Noah threw a thunderous straight right, aiming to shatter Allen's jaw and end the match then and there.
But Allen moved like a phantom—a subtle tilt of his head, a small shift of his weight, and the devastating punch whistled harmlessly through empty air.
Noah's breath caught in his throat. How? My timing, my trajectory, my speed... everything was mathematically flawless.
Before the Number 9 could process the shock, Allen countered with terrifying velocity. He drove a brutal knee straight into Noah's chin, rattling his teeth.
In the very next heartbeat, Allen buried a heavy left hook into Noah's exposed ribs, followed instantly by a blistering cross to the cheek.
The rapid-fire kinetic chain hurled Noah's massive frame backward, slamming him hard against the trunk of a towering, ancient Sequoia tree.
What just happened? Noah thought, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. His speed didn't just double—it completely re-indexed.
Allen didn't give him room to breathe. He charged forward through the drifts, launching his body into the air. Anticipating another aerial assault, Noah's lips curled into a predatory grin.
"Kid, you shouldn't repeat your mistakes in front of a professional! It'll get you killed!"
Noah thrust his conditioned right fist forward, aiming to intercept and crush Allen's attacking leg just like before. But Allen had already factored the variable. Mid-air, he used his secondary leg to precisely deflect Noah's forearm, rerouting the trajectory of the punch. Twisting his torso like a coiled spring, Allen swung his trailing leg around, slamming the solid bone of his heel directly across Noah's face.
The impact sent Noah crashing into the far frozen ground. The second Allen's boots touched the ground, Noah erupted upward using pure core strength.
Driven by a surge of something desperate, Noah whipped a vicious roundhouse kick straight into Allen's jaw, the sheer force launching the teenager across the clearing, sending him smashing through the branches of two adjacent trees.
Noah stood up, wiping a smear of crimson from his lips. "Now I see what's happening. It's the adrenaline rush. A classic defense mechanism, brat—but temporary chemical spikes aren't enough to save your life."
With a roar, Noah surged forward. Allen pushed himself out of the shattered branches, matching his pace as they closed the distance in a lethal sprint.
Noah unleashed a high-velocity barrage of punches, his fists tearing through the falling snow toward Allen's face. Allen didn't try to block; instead, he dropped his level, sliding low beneath the line of fire. From the deep crouch, Allen exploded upward, driving a devastating uppercut squarely into Noah's chin.
What?! Noah's vision blurred as the concussive force lifted his heavy boots completely off the snow.
While Noah was still airborne, Allen followed up with a vicious front kick to his midsection, sending the executive crashing back down into the drifts. Recognizing the opening, Allen lunged forward to punch out his opponent.
But Noah's battle instincts were elite. Twisting his torso, Noah intercepted the descending strike, driving his conditioned fist directly against the side of Allen's punch.
A sharp, sickening crack echoed through the clearing. The force fractured the bones in Allen's hand and wrist as he tried to brace his balance.
Noah smirked, immediately throwing his secondary fist toward Allen's unprotected face. Refusing to yield to the agonizing pain, Allen whipped his leg upward, kicking the incoming fist off-course.
Using the momentum of that exact same motion, Allen shifted his weight and brought his heel down like a guillotine, stomping Noah's face straight into the freezing snow.
Sensing Noah's hand reaching up to grab his ankle and snap his leg, Allen instinctively vaulted backward, creating distance.
Noah pushed himself up from the crimson-stained snow. Blood was flowing freely from his nose and mouth, but his expression had shifted from pure rage to a twisted sense of profound respect. He slowly began to clap his gloved hands together.
Allen kept his signature, confident smile etched across his face, though his breath was beginning to turn ragged in the sub-zero air.
"You're strong. No... 'strong' is an understatement. You're an absolute prodigy," Noah acknowledged, his voice dripping with sinister appreciation. He stopped clapping, his smirk returning. "But Mr. Prodigy has a fundamental, catastrophic flaw."
Allen remained silent, his eyes locked on his opponent's center of mass.
"Your endurance is completely hollow," Noah analyzed coldly. "Because you're a prodigy, you're used to dominating your fights. You rarely let an opponent land a clean hit on you. That means your body has never been conditioned to absorb systematic trauma. You have zero baseline threshold for a prolonged war of attrition."
Allen didn't offer a verbal rebuttal. He simply exploded forward, closing the gap.
Noah ran towards him, his booming voice cutting through the blizzard. "All I need is a single, clean structural punch to your face or upper torso, and your fragile shell breaks!"
"Good luck with that," Allen retorted sharply.
In a sudden, deceptive maneuver, Allen ripped off his heavy, outer tactical shirt and flung the dark fabric directly into Noah's line of sight. Noah reflexively punched through the cloth, shredding it to pieces—but the space behind it was empty. Allen had vanished.
Where did he—
Before Noah could finish the thought, Allen materialized directly behind him. He wrapped his arms around Noah's massive chest, locked his fingers, and executed a flawless, high-amplitude German Suplex, slamming Noah's skull and upper back directly into the hard-packed earth. Allen instantly vaulted into the air, driving a heavy elbow down toward Noah's face.
Noah rolled desperately to the side, the elbow cratering the ice and then ground where his head had been a fraction of a second prior. As Noah whirled his head back around, Allen's knee was already flying toward his nose.
Acting on pure reflex, Noah caught the knee with his palm at the absolute last microsecond.
Damn it. I am caught. Allen thought.