Lethal Combo (Weapon-Based Martial Arts Adventure)

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Quang is a slacker that doesn't have much going for him except for his skills in Chinese kickboxing and his proficiency with a pair of nunchucks.

Selene is broke but still manages to overestimate herself. The fact that she's knows Hapkido and how to handle a set of tonfas doesn't help either.

Together, they're going to get into a lot of trouble.

Just like everyone else in the sweltering West Coast city of Isla Lucrecia, Quang Nghiem is struggling to get by. His family’s business can’t make ends meet, his childhood friend has vanished without a trace and the self-imposed local “Union” threatens to tear down the family restaurant if they can’t pay their dues. Fortunately for him, part-time lifeguard and fellow out-of-practice martial artist Selene Olwagen has nothing better to do and is more than willing to help Quang track down his missing friend. However, there’s more lurking in the shadows of Isla Lucrecia than typical street gangs and criminals.

Almost every chapter will have illustrations to accompany it. Heavily inspired by fighting games and classic martial arts films. Expect that kind of tone of going in.

Updates twice a week, (mostly) on Wednesday and Saturday.

Illustrations and covers were done by Ati:www.instagram.com/serious_ati/

Check out more art of Lethal Combo and my other projects here:www.instagram.com/fgc_checkmate/

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2021
Author: S.N. Keirstead

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 51
Views: 53,160

Chapters(66 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

Rookie12Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This review is based on the first eighteen chapters.
On the night when Selene decided to have a night snack, she probably couldn't believe that a simple meeting in a restaurant would lead to her getting assaulted by thugs, finding a new friend, and going on a whole new adventure. But sometimes fate has its own designs...
The story follows two MCs. Quang is a reasonable and a bit overly relaxed student of martial arts who tries to resolve situations peacefully. And Selene, a more brazen and active student of martial arts who always follows her heart and tries to do right by others. After hearing that Quang was looking for his missing friend, Selene decided to help him, and the story fully started rolling.
The worldbuilding is excellent. We are being introduced to a city that is currently going through hard times, where even the bad guys understand that it is hard to get money, so they demand other things from their prey. The setting never feels bleak or hopeless, you get the feeling that this current situation is just a temporary problem and that things will get better in the future. With a colorful cast of lovable characters, the reader (or at least I) starts to root for the main group.
The style is fantastic, the description provides more than enough information about the surroundings, the magnificent art allows for better visualization of the events and characters, and the steady pace allows for a relaxing night's reading.
I am not a native English speaker, so I can hardly speak for grammar, but personally, I found no mistakes in the story so far.
The characters and their actions are the meat of the story. While slice-of-life moments are very well written, it is the action that makes this story. It is easy to follow, the heroes never get any easy wins and even lose sometimes. But they never come across as weak or untalented, rather, the odds are stacked against them, and the MCs refuse to surrender, keeping training and getting better bit by bit.
The main characte
SR FauthRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Let me preface this review by saying that I read through Act 1, and am just starting act 2.
With that out of the way ... let us begin.
STYLE SCORE: 5/5 The style. The style or writing is usually judged by me in how it offsets the tone of the store. The context in which the writing tells the story and builds up the setting and characters. Usually this is done over a period of time using exposition and some steep paragraphs. The Author here bypasses that with beautiful, well timed pieces of art embeded directly into the story itself. The style of those illustrations says a thousand words, adding spice and meaning while visually demonstrating and describing the world the MC's are in. It is beauitful, in a nostalgic and Noir type of way.
STORY SCORE: 4.5/5 At first, I thought this was going to be another martial arts isekai. Then I got a single paragraph in. Yeah, thats all it took. No set up, no legnth description, just pure writing that wasnt quite what I have ready on RR to date. The fact that the story is performed by from a reading and a visual arts standpoint builds context and sucks you right into the story. It couldnt have been set up better. My only complaint is that the art is somewhat spread out. There are a few scenes in which I would love to have more, and that would give me more immersion to ... well ... immerse myself in.
GRAMMAR SCORE: 5/5 A few run on sentences, a small capitalization error here and there. Absolutely nothing that ruins the story or emotional investment for me. Flawless Victory.
CHARACTER SCORE: 5/5 I debated for a while on this. And finally came to the conclusion it needed full marks, just because I havent read past ACT I yet. The characters are well developed, have purpose, a goal, and seem to interact well with their surroundings. They are believable, in a 50's Mafia environment Sin City kind of way. The emotional factor is a bit flat. But thats more of a personal gripe that anything I can point towards that affects the story. It doe
TEZofAllTradesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Style - Very well-written. Successful use of 3rd person perspective. Varied vocabulary. Clean formatting. Descriptive. The action scenes flow well. Artwork is high quality and a welcome addition that fits nicely with the story's genre. The way that dislogue tags are missing at times mid-paragrpah is unusual (and different from the author's more recent work). I'm honestly not sure if it's technically incorrect, but I found it distracting at times.
