"Alright lads! I reckon you've been waiting for this…" Several minutes later, everything was ready. The gravelly voice once again arrived at the center of the ring, stirring up the atmosphere, "This is the first time since the 'Deck Boxing' opened that a contestant outside of a pirate crew has participated, and they are challenging… our one and only… Viking!"

For a time, the crowd was in an uproar.

Most of the pirates clearly supported the Viking—in this kind of "restricted" match, his winning streak was beyond doubt.

However, there were quite a few who had bet on Snow; if only because his odds were very high.

It wasn't that Brother Garlic and the others intentionally wanted to raise his odds, it was just that Snow's slightly thin figure didn't look like he could take a beating…

Although Snow's build was pretty good compared to ordinary people, the kind of person who obviously worked out regularly; but… compared to this group of muscular, burly pirates whose arms were thicker than your legs… he was still a skinny runt.

"Gentlemen, please come to the center." After attracting the attention of the audience, the gravelly voice summoned the two fighters, as if to announce the start of the match.

According to the rules, he still repeated them patiently, then asked, "Understood?"

Snow and the Viking both gave him an affirmative answer immediately.

After receiving the reply, the gravelly voice took a few steps back: "Good! Then… I announce… the match between 'Snow, the most talented man with the most gorgeous moves in the past two thousand years of Otto Divine Fist', and our 'forty-six battles, forty-six wins, supremely skilled, and fearsome defending champion'… the Viking…"

He mixed the introductions and opening remarks together, dragging out the sentence for a long time…

"Now… begin!" The gravelly voice managed to exit the ring right after finishing the sentence every time, as if he had eyes in the back of his head.

"Heh…" Just as the gravelly voice uttered the word "begin," Snow slowly raised his left fist with a smile, and stretched it forward.

This action was considered a "friendly" gesture in the ring.

Of course, it wasn't asking the opponent for mercy… it was just a polite gesture similar to the handshake between captains before a soccer match.

At this time, as the opponent, one should also extend a fist and gently touch it with the other party's outstretched fist… and then enter the "duel state."

The Viking naturally knew this common knowledge, and he was a person with the air of a great general, so he responded without thinking.

Who knew…

Whoosh—

Just as the Viking slowly extended his right hand, preparing to gently touch the opponent's outstretched fist…

Snow suddenly took a step forward, swinging his right arm and delivering a haymaker to the other party's head.

"Holy shit!" The Viking was shocked at the time.

Snow's behavior, to put it figuratively… was like shaking hands with you while taking advantage of your moment of relaxation to slap you with his left hand.

Even the pirates couldn't stand such a low act, and the crowd immediately burst into shouts of "Holy shit!" and "What the fuck!"

But regardless… it didn't violate the rules, so the match continued.

"You little bastard…" At that critical moment, relying on instinct, the Viking ducked and retreated to the side, barely taking the punch on his left shoulder. At the same time, he was already cursing in his heart, "To think you'd play these kinds of tricks in front of me…"

Because that punch came too suddenly, the Viking's defensive movements and strength adjustments weren't in place, which caused his left arm to feel slightly numb after taking the punch.

Fortunately, he was experienced and didn't give Snow a chance to pursue, immediately raising his left arm and throwing two jabs at the opponent.

These two punches weren't to gain any advantage, but to "attack as a defense" and force the opponent back.

"Tch… just as I imagined, watertight…" On the other side, Snow was thinking at this moment, "Using extremely precise movements to minimize the damage from my sneak attack, and quickly taking advantage of his reach… restricting my pursuit and gaining valuable time to adjust… can this kind of 'king-level' opponent really be defeated with 'tricks'…"

Indeed, even now, Snow wasn't very confident about this; but… since Brother Jue had dragged him onto this stage, he had to use all his skills to try to win this match.

In the next second, Snow held both fists up, protecting the sides of his head, and lowered his upper body as much as possible, rushing toward the Viking's chest extremely quickly.

"What's he trying to do now?" The Viking didn't panic, and his stance didn't waver.

Whoosh—thud.

Immediately afterward, Snow's left hook bypassed the Viking's defensive hand and hit the latter's torso from the side.

With the Viking's sturdy muscles, taking a few punches to the torso definitely wouldn't be a big deal…

After being punched, the Viking retreated smoothly, moving clockwise around the opponent with steady steps, and throwing a left straight at Snow.

Bang—

The punch had a lot of force, but Snow had already returned to his defensive stance, firmly guarding his head with the outside of his fists.

After blocking this blow, Snow repeated the same trick, diving forward again.

Whoosh whoosh—

This time, he launched several quick, short uppercut combos at close range, aiming for the Viking's chin.

"I see…" The Viking combined evasion and parrying, still not suffering any substantial damage, "So that's your plan…"

The Viking retreated and circled, but Snow followed closely, always rushing into the opponent's chest in a low defensive stance.

"From the beginning, he gave up the idea of 'trading blows' with me, completely ignoring my movements, and adopting this method of 'continuous close-range pressure'…" The Viking thought to himself, already retreating to the corner of the ring, and being tackled by Snow around the waist.

Thud thud thud—

While hugging his opponent, Snow was also racing against time… taking the opportunity to strike the opponent's right torso fiercely.

"In close combat… using this kind of weak but undefendable swing… constantly attacking my liver…" The Viking sneered inwardly when he saw this, "Hmph… and I was looking forward to it for a while, but… is this the level of my opponent…"

"Hey kid…" At this moment, the Viking suddenly spoke to Snow, "Do you think… that after entering the 'close-quarters combat' state, you can bring the match into your third-rate rhythm?"

Snow didn't respond to his words, just silently continuing to throw punches.

