Clean hit. One Punch Man took it across the ribs and bent sideways from the impact, fire licking up his side before he smothered it.
Rose straight back up.
"You're smart," he said quietly.
It wasn't flattery. It was the specific kind of acknowledgment someone gives when they start fighting seriously.
His movement changed. The drifting footwork began — slow, deliberate, impossible to read, shrinking the angles Jelo had been working. One Punch Man wasn't giving him clean lines anymore. Every position Jelo picked, the geometry was slightly worse than before.
Jelo felt it. The compression. His legs were burning from the repeated Wing Bursts, exhaustion stacking quietly beneath the surface. He had a limit and he could feel its outline now.
He made a decision.
Everything. Right now.
