The nature of boxing boiled down to two objectives, hitting and not getting hit. The addition of [Dash Step] to John’s arsenal made the latter point of boxing more prevalent. However, there was more to a simple positioning skill than just dodging an attack. Anyone else would probably use it to get to a position of attack or to get away from a threat.

But John’s footwork made it so that he could pivot off of the slightest [Dash Step] he could muster and throw a heavy hook at the end of the rotation. When he tried to combine [Dash Step] with [Rapid Blows], the technical craft fell away from him because the sheer speed and power nearly overwhelmed his sense of control.

I feel that I know what I’m doing, but I’m not totally familiar with it just yet. It’s like I’m trying to push for more advanced use of the moveset without enough practice.

It was almost like a fighting game. A basic player could figure out how to throw a punch, a kick, and a small combination with their character. Then they would reset while their opponent tries to attack in return.

But an advanced player could use timing, character animations, hit-boxes, and more. An advanced player could sync it all with their chosen fighter’s moveset in the air, on the ground, standing, and everywhere else without giving their foe a chance to respond.

John had decent enough skill as a boxer. But he had been plagued by overwhelming fear when the bright lights got a little too bright and too big. Sometimes, he did just fine. Other times, he felt off. He wished he’d been more consistent when it came to how he felt when boxing.

But when he was hot, he was hot. So, while he felt the confidence to face a huge task, he focused on breaking down his WA Skills to understand them as quickly as he could.

It would be a no-brainer if it was [Advanced Boxing] and [Rapid Blows] by themselves. But [Dash Step] was more of a game-changer than he previously recognized. It made him wonder if he should’ve picked it before [Rapid Blows] when dealing with the [Jesting Shamblers] earlier today.

And I’m still iffy on combining all of this with [Ratel Rookie]. The aggression he felt when transformed was a big deal. If he didn’t control it correctly, he could overextend himself and get himself killed.

“If I sync the moves one at a time, I could probably stay in control for a few seconds before tripping up,” John said during a short break.

His practice helped progress [Cestus Art] to Lvl 11, rewarding experience and new AP. Now his [Resilience] was at 32 AP and his [Poise] at 20 AP. The increased poise was helping him a lot with mana recovery. As long as he aimed to use [Ratel Rookie] briefly, he could maximize his damage and reduce his mana-burn.

It was a lot for him to figure out at once, though.

John huffed and puffed, sweat coursing down his body. He observed the damage he did to the tree trunk. It was missing chunks of wood from its midsection. It was one hit away from falling over as its splintered wound gaped at John like it wanted to take a bite out of the boxer for using it as a practice dummy.

Sorry, tree, but I got a bone to pick against one of your kind. Now, if only he could figure out a way to control his skills and magic all at once. Or he would have to abuse more trees.

“What do you think, Xanhilt?” John turned to the saurian standing on the sidelines. “Should I use my abilities all at once or use them separately based on the scenario?”

“I’ve never been into fighting compared to my mother,” Xanhilt said. “But is it okay to ask if [Dash Step] is complicating matters?”

“It can when I’m overcompensating way too much,” John said. “And it feels like the parts of me that were from the old world are struggling to keep up with these new gamified parts of me giving me magic powers.”

Xanhilt furrowed his brow. “It sounds like you’re trying to do too much at once.”

“Agreed,” Noname said, appearing from behind John.

He damn near jumped out of his own skin, stumbling away from Noname to Xanhilt. “Give a warning before you do that! Geeze!”

Noname cocked her head to the side. “No promises.” She glanced at the damage John did to the tree.

“So, you guys think I can’t pull it all together?” John asked carefully.

“With time, you can,” Noname said.

“But now isn’t the time, perhaps,” Xanhilt said. “It’s like when I was taking one of my certification exams, I would overprepare before the exams and be worse off.”

“It’s because you’re overthinking it,” Noname said. “Too much thinking. Too much stress. Everything you need is already there. Punch it.”

“You can’t expect me to just roll up in there without some thought,” John said.

“You don’t have to,” Noname said. “But if you’re going to solo it, you’ll need to make it look easy.”

“Now I’m confused,” Xanhilt said. “This is certainly not easy.”

“I said what I needed to say.” Noname whipped her knife around before throwing it at the weakened trunk. The blade ripped away at the last bit that kept it standing, which was the tipping point for the tree. Everyone got out of the way as it fell over with a loud cracking thump.

“Xanxan,” Noname called.

“Is Xanhilt,” the saurian said.

“Yeah, that. Sit here.” She pointed at the downed tree. “Keep a lookout that way for shamblers.”

“Hm, ah. Dropping the tree would draw them to us rather than have us go after them. Clever.” Xanhilt did as he was told.

John agreed with him that she was clever. Noname was proving to be an interesting girl assassin.

“John,” she called, making him straighten. “Sit with me.”

“What about dodging the knife?”

“Afterward.” She sat down cross-legged.

John found the change in tactics dubious. He felt like he should do way more than just sit and relax. They were losing time. But he followed Noname’s example and sat across from her.

