Chapter 61

“Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for another exciting and highly anticipated celebrity bout! In this corner, we have the unstoppable force, with a flawless record of 8 wins and 0 losses, hailing from Kenya, the Tank. And in the opposite corner, we have the rising star, the newcomer who knocked out the Bull in the first round, coming all the way from China, the enigmatic Beauty. Will the powerhouse of speed and strength, the Tank, claim the generous prize? Or will the skillful and deadly Beauty with his mysterious Chinese martial arts techniques continue to surprise us with another upset victory? Let us see!”

The emcee whipped the crowd into a frenzy with his impassioned speech, elevating the atmosphere to its peak. They shouted and cheered wildly, calling out the titles of the fighters they had placed their bets on, attempting to drown out the opposition with their sheer volume.

Shan Ming stood on the ring, stretching his limbs. The previous match didn’t cause him much harm, especially with the assistance of the massage therapist, he was feeling much better now. However, the big guy in front of him seemed more challenging to deal with than the Bull. Unlike the Bull, whose muscle distribution seemed focused on sheer bulk, this Tank appeared explosively powerful. Moreover, observing his movements, Shan Ming noticed the high flexibility in his waist. His punching angles, speed, and punch retraction well all professional and controlled. Shan Ming could almost confirm that he was dealing with a professional boxer.

A boxer’s greatest weakness, without a doubt, is the lower body. Due to the nature of their training, the lower body primarily serves the purpose of flexible movements and isn’t allowed to be used for direct attacks. Consequently, defensive training for the lower body is often neglected. By avoiding close proximity to a boxer and focusing on attacking their lower body, their mobility can be disrupted and ultimately defeated.

Shan Ming had initially planned to sacrifice a couple of blows to get close to his opponent and gauge his intentions before deciding on his attack strategy. However, that idea quickly dissipated when he noticed his opponent bringing a pair of boxing gloves from the side of the ring. There was hardly any need for further confirmation; he was indeed a boxer, and he even retained the habit of stepping into the ring with gloves on.

Boxing gloves are not considered weapons, so they can be used.

Nessis suddenly called him from behind. He turned his head, and Nessis warned him, saying, “You need to be careful of his gloves.”

Shan Ming raised an eyebrow, remembering that this was an underground arena where even doping was tacitly allowed. Engaging in such underhanded tactics wouldn’t be considered much of a surprise in this context.

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The Tank seemed provoked, roaring and screaming furiously, as if a monstrous creature resided within him, clamoring to burst out. He charged forward with a bellow, pushing Shan Ming towards the edge of the ring, and swinging his fist towards Shan Ming’s face.

Shan Ming raised his arm to protect his face, taking two powerful punches head-on. The force was astonishing, and Shan Ming felt as if his arm had been broken. Just as the Tank was about to throw a third punch, Shan Ming finally found an opening and swiftly dodged to the side. Lifting his leg, he kicked a specific acupoint on the back of the Tank’s waist. The Tank reacted quickly and managed to block half of the force behind the kick, but it still landed solidly. The Tank staggered back several steps from the impact. Before he could regain his balance, Shan Ming closed the distance in a few swift steps. He jumped up, landing on the hand the Tank extended to block him. Then, using his arm as leverage, Shan Ming propelled himself upwards and delivered a fierce kick to the Tank’s chin, sending him flying.

The whole arena erupted in an uproar!

They actually got to witness a seemingly elusive move that one would only expect to see in Chinese kung-fu movies. Although the leveraging technique was executed with finesse, the kick to the Tank’s chin was undoubtedly powerful. The Tank lay on the ground, rolling over once but failing to get up.

Shan Ming rushed forward and stomped forcefully on the Tank’s ankle where he had previously landed a kick. With a strong press, the ankle bone was crushed under the brute force exerted by Shan Ming, causing the Tank to scream in agony.

Shan Ming was about to disable the Tank’s other leg when the Tank suddenly sat up straight with a ferocious expression and a crazed look in his eyes. He grabbed hold of one of Shan Ming’s legs, causing him to stumble and fall to the ground. The Tank then mounted Shan Ming’s waist, pinning him down.

As Shan Ming hit the ground, he realized he was in trouble.

The Tank exerted brute force to pin Shan Ming down on the ground, then delivered a powerful blow towards his temple.

Unable to avoid it, Shan Ming instinctively raised his arm to block the attack. The punch landed with full force, hitting his head with his arm sandwiched between. Shan Ming felt a sharp pain in his arm, followed by a violent impact to his brain. His vision blurred as the surroundings became distorted.

Shan Ming shook his head, causing multiple blurred images of the Tank to appear. Instinctively, he raised his other arm to protect his face, but the next punch had already caught up with him, leaving him no time to react.

The Tank relentlessly swung back and forth, attacking Shan Ming’s head as if it had gone mad. Shan Ming flexed his arm muscles, desperately protecting his head. He knew there were iron blocks inside this lunatic’s boxing gloves, and getting hit in the head would be disastrous!

