Marcus didn’t wait for Thomas to steady himself. Utilizing Obsidian Propulsion once more, he detonated a burst of pressurized gas from his heels and shot forward.
What followed was an absolute, relentless onslaught.
Marcus began to beat the absolute dog shit out of Thomas. He threw a lightning-fast combination of brutal hooks, straight punches, and heavy knees, his volcanic fists blurring through the air. Thomas, having absolutely no formal martial arts training, couldn’t block them. A heavy right cross slammed into Thomas’s jaw, followed by a devastating left hook to his ribs, a driving knee to his stomach, and a downward smash that sent him crashing hard into the black sand.
To the high-blood students in the stands, it looked like an execution. The nobles cheered and laughed, completely entertained by the one-sided beatdown. Ryan leaned forward from the back row, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the stone railing in sheer panic.
Yet, despite the terrifying sound of heavy rock striking flesh, something bizarre was happening.
The first few punches cracked Thomas’s skin and bruised his ribs, but with every single subsequent blow that landed, the damage plummeted. Marcus’s fists were striking with enough force to shatter stone, but to Thomas, the impacts felt lighter and lighter. Underneath his torn uniform, his Endless Adaptation talent was working at a hyper-accelerated, evolutionary speed. Every time Marcus’s heavy fist slammed into his torso, the sheer kinetic force violently compressed Thomas’s muscle fibers and bone density, forcing his body to immediately rewire itself to survive. His skin was turning as tough as hardened leather, and his internal organs were tightening to absorb shock waves flawlessly. Marcus was hitting him over and over, but he was essentially hammering an anvil only making the metal denser, harder, and entirely immune to the assault.
Marcus, like the rest of the class was completely blind to the evolution. He then unleashed a final, dual-fisted overhead smash, driving Thomas deep into the sand in a cloud of black dust.
"Die, you piece of trash!" Marcus roared, breathing heavily, his molten armor sizzling with sweat.
Inside the crater of dust, Thomas lay flat on his back. A cold, non-stop stream of majestic system chimes was echoing in his skull, reporting a massive surge in his permanent physical stats.
[ SYSTEM REWIRING SUCCESSFUL ]
* Kinetic Impact Resistance: Increased to 65% (Permanent)
* Internal Organ Shock Absorption: Increased to 50% (Permanent)
* Bone Density Factor: Reinforced (+40% Structural Integrity)
[ NOTICE: Host physical vessel has completely adapted to opponent’s offensive output. Enemy blunt force attacks are no longer capable of dealing significant damage. ]
Thomas didn’t feel pain anymore. Instead, a cold, predatory focus took over his mind. He opened his eyes, and the hidden crimson rune beneath his right eyelid flared with blinding intensity.
Eye of Khepri, maximize flow, Thomas commanded mentally.
The world slowed to a crawl. Through his right eye, Thomas stopped looking at Marcus’s physical body and instead saw the raw, pulsing network of mana circuits holding the Volcanic Forge armor together. Because Marcus had thrown hundreds of reckless, arrogant punches without a single thought of defense, his technique was completely unrefined. He was wide open.
Right at the center of Marcus’s sternum where all the molten channels intersected to feed power into his arms the Eye of Khepri illuminated a tiny, dark, swirling knot of instability. It was a fatal structural weakness. Because Marcus was pushing his mana too hard to sustain his Magma Surge, the flow at his chest was bottlenecking, making the volcanic armor right above his heart incredibly brittle.
Thomas pushed himself up from the sand. To Marcus and the entire class, he should have been a broken corpse, but he stood up completely fine, his movements smooth and effortless.
Marcus’s eyes widened in sheer horror. "What... how the hell are you still standing?!"
Thomas didn’t answer. He didn’t use a graceful martial arts stance. He simply stepped forward, planting his feet firmly into the sand with his newly reinforced, heavy bone density, and wound his arm back like a coiled spring. He channeled every ounce of his adapted, enhanced physical strength straight into his right fist.
He lunged forward, dodging a panicked, clumsy swing from Marcus, and drove his fist straight into the center of Marcus’s chest directly onto the hidden weakness his eye had exposed.
BOOM!
The impact didn’t sound like flesh hitting rock; it sounded like a siege weapon striking a fortress wall. A visible shockwave of compressed air exploded outward from the point of contact, blowing the black sand back in a perfect circle.
The devastating blow instantly shattered the absolute laws of Marcus’s defense. The massive, glowing volcanic armor encasing the noble boy’s torso cracked violently before exploding into a million harmless, fading crimson fragments. The sheer kinetic feedback blasted right through Marcus’s chest cavity, completely cutting off his mana flow and sending his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
Marcus collapsed forward like a felled tree, his face slamming into the black sand right at Thomas’s feet, completely unconscious and thoroughly defeated.
A suffocating, dead silence fell over the entire subterranean coliseum. The laughing High-bloods froze mid-cheer, their jaws literally dropping in absolute disbelief. The combat instructor stopped tapping his wooden rod, his eyes wide as he stared at the low-born farm boy who had just dismantled an elite combatant with a single punch.
Up in the benches, Julian slowly stood up from his seat. His striking ebony eyes were fixed entirely on Thomas, a dark, dangerously sharp glint reflecting behind his silver-rimmed glasses. He knew a simple "Utility" talent could never produce that kind of raw durability or destructive force.
Thomas let out a slow breath, his right eye returning to normal as the system screen dimmed, leaving him standing alone victoriously in the center of the arena.
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