“The knife is the knight,” she said, grasping the handle fully. Despite the painful magic it exuded, she pointed the weapon at his chest and thrust it slowly.

John leaned away.

“No,” she said, drawing her knife back.

“No, what?” John asked. “What am I supposed to do here?”

“The knife is the knight,” she repeated.

She thrust it toward his chest. This time, John held still as she pricked the tip against his sternum.

He tensed.

“No,” she said, resetting.

John was still a little lost. Was she saying no because he was tensing? How could he not tense? If the knife was the knight, that was a death itself coming to thrust straight through him. Wouldn’t anyone go a little rigid?

“The knife is the knight,” she said a third time, pushing it in his direction.

As John watched it come at him again, he didn’t try to stay still. But he didn’t try to dodge, either. He loosened up a little and let himself move instinctually, his body moving back about an inch as the knife stopped somewhere a hairbreadth away from touching him.

“Better,” she said. “Did you figure it out yet?”

“I was too tense. It was messing with my movements.”

Noname nodded. “It made you predictable. You’re giving tells of where you want to go when danger is present. The boy that died to the knight wasn’t in immediate danger. The knight was prepared to readjust the moment he moved, but when he didn’t, the knight was prepared to thrust through him just the same.”

“You noticed all of that within a second or so?” John asked, amazed and distraught.

“Between my intuition and what I observe from other people, I can get a good feel of a situation,” she said. “So, that’s why I needed you to figure this out. If you’re going to win.”

“I’m going to have to chill out,” John said quietly, “and not let fear get to me.”

Noname nodded. “Let’s practice this more.”

Noname thrust the knife at John for about half an hour, and he moved based on his own intuition. Sometimes, Noname called him out on being rigid. Other times, he did very well. As the impromptu practice played out, John got a feel for moving with ease and without fear. He knew this very well from his boxing training. There was a difference between someone who moved out of fear or confidence. It was possible to control his emotions by controlling his thought process.

“This has to be fun for me,” John said. “But isn’t that wrong?”

Noname shrugged. “If you win, you’re saving other kids from falling to that monster. And you’re punishing the monster. Isn’t that worth smiling over?”

“Yeah, it would be,” John said, feeling strangely lucid. “Can we do this for real?”

They got up and moved to their positions. Noname whirled the knife around quickly. She did it faster than he’d seen her do it before. John had a feeling the moment she threw that thing, it would come at him with enough velocity to shear a chunk out of him. Terrible as that would be to suffer, John didn’t worry over it. Instead, he concentrated on his breathing and remembered some basic boxing lessons Coach Jackson had drilled into him in his formative years.

Make it fun, young man. You’ll go farther that way if you can take a fighting man’s sport and make a game of it.

John faced the challenge that was Noname’s whirling knife with a smile. For a brief moment, his body felt relaxed and energized equally. At the same time, his mind emptied itself of all concerns, dislodging a sort of pressure that was up there that he didn’t realize he contained. It almost felt like he became a blank slate of a person touching on something primeval inside of him.

Only then did he notice the slight movement of Noname’s hand before she snapped the knife in his direction. He didn’t move very much. He only moved enough. The knife sailed past his face without touching him.

The power Noname had generated was enough for the weapon to snap free of the rope and hit a tree trunk behind John with a THUNK! Still feeling incredibly loose, John glanced over his shoulder casually to see how deep the knife had embedded.

He heard an aggressive breath coming from Noname’s direction. His body moved before he even thought about it, dodging the girl assassin’s flying punch. Soon as she got back on her feet, she threw out a kick for his knee. He shifted slightly out of the way.

She closed the gap and threw a flurry of blows at him faster than he could overcome. She was a speedy thing, no doubt. But John had more to his toolset than movement. He parried and rolled effectively, letting her attacks glance off his body. When she did get a solid blow in, he didn’t let that disturb his calm and kept the dance going until she stopped.

“How does it feel?” she asked.

“Like I’m playing a game,” John said, “and having fun.”

“I’m still of a belief that we should be against the game-like nature of the world and having fun,” Xanhilt said from his seat on the tree trunk.

“We are and aren’t,” Noname said.

John shook his head, getting back to his slightly burdened sense of self. Damn, he really did go into the zone there. He regarded Noname with wide eyes, feeling a little shocked that she had managed to get him into such an incredible state within a short time.

Noname looked at him as if everything was like a boring walk in the park. “You’re as ready as you can be.”

“Cool,” John said. He looked over to Xanhilt. “Any shamblers?”

“No,” Xanhilt said. “This area is lacking. It’s as if the only source of trouble you can find here is that pit of despair, and that alone.”

“I’ll lose that spot if we move too far away to find shamblers,” Noname said.

“Then forget about the runts. Let’s take that motherfucker to town,” John said.

Xanhilt furrowed his brow.

“Something wrong?” John asked

“Why would we take a motherfucker to town?” Xanhilt asked. “Wouldn’t that be terrible for the mothers?”

John opened and closed his mouth, unable to respond.

“You guys are fun,” Noname said dryly. “I’m going to enjoy exploiting you if we live past this.”

