Chapter 84 : Copycat
Chapter 84: Copycat
Baek Woohyun’s foot shot upward, aiming for the Invader’s solar plexus. It was a kick that exquisitely avoided the forearm extended to block the Chon-gyeong.
Of course, the Invader wasn’t one to simply take it. If it had been hit by the Chon-gyeong it would be one thing, but it had perfectly responded and blocked it.
The bastard twisted its body slightly to escape the kick’s trajectory, and simultaneously extended its arm to instantly catch Baek Woohyun’s rising leg.
“···!”
Tap!
Finding one leg suddenly sealed, Baek Woohyun immediately kicked off with his other foot and leaped up. He had immediately responded as the situation turned unfavorable.
Though it was an action close to a spinal reflex, the knee strike attempted using the captured leg as leverage still contained powerful force.
Enough to crush the face completely if it landed properly. ······If it landed, that is.
Unfortunately, such a thing didn’t happen because the Invader’s defense was executed just as swiftly as Baek Woohyun’s knee strike.
The bastard extended its free hand to receive the knee aimed at its face, and its eyes gleamed as if to continue the flow and launch a counterattack.
It surely would have attempted something if only Baek Woohyun hadn’t wrapped his legs around the bastard’s torso, unconcerned that his knee strike was blocked.
Squeeze!
Baek Woohyun tightly squeezed the Invader’s torso along with his previously caught leg. It looked as if he was deliberately hanging onto the opponent’s body.
With the situation like this, the disadvantaged one became the Invader instead. It was extremely difficult to hit an opponent clinging to one’s body like a cicada.
On the other hand, Baek Woohyun could now unilaterally pound away while occupying the somewhat higher position.
-“Hackphysical is pounding the Invader mercilessly! The Invader can’t even think of counterattacking and is just holding up its guard!”
-“Even when the leg was caught, I didn’t think it would turn out like this.”
-‘It wasn’t caught, he let it be caught’
-The Invader is getting beaten so pathetically lololol
-He is blocking most of it though;
-But guys, doesn’t this fight feel kind of off somehow?
“─!”
“Urgh!“
Soon Baek Woohyun’s fists poured down toward the Invader’s head like a meteor shower.
The terrible fact for the Invader was that since all attacks came from top to bottom, the moment it failed to block properly, it would be pushed back with its arms and get pounded.
Realizing this, the Invader immediately released the leg and tried to grab Baek Woohyun’s waist to throw him.
Naturally, Baek Woohyun wouldn’t just let that happen.
Rather, the moment the opponent’s arms loosened, he kicked off the torso and escaped, quickly regaining his stance and rising.
Perhaps feeling there wasn’t much meaning in pursuit, the Invader also focused on regaining its own stance rather than chasing him.
“······.”
“······.”
Eventually, the two people standing in the location they had been before their first clash faced off again.
With calm expressions as if they hadn’t just fought fiercely.
─Here, Baek Woohyun felt a sense of déjà vu.
‘This···.’
The battle he had just fought with the Invader flashed rapidly through Baek Woohyun’s mind. The entire flow from the first clash.
At the end of such review, he gained certainty that every single part of this battle process was in his memory.
Though slightly different and with attack and defense roles reversed, this was definitely the same as when he faced an opponent with the same build in ‘Survival.’
More precisely, it was closer to the Invader’s responses being a perfect copy of himself back then, but anyway.
‘Life Achievement Grandmaster’ donated ‘1,000 won’!
[Am I the only one who thought of that opponent from the end of the last broadcast’s Survival mode while watching this fight?]
-“Actually, I thought of it too. The overall flow was so similar I couldn’t help but recall it.”
-“I’m not sure! Just that they fight somewhat similarly? I was thinking all fistfights look the same anyway.”
-Ah! Right; I thought that too
-Is it really because the fighting style is similar
-Maybe when the level gets higher, their eyes for reading fight structures become the same
-I don’t really know either lololol
“······.”
Baek Woohyun frowned at the subtle displeasure.
It was understandable, seeing the Invader that had been alien from its appearance now imitating him.
A copycat, and at that, a copycat Invader copying him.
No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t a good sign, was it?
‘Finish it as quickly as possible.’
“Sssssss- Hoooooo-“
Baek Woohyun repeated very deep inhalations and exhalations. His pupils blazed white as he regulated his breathing. Enough to feel as if flames were contained within.
As exhalations with the momentum to expel everything inside continued with inhalations as if to swallow everything in the world, his concentration endlessly heightened.
Thus, the entire world he saw, heard, and felt began to slow down as if filmed with a high-speed camera.
Possible because it was virtual reality, a sensory rampage created by synchronization rate beyond limits─’Slowed World’ came to him.
Daaaaaash-!
Baek Woohyun, who kicked off the ground, trampled through the ‘Slowed World’ without hesitation and surged toward the Invader. A charge pulling up all available physical capabilities.
Not surprisingly, the Invader also responded to the ‘Slowed World’ and threw a punch at Baek Woohyun rushing toward it.
From bottom to top, a picture-perfect uppercut!
However, Baek Woohyun dwelling in the ‘Slowed World’ perfectly read the Invader’s attack.
‘Slowed World’ wasn’t just seeing surroundings slowly, but closer to expanding cognitive abilities through concentration beyond limits.
In other words, right now he ‘knew’ everything within the range his senses reached. Because transcendent perception led him to temporary and limited omniscience.
