The creatures loosed a shrill howl, gilled jaws flapping in the open air. Though their surface had the features of predatory fish, beneath their scaly hides it was revealed what their dead god had imbued them with a cruel, deadly blessing, as their faces split into a strange toothy masses filled with pink, blooded feelers, and great chitinous limbs erupted from their finned backs. A twisted creature bearing maladapted bone and sinew, as their forms ascended these monsters soon bore forms more akin to a radial array of an echinoderm rather than anything that would emerge to the surface, beset of all the cruelest of natural advantages. Without a blind angle, possess of poison, armour, teeth, claws, they spotted their prey and pounced, lashed, bit, and struck.
The scaled behemoths snapped apart, arthropod joints buckling. Grandmaster Chahan's fist drew to his side for a moment, then lowered, and his knuckles were bathed in white smoke.
突きTsuki.
(The perfect punch)
A single forward step and a twist of a torso carried Ki to the intention, honed to a single purpose as the fist impacted through the core mass of the creature carrying the course of his intention,
一拳必殺 Ikken Hissatsu!
(One strike annihilation.)
Sculpted by ki, one penetratink strike was enough for four of them the kiai pierced through a row of them, scattering the creatures apart in bloody shell fragments. Those caught in the aftershock seized as their forms resolved to white ash that carried apart in the lazy ocean breeze.
All too easy.
Then the oceans frothed and boiled as scores ofhelled beasts broke the waves, creeping chaos washed up from the depths, brandishing fang and feelers, tooth and claws. Soon the entire waterfront was crawling with more of their brothers as they erupted from the shoreline and the beachside was in a panic as the citizenry evacuated. It was high tide now, and the water pooled over his ankles as the sun began to set. Those scaled legions emerged from below by the score, and the shrieking gulls circled above.
"So it's come to this. Once again, I haven't the time. Therefore I won't make any more moves than necessary, for you're already dead."
Standing before an army forgotten by time, a small spark struck a fire within Chahan. Much diminished since that time ten years ago, but unmistakable. Fear and courage stem from the same place, the heart of a coward and the heart of a champion in many respects the same. Hearkening back to the first primal shouts, it is by harnessing this impulse that survivors emerge. Yet a ravenous animal knows nothing of limitation, for they have never been denied anything more than a meal, and fear for no less than their lives. Gurgling howls erupted from the legions of the deep as they moved toward the man that stood before them and the resort town. Chahan leanded back, weight upon one leg as he placed his hands before him.
千羽の 鶴 Senbadzuru no Kamae!
(The Thousand Crane Stance!)
There were none who bore witness to the battle that day, though any who would understand what they saw were even rarer. What was known was that despite the forecast, a great wind tore through the clouds and exposed the summer sun and at the same instant the power went out. Those few who went outside out of boredom regretted it, for the smell of brine and foul sunbaked rot would filled the air for days as seagulls descended like vultures on the remains and the corpses that washed back into the sea could be sensed for miles round as the fish swept back near the coast to eat, amid a single set of footprints marked upon the sands.