King of Swords 2-18
Chapter: 2
“FLYING SNOW
Regretfully I know little of this rare internal technique other than one learns it over many years by listening to certain resonances of the wind. Extended practice is very difficult, but makes the body extremely light, so much that it seems to ignore the common properties of gravity. There are rumors that masters of this technique can balance their whole weight on a single leaf, walk on water, or even fly. I would have inquired more about its properties but the only master I was able to reliably locate mocked me for my lack of knowledge shortly after I came upon him in a bamboo grove, at which he bounded away, propelling his whole body off the forest with only light touches of his fingertips.”
-Manual of Hands and Feet
oh well….FUCK
To yeet or to be yeeted
Oh dear. That’s gonna smart.
Not the biggest oof, but still a big one
If that’s restraint I don’t want to know what indulgence is.
HERO’S ASTOUNDING STANCE
An ancient style that grants the martial ariist the ability to cause stunning, blindness, kill, of in certain cases inspire zealotous loyalty in opponents . These effects are achieved by precise tensing of the musculature and bending of the bones into stances so impressive reality itself yields. The styles training regime includes a strict schedule of diet and exercises, but also requires an investment into appearance. Tragically the style suffers several flaws, firstly it is recommended aspirants wishing to learn the style first master several other styles to achieve the necessary fitness levels before attempting to learn Astonding Stance, secondly many are capable of resisting the styles attacks via sheer will, lastly many martial artists look down on the style and its disciples as gaudy and vain. The origins of the style are unknown.
Yes I made up a martial art based around flexing and posing like bodybuilders.
It’s very effective though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQzFz6r074o
Masters of this rare and esoteric style are said to shimmer like the morning dew, posing equal parts eccentric and elegantly as their thoughtforms manifest and do battle with their enemies.
Known Techniques and Forms include:
Naked Enthusiast Beach
Dusty Crusade of the Stars
Zircon is Invulnerable
Murderous Female Monarch
ZA GLOBU!(WRRRYY!)
I lament that this comment system lacks the capacity for likes or upvotes because this reply is perfect.
I don’t get the first one of those.
reference to Nudist Beach from Kill la Kill
I can’t edit my original comment but new detail. While the styles exact origins remain a mystery persistent rumors claim that Zoss the conquering king, Solomon David, and Incubus got drunk one night and developed the styles basic principles during a single impromptu drunken flexing competition. Aside from the king and the two Demiurges a solitary witness had the strength to just barely withstand the awe inspiring power and became the first master of Hero’s Astounding Stance. Solomon David and Incubus violently deny these rumors with extreme vehemence.
So Major Armstrong’s style?
This style has been passed down the Armstrong family line of GENERATIONS!
I want to see Angel training montage flashbacks. At some appropriate point…
100 panels of getting yelled at, disappointment, and bruised imps
Are we still talking about a training montage or a poorly-directed porno?
Do we have to choose?
Wisdom, restraint, and excrement is also an established martial style. The ability to produce and move vast amounts of excrement has a power like no other. Masters may move vast amounts of shit by convincing others that it is not shit at all, but actually great wisdom. The restraint comes from knowing when manure is not worth moving, for amateurs simply producing worthless crap make themselves akin to animal-apes, throwing worthless waste in emotional desperation.
I’ve faced a few practitioners of the style, and nothing surprises you more than when they alight upon your blade.
But as the old adage goes, what goes up, can still be destroyed.
Wisdom. Restraint. Emptiness.
KILL! MAIM! BURN!
Calm down, Kharn.
This is restraint?!? Yisun fifth testicle, I would hate to see what loosing yourself to your emotions would look like!
Rather.
So what style involves attacking your enemy with the local furniture?
Interior Decoration
The Tao of Chan. A strange style, made of equal parts Drunken Boxing and Ladder Fencing.
Taekwokea
Thrash metal.
Feng Shui
Furnishing-Arms, an external style. Related to the Detritus Fist school.
And that’s how Alison died, and the story was over. The end!
Mere death would not end her story.
This mantra is called ‘wisdom, restraint, emptiness’ because the ancient masters are big on irony.
“PACIFISM!” he yelled as he lowered his ax through the impolite aspirant.
“ASCETICISM!” she yelled, spraying cake crumbs everywhere.
CELIBACY, they yelled, shaking hands and getting into adjacent but separate twin beds.
Someone rolled a 1 on their situational awareness check.
Somehow I feel like Allison’s mantra lacks the gravitas of “…forgive this violence I am about to inflict.”
If upon a star you cross
the street to see the city cops
you’ll find it’s underneath that rots.
And so Allison reached heaven by violence.
What really gets me is that the guy who sneaks up on her is wearing… /sneakers/.
“I take no shame in being lost. I only know where I am, by where I have been and am no longer.”
Eighth Student of Bagoret – FBC, 67
The martial artist knows where she is by subtracting where she is from where she isn’t, or where she isn’t from where she is. This deviation is called “drunkenness”
That is likely to be unpleasant but given what our aspirant royal has already suffered it is unlikely to be fatal. Remember this is the same person who already survived being perforated by Nadia’s vines and being thrown into a stone pillar hard enough to leave an impact crater. Also she is likely shrouded in one of the most protective and resilient armors in creation, the armor know as PLOT granted to those central to the stories the gods sang. I know the existence of such armor is hotly debated but I can think of nothing else that could have shield her from death given the circumstances she has survived.
Behold Al-YS-UN, bearer of the twin words PLOT and IDIOT!
“I did not come here to chew bubblegum.”
“But as long as I’m here, I might as well do it anyway.”
Truly, it is emptiness that I have mastered, with such restraint that none can find me, nor do I often find and interact with others. The wisdom in this mastery, however, has been lacking.
The description of Flying Snow is something I experience a lot in my dreams. It’s strangely affirming to see it in print from another’s mind.
MUSCLE MYSTERY
An internal style focusing only on developing tremendous muscle strength, through unclear means. A user – called a “man of muscle mystery” – fights simply by standing, traditionally in a state of severe undress, with hands raised above his head and flexing his muscles. He then directs and tunes the vibration of his muscles to cause harmonious resonances in his targets, cracking their armor, dulling their wits, loosing their bowels, breaking their hearts or worse. The masters are said to essentially wield a cruder version of the keys of kings, deforming the fabric of reality around them at will. Sadly I was not able to even begin my training in the style, as initiation is apparently done by filling and sending a form in the mail, several weeks after which a training manual is sent to the initiate, and I have not been able to find such a form, nor a manual, nor any hints about what address the forms are sent to or what the manuals contain.