The referee hesitated only a fraction of a second longer.

He glanced at Ludger, still, composed, unreadable. No visible tension. No visible preparation. Then at the drunkard, who rolled his shoulders again and yawned, bottle already forgotten on the sand.

No objections came from the officials’ box.

No protests from Ashbound.

The referee inhaled, raised his arm, and shouted, “BEGIN!”

Ludger moved.

The moment the word left the referee’s mouth, he slammed his foot into the ground with everything he had. Mana and strength poured into the kick at once. The arena floor exploded.

A massive curtain of sand and shattered stone surged forward like a tidal wave, blasted outward by raw force. The ground behind Ludger cracked in a spiderweb of fractures, slabs lifting and collapsing under the backlash.

The crowd barely had time to gasp.

Ludger was already through the sand.

He crossed the distance in an instant, body low, overdrive flaring just enough to carry him through the obscuring cloud. His fist came forward without flourish, without hesitation, aimed straight for the man’s center.

The drunkard’s eyes widened—just a fraction.

Too late.

Ludger’s punch landed squarely in his stomach.

There was no flashy impact. No explosion of light. Just a deep, concussive thoom that carried through the arena like a struck drum. The air folded inward around the point of contact, and whatever breath the man had left was ripped from him in a single violent burst.

His feet left the ground.

The drunkard was launched backward like a cannon shot, body folding around the blow as he tore through the lingering sand cloud and slammed into the arena wall. Stone cracked on impact, deep fractures racing outward as chunks of reinforced masonry broke free and collapsed down over him in a cascading avalanche.

Dust and debris thundered to the ground.

Silence followed.

For a heartbeat, nothing moved. The wall stood half-ruined, rubble piled where the man had disappeared beneath stone and shattered barrier fragments.

Ludger straightened slowly, arm lowering as he exhaled.

That was it.

No probing. No testing. No politics.

He had decided to end it immediately—and he had acted accordingly.

The arena waited, stunned, staring at the broken wall and the debris burying the final challenger of the day.

The arena didn’t breathe.

For several seconds after the impact, no one spoke. No one cheered. The crowd stared at the shattered wall and the pile of rubble beneath it, still processing the fact that Ludger had opened the match with that kind of force. Stone dust drifted slowly through the air, catching the light like fog.

Then the debris shifted.

At first it was subtle—one slab sliding, another grinding against broken masonry. A few rocks tumbled free, clattering onto the sand. The sound echoed far too clearly in the silence.

More movement followed.

Chunks of stone were pushed aside from below, not explosively, but steadily. Purposefully. The pile collapsed inward as a figure straightened beneath it.

The drunkard stepped out of the rubble.

He rolled his shoulders once, dust cascading off him, then brushed at his clothes with lazy swipes of his hands. Stone powder fell away in pale clouds as if the wall had merely been an inconvenience.

He looked… fine.

No blood. No broken posture. Not even a limp.

Ludger squinted.

The punch had landed cleanly. He knew it had. He’d felt the connection, felt the transfer of force—but something had been missing. No familiar feedback. No shudder of fractured bone. No give where a body should have failed.

That wasn’t right.

The man finished dusting himself off and glanced at Ludger with mild reproach, like a disappointed older brother.

“Too impatient,” he said, voice rough but steady. “People your age always rush things.”

He stretched his arms overhead, joints popping audibly, then twisted at the waist, back cracking once as if he were loosening up before training.

“Gotta warm up,” he continued casually. “Stretch a bit. Jumping straight into it like that?” He shook his head. “That’s how you get injured.”

A few nervous laughs rippled through the stands, dying almost as soon as they started.

The drunkard dropped his arms and finally smiled properly—slow, amused, eyes sharp now, the haze gone.

“Alright,” he said. “My turn.”

Ludger didn’t respond.

He adjusted his stance by a fraction, eyes locked on the man who had walked out of a collapsed wall like it was nothing.

Whatever this opponent was—

He wasn’t normal.

The tattoos moved first.

Thin lines along the man’s arms lit up one by one, a dull ember glow spreading through the ink like fire crawling through dry veins. The patterns didn’t flare uniformly—some symbols burned brighter, others dimmed, the rhythm uneven and unsettling. The aura around him thickened, pressure rolling outward in a way that had nothing to do with mana density.

Then he lunged.

Not in a straight line.

His first step was forward, the second crooked sideways, his body leaning as if he were about to stumble. Ludger reacted to that angle, only for the man’s foot to slam down and redirect mid-stride, momentum snapping into a sudden burst of speed that erased the distance between them.

Too fast. Ludger brought his forearm up just in time. The blow came from the wrong side.

A fist hammered into his guard, not heavy in the way brute strength usually was, but wrong, force stacking in layers that arrived a fraction apart. The impact rattled his bones, boots sliding back through the sand as he absorbed it.

The man didn’t follow through.

