My Computer Leads to an Instance Dungeon-Chapter 168 - 142: Traditional Martial Arts Reversal Spear! A Long Spear Pierces Plate Armor

Fang Zhen changed direction, running toward another weapons cache.

A few minutes later.

A familiar place.

Fang Zhen led Montagu to this spot.

The terrain here was dotted with trees and hills. It wasn't level, making it relatively complex.

Fang Zhen was quite familiar with the area because this was where he had once killed a goblin advance party.

The first time he had fully equipped himself and entered the Dark Path, he had assassinated a Goblin Sentry at a goblin outpost and wiped out a goblin advance party from a makeshift shack.

And now, this was the place he had chosen for their decisive battle.

Arriving at the chosen battlefield, Fang Zhen quickly spotted a large tree marked with a fluorescent sticker.

He ran over to it.

Behind the tree lay a long spear, which he snatched up.

With the long spear in hand, Fang Zhen's eyes and aura sharpened instantly.

He was in good condition. The few minutes of running hadn't tired him out. Instead, it had served as a perfect warm-up, pushing his physical performance to its peak.

Furthermore, the terrain was to Fang Zhen's advantage.

Luring Montagu here for the final battle was partly because Fang Zhen was more familiar with the terrain, and partly because he knew the complex, uneven ground would give him an environmental advantage.

Montagu was clad in heavy plate armor. Even with his abundant stamina, his movements were inevitably hindered.

Besides the dense woods, the battlefield also featured many small hills, earthen slopes, and other obstacles.

Fang Zhen's riot gear didn't impede him at all; he was extremely agile. On hilly terrain, he could leap, run, and jump, giving him many options and allowing him to move freely across the battlefield.

It would be much harder for the heavily armored Montagu to move freely. The environment would restrict him to some degree.

'It would actually be better to set an ambush here, with a few Warriors to outflank Montagu.'

Unfortunately, besides Fang Zhen himself, there wasn't a single true Warrior in all of Redstone Town.

Quade had undergone training as a Knight's Squire, but sadly, it was for too short a time. In over a year, he had only learned the theory and laid a basic foundation. It was common knowledge that the first few years of an apprenticeship were dedicated to obedience and loyalty training—a form of indoctrination. The real skills were only taught later.

Quade could use a Shield and was loyal enough, but he couldn't handle any other weapons, to say nothing of a compound crossbow or a regular bow.

If that was the case for Quade, the other residents of Redstone Town were even less reliable.

If you gave them bows and Crossbow Arrows, forget about hurting the enemy; it would be a success if they didn't injure themselves or shoot the wrong person—like putting an arrow in Fang Zhen's back.

Moreover, the Redstone Town militia couldn't handle the tense atmosphere of a real battle. A single roar from Montagu would probably make their legs go weak. They'd just be lambs to the slaughter, cut down by Montagu in the first exchange.

Fang Zhen decided it was better not to let the Redstone Town militia come and die. Acting alone was more reliable than bringing them along. He'd have the militiamen dig some traps and do other manual labor; that would be making the best use of their abilities.

As for hiring combat partners, he hadn't done that for now.

Hiring combat partners required a significant amount of Merit Points, and it wasn't necessary unless it was a particularly critical moment.

Besides, Fang Zhen wanted to test his own strength and gauge the power of a Fallen Knight.

'I think I have a fighting chance in a one-on-one duel,' he thought.

He also didn't want to develop a habit of over-relying on combat partners.

Fang Zhen settled into his stance, leveling his spear and watching Montagu charge toward him from a distance.

Having been led on a long run by Fang Zhen, even the incredibly stamina-rich Montagu was now panting slightly.

Fang Zhen could even hear the sound of Montagu's heavy breathing.

Seeing that Fang Zhen was no longer running, Montagu slowed his sprint.

Finally, they stood six or seven meters apart, weapons in hand, facing each other in a standoff.

Fang Zhen's gaze fell upon Montagu, carefully studying the Heavy Armored Knight.