"Indeed, 'Deck Boxing' has no in-ring referee, and after you stick to me like this… no one will come to separate us." The Viking said, "But you seem to have overlooked one thing…"

Speaking to this point, he stretched out his arms and grabbed Snow, hugging him tightly in return.

"What?" Instantly, Snow's arms above the elbows and his torso were encircled by the opponent's thick arms and body, unable to move, "This…"

"Hey! Referee!" Seeing that the situation was not good, Feng Bujue immediately looked at the gravelly voice and shouted, "What's going on? Did this turn into classical wrestling?"

"Bear hugs have always been allowed." But the gravelly voice said calmly, "As the Viking said… our boxing match doesn't have an in-ring referee; so, we have to think of a way to prevent the frequent occurrence of those 'who rush forward and hug the opponent at every turn, attempting to slowly grind the opponent to death with close-quarters attrition tactics'."

"Tch… you should have told us this before the match…" Feng Bujue spat softly, but he didn't go any further to complain, because he knew that it was useless to say these things now.

"Heh…" On the other hand, Snow, who was enduring the Viking's "bear hug", naturally heard the conversation between Brother Jue and the gravelly voice. He immediately showed a wry smile and thought to himself, "I was still careless… no wonder no one used 'close combat tactics' in those two previous boxing matches, the reason why the four fighters were 'moving and striking' from beginning to end was… no one wanted to stick close and engage in this kind of strength-based game with the other party…"

As he pondered, his body was making creaking noises, it seemed that the bones in his arms and the ribs in his torso were almost at their limit.

"Kid… fractures aren't counted as 'disability', if you think that you can grit your teeth and break a few bones, and that will make me be judged to have lost… then you're thinking too much." The Viking had a great advantage in terms of size, "Bear hug" was clearly a particularly energy-consuming activity, but he could still spare the strength to speak during the process, "I advise you to surrender now, you can suffer less…"

"Hehe…" Snow smiled, "Mr. Champion… you seem to have overlooked one thing too…"

As soon as the words fell, an anomaly occurred.

Just when the surrounding audience thought that the Viking was about to win… Snow exerted force and broke open the opponent's hold a little.

"Uh… you…" The Viking was also very surprised, the strength of this little skinny guy in his arms far exceeded his expectations.

"Just now, I was caught off guard because I didn't know I could use this kind of action… I was a little dazed." Snow was also gritting his teeth as he tried to break free from the opponent's embrace, "If we really compete in strength… I'm not at too much of a disadvantage…"

He was right, in terms of "physical fitness", players were definitely not at a disadvantage.

Although Snow, who had been leveling up with the others, was relatively poor in specialization… the character's "physical fitness" was only related to "level".

And the physical fitness of a level forty player had already exceeded the level of ordinary humans… by a lot.

The "restriction gloves" would only "restrict combat power exceeding a certain value", but would not "weaken the wearer's combat power proportionally"; for example, suppose the limit value of the gloves was "below ten", then… a person with fifteen combat power would become ten when wearing them; and a person with ten combat power would also be ten.

There was no doubt that the Viking and Snow's original combat power were above the limit value of the gloves, so, no matter who was higher or lower in original combat power, their strength and speed were almost the same after wearing the gloves.

Their difference… was mainly reflected in height, weight, wingspan, and muscle strength.

But at this current stage of "wrestling", the Viking's advantages were useless…

"Damn it…" After ten seconds of wrestling, the Viking gave up, he knew that in this duel of "grip" and "struggle", the latter would be more energy-saving, and continuing would be detrimental to him.

So, he suddenly released his strength, took two steps back to the side, and took advantage of the situation to attack Snow with two punches.

Snow's reaction was not slow either, as soon as the opponent's hold was released, he knew that there would be a follow-up; he also made evasive movements non-stop… re-posing in a super-low posture, swaying his body from side to side, and once again unleashing the pressing tactics of constant forward rushes.

"Do you really think you can win with this kind of boxing?" The Viking retreated, defended, counter-pressed with punches, and maintained his distance, "If it were a regular match, your tactics would probably be considered successful… those painless punches on the outside of my torso would be used as the basis for judging the end of the round." He paused, his movements not chaotic at all as he spoke, "But in this deck boxing match… do you think… my stamina will be exhausted first by your slow attacks, or will I catch your flaws and knock you out first?"

Snow didn't respond to the Viking's words, he continued the entanglement-style attack that was very uninteresting and prevented both sides from using any high-level skills, according to his original plan and rhythm.

"Hey! That Snow guy! You're too shameless!"

"What most gorgeous moves, I could fight better than you!"

"Fight properly, you bastard, this isn't a children's fight!"

"Viking! Take him down! Go!"

This kind of match content was bound to cause dissatisfaction among the audience, and their reaction had already explained everything.

"He's indeed an admirable opponent…" Standing at the edge of the arena, Honghu also showed a rather solemn expression at this time, "Even if we adopted that kind of tactic, he didn't rush forward at all; even if he was angry in his heart, his control over his body was still so calm…"

"Simply put… he hasn't been drawn into our rhythm." Feng Bujue interjected.

"Yes… if it were someone else, they might have already given up on 'beautiful boxing' and instead adopted the same tactics as us, countering Snow's liver in the entanglement." Honghu replied.

"That's normal…" Feng Bujue said, "The strong should be like this… if he abandons what he is best at and lowers himself to entangle with the weak… the risk of losing will increase instead." He paused for half a second, "Of course, these… are also within my calculations." His gaze shifted to the Viking's face, and then he smiled, "Please fight to the end in a fair and square manner… and lose the match fairly and squarely…"