Chills ran down my spine, an irresistible dread.

[Angle deviation 0.25]

[Trajectory... Baseline calibration... Integration value of electromyographic attenuation factor? F(....limb-...]

Woosh—

John's body convulsed, he sidestepped half a step, quickly lowering his center of gravity and twisting his waist.

This instinctive move allowed him to dodge the crocodile's impending heavy punch and a feint.

The opponent raised his leg for a whip kick.

The steel-forged shin swept past John's chest, snagging the floating work coat, and the high-toughness fabric dragged him, causing him to stumble several steps.

John hadn't regained his balance when he heard Sora scream in his mind.

[Watch out!]

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow approaching, instinctively making a protective move, then...

Boom.

John was slammed as if point-blank by a hydraulic machine, flying back and crashing into the railing.

An electric shock singed his back.

He gritted his teeth in pain, collapsing to the ground.

"...Ugh, cough, fuck!"

John's eyes widened as he saw the crocodile across the way slowly lower his right foot, like a model showcasing muscles.

He loomed high above, face full of disdain, his muscles were harder than a plaza sculpture yet fought more flexibly than a sex doll.

John hadn't seen the full process of being knocked down but inexplicably a sequence of moves popped into his head—high switch to side whip kick, landing foot swap, followed by a frontal stomp.

As if he watched it all from a third perspective.

Every muscle in the crocodile's body exerted instantaneous power more precisely than machine regulation; those exceptionally tough joints and hard bones coordinated perfectly!

A terrifying opponent.

More importantly to John was:

"Damn, this feels so fucking weird. It's like I have another pair of eyes—no, damn it, there's a machine living in my brain!"

[This is what I was talking about, unity, got it? This is my core algorithm taking over your body, replacing your operating system, helping you perform subconscious dodges; otherwise, you would've been knocked out by that heavy punch right off the bat!]

Sora explained in his mind.

His tone was somewhat anxious but helpless.

[This is just some basic proxy, don't rely on it too much, you need to adapt to this rhythm, buck up, the opponent is like a rubber-built tank! He will really kill you!]

"Easy for you to say! Why don't you come in then!?"

John gritted his teeth, realizing the place he was kicked was severely swollen.

Plato's subdermal armor was actually bruised to the extent of triggering alarms from the blunt force.

[Consider it me owing you one, just hang on for this round! And you need to get up quickly!]

"Eight... seven..."

The host's voice echoed throughout the venue, curses poured in from all sides.

John quickly stood up.

The waiting crocodile paused not for a moment, he immediately dashed forward, launching a storm-like assault.

Things got worse.

The attack from earlier was just his appetizer; in the continuous barrage, the crocodile's onslaught became increasingly fierce.

The algorithm in John's mind, after all, wasn't Kenichi Sora's true form.

John's chances of dodging the enemy diminished; he suffered multiple injuries.

This prosthetic body provided to the crocodile by the sponsor company was engineered at great expense and had a glaring advantage over John's cobbled-together style.

When he attacked, he even used the back muscles in his toes; every move harnessed the active muscles throughout his body.

This is the gold standard of the central arena finals.

The crocodile was a fierce contender for the championship.

John had no idea how long he'd held out, let alone expected to stand through round after non-stop assault for this long.

Then he understood.

The crocodile was deliberately pinning him down.

No knockout punch, no referee's count.

The crocodile seemed to have grasped John's surprising dodging mechanics, as if a sophisticated device was embedded in this brute's head on the opposite side—rapidly calculating him, terrifyingly, it really found a pattern.

The learning ability and real-time judgment of professional boxers are terrifying.

The bloody and brutal selection system, the fame-built wealth ring, even when stripping away everything, what remains aren't leftovers but gold.

The crocodile silently slaughtered his opponent.

John was like a sandbag, propped in a corner of the arena, beaten left and right, unable to move, taking several rounds of heavy hits.

Damage reports spewed like restaurant receipts, spitting out!

"Ah—"

A beast-like roar exploded like the roar of a large machine right before John's eyes, then a knee strike rushed out from a blind spot he hadn't detected.

Bam!

His feet lifted off the ground, and he slumped back onto the ground.

The strong, terrifying opponent didn't follow up with a pursuit, instead, he clenched his fist in front of him.

John vaguely heard the crocodile speaking.

More precisely, the language plugin captured and projected the words before him.

Because his left eardrum was damaged, his head had a mild concussion, even the referee's countdown seemed far away.

[Male: ...I hate you mercenaries, a bunch of self-righteous bastards. The arena is a place where you bet your life, how many went mad, died, got disabled! And yet, you want to stand out in such a place...(Russian)]

John opened his slightly swollen eyes.

He saw his opponent turning around, skin under the spotlight was steaming with white mist, that mountainous back was covered with prosthetic surgery's heat dissipation gaps and terrifying scars.