Marcus saw the twitch in Victor’s left shoulder. He saw the left jab extending. He parried it with a flick of his right wrist, barely moving his arm.

Then came the right hand. Marcus watched Victor drop his left hand all the way down to his waist to generate maximum torque. He watched the violent shift in Victor's hips. He recognized the fatal anatomical flaw he had analyzed for months while leaning on his mop bucket.

As the massive, bone-crushing overhand right hurtled toward his face, carrying enough kinetic energy to shatter a cinder block, Marcus did the unthinkable. He didn't retreat. He didn't flinch.

He stepped aggressively forward, straight into the danger zone.

He slipped his head precisely two inches to the outside of the incoming fist. The massive leather glove whizzed past Marcus’s ear so closely that the wind from the punch ruffled his silver hair.

In that infinitesimally small split second, Victor was entirely, hopelessly exposed. His momentum was carrying him forward, his left hand was at his waist, and his chin was hanging high in the air, completely undefended and moving directly toward Marcus.

Marcus planted his heavy steel-toed back foot into the canvas. The power didn't come from his arm; it originated from the floor. It traveled up his calf, transferred violently through the rotation of his hips, channeled into his right shoulder, and snapped through his arm like a whip.

It wasn't a wild, looping haymaker. It was a perfectly compact, mathematically flawless short right hook, honed by thousands of hours of forgotten sweat, driven by the raw, undeniable physics of leverage and timing.

CRACK.

The sound of the impact echoed through the cavernous, silent gym. It didn't sound like a punch; it sounded like a baseball bat striking wet concrete.

Marcus’s sixteen-ounce glove connected dead center, directly on the button of Victor’s jaw. The young fighter’s brain violently rattled against his skull, short-circuiting his nervous system instantly. Victor's eyes rolled back into his head before he even registered the pain, before gravity even took hold of him.

His muscular legs turned to absolute jelly. The connection was so perfect, so devastating, that Victor didn't stumble or stagger. He collapsed straight forward like a demolished building, hitting the canvas face-first with a sickening, heavy thud.