It was evening time when John neared the leveled entrance into the basin. The sky was golden orange with a tinge of bloodred. The misty forest behind him was getting close to pitch-dark.

Depending on how things went, they would have to follow the basin out, using what remained of the sunlight to get to where the [Compass] was pointing them toward. But that was after John dealt with the knight sitting in front of the twisted tree of flesh.

Standing here now, a few steps away from where the boy died, John felt a little strange. There was a word for this that he was trying to find. What was it? Dichotomy? Duality? One of the two.

He felt strange because the horror he had experienced all day was still freshly stamped into his soul. It hadn’t been more than thirteen hours, yet John experienced more today than what any young man should ever have to see. He was going to need the fantasy equivalent of therapy if they had it.

Yet, rather than breaking down and losing his cool, he did what he knew he did best. He had fought. He’d gone out of his way to face the terrors, the nightmares incarnated, and squared up against them.

He’d sought deadly battles because if he didn’t, he feared he would suffer greatly. He feared he would become a pathetic person. One who could not stand against the tide of evils that washed across both his old world and the new world. Yeah, he was considering his old world as a place that contained evil, too.

He and Reggie became friends because of a bully picking on Reggie almost every day back in middle school. Nobody stepped in to do anything about it. Back then, John ignored it because it didn’t involve him.

But when you were raised by decent people, they tend to influence your conscience, and at some point, John couldn’t stand seeing the abuse Reggie received. So, he befriended the kid. He made it his business to get in between Reggie and the bullies. And it was because of that act, John had enough knowledge about video games to make use of it here.

It was also part of why John had a hard time standing on the sidelines as others suffered against outright evil. But right now, as he peered at the dark shape of the knight covered in mist, he knew he had to let go of his intense feelings. This was not the time to think hard about what felt right, what needed to be avenged, and his fears of running away.

He also had to let go of any preconceived hope that he’d pull off all of his promises, seeing Xanhilt, Noname, and himself to safety. At least for now. All that mattered was the game he was about to play with the knight and see if he could win it.

After a series of deep breaths, John felt himself touch upon that incredible divine point of lucidity that felt almost dreamlike. The adrenaline was pumping, of course. His heart was thundering, yes. But his spirit felt like it was floating in a serene sea. It was a sensation he’d touched on at the start of his amateur boxing years when it was purely fun and less about his future prospects. He became that kid again, going into boxing for the fun of it.

Then his feet moved on their own, taking a step forward while he was vaguely aware of it. One step. Two steps. Four steps.

On the fifth step, John heard a creak of metal against metal as the knight shifted slightly. Whorls of mist gathered near the shadowed fiend as it shifted again. On the sixth step, the [Shambler Low Knight, Lvl 26] shot into the air like a cannonball out of a cannon. If John wasn’t in a high-minded state, he might’ve found it frightful.

The knight should be greatly feared, for it was framed by the backdrop of a bloody sunset being clawed at by the sharp branches of the flesh tree. The knight’s tattered orange cape fluttered behind it as its path reached the apex of its leap before dropping toward John. The polearm looked like a spear with a curved blade at the end⁠—a scythe, but straight. As it dropped toward a spot in front of John, the knight didn’t level the war scythe until the creature nearly touched the floor. Only then did it plunge the tip of the blade toward John’s chest to skewer him like it had done to most of its past victims.

It was nigh impossible to avoid. Not at John’s level. But it wasn’t impossible to survive it if John moved slightly off to the side. The war scythe thrust through the gap between his ribcage and his left arm, opening up the torso on that side. Blood splattered. A fire of pain washed through John’s side and around his torso.

The wound was terrible. It was not enough to stop John from delivering his counter, though.

It was almost laughable that the path to victory didn’t require [Dash Step], [Rapid Blows], or [Ratel Rookie]. It barely needed [Advanced Boxing].

Because for a flicker of a moment, the knight exposed its weakness. Its body and weapon were overextended. It took time for it to recover from its great lunging strike. This offered up what Reggie had called the attack window⁠—a period right after a monster’s heavy strike that gave opportunistic gamers a chance to retaliate.

Within that attack window, John took his seventh step to find the perfect spot in front of the knight. He flashed a broad smile as a bright white glow engulfed his arm with the intensity of a higher-powered light. It happened so quickly, John nearly missed the sensation of power swirling from the core of his being into his attacking arm. Power pumped his arm, scaling the charge up, up, up based on his [Strength] and [Soul]. In that quiet moment before impact, it became obvious from the dimming glow in the knight’s eyes that it knew, and John knew, it done fucked up.

John blessed the knight with [One Good Punch], striking the middle of its breastplate. The armor crumpled inward like a thin sheet of aluminum foil, crinkling around John’s fist as it plowed further into the knight’s chest. The knight’s body folded, its head snapping forward as its torso rocked back. Its arms whipped loose, and its feet left the ground. The life in its eyes winked out as it flew back from whence it came. A shockwave of energy diffused on all sides of the impact, scattering mist and filling the air with a beautiful sound that was music to John’s ears.

WHUUUUUUUM!

Ding! Ding!