thefictionvixens Page 52
Page 52
The city lights reflected a mesmerizing play of light and shadow on the rain-soaked streets.
Millie immediately contacted Apollo's agent to confirm his location.
"Tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM, Apollo's training facility."
Millie hung up the phone and rubbed her temples. "He specifically mentioned that his good friend Rocky would also be there."
Apollo Creed, former world heavyweight champion, and Rocky Balboa, former heavyweight champion, were friends.
The four found a hotel and rested there without incident.
The next morning, the four arrived at the training facility located in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Pushing open the heavy soundproof door, you are greeted by a mixture of sweat, leather, and disinfectant odors.
The dull thuds of fists hitting sandbags and heavy breathing echoed inside the gym.
Apollo Creed is sparring in the boxing ring with a skinny black sparring partner.
His movements were fluid and graceful, each punch carrying a precise rhythm.
Below the stage, a burly man in a gray hoodie was intently observing, occasionally calling out a few words of guidance—it was former world boxing champion Rocky Balboa.
Hey! You're here!
Apollo noticed the commotion at the door, jumped off the boxing ring, and warmly greeted them.
Sweat slid down his muscular chest, glistening under the light.
Rocky strolled over slowly, curiously examining Viktor—clearly, just as many people said that the slender Rocky couldn't become a boxing champion, he didn't think that someone so obese could participate in boxing.
Their eyes met in mid-air, and a silent contest had begun.
"I heard you have a punching power of a thousand pounds?" Rocky suddenly spoke, his voice as deep as distant thunder. "Want to come up and have a go?"
Victor raised an eyebrow and looked at Apollo: "I charge $400 per sparring session."
Rocky took out five hundred dollars.
Apollo watched with interest, Ethan pocketed the five hundred dollars without the slightest hint of disgust, and Victor's hearty laughter rang out: "Then let's go!"
Viktor took off his black wool coat, and the sound of the heavy lead bag falling to the ground was particularly jarring in the suddenly quiet boxing gym.
371 pounds of pure muscle and fat piled up on his 185-centimeter torso, like a war machine sculpted from granite.
Beneath every inch of his skin surges the most terrifying destructive power in professional boxing—Victor has always carried 25 kilograms of weights on his limbs to train his strength.
"My God, he looks just like a knight in plate armor."
A new sparring partner in the audience muttered under his breath, only to be immediately nudged with his elbow by his teammate: "The flesh under his ribs is more than ten centimeters thick. What's the difference between that and armor?"
Viktor ignored the whispers around him.
When he moved his shoulders, his muscles bulged like two small mountains, and his vertebrae cracked like firecrackers.
His hands, clad in black training gloves—each twice the size of an average person's—touch together lightly twice before he walked straight to the boxing ring, his perfectly sculpted abs barely visible beneath his sweat-soaked vest.
The sounds of training throughout the boxing gym came to an abrupt halt.
The sandbags stopped swinging, the jump rope fell to the ground, and everyone put down what they were doing and gathered around.
A primal and dangerous sense of anticipation filled the air, like the low pressure before a storm.
"Old Jack really gave me a surprise! This is going to be interesting!"
Apollo Creed rubbed his hands together excitedly, his gold teeth gleaming under the fluorescent light: "I bet five hundred dollars that Rocky won't last two rounds."
Rocky laughed heartily: "I can beat him!"
The first round started suddenly and violently.
Victor wasted no time on probing. Like a war machine that had been started, he propelled himself forward with his legs, and then threw a straight punch at Rocky's face like lightning. Victor maintained his usual power generation habits, and the point of force for this straight punch was not visible.
But the whooshing sound of the fist tearing through the air made the audience in the front row lean back involuntarily.
Surprisingly, the punch, powerful enough to shatter a concrete wall, landed squarely, yet only made Rocky Balboa's seemingly ordinary head sway, like a scarecrow being blown by a breeze.
A few drops of sweat and blood flew from the corner of his cracked mouth, tracing tiny arcs under the light—it was outrageous!
"Nice power."
Rocky grinned, revealing his white teeth, his voice sounding like it was squeezed from deep within his chest, "But it's not enough to bring me down."
Viktor's pupils contracted slightly.
This blow, though not at full force, still weighed over 600 pounds, and yet nothing happened to it?
As expected of someone who possesses the invincibility cheat.
He noticed that Rocky's posture was a bit strange—his knees were slightly turned inward, and his center of gravity was unusually low, like an old tree with its roots deeply embedded in the earth.
The next two minutes plunged the entire boxing gym into a collective, breathless silence.
Viktor unleashed a torrent of punches—swings, hooks, and jabs—as he unleashed them.
