Walter's left fist shot forwards. His hand was already clenched with his middle knuckle protruding forwards. Isaac parried the quick jab almost entirely on instinct, it had shot out too quickly for anything else. Walter's hand was yanked back faster than Isaac could process clearly. What was clear, was that Walter still had plenty left to show. His fist flickered back out towards Isaac's face again, this time Isaac was forced to lean back to gain enough time to parry the jab. Isaac was not prepared for the third flicker and was forced to step back half a step to prevent losing his front teeth.

Isaac was immediately on the back foot as Walter's fighting style had entirely changed once again. In his first fight, he had been utterly overwhelming and crushed his opponent with ruthless efficiency. In his second fight, Walter had turned a bare knuckle brawl into a pleasant afternoon spar. This time, Walter seemed like Isaac had just insulted his mother and spat on his family gravestone. Walter's immediate follow-up to Isaac stepping back was to step in and throw a right cross aimed directly at the dark mage's chin.

Isaac's head slipped under and inwards of Walter's strike only to find itself in the path of a left uppercut. Isaac had planned to use the opening to slip in and land an elbow strike to Walter's ribs but the fist that came up to meet him seemed to have other ideas. Isaac caught the uppercut with his arm close to his side and he tried to quickly change his momentum to go with the attack instead of into it. He felt his entire arm go numb from the knuckle strike to his triceps.

If Isaac hadn't partially succeeded in changing his momentum, the right uppercut that came with Walter's next step towards him would have caught his chin, instead, it only slightly brushed the tip of Isaac's nose. Isaac stepped back and turned his retreat into a spinning back kick that was caught by two simultaneous downwards palm strikes to the side of his boot that drove his foot back down into the ground. Isaac used his boot's new purchase on the ground to help yank him back towards Walter. Fighting the elf at punching range was apparently a very bad idea and Isaac's kicks were only a part of his fighting style because of the momentum that he could bring to bear with them. When fighting Walter, they were just too slow and predictable. The elf was fighting like his body just knew what to do without any conscious input.

Isaac tried to use his sudden reversal to launch a back elbow. Walter caught it and attempted to land an uppercut on Isaac's exposed kidney only for the dark mage to relax his arm that was in Walter's grasp and throw his back into Walter's chest. Isaac grabbed the hand that still clung to his elbow. With one motion, he yanked Walter's hand forwards and twisted in an attempt to throw Walter over his shoulder and onto the ground. What he was not expecting was Walter to jump along with it.

Walter flew through the air in an assisted cartwheel that left him standing upright in front of Isaac with both of them clinging to each other's wrists, Isaac's left and Walter's right. Walter yanked and as soon as Isaac's knee jerk reaction to yank back kicked in. He stepped forwards and used the free momentum that Isaac had given him to launch a left horizontal elbow strike towards Isaac's face. Isaac caught it with his right forearm which only added another layer of tingling pain onto his arm. Walter let go of Isaac's left hand and drove his own right hand, middle knuckle first, into the soft inside of Isaac's shoulder right below his collarbone.

Isaac tried to counter with a knee but Walter just stepped back out of the way and then went back on the offensive with another few quick flickering jabs that were chased by a right cross. Isaac managed to block all three jabs and parry the cross but the damage on his right arm was mounting and it was getting harder and harder to keep it where it needed to be. Their fight devolved into a battle of endurance at that point. Both of them had gotten a good feel for each other and Isaac had adapted enough to keep Walter from landing any solid hits. Unfortunately, he still had to block a few of them here and there instead of parrying them so his arms were just steadily getting more and more bruised.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Jab, jab, jab, cross, parry the counter, parry the follow-up, parry the follow-through, counter attack, follow-up, follow-through, knee, kick, elbow Walter went without slowing down in the slightest. Isaac's simultaneous reply was block, block, block, parry, cross, quick step into an elbow strike, knee, block, parry, parry, back step, parry. Right after that, Walter went at him again with the same exact combination of attacks only this time the sides were switched. Isaac was not prepared for Walter to suddenly switch to southpaw and even as Isaac tried to adapt he was forced to block the cross, barely dodged the knee, and was forced to catch the kick with his open hands as he let it toss him backwards.

The pair finally got space and Isaac eyed the elf in front of him. Walter was a wood elf through and through. His olive green hair, oak wood colored skin, and mossy green eyes made that as clear as day. He stood an inch shorter than Isaac and probably weighed a dozen pounds less and yet he was keeping Isaac almost entirely on the defensive. Or at least he was at first. By the second half of their fight, Isaac was starting to feel like Walter was teaching him the rest of the fighting style that they both seemed to use. That was something else that Isaac had learned, they both used the exact same fighting style. Walter had tailored it to fit himself better and then had perfected and polished it enough that an artist could've painted an entire martial arts manual just from watching him, but in the end, it was still the same style.

"Who taught you to fight like that?" Isaac wondered. He just couldn't help himself any longer.

"A man long dead of old age." Walter replied. "What about you?"

"I honestly don't remember." Isaac told him. "That's why I want to know."

Walter didn't move but simply held his relaxed fighting position for a moment as he thought about Isaac's words. "Erik. He was a Marine from a far away land." Walter explained. "Does that help?"

Isaac tried to remember but was then hit with a headache and immediately stopped. He shook his head to clear it and raised his hands back into his fighting position. "No. But we are not done yet."

Walter nodded. "Then come and get me."

Isaac threw three kicks back to back as he closed the distance between them. The first was a front kick with his back leg to help keep Walter from capitalizing on the sudden closing of distance. The next was another front kick with the other leg that would've brought him into elbow range if Walter hadn't backed up. The third was a knee that turned into a front kick, both of which were aimed at Walter's stomach. Walter backed away again and then kicked Isaac's boot as his foot was trying to extend which drove the dark mage's foot backwards and forced Isaac to reset his position to before he had even through the knee attack.

Isaac turned the position into a spinning back kick but Walter quickly stepped forwards and brought a middle knuckle strike into Isaac's right kidney, before his kick had even finished abusing the air next to Walter. Isaac hopped away slightly as he tried to twist around to get his feet back under him. Walter kicked Isaac's shin right as he was about to put his weight on his returning leg from the missed kick and in addition to the tremendous amount of pain a boot to the shin brought, Isaac's foot was tossed two feet away from where it was supposed to be. The sudden loss of balance almost brought Isaac to his knees but he instead used the low stance to throw a right cross towards Walter's floating ribs.

Walter parried Isaac's cross but it gave Isaac enough time to back up and get both his feet back under him. Isaac squared off against Walter again and had to resist the urge to just cleanse his own exhaustion away with his death flames. Maybe Lenna was right, maybe some extra endurance training would do him some good. Walter was breathing heavily too but his breaths were even and measured like he knew exactly how much air he needed to keep his oxygen levels balanced so he wouldn't get lightheaded from too much or too little oxygen and his muscles would stay in the best shape that they could. If Isaac didn't know any better, he would've thought that Walter was a machine that existed just to prove that a person didn't need to be a monk, warrior, paladin, or berserker to beat the shit out of people with their bare hands.

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