Mutagen

Day 318 - 10:42 AM - Testing Area, Registration and Management Bureau, Shibaura Institute of Technology Junior and Senior High School, Toyosu, Koto City, Tokyo

Finally getting his turn, Mark stepped in front of the weapon rack and picked up the weapon of his choice.

The rack only contained wooden melee weapons. However, the weapon rack had quite a variety of weapon types, like spears, swords, daggers, and a few other common weapons, and each type of weapon had at least one variety. Spears, for example, there was a short spear, long spear, javelin, and even a naginata.

There were only wooden weapons since it was just for examination. The variety of weapons was there to ensure that the examinees would not be hindered and could choose the most suitable fighting style for the test.

Mark had already taken a good look at the weapons while the girls had their tests. That was why he only took a few seconds before stepping into the field with the weapons he had chosen from the available selection.

The audience around the sports field was paying close attention to Mark. After all, he was clearly the leader of this abnormal group of examinees.

Still, the audience was surprised when Mark took the field, holding a wooden katana in his right hand and a wooden tanto in his left.

Dual-wielding was quite a flashy style of combat. However, it was more than just being flashy. It was a style that favored offense over defense and was pretty difficult to pull off perfectly. One could not just pick two weapons on each hand, waving both weapons around, and call it dual-wielding.

In actual combat, dual-wielding needed balance, skill, concentration, and coordination.

Skill was quite an obvious requirement. One needed enough skill and experience to utilize a weapon and double to make use of two weapons at the same time.

Without balance, one weapon would likely end up dominating the other. The dominant weapon would be used more than the other, with the non-dominant weapon being just a burden due to additional weight and fewer defense capabilities. In these cases, when the person lacked balance, it was far more suitable for the non-dominant weapon to be replaced with a one-handed shield instead.

Concentration was a rather important requirement. With a single weapon, a person's attention was only split between the enemy and the weapon the user was holding. It did not matter whether the weapon was one-handed or two-handed. It only needed enough attention for one weapon. But with dual-wielding, that concentration that the weapon should have was split into two. Since the weapon size, distance, and weapon utilization were factors the user needed to pay attention to, having to pay attention to another weapon makes it harder to concentrate. With a single lapse of concentration, one of the two weapons could be rendered ineffective, also leading to the effects of a person not having the balance to utilize two weapons at the same time.

Lastly, coordination. Not everyone could coordinate the movements of both arms, making it even more difficult to coordinate both weapons.

There were also other factors to wielding two weapons on both hands but most of those involved the types of weapons being used.

Mark was fully aware of these factors. In fact, he had more characteristics that would make him unsuitable for this style. First, his body was ill-proportioned. The right side of his body was larger than the left, making his right side the dominant part. However, Mark's eyes were the complete opposite, with his left being larger than the right, and his dominant eye was his left one.

Cross-dominant. That was what described Mark's condition. It was the reason that Mark was not that effective as a sniper, not to mention being incompatible with many types of sports.

However, Mark's current choice of weapons to dual-wield would make proper use of this unusual body trait.

The tanto, which was shorter and with less weight, could be utilized with his non-dominant arm. And with his larger dominant eye being the left one, he would have a wider view on the left side, allowing him to utilize the tanto more effectively.

On the other hand, Mark's dominant arm had the heavier katana. It would be his main weapon for attacking, which would be supported by the tanto.

"Are you the father of those little girls?"

Kenji asked Mark, looking at Abbygale and Miracle in the waiting area.

"Yeah."

Mark replied, adjusting his grip on the weapons he was holding.

"Then, I guess I should look forward to this match."

Kenji smiled with expectations as he picked up a weapon of his own. It was a wooden dagger. He was not using any weapon earlier when fighting the younger girls. However, fighting the adult Mark was different.

"Ready!"

A woman's voice was heard. It was the same receptionist that registered Mark's group earlier. She was also the person overseeing the examination.

"Start!"

At the starting signal, Mark kicked the ground. He immediately rushed towards the examiner on the other side of the field.

Mark's speed was fast. It was not as fast as Abbygale. However, his speed was much faster than an Olympic athlete.

But Mark's running posture was odd. It was not your typical running posture. Those that were familiar with it would call it either Ninja run or Naruto run.

Mark's upper body lowered as he ran. His left arm holding the tanto in a reverse grip was bent over half his face. On the other hand, the right arm holding the katana was extended behind his body.

That was what the audience was seeing. However, the examiner, Kenji, immediately took an alert stance.

Kenji was standing in front of Mark. With Mark's running posture, the examiner already lost track of the katana behind him.

Mark twisted his right hand, angling the katana's blade outward. As he reached the examiner, he unleashed a horizontal slash. The examiner was a bit late to respond, but he still managed to parry Mark's first attack. However, Mark reversed his grip on the tanto with a spin and stabbed it, aiming at the examiner's right shoulder with the hand that was holding the dagger.

Kenji immediately deflected the katana while evading the tanto. At the same time, he launched a punch at Mark with his left fist that was free.