Each of his blows carries thousands of pounds of force, enough to shatter an ordinary person's skull like an eggshell.
But Rocky is like a century-old oak tree rooted in the ground, which, despite the raging storms, only sways slightly but always stands firm.
"Damn, is this guy's chin made of titanium alloy?"
Michael, sitting in the audience, stared wide-eyed, dropping his notebook to the ground.
Ethan, however, was unsurprised: "If Rocky didn't have this ability, how could he have become a boxing champion? Lange beat him until he was exhausted but still couldn't knock him out!"
As Viktor's fake coach, he had never seen anything like this before—he had always believed that heavy punches could solve everything.
When the bell rang for the second round, Viktor's breathing became erratic for the first time.
It wasn't from exhaustion, but from some emotion he had never experienced before—confusion.
His gaze swept over Rocky's scarred body: sunken ribs, deformed nose, twisted ears—a standard collection of a boxer's 'medals of honor'.
But beneath those old wounds, muscle fibers are arranged in a way that defies common sense, like countless tangled steel cables.
"Are you tired of hitting, big guy?"
Rocky spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, his eyes flashing eerily. "My turn."
The next sixty seconds became the longest moment of Viktor's career.
Rocky's punches weren't as destructive as he was, but each strike landed precisely on the most vulnerable spots: the liver, temples, and diaphragm.
What's even more terrifying is that these attacks seem endless, wave after wave, like ocean tides crashing against rocks.
Viktor felt a series of unfamiliar sharp pains coming from his right ribs—the pain from repeated blows of fists.
Although his punch wasn't heavy, with a force of at most 500 pounds, his defensive stance tightened unconsciously—an instinctive reaction he had never experienced before.
Before the third round began, Victor noticed that Apollo's expression had changed.
The former champion, who always had a carefree smile, now had a furrowed brow, his gaze sweeping back and forth between the two men, his lips moving silently as if calculating some terrifying probability.
"Come on, let's end this game."
Viktor growled, his voice sounding as if it came from underground.
He decided to unleash his killer move—a double punch, which Victor cloned from an unknown Tyson.
The opportunity came at the 47th second of the third round.
A rare footwork error by Rocky ruined his guard position, and Victor landed a hook to Rocky's liver, exposing his chin at a perfect angle.
Viktor's right leg compressed like a spring and then released, his entire body weight and rotational force converging on his fist, drawing a deadly arc from bottom to top.
The sound of bones colliding was so crisp it made your teeth ache.
Rocky was knocked three inches off the ground, and the back of his head almost touched his own back.
A gasp erupted throughout the boxing gym, and several female sparring partners instinctively covered their eyes.
But what happened next will be forever etched in the memories of all the witnesses:
Rocky stood up shortly after landing, steadied himself, shook his head, and then—incredibly—revealed an even more excited smile.
This is terrifying! Viktor is terrified!
"Damn it, what is this thing made of?"
Michael's voice was tinged with fear, and his hands trembled slightly as he bent down to pick up the notebook.
Viktor felt a chill creep up his spine.
For the first time, he began to doubt his own abilities.
Rocky's ability to withstand blows not only surpasses human limits, but it practically mocks the laws of physics and the principles of ergonomics.
Apollo suddenly leaped onto the ring, his powerful arm positioned between the two fighters. "This is going to get serious. This isn't a real match, damn it!"
Sweat pooled on the boxing ring, forming a small lake that reflected the two panting, muscular men.
"Helma! Come quickly and examine Rocky!!!"
Apollo roared, "I'm not paying you $1,100 a month so you can sit around flirting with girls!"
But Rocky wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and extended his calloused hand to Victor—the crisscrossing scars on his palm told countless untold stories.
"It's been a long time since I've had this much fun, buddy."
Rocky's voice was hoarse yet warm, like a bonfire in winter.
When Victor grasped that hand, he felt an astonishing grip—not a defiant squeezing, but a steady and firm transmission of strength.
He noticed some strange scars on Rocky's knuckles, not the abrasions common in boxing, but more like burns.
The two exchanged a smile, and a kind of mutual appreciation that transcended words quietly blossomed amidst the smell of blood and sweat.
Victor suddenly realized that this might be Apollo's real purpose in arranging this 'accidental' duel—not to test Rocky, but to test himself.
"Come again next week?"
Viktor released his grip, his voice carrying an expectation he himself was unaware of.
Rocky blinked his swollen eye, his smile straining against the wound on his face: "Bring all your skills, Mr. Far East Fat Tiger!"
As Viktor turned to leave the ring, he felt something awaken within him—not fear, not doubt, but a feeling he had almost forgotten: excitement.
The real, pure excitement of facing a strong opponent—the excitement of wanting to completely crush them in the ring!