Montagu was clad in black armor, his tall frame exuding an oppressive aura. In the dark of night, the black armor acted as a sort of camouflage, giving him a slight advantage.

Montagu's weapon was a massive, strangely shaped greatsword.

The greatsword was about 1.6 to 1.7 meters long and wider than the cross-section of a muscular man's thigh. The front had a bizarre design, with a protrusion resembling the mouth of a hammerhead shark. This protrusion was shaped like a shovel, with a barb curving backward. Both the front and back edges were sharpened, looking chillingly keen.

Looking at the greatsword, Fang Zhen estimated it weighed at least fifteen to twenty pounds. For Montagu to carry such a weapon and still run so fast was a testament to his astonishing stamina and exceptional talent.

Judging by its structure, besides the normal greatsword techniques like cleaving, the alien-looking weapon could also be used to shovel, hook, shave, and lock an opponent's weapon. It couldn't be treated as an ordinary sword.

In terms of weapon length, however, Fang Zhen's long spear still had the advantage.

Fang Zhen and Montagu faced off for five or six seconds, each observing the other and regulating their breathing.

Suddenly, Montagu moved.

With no war cry or wasted words, Montagu strode forward, holding the giant greatsword with both hands in what looked like a dragging-saber stance. He dragged it along his right side as he charged straight at Fang Zhen.

Fang Zhen shifted into a classic traditional martial arts spear stance, his right hand gripping the butt of the spear and his left hand loosely holding the shaft further up. With his core centered at his waist, he aimed the spear at Montagu's throat.

In this stance, the front hand guides like a tube while the back hand locks like a clamp. It was the "Grand Duke Fishing" posture, with all the power originating from the waist—a perfect union of waist and horse stance.

Montagu's steps were heavy but his strides were huge. In just a few steps, he closed to within three meters of Fang Zhen. He swung the bizarre greatsword up with both hands and brought it down in an overhead chop, like a mountain-cleaving blow.

Fang Zhen angled his spear upward, not to meet the greatsword head-on, but to rest against it. He guided it diagonally, using a skillful burst of force to press down on Montagu's weapon and divert its trajectory.

The moment their weapons made contact, Fang Zhen felt the immense force behind the greatsword. It felt less like a sword and more like a mountain-splitting axe or a horse-chopping saber.

But he was no longer the man he once was. The skills from his long spear had become instinct, and he still managed to deflect it.

Montagu's greatsword was pushed aside, and the blade of Fang Zhen's spear pressed against the greatsword's edge, sliding up along the flat of the blade straight for Montagu's throat.

The friction between the greatsword and the spear actually threw off a shower of sparks.

Faced with a spear thrust to his throat, Montagu's reaction was anything but ordinary.

Instead of pulling his greatsword back to defend, he raised it and swung it in a low, diagonal slash.

At this distance, if Fang Zhen continued to thrust the spear toward Montagu's throat, the greatsword would slice him open at the abdomen.

Fang Zhen's brow twitched. He took a step back, creating distance.

The red eyes within Montagu's helmet flashed with a vicious light. He actually took a step forward, bringing the raised greatsword down in a diagonal chop.

At this range, if they traded blows, the spear could still pierce Montagu's throat, but Fang Zhen would be cleaved in two.

Fang Zhen retreated another step.

His brows furrowed slightly.

'Does this Montagu have a death wish?'

Those last two exchanges were both life-for-a-life gambles. If neither had yielded, the result would have been mutual destruction, both of them perishing together.

'Montagu is ferocious, but this is just reckless, isn't it?'

'If he always fights like this, how on earth has he managed to stay alive until today?'

Montagu advanced another step, intending to use his Life-or-Death Sword Technique again.

This time, Montagu swung his greatsword in a wide semi-circle, building up full momentum for a horizontal slash at Fang Zhen.

A cold glint flashed in Fang Zhen's eyes.

'If I retreat again, Montagu will get the hang of it. He'll keep trading blow for blow, banking on the fact that I won't risk a mutual kill, and then he'll have me suppressed.'

