Ludger didn’t want to do it. Every instinct in him screamed to avoid that, that state, that slippery slope where crity bled into instinct and instinct into something feral. Rage Flow wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t safe. It made decisions for him, tore away restraint, and dragged his mind into the quiet, predatory pce most people only felt in their final seconds. He preferred control. Precision. Tactics. He preferred to think.

  But the hulking, berserker-fueled beastman in front of him wasn’t giving him a choice.

  His Earth Overdrive was already burning through mana at an obscene rate, every second of density sharpening the strain under his skin. Adding Rage Flow on top of that was a recipe for exhaustion, or worse, losing himself for a moment he couldn’t afford. Still, he needed explosive power and sharpened reaction more than stability. He couldn’t drop Earth Overdrive. He couldn’t outmaneuver a berserker without matching its speed. And he absolutely couldn’t let this monster tear apart the Ironhand fgship while Maurien and the others fought to clear the skies.

  He inhaled once. Let the breath settle low. And tore the lid off his restraint.

  Rage Flow: UNLEASHED.

  A crimson pulse rippled through his mana. His heartbeat thundered. His muscles tightened. The world sharpened at the edges, not quieter, but hyper-clear, every motion carved in brutal detail. The beastman’s massive silhouette expanded in his vision, framed by the storm and the fme-lit chaos across the sea. His brain didn’t argue. His body didn’t ask. Everything aligned into a single line of purpose.

  The beastman moved first. There was no roar, no taunt, just raw speed. Despite the new mass, the monster unched forward like a fired cannonball, leaving dents in the deck with every stride. His three-section staff snapped outward in a vicious, whistling arc. The sound alone made the air tremble. Rage Flow told Ludger exactly what to do: raise the left arm, brace, angle, don’t absorb, redirect what you can, endure what you can’t.

  The nunchaku struck.

  KA—THOOOOOM!

  The blow smmed into his forearm guard with such force his bones vibrated painfully. The shock hammered through his joints, rattling his nerves all the way into his shoulder. The guards held, but the impact bent his knees, forced the deck beneath him to crack open with a splintering groan. The sound was a nightmare—metal shrieking, chain cracking, mana-infused wood splintering. It hit the air like a sonic bst.

  Everyone on the deck, pirates, beastmen, even the wounded, cpped hands to their ears in agony. Rifles dropped. Screams were swallowed by the ringing.

  Ludger gritted his teeth against the raw shock, Rage Flow swallowing the sting and repcing it with a violent crity. He dug his feet deeper into the fractured pnks, Earth Overdrive anchoring him like a pnted pilr. The momentum didn’t break him. Didn’t throw him. Didn’t send him tumbling like the others.

  He held. The beastman’s grin returned, feral now, eyes burning red from the draught. And Rage Flow whispered to Ludger’s mind in cold, predatory simplicity: Hit back. Hard.

  The beastman didn’t give Ludger a moment to recover from that bone-rattling impact. He ripped the nunchaku back with a snapping twist of his torso, and the chain segments whistled into another attack. Ludger felt the shift in the air a split-second before it arrived, Rage Flow sharpening every detail, the tremor in the floorboards, the flex of muscle in the beastman’s forearm, the distorted ripple in the mana-den wind.

  Ludger braced again. The next strike smmed into his guard with enough force to explode a burst of compressed air from the point of impact. A miniature shockwave bsted outward, sending loose weapons skidding across the deck and throwing two approaching pirates ft on their backs. The beastman followed up immediately, spinning the staff into a low sweeping arc meant to break Ludger’s legs. Rage Flow snapped Ludger’s instincts into motion: he stepped forward instead of back, dropped his weight, and let the blow scrape against his shin guard as he drove a brutal elbow into the beastman’s ribs.

  The red-furred juggernaut barely budged, but the pnet itself seemed to protest. The deck shattered under the force of Ludger’s pnted heel, splinters exploding in a spiderweb around his foot. The beastman answered with a roar and a downward hammerstrike. Ludger crossed his arms just in time.

