Chapter 279: All Manner of Martial Arts (Patreon)

Crack!

Her knife-hand and the scales collided head-on, bursting out an ear-splitting clang of metal on metal as shards of rock and grit sprayed through the air.

The Water Dragon flinched in pain, letting out a shrill shriek that echoed through the valley. Its massive body convulsed violently, and its entire tail slammed uncontrollably into the ground, plowing a trench several meters deep through the rice paddies as dirt and stone shot skyward.

Before the Water Dragon could turn to counterattack, Hinako Shimizu was already moving, closing the distance with crisp, decisive footwork. Fists, palms, elbows, legs, knees — her attacks poured down like a storm.

She pressed in close, a short, sharp jab from her left hand smashing into the side of the Water Dragon's neck. The scales at the point of impact shattered on contact.

This wasn't brute force — it was the purest expression of a boxer's explosive technique.

The moment the Water Dragon's body tilted from the blow, her right knee was already rising — a Muay Thai clinch knee strike, driving hard into the gap of soft scales beneath its jaw. The impact snapped the massive serpent head upward, dark blood spraying from the corner of its mouth.

Stung by the pain, the Water Dragon instinctively whipped its head around, jaws snapping to bite.

Rather than retreat, Hinako Shimizu pressed forward, slipping like a slick eel into the blind spot beneath the Water Dragon's neck. Jujutsu's close-quarters grappling let her flow against its rough scales like water, every twist of her body perfectly timed to slip past the tearing fangs.

The Water Dragon's tail swept in from the side, carrying the force to crush anything in its path.

Hinako Shimizu moved as if she had eyes on the back of her head. Pivoting on her left foot, she twisted her hips and spun her whole body like a top to dodge — this wasn't ordinary evasion, but the Sparrowhawk Turn from Baji Quan.

What looked like a simple pivot actually concentrated her entire body weight onto a single foot, letting her escape the widest possible strike zone with the smallest possible movement.

The tail grazed past her back, the force of its passing tearing a strip of lacquer from her armor, but it didn't touch her.

Before the tail could retract, Hinako Shimizu had already lunged. Her hands wrapped around the scale gaps at the tail's tip like flowing water, her fingers hooking like claws to grip the scale edges. With a violent twist of her hips, she wrenched that tail — thicker than her own waist — around at an angle it was never meant to bend.

It was judo's wrist-lock cross-armbar, except what she'd locked wasn't an arm, but the joint of the serpent's tail. The Water Dragon writhed in pain, its whole tail convulsing violently, but it couldn't break free of her iron grip.

Down in the village, the villagers watched, mouths agape.

"What — what kind of fighting style is that? Isn't Ultraman just supposed to punch and kick?"

"Cosmic martial arts? Ultra-fists, Ultra-kicks? Wait, is that even right?"

"That move just now — was that boxing?"

"Eh? Isn't that karate?"

"It looks kind of like the Tennen Rishin-ryu the kendo club taught, but... it's a hundred times more refined than the club president's version!"

...

Most of the villagers were baffled, because the strength Hinako Shimizu displayed in this moment was nothing like the blunt, almost clumsy fighting style shown on television — it was something that could only be called refined... no! It was martial skill that transcended human understanding entirely!

Of course it was. Hinako Shimizu's combat talent was already unmatched under heaven, and the one now in Oneness of Mind and Body with her had spent a hundred years of dream training fusing dozens of Eastern and Western martial arts schools into a single combat system belonging solely to the Giant of Light.

What Hinako Shimizu perceived simply as an Ultra Punch, an Ultra Kick, an Ultra Chop, was in truth every fist and every kick infused with the essence of the world's greatest martial arts traditions.

And Hinako Shimizu, relying on her innate combat genius, brought that entire system to life to its fullest expression.

The explosive power of boxing, the knees and elbows of Muay Thai, the body-checks of Baji Quan, the grappling of jujutsu, the kicks of French savate, the lethal strikes of Krav Maga, the inch-power of Wing Chun, the ground locks of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, the joint techniques of Filipino stick-fighting, the redirection of Aikido, the grip-fighting of wrestling, the joint-breaking of Russian Sambo, the Breathing Method of ancient jujutsu schools, the footwork of Tennen Rishin-ryu, the thrusts of Baji spear, the Slash of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu...

The essence of dozens of martial arts schools poured down onto the Water Dragon's massive body in a storm of relentless strikes.

The Water Dragon swayed like a willow branch under the beating, almost powerless to fight back, and the astonished villagers began cheering the Ultraman on.

"Yes! Beat it good!"

"Ultraseven! Go get it!"

"Just like that! Kill it!"

"Ultraseven! Ultraseven! Ultraseven!"

...

The villagers' voices rose in unified excitement, the sound rolling through the valley, cheering for the might of Ultraseven.

No one believed Ultraseven could lose to a Water Dragon that didn't even measure up to Yamata no Orochi — it wasn't even a Maga-Orochi, after all.

And yet, hearing those cheers, Hinako Shimizu felt no joy at all.

Every punch, every kick, every elbow, every knee — she'd given everything she had. Blows that could punch through reinforced concrete landed on the serpent's body and only managed to shatter a few scales, crack a single patch of muscle.

But the Water Dragon's regeneration far outpaced her attack speed.

The instant she shattered a scale or cracked a muscle, mineral elements from deep in the earth would immediately flow into the Water Dragon's body, healing the damage.

Those seemingly fierce combo strikes only managed to make the Water Dragon's head sway and shake — the actual damage inflicted was negligible.

What looked like Hinako Shimizu gaining the upper hand was, in truth, a losing battle.

In the deep night sky, with no sunlight to replenish her, Hinako Shimizu's internal energy was already stretched thin, and most of it had to be diverted to maintain the Ultra Psychokinesis suppressing the seismic activity. The prolonged fight was draining her energy faster and faster, and the beam light atop her head had begun flickering a sickly shade of green.

Her punching speed was visibly slowing. The Ultra Chop that once cleaved through scales with ease now only left a shallow white mark on the Water Dragon's hide.

The Water Dragon sensed its opponent's weakening with predatory sharpness. Its murky eyes blazed with menace as it whipped around, opening its massive maw lined with jagged fangs, and lunged straight at Hinako Shimizu with a savage bite!

A fetid, poisonous wind blasted her face as the massive jaws snapped shut with lightning speed, leaving no room to dodge.

Hinako Shimizu could only cross her arms in front of her, bracing to take the full force of the bite head-on.

The crushing force of the bite — thousands of tons — erupted in an instant. Her feet plowed two deep trenches into the ground as she was driven back dozens of meters, and her arms were left riddled with punctures from the fangs.

Gritting through the searing pain, Hinako Shimizu drove her right foot hard into the soft flesh beneath the Water Dragon's jaw, using the momentum to wrench herself free of the bite.

But the Water Dragon had no intention of letting up.

Now, with Hinako Shimizu's energy severely depleted and her strength dropping sharply, the Water Dragon — sustained by its undying, indestructible body — only grew fiercer as the fight went on.

Seeing Hinako Shimizu faltering, out of strength to continue, the Water Dragon's body bore down on her.

Its massive serpentine body coiled like a compressed spring and then launched forward, surging toward her with the force of a collapsing mountain.