Fang Zhen suddenly turned, dragging his spear as he retreated.

Montagu let out a savage grin, thinking Fang Zhen had lost his nerve and was fleeing. He immediately gave chase. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Fang Zhen had taken no more than two steps when he suddenly lifted the spear in his hand. Before his head had even turned, the spear shot out abruptly from his left side—a backward thrust delivered while his body was still turning away.

Reversal Spear!

The move came without any warning. By the time the spear reached Montagu's face, Fang Zhen's body had only turned halfway around, his back still to his enemy.

Montagu was completely unprepared. A look of shock flashed in the eyes visible through his visor.

PFFT!

The backward thrust of the Reversal Spear, still powered by his waist, was well-rooted and strong enough to pierce Montagu's Throat Plate Armor.

Without using the Power Mountain Seal, Fang Zhen's Reversal Spear pierced Montagu's Throat Plate Armor, the spearhead burying itself more than halfway in.

Blood immediately gushed from Montagu's throat.

Holding the long spear, Fang Zhen's expression was focused, his eyes cold and sharp.

This Reversal Spear technique was something he had practiced recently.

Its execution was superb, even more effective than that of practitioners from some martial arts families.

He was able to learn it so quickly and so well, achieving such an orthodox form even without a master, all because he had solidified his basic spearmanship skills.

The principles of martial arts become universal once you reach a certain level.

Although Fang Zhen had never trained in traditional martial arts, his solidified skills had a striking resemblance to the fundamental techniques of "blocking, parrying, and thrusting" and the waist-and-stance training of orthodox spearmanship.

After fully internalizing the basic spear techniques, Fang Zhen discovered that the real benefit wasn't just the moves themselves, but more importantly, the stabilized methods of power generation and the core principles of spearmanship.

By mastering these principles and fundamentals, he had essentially acquired the equivalent of decades of foundational spear training. With such a solid base, learning any new spear technique was twice as effective with half the effort.

In traditional martial arts, almost all spear techniques and forms are just different evolutions and variations of the fundamental "blocking, parrying, and thrusting." As long as one's foundation was solid enough and one's skill deep enough, new spear techniques could be learned almost instantly.

This was the meaning behind the saying, "overwhelming power defies principle."

Furthermore, Fang Zhen had spent almost all his saved time at the factory familiarizing himself with martial techniques.

To say nothing of the effort, in the few days he'd been practicing with the spear, he would train for more than ten hours at a time. Within a single day, his hands would be rubbed raw and bloody, so painful he couldn't even hold the spear. But even that wasn't the end. He would just smear on some Alchemy Ointment and continue practicing.

In just a few short days, he had developed calluses on his hands that should have taken long-term martial arts practice to form.

He didn't find this bit of pain agonizing at all. In fact, he felt he hadn't suffered enough. He felt it was an injustice to the decades of skill he had "solidified," as if he'd gotten too great a bargain and it unbalanced him psychologically. He wished he could suffer ten times more to truly digest the strength he had obtained.

With such a solidified foundation combined with his insane training methods, he had learned several advanced spear techniques.

Fang Zhen's Reversal Spear had pierced Montagu's Throat Plate Armor, the spearhead sinking halfway in.

And yet, he felt no sense of victory.

On the contrary, he had a gut feeling that although Montagu was grievously wounded, the injury was not fatal.

His heart sank slightly.

'I don't know if Montagu has a life-saving Extraordinary Item on him, or if there's something wrong with the man himself.'

Fang Zhen didn't hold back. He pulled out the spear, its force spent, then suddenly advanced and executed a basic spearmanship thrust.

This thrusting technique was a different path to the same destination as the simplified basic spear method, the Barrier-Capture-Thrust. In fact, its power generation and posture were identical to the Progressive Barrier Capture.

He executed the Progressive Barrier Capture, combining the force of his forward rush with the power generated from his waist, and thrust the spear toward Montagu.