Swoosh.
Having predicted the trajectory the fist would draw forward, his chosen action was not to stop or dodge, but to lower his body even more and charge.
Lowering his body to a level almost prostrate on the ground, the Invader’s thrown punch merely grazed the empty air where he had once been.
Next.
Swiiiiish-!
After extending his left foot to brake, Baek Woohyun simultaneously sprang up his body and launched an uppercut with his right hand.
He felt the Invader hastily pulling back its extended hand trying to take a defensive stance, yet didn’t stop.
He simply hammered his fist onto the Invader’s crossed arms without hesitation. With momentum as if saying go ahead and try to block it.
Thuuuud!
The Invader’s body bent along with its crossed arms meant for blocking, making a heavy sound!
But Baek Woohyun’s attack was only beginning.
He stomped his foot strongly and drove a left straight punch onto the Invader’s defense.
The Invader, whose stance was already half-collapsed, couldn’t withstand the power bursting from the fist and was pushed back.
Baek Woohyun chased after the bastard and launched another uppercut, and the Invader’s two arms that had been raised trying to block somehow shot up like doing a banzai.
‘──!’
Craaack-!
Finally, Baek Woohyun’s fist slammed into the fully exposed Invader’s face with a chilling sound.
It was a terrifying strike that would give certainty that an ordinary person’s face would have caved in and died instantly.
However, since the Invader possessed an extremely sturdy body, though it was sent flying unable to withstand the shock, its gaze was still sharply alive.
Baek Woohyun, who had been watching the Invader, also noticed this fact at once.
Since he wasn’t the complacent and arrogant style that fought giving opponents with fighting spirit still alive another chance to attack, he immediately stuck to the bastard.
Giving rest opportunities in a life-or-death fight was a stupid act; his intent was to seize the attack flow and initiative to press on to cut off the bastard’s breath.
“Huuup-!“
Baek Woohyun, reaching the Invader, raised his leg high, then brought it down in one strike like a blade falling from a guillotine.
If the Invader failed to block this, it would crush the bastard’s head, so the guillotine expression wasn’t exactly wrong either.
Whether crushed by a heel stomp or cut by a blade, only the trivial difference existed, as the fact of meeting death was the same.
Since the Invader also knew this, the bastard desperately rolled its body to evade Baek Woohyun’s attack.
An evasion commonly called Naryeotagon in martial arts novels and considered shameful.
The thought that surviving was good enough anyway had no meaning. When the bastard had barely half-risen, Baek Woohyun’s follow-up attack was already incoming.
Swiiish-!
Baek Woohyun whipped his leg like a whip aiming for the Invader’s head. Since it was in just the right position for a sweeping kick, his attack had no hesitation whatsoever.
The Invader, unable to fully prepare its posture yet, couldn’t block it and got hit in the head, once again sent flying far away.
The Invader that tumbled clatter crash across the black asphalt road soon vomited blood with a gush.
The bastard’s wounds were quite serious at a glance.
The face that took the first direct hit had its nose bone completely flattened with blood flowing down, and the body was full of minor wounds.
However, the sight of it still trying to rise and fight again with no expression whatsoever was truly even more bizarre.
“······.”
Baek Woohyun looked down at the Invader swaying, unable to properly stand with narrowed eyes.
Though he had expressed it as a copycat earlier, the opponent’s combat style was extremely clumsy. As if it had forcibly tried to imitate him and failed.
The reason the Invader was getting smashed so miserably like this despite possessing better physical capabilities than him was because of that.
Should I say it felt like excellent hardware being blocked by inferior software?
‘Now that I think about it, there was a similar case once “over there” too.’
That was when ‘over there,’ Baek Woohyun gained the epithet ‘Superhuman’ and began his revenge, properly antagonizing the research facilities.
At that time, one of the research facilities, saying they would kill him, scraped together all his combat data and used it to create a custom Etinel trained on that.
The Invader before his eyes was exactly like the custom Etinel version of an Invader from back then. One that was degraded one more time at that.
The reason he thought so was simple.
Even if the custom Etinel couldn’t implement physical capabilities at his level, its combat technique learning was at least perfect.
The Invader in front of him now was clumsy even in combat techniques imitating him, yet its physical capabilities weren’t at an overwhelming level either.
‘Could it··· be connected to “over there”?’
Baek Woohyun, who had been thinking briefly, shook his head. Because he judged it couldn’t be so.
There were many reasons he concluded it was impossible.
First, the research facility that made the custom Etinel was one he had smashed to pieces in return, not leaving a single cornerstone.
Second, the combat data from back then was obtained with great difficulty by the research facility sacrificing security guards and Etinels, so there was no way they’d hand it over to beings from another world.
Adding to that, since it was something that happened ‘over there,’ the combat data was also ‘over there,’ making it impossible to retrieve.
‘An Invader crossed dimensions? ···No. This can’t be it. It’s too clumsy for that.’
The custom Etinel the research facility made merely couldn’t keep up with ‘Superhuman’ Baek Woohyun’s physical capabilities, but succeeded in copying most combat techniques.
If an Invader imitated him based on the learning materials used for that, it would have shown much better combat than now.
However, since the Invader before his eyes couldn’t withstand even Baek Woohyun getting slightly serious and was completely smashed, it naturally had to be considered otherwise.
‘Then.’