He twisted instead, shoulder dropping, elbow snapping upward in a short arc that forced Ludger to pivot and block again. The movement was jagged, almost sloppy, yet every strike landed exactly where Ludger’s defenses were weakest.

Left. Right. Down. Then suddenly up.

Ludger barely caught the rising knee with his thigh guard, the impact jolting through his hip. He countered immediately, fist snapping toward the man’s ribs… but the drunkard wasn’t there anymore.

He slipped past the strike by inches, torso bending at an unnatural angle as if his spine had forgotten how straight lines worked. His foot hooked behind Ludger’s ankle, not committing, just testing balance, while his other hand came in low, fingers open, slamming against Ludger’s abdomen with a sharp, compact strike.

Ludger grunted and staggered half a step back. The attacks didn’t come in patterns.

There was no rhythm to steal. No cadence to predict. One moment the man moved like a brawler, shoulders wide, strikes heavy. The next he flowed sideways, loose-limbed, attacks snapping in from blind angles, joints bending just enough to make distance lie.

Ludger blocked again. And again.

Forearm guards rang dull with impact. His elbows burned. His footing eroded as he was forced to give ground, each defense costing more than it should have. Sand sprayed as he pivoted, barely deflecting a backhand that carried enough force to cave stone.

The tattoos pulsed brighter with each exchange. Not in response to hits, but to movement.

The man ducked, surged forward, then stopped mid-charge, weight shifting impossibly fast as his fist shot upward toward Ludger’s jaw. Ludger twisted his head aside, feeling displaced air tear past his cheek, then barely managed to catch the follow-up strike with his wrist.

Pain flared. His arm rang as if struck by iron.

The drunkard laughed softly under his breath, already moving again, foot sliding, shoulders rolling, attacks coming from angles Ludger had to see rather than anticipate.

For the first time that day, Ludger wasn’t controlling the pace. He was reacting.

And as he dug his heels into the sand, blocking another erratic, bone-rattling strike by a margin too thin to be comfortable, one thing became painfully clear… This wasn’t only drunkenness. It was a fighting style that refused to be read.

Ludger narrowed his eyes as he tracked the man’s movements.

A drunk martial artist.

That was what it looked like, loose posture, off-balance steps, strikes that seemed to wander before snapping into place at the last instant. Drunk Fist, performed right in front of him, not as a joke but as a method to push, disorient, and steal space.

If Ludger weren’t a bit of a jokester himself, it would have been infuriating.

As it was, the absurdity almost drew a dry snort from him. Almost.

He shifted back half a step, deflecting another crooked strike that came in low and then rose at the last second, eyes never leaving the man’s arms. The tattoos pulsed again as the attack changed direction, glow intensifying right as momentum snapped into focus.

That’s the link, he thought. But it didn’t make sense.

The style and the ink were connected, clearly, but not in a way that followed normal logic. The tattoos weren’t reacting to mana output. They weren’t reinforcing muscles directly, either. They flared with motion, with imbalance, with broken rhythm.

Like the fighting style itself was the trigger. Ludger parried another blow, boots grinding as he gave ground, mind racing faster than his body. If this were simple enhancement, he’d feel it, reinforcement patterns, mana density shifts, something tangible.

Instead, it felt like the man was borrowing strength from the act of being unpredictable.

That wasn’t how martial skills worked. That wasn’t how magic worked. Logic failed him, and Ludger hated that.

He slipped past a wild-looking hook that would’ve shattered his jaw if it had connected, then shoved the man away with a sharp burst of force just to reset distance.

The drunkard staggered back, arms flailing for a moment, then caught himself effortlessly, tattoos glowing brighter as his balance failed and then reasserted.

The man grinned. Ludger exhaled slowly through his nose. Great. Not just drunk fists. Drunk fists with rules that refused to explain themselves.

The man laughed as he danced just out of reach, shoulders loose, steps uneven in a way that somehow kept him perfectly balanced.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” he drawled, tilting his head as if genuinely curious. “Never faced someone like me before?”

He swayed a little, arms hanging limp for a heartbeat before snapping back into motion. “You sure lived an easy-going life until now.”

Ludger snorted.

“A drunkard saying that,” he replied flatly, “is pretty ironic.”

The man’s grin widened.

Ludger didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.

He settled into his stance again, smooth and precise, as if the last exchange hadn’t rattled him at all. Feet grounded. Center lowered. Mana circulation tightening just enough to reinforce muscle and bone. His eyes stayed calm, focused—not annoyed, not rushed.

The drunkard charged.

Not straight. Never straight.

He lurched forward, weight shifting too far to the left, shoulder dropping as if he were about to stumble. Ludger waited. He let the distance close. Let the timing ripen.

At the last possible moment, he struck.

His fist snapped forward, clean and direct—aimed to end the exchange in one decisive counter.

The man slipped it by a hair, but…

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