Free Web NovelIgor's body reacted faster than his consciousness.
The sound came from behind him to the right—no more than three meters away. There were no footsteps, no breathing, no warning whatsoever.
This meant the other person had either just appeared there, or—they had been standing there from the very beginning, watching them deal with the scene, watching them assign tasks, watching them clean up the mess while thinking they were doing it flawlessly.
Both possibilities sent a chill down Igor's spine.
But he had no time to think.
His body had already moved.
His right foot pushed off the ground, his waist and hips twisted, and he shot toward the source of the sound like an arrow released from a bowstring.
His right hand drew a dagger from his waist, blade facing upward, executing the most vicious move in Usar civilian combat—the "Disembowelment".
The tip of the blade slashed upward, targeting the opponent's abdominal cavity, the angle tricky and the force immense.
He was going for the kill.
There was no probing, no warning, no nonsense like "Who are you?".
In an alleyway, next to a corpse, under these circumstances, any hesitation was equivalent to suicide.
The moment he lunged, his eyes caught the outline of his opponent—
Very small.
Much smaller than he had expected.
A figure draped in a grey cloak stood in the shadows of the alley's right wall, the cloak's hood pulled low, obscuring most of their face.
In the dim light, he could only see a pair of eyes exposed beneath the hood.
Light grey, leaning toward blue.
Like the surface of °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° a frozen lake in winter.
Then those eyes moved.
No—it was the owner of those eyes who moved.
When Igor's dagger was less than twenty centimeters from the opponent's abdomen, a hand reached out from under the cloak.
The hand was small, the wrist absurdly thin, looking as if it would snap with a single bend.
But what that hand did was completely at odds with its appearance.
It did not block the blade, nor did it retreat or dodge, but instead, with incredible precision, found the inside of Igor's right wrist along the trajectory of the dagger—the most fragile gap between the radius and ulna bones.
Two fingers clamped onto it.
The force was not great.
But the angle was outrageously tricky.
Igor's right wrist felt as if someone had flipped a switch; his entire forearm, from wrist to elbow, instantly lost its strength.
The dagger slipped from his loosening fingers, and before the hilt even touched the ground, the opponent's other hand had arrived.
The same technique.
The same spot.
The inside of his left wrist, between the radius and ulna.
Two fingers, a clamp, a twist.
Igor's left arm was also rendered useless.
From the moment he lunged to his arms being dislocated, the entire process took no more than a second and a half.
While Igor's brain was still processing the question of "Where did my knife go?", his body had already lost its balance.
The opponent's hand moved from his wrist, instead clamping onto his right shoulder, and using the momentum of his forward charge, pulled him downward—
His knees slammed into the gravel ground.
Immediately after, a deft force came from his shoulder, knocking his entire body over.
His chest and face slammed onto the gravel road at the same time.
The back of his head struck the cold stone, making his vision blur, but what made him feel worse was the sharp pain of his cheek being pressed against the coarse gravel, and he instantly tasted dirt and rust in his mouth.
He instinctively wanted to turn over—at least to see the opponent's face clearly.
A foot immediately stepped down.
Stepping on the back of his head.
The sole pressed against the back of his head, the force not heavy, but the angle was despairingly precise—it was exactly lodged at the junction of the occipital bone and the first cervical vertebra; if they applied even a little more force, his neck would snap like a dry branch.
Igor's face was pressed tightly against the gravel ground.
His left cheek pressed against the cold stones, his field of vision filled only with the thin layer of dirty snow on the ground, and the outline of the corpse not far away—half of Karl Winter's face, glasses askew, one lens cracked.
He couldn't see anything.
He couldn't see the person behind him.
He couldn't see that face.
The opponent was clearly doing this on purpose.
From the way they knocked him down to the position they stepped on him, every action had been precisely calculated to ensure that from beginning to end, he could only lie face down on the ground.
A person who did not want their face to be seen.
He couldn't move anymore.
He really couldn't move.
His arms felt as heavy as if filled with lead from wrist to shoulder; he could move his fingers, but couldn't exert any strength.
The technique the opponent used when clamping his wrists had precisely severed the force transmission of his forearm muscle groups.
This was a technique used on the battlefield to quickly subdue captives.
And it was a Usar one, at that.
A sigh came from above.
Very light, very short, carrying a sense of helplessness completely out of place with the current scene.
Like a teacher seeing a student hand in a failing assignment.
"Showing off before an expert."
The voice came from above, sounding a bit muffled through the fabric of the cloak, but every word was clear.
It was spoken in the Usar language.
The accent was authentic, without the stiff tone that Victoriana people had when learning it, but rather genuine Usar language with the retroflex sounds typical of the northern provinces.
Igor's pupils contracted sharply.
His body ceased its struggling.
His brain finally caught up with his body's perception, beginning to process the information that had been ignored by instinct during the fight—
The technique the opponent used to dislocate his arms.
Clamping the gap between the radius and ulna, severing the force transmission of the forearm muscle groups. freewebnovel.cσ๓
This martial art could not be found in any textbook.
It was a very obscure branch of Usar civilian combat arts.
"Bone Lock".
Specifically used to deal with opponents much larger than oneself.
Specifically designed for smaller users.
He knew this set too.
Because the person who taught him had also taught him this set.
Igor's lips moved; the gravel pressing against his chin made his voice sound slurred.
"...Who are you?"
The foot stepping on his head did not move away, but the force lightened slightly—changing from "I can crush your skull at any moment" to "I just don't want you moving around."
"You asked the wrong question." frёewebnoѵēl.com
The voice above said.
Still in the Usar language.
Still in that steady, emotionless tone.
"What you should be asking is—how much of what you just did did I see?"
Igor's breathing paused for half a beat.
He wanted to turn his head.
The pressure on the sole of the foot immediately increased by a fraction, not too much, not too little, just enough to press his head back into place.
A warning.
An uncompromising warning.
"Don't move."
"I don't want you to see my face. You should be able to understand that."
Igor gritted his teeth.
He did understand, indeed.
No matter where one is, not revealing one's identity is the most basic rule of survival.
He himself had worn a hat and covered his face before taking action.
But being treated with the same logic by someone else felt completely different.
