"Impatient are we?" Thorn smiled as the blade landed on his chest. If someone was watching the battle they would have thought it was over for the bandit leader. They would be shocked at what would transpire afterwards.
The blade that should have pierced the fierce bandit leader had been stopped purely by the hardness of the skin.
Karn was able to see the grin on the bandit leaders face which had blossomed from the deep joy of the situation.
"That all you got? Take this!" Thorn said as he punches out towards Karn.
'This is troublesome.' Karn thought as he used heavenly thief technique to dodge the attack. A huge gust of wind was created from the aftereffect of the punch.
'It seems like he practices a martial technique to strengthen his skin!'
If Karn did not have the necessary strength it would be nigh impossible for Karn to hurt Thorn.
"Lets try this then" Karn said as he tried to use the fire fist technique he had just learned.
Karn's Qi naturally took a qualitative effect converting itself into Yang energy. Karn's old hands became intertwined with flame and skin gradually becoming a pair of fists made out of fire.
'This is surprisingly comforting!' Karn thought.
Due to the increasing yang energy in Karn's body he had become visibly healthier.
Karn punched out using a boxing stance.
Karn was minimally faster than Thorn. Along with 'God's eye' it was seemingly easy to hit Thorn.
The punches that landed on Thorn's skin left a burn mark causing very minimal damage.
'Good! I can damage him.' Karn would have given up the fight if even the fire fist technique which was focused around strength and power was unable to damage him.
Thorn had a surprised look on his face.
'How can this old man also use the fire fist technique??' Thorn knew that Ban was a practitioner of the fire fist technique.
Thorn quickly came up with 3 theories.
1. It was a coincidence, the same martial techniques could be found anywhere.
2. The old man had come from the dragon meteor Sect.
or 3. The most terrifying option that the old man had learned the technique after he killed Ban.
Thorn's mind stayed on the 3rd option for a brief second before discarding it due to how impossible it would be.
A martial art technique was something that had to be studied for years to be completely proficient at it. This was why Ban had not used the myriad mirrors technique or Dean used the fire fist technique.
A martial warrior utilizing two martial art techniques could be considered a uncommon find in the murim due to the amount of energy and time it would take. Most warriors rather train day and night in hope of reaching the legendary peak rank and creating their own sect.
Additionally most people were attracted to the sense of power not necessarily the strength from martial arts. A fight would welcome the possibility of death and most people did not want to try their shot at death.
Most people would rather become peak rank and then be the founder of a sect or clan to hold power over others.
Thorn was a good example of this. He created the small bandit group to help supplement his lifestyle and feel powerful.
Thorn looked at Karn warily, he was quite confident in his 'Stone Skin' martial technique but now somebody had finally damaged him in 5 years.
Karn moved around Thorn using full speed utilizing his heavenly thief technique to fight.
The battle continued slowly but surely, Thorn had not been able to get a single hit in. Karn was very wary of Thorn's physical ability, if he got hit once he would surely be dealt a massive blow.
Using 'God's Eye' to keep track of every movement thorn made it made it impossible for Thorn to fight back. It almost seemed like a one sided beating but to an expert the situation for Karn was a bit more perilous.
Karn still had a stamina issue, on the other hand Thorn could be seen with blood coming out of a few places but he was not out of breath at all. The stone skin martial technique made his defense as high as a tank.
If this situation played out until the end Karn could win but Thorn was not going to let it end just like that.
"I don't care if you are from the dragon meteor sect. Since you decided to fight me, die!" said Thorn as he punched the ground causing the ground to crack and causing parts of it to shoot up.
A thick block of stone came between Karn and Thorn. Before Karn realized what had happened Thorn quickly punched the rock as hard as he could causing massive fragments to shoot out towards Karn.
Karn dodged the stones with his top-tier speed. Thorn took this opportunity to kill Karn as he was busy dodging the rock fragments.
Karn saw this and quickly used the heavenly thief technique to make illusions of himself in multiple places that were busy dodging the stone fragments.
2 figures appeared alongside where Karn originally stood dodging the rocks just like the original. All of them looked exactly like Karn.
Thorn was dumbfounded he had to choose to attack one of the three old men in front of him to win the fight.
If he was wrong in the gamble he would most likely lose the fight or even lose his life.
Instead Thorn decided it would be better to not do anything and instead wait for the illusions to run out.
'He must have used massive amounts of stamina to make clones of himself.' Thorn thought.
He waited for two of the illusions to fade. What caught Thorn off guard though was that all three faded at the same time. At the same time he felt a surge of heat behind him.
'I've been had!' Thorn thought with shock evident in his expression before he took the brunt of the attack from behind.
Surprisingly the attack from behind had caused way more damage than before.