  KA-BOOM!

  Another shockwave detonated outward, this one so strong the nearest crates burst open and several pirates were thrown into the railing like ragdolls. Those who tried to rush toward the brawl were bsted back instantly, arms filing, legs barely catching the deck before another crack split under their feet.

  The beastman lunged again. Ludger met him halfway.

  Both fighters struck simultaneously, Ludger’s fist against the beastman’s reinforced weapon. The collision erupted in a violent gust of compressed air, far stronger than the st. Dust, splinters, and shattered runic fragments spiraled around them as the pressure bsted outward in a dome. Anyone within several meters was pushed back hard, boots scraping desperately for traction.

  A wolf-type beastman tried to advance from the fnk, and was immediately knocked off his feet as the air pressure buckled his knees and hurled him sideways.

  The deck continued to crumble with every movement the two made. Ludger slid back half a step under the pressure, his boot sinking into fractured wood before he surged forward again. The beastman swung overhead; Ludger sidestepped, letting the strike obliterate a portion of the deck where he’d just stood. The force split the pnks down to the support beams.

  Ludger countered with a heavy straight punch, Earth Overdrive turning the blow into a concussive bst. The beastman blocked it with his staff, yet the resulting shock hurled nearby pirates back several meters, some tumbling over one another as they skidded across the deck.

  Another crack split beneath the two fighters. Another shockwave rippled outward. Another cluster of pirates tried to close in, and were tossed away as if a giant invisible hand had swatted them.

  Step by step, blow by blow, Ludger and the berserker tore the fgship’s deck apart. Each movement carried enough weight to splinter timber. Each collision sent violent bursts of wind pressure outward. Each misstep or impact bsted anything nearby back in a storm of debris and raw force.

  The ship wasn’t prepared for monsters like this. And neither side had any intention of slowing down.

  The beastman’s ughter rose above the storm, a ragged, distorted sound fueled by adrenaline and draught-driven madness. His pupils, already stretched thin, flooded completely crimson. The whites of his eyes narrowed into bloodshot slivers. Each breath came out as a hot snarl, steam rolling from his nostrils. He no longer looked like a martial artist, he looked like a rabid war god in the shape of a monkey.

  “Ke-ke-ke-ke—!” The ugh twisted into a guttural roar as he circled Ludger with heavy, thundering steps that cracked the deck underfoot. “Even better than the rumors!” he barked, voice trembling with exhiration. “No wonder your name’s spreading so fast in the underworld. Didn’t think a kid could move like this!”

  He lunged, dragging the nunchaku in a wide circur arc before snapping it forward with bone-shattering force. Ludger pivoted, raised both arms, and braced, just barely in time.

  KA-WHAM!

  The strike hit his crossed guards like an executioner’s hammer. Rage Flow helped him absorb the direction of the blow, and Earth Overdrive kept his legs pnted, but the impact sent quakes up his arms and down into his ribs. His stance trembled for the first time, just a fraction, but enough for the beastman to notice.

  The brute’s grin widened.

  “Still—” He twisted his hips and brought the weapon back in a tight recoil, muscles bulging grotesquely under reddened skin, “—you’re not good enough!”

  The next strike came faster, deceptively sharp. Ludger barely managed to reposition before the weapon smmed into him again.

  THOOM!

  This time the hit was so violent that it forced Ludger to brace with both arms, fully committed to the block. The beastman’s strength rattled his bones hard enough that he felt something inside his elbow joint snap or tear, he couldn’t tell which. Pain nced up to his shoulder, a hot electrical shock that would’ve dropped anyone else. The deck beneath Ludger’s boots split open another inch.

  The force drove him down slightly, bending his knees despite Earth Overdrive’s anchoring density. His teeth clenched behind his closed lips. He refused to let the sound slip out. Refused to even let the beastman see discomfort.