Mark jumped back to evade, causing the examiner's attack to miss, before continuing on the offensive. He was met with Kenji's dagger, but Mark reversed the tanto once again and used it to block and redirect the incoming blade. The examiner's attack was pretty heavy, but Mark managed to push it away using the outer side of his wrist as support to the back of the tanto's blade.

The audience watched in silence as the two men in the field exchanged blows. Mark showed an agile fighting style, while Kenji stood firm, deflecting and evading the incoming attacks. How long had it been since they had seen such an exciting battle here in the [Freelancer] examination?

"We had been fooled, weren't we?"

Ren voiced to the other members of the Black Lotus, who could only shrug in silence. She then asked Tadashi.

"What do you think? Can you identify Mark's combat style?"

Tadashi kept silent as he watched Mark fight for a few more seconds. In the end, he slightly shook his head.

For practitioners of combat and martial arts, the fighting style could tell a lot of things. A person belonging to a clan or dojo would tend to share the same fundamentals and style when they fight. It was the same for trained soldiers of different countries or private organizations.

"It is hard to tell if he belonged to any martial style. From what I see, he is using several styles at the same time. The flow of his attacks is interchanging after every attack he had let out."

"I thought the same," Ren said with a frown. "It feels like a self-learned street-style combat technique. But..."

"Each move set is connecting smoothly to one another, isn't it, Miss?" Tadashii replied. "Worse, his flow is changing a lot to the point that it's disrupting Kenji-san's flow."

The flow. Its meaning varied depending on the subject. In this case, it was how the fighter could connect the techniques through attack and defense while fighting an opponent. The smoother the flow, the more the fighter was in control of the battle. And depending on the fighter's combat style, the flow could be different.

For example, the flow of Kenji's combat style was firm. He would not move around too much, relying on his arm and hand techniques to attack, defend, and even disarm and subdue the opponent.

On the other hand, Mark's flow was erratic as he changed his combat style after every attack he pulled off.

To win a fight with an almost equal contest, one needed to control the flow to be able to render the opponent's attacks useless. But in this case...

"Kenji-san is slowly being pushed back..."

Mako's words echoed into the ears of everyone around her.

Kenji was having a hard time reading Mark's flow. It was due to Mark's attacks being tricky and erratic.

On the other hand, Mark was somehow reading Kenji's flow. Mark was taking advantage of his erratic attacks and disrupting the opponent's flow in the process.

Tadashii and Ren were right on point in their assumption. Mark's current combat style was a combination of different styles. Where did Mark acquire these combat styles? Well, inside his head, of course.

To be exact, from the memories that Mark obtained after absorbing a few souls.

First was the [Standard Royal Dagger Style] from the memories of Freed. It was a militarized close-quarters-combat style of soldiers from Eriellis.

The second was the [Azure Dragon Sword Style] from Feng Zhiruo's elder. Although Mark lacked the [Qi Energy] to fully utilize the powerful techniques, he could at least use the basic ones.

The third one was the [Ancient Filipino Combat Style]. It was actually a style with no name. A style used by ancient Filipino tribesmen during the ancient times. It came from the memories of the [Deity of Bloodshed].

And lastly, while not actually a battle style, it served a great purpose while combining the other three styles. It was the knowledge of the human body. A memory he acquired from the [Blood Infected] he absorbed in the University of Perpetual Help Hospital. It was the nurse that became a [Mutated Infected] that helped Mark enhance his abilities after he absorbed her.

It was not easy to incorporate these four aspects into one. It was one thing Mark spent time creating this past month, aside from other things he was doing. It was not perfected yet, but it was enough to use in these kinds of fights.

The fight between Mark and Kenji continued. Mark was clearly overwhelming the examiner with the number of attacks they unleashed. After every six to seven attacks from Mark, Kenji could only retaliate once.

It was a fast-paced battle. Barely a minute had passed. Yet, too many things had already happened.

And by the looks of it, Kenji was losing.

In the last ten seconds, Mark pushed the offensive. It was to the point that Kenji began to accept getting hit with Mark's attacks in favor of evading the stronger attacks.

But then, something unexpected happened.

As Kenji tried to do a counterpunch against Mark's tanto stab, he stepped on a pretty large piece of stone.

Kenji lost balance due to the unexpected event, and his punch lost control. The punch accelerated beyond the strength and speed he was supposed to use during the examination.

"SH*T! WATCH OUT!"

Kenji yelled out in panic.

The eyes of those that realized what was happening at that moment widened.

Kenji was known as the [Human Tank] in the Reclaimed City. His true strength was far beyond what he was showing during the examination. After all, the examination did not need his full strength to test some beginner warriors.

That was why some of the audience knew that the punch Mark was facing was something that could puncture a tank's armor.

Mark was caught off guard too. After all, if Kenji did not expect the accident, would he?

The punch, moving as fast as a tank projectile, shot toward Mark's chest.

Using it as his last resort, Mark canceled his stab and jumped back. He then let go of both his weapons and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

BAM!

Everyone watched in shock as Mark was flung from one side of the field to the other before crashing to the walls of the field entrance.