when he hit the first thick bamboo stalk at chest height, a loud blast echoed like a giant's bone snapping.

CRACK.

The tree splintered, but didn't break. Kai's momentum carried him through it, letting his body twist. He crashed into a second, then a third.

Each crash created a universe of pain in him, and with each one, a new CRUNCH of wood and muffled oomph burst out from his own lungs.

Kai wasn't just breaking through them; he was tearing through a path of destruction, as his body kept on wrecking like a ball wrapped in skin.

The world became a blur of green stalks, brown barks, and blinding pain. Kai lost count of impacts as he tumbled, rolled, and bounced off the unyielding bamboo poles.

The crushing and rolling sounds of Kai's body breaking the bamboo filled the forest with a terrible symphony that seemed to go on forever.

Finally, as he landed in a heap at the base of an ancient, particularly thick bamboo cluster, which was twenty meters away from where he'd been standing, a sickening thud echoed.

And as the thud's sound died, the wind picked up, moving through the high canopies of the surviving bamboo.

A lonely, sighing sound shot into the atmosphere as if the forest itself was grieving the violence done to it.

Kai didn't breathe as he lay there. With every attempt to, the air burned like fire in his crushed chest.

Spots of light danced in the murk, blinding his vision, yet his tongue still tasted the dirt, leaves, and the copper-rich flood of his own blood.

Through the shallow breaths and the narrowing tunnel of his sight, Kai forced his head to turn, to look back toward where he'd been.

Seeing the long sword that gleamed as the afternoon sun, filtering through the shattered bamboo, caught the blade.

Kai swallowed hard as he saw Wang raise the sword high above his head, letting the tip point toward the sky.

And when the blade hovered directly over the exposed back of Clara's neck, Kai's heart, which was already struggling, froze.

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