  Even as heat flooded his forearms. Even as his joints screamed under the strain. Even as his skin reddened from internal bruising, swelling fast under the guards. Ludger’s expression didn’t change. No grimace. No hiss. No wince. Just a ft, controlled stare.

  The beastman clicked his teeth in delight, licking his cracked lips as if savoring the sensation of finally pushing Ludger backward. “Oh, what’s this?” he growled, leaning in close enough for Ludger to smell the metallic tang of berserker draught on his breath. “Pain? You’re feeling it. I can tell. But that face—it’s all stone.”

  He leaned back, spinning the three-section staff into another violent orbit.

  “Good. Makes crushing you even more fun.”

  Ludger didn’t respond. He simply lowered his stance… and prepared to csh again.

  Ludger drew in a long, controlled breath. The kind that settled low in his diaphragm and cut through the haze of Rage Flow just enough for crity to surface. Pain throbbed up both arms—deep, pulsing, internal damage that didn’t match what his guards should’ve absorbed. He exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the beastman’s oversized nunchaku.

  “…The runic effect on your weapon,” he said calmly, as if they weren’t standing atop a colpsing fgship. “It’s designed to ignore armor when someone blocks it.”

  The beastman’s grin faltered. Only slightly. “So what?” he growled, rotating the weapon zily in a figure-eight. “You figured it out.”

  “That expins why my arms feel like they’ve been smashed from the inside,” Ludger continued. He flexed his fingers once—the swelling made the motion stiff, painful. “Your strikes bypass external defense and hit the joints directly. Smart enchantment. Expensive too.”

  The beastman blinked, red eyes narrowing. “…And?”

  Ludger met his stare without flinching. “And I can heal that.”

  A quiet pause spread between them—brief, but heavy.

  Ludger continued, tone matter-of-fact, as though expining training protocol rather than discussing life-or-death combat. “I could drag this out. Heal myself each time you get tired. Wait for the berserker draught to burn you from the inside. Or I could use Earth Creation to disarm you in three seconds.”

  The enormous beastman scowled, posture tightening. Something about Ludger’s tone got under his skin. The words weren’t taunting, they were clinical, detached. Like Ludger wasn’t fighting for survival. Like this entire duel was an exercise.

  “But I won’t,” Ludger said. “I’m choosing to push my body and brain instead. Fights like this…” He rolled his shoulders, letting Rage Flow stabilize the tremors in his muscles. “They’re good training opportunities.”

  The beastman’s brow furrowed deeply. His lip curled in confusion and irritation. “Training?” he spat. “You’re telling me this fight, this fight, is just a minor nuisance for you?”

  Ludger didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Instead, he charged.

  His feet hammered into the deck, cracking pnks with each step as Earth Overdrive fed raw power into his movement. Rage Flow sharpened everything, his angle, his center of gravity, the timing of his breath. He closed the distance in a blur, palm fttening and rotating forward.

  The beastman reacted instantly, swinging his nunchaku into a cross-block with both hands. The weapon snapped up with a metallic hiss as the chains tightened, ready to redirect Ludger’s strike and counter.

  But Ludger wasn’t aiming to deflect. He was aiming to blow through.

  WHOOOM—!

  The palm collided with the center of the beastman’s block. The impact detonated like compressed thunder, sending a burst of force rippling out in every direction. The beastman felt it, really felt it, for the first time. His massive feet tore long grooves in the deck as he was shoved backward, sliding across the reinforced pnks with widening eyes.

  His arms rattled. His wrists ached from the shock. His shoulders nearly popped from the sudden torque. And for the first time in the entire fight… Ludger saw uncertainty flicker across his red-tinted eyes.

  The beastman had felt his bones vibrate. He had felt the weight behind Ludger’s strike. He had felt the boy’s power, not as an annoyance, but as a threat. Ludger lowered his stance again, breath steady despite the pain tearing through his arms.

  “Round three,” he said.

  And then he moved to finish the job.

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