Shan Ming felt a slight moment of clarity returning to his brain. Gathering all his strength, he exerted force from his waist and raised one leg, delivering a powerful kick to the back of the tank’s head.

Exhausting all his strength in that strike, the Tank’s movement faltered, and his massive body tilted to one side as if losing balance.

Shan Ming pushed him aside and stood up. Actually, it wasn’t him who pushed the Tank away, he had lost all sensations in his hands. It was the Tank that had fallen down on his own.

Shan Ming knew that his kick had struck the Tank’s central nervous system at the back of its head. Under Lin Qiang’s guidance, he gained a deep understanding of the human body’s nerves, meridian pathways, and acupoint locations. He knew exactly where to strike to render an opponent helpless. What he learned from Lin Qiang wasn’t about how to fight, but about how to kill.

The Tank lay on the ground, convulsing, with white eyes and foaming at the mouth.

Shan Ming’s arms trembled uncontrollably. He could sense that his bones weren’t broken, but there might be cracks. If it weren’t for the constant strengthening of his physical conditioning, an ordinary person would have had their arm bones shattered by the Rank’s strike, especially with iron blocks inside the gloves. Enduring four or five blows would have been impossible.

His left arm suffered more severe damage, while his right arm was relatively less affected. Shan Ming assessed it, his right hand was still somewhat usable.

There were clamors of voices around him, Shan Ming could barely hear anything. He took slow steps toward the Tank, crouched down, and gently removed the boxing glove from its right hand. He slipped it onto his own hand and then shook his arm before finally raising his fist.

Nessis suddenly ran up to him and exclaimed loudly, “Shan, the opponent has offered a ransom, how about holding off for now…”

Shan Ming looked at Nessis, a cold smirk on his face. He brought his fist down forcefully, striking the Tank right in the temple. Accompanied by gasps of horror from the onlookers, he landed three consecutive punches, causing a portion of the Tank’s skull to cave in. The Tank convulsed one final time before ceasing to breathe.

Shan Ming tossed aside the glove and shook his swollen fingers. Then, he raised his middle finger towards the Tank’s owner, observing their face turning pale with anger. His mood finally somewhat improved.

He stumbled off the platform, but as soon as his foot touched the ground, he was immediately caught by someone. Two medical personnel rushed over and started attending to his injured arms.

The surroundings were noisy, but he couldn’t hear anything anymore. The pain in his arms was too much, it dominated his nerves.

Soon, the doctors administered a morphine injection to him. Gradually, he began to feel the pain subsiding, and his mental clarity slowly returned.

Nessis appeared in front of him, his face filled with excitement. “Mr. Shan, you are truly a miracle. If only you hadn’t killed him, the Tank’s owner was willing to pay a ransom of three million dollars to spare his life. But that doesn’t matter now. We’ve earned sixty-five million dollars this time!” Nessis could hardly contain his excitement. “I will keep my promise, splitting it fifty-fifty. Shan, you’re incredible. When I first saw you in the casino, I knew you were a born warrior!”

Shan Ming gave him a cold, piercing stare without offering any response.

He didn’t kill the Tank to vent his anger, he simply wanted to liberate him.

The force behind his kick was evident only to those familiar with it. The Tank would never be able to fight again. If he had survived, he would have spent the rest of his life bedridden. It wasn’t a sudden surge of sympathy for his opponent that prompted Shan Ming’s actions, he simply believed that someone like the Tank, who was living as lowly as a dog, relying on tricks and drugs to secure victories, had completely forsaken the dignity of being a boxer, and even the dignity of being human. To him, the Tank’s existence held no meaning; he would be better off dead.

Having witnessed so much death and cruelty, very little could touch his hardened heart. However, this fighting arena, which had given him so many memories, had transformed him in a way that occasionally led him to be consumed by emotions, making it difficult for him to view everything here with a clear mind.

Fourteen years ago was the darkest year of his life.

He lost his comrades who had watched him grow up, he lost Lin Qiang, his foster father who had given him a new life, and he almost lost the entire Peregrine Falcon. With tears and pain, he, Ayer, and Tiger Shark came here with somewhat of a blind hope of rebuilding the Peregrine Falcon. Ayer nearly lost his life here, subjecting Shan Ming to even greater psychological torment. At that time, he wasn’t strong enough, and the shadows that haunted him during his moments of weakness would follow him for the rest of his life.

As he witnessed one warrior after another losing themselves here, it reminded him of Ayer, who had been pushed to the brink of despair. Perhaps they all had their own glory and dignity in the past, but in this murky place, they had gradually become slaves to drugs. Compared to such a disgraceful existence, dying in battle was the best outcome for them.

Shan Ming’s hatred for this place grew stronger by the day. He despised the operators, owners, and gamblers here; they were the ones who nearly killed Ayer, and the ones responsible for stifling the dignity of warriors, they were nothing but criminals.