Story - Author's passion for martial arts shines through. The story, characters and art put me in mind of the old Jackie Chan cartoon, which I loved as a kid :D The initial plot isn't a brand-new concept e.g. protection racket preying on struggling business, but I feel like that is purposeful as it's a trope seen in classic movies with a similar feel. However, the author twists the idea by adding Selene and by having Quang lose the fight due to being out of practice. The story progresses well from there. My only qualm is that chapters do not feel distinct or end definitively. This may be due to word count concerns, but with the first chapter/part in particular, it's important to end in a way that compels the reader to continue. Since the fight scene is fairly long and it's not practical to end with the beginning of the fight, my advice would be to add a sentence or two that foreshadows what's going to happen e.g:
"Quang backed away from his mother but not before giving her a sly nod to assure that he had the situation under control. He was a patient man. He could serve Hudson and his gang without losing his cool. That was, unless they crossed a line, in which case, he had just the thing for them—and it wasn't on the menu..."
SPaG - High level spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Character - In the first few chapters, we learn a little about Selene's character e.g. her morals, but Quang's personality and motivations are the focus for a while. Perhaps, some more internal monologue would be beneficial before Selene enters the r
TheEternalScholarRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall this is a solid story, especially in the young adult genre. It also has great illustrations which is a positive.
Style: The style is written in a narration style with dialogue to break up text and allowing characters to show some personality. There aren't any big blocks of text and the chapters are in easy to digest sizes for quick consumption which is a positive.
Grammar: I see no obvious issues with the grammar, there may be slight typo's as is the case in all novels not run through an editor. However, nothing that forced me to take notice, so I will give full marks.
Story: The story is good and works great for what the author is going for, a kind of school rumble buddy cop fiction. As such the story carries out in a similar fashion to a 90's buddy cop movie, nothing wrong with that but for me personally its a bit tame. Not enough gritty reality, but if you're looking for something more shounen-esque, this will be perfect for you.
Character: The characters are believable, the way they react and talk they feel like real people. There are some points where they do things that the plot might demand but that a normal person in this time period of their age is unlikely to do. They make from my view childish errors or let their emotions get the better of them, but that's more of my personal bias. Altogether they are good characters, but I personally can't really give a perfect score.
Altogether this is a good fiction, give it a read if for nothing more than the great illustration's, but give the story a shot if you like this genre of fiction. You won't be disappointed.
The God Of BoredomRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Like, literally, the pictures probably take up as much space as a thousand words.
Ignore the above sentence.
That being said, this is basically just half comic, half novel.
The author does a good job describing the action scenes as well as pairing th description with some illustrations; This book is the first of its kind (I think) on Royal Road.
Overall, I'm enjoying it so far, and I hope it doesn't get dropped!
KinografyRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I wish to ramble but I don't want this review to be overly long for readers interested in this story. I highly recommend this story to anyone who loves fight scenes and varied fighting styles, but to others wanting a very plot focused story you might not find it here. That's the TLDR
Style
Probably my favorite among the stories I've read. It's written in third person and shifts between light prose and dialogue heavy scenes but not heavy that it drags on. The writing is to the point and doesn't try to fancy up It's paragraphs an in attempt to fill word count. But this is where I have concerns regarding each chapter's length in comparison to It's scenes and plot. The pacing of the story is great but the chapters are too short and knowing the author I feel this was advice given to him(or her) to keep the reader's attention. Scenes often are cut at the chapter's end making it feel more like an old episode of dbz instead of letting the scene play out to a good spot to conclude. I had 24 chapters to eat up as of this review but to others who started reading at let's say chapter 5, it's simply not enough to fully chew on. 2000 words is simply a recommendation, the bare minimum a chapter should have, it doesn't mean that's the goal. However in the fight scene starting from Part 2: Chapter 4 to around Part 2: Chapter 9 I believe, it's understandable to break up the action to build suspense and to let the reader rest a bit. The author should definitely look into ending chapters in a more satisfying way, but it's not something that completely brings down the story.
Grammar
Putting this here next to say that it's very well editing and has little to no mistakes. I found like one and that was because I noticed it by an accident. The author puts a lot of care and consideration in their word choice, grammar, and character dialogue.
Story
The story is a typical hero's journey kind of deal where our protagonist named Quang gets dragged (well not completely) into searching for a missi
LooxEyewalkerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This is a super fun novel that I'd recommend for any martial arts fan! The author writes amazing, believable, and grammaticaly flawless descriptions and dialogue, especially during the major action scenes; quite vital for a martial arts-themed story! And of course, what more needs to be said about the amazing pictures each chapter? With their already-descriptive writing, the author didn't have to go that far, but they did, and it works amazingly! Gives us an even better look at the story and characters, especially for things that are best work in image format! Again, I absolutely recommend this to any fans of martial arts-themed works!
MachineCapybaraRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It feels really refreshing, and I find the combination of different mediums to be working great.
Style:
I like the style. I'd probably change a sentence or two, but it'd be just a personal preference at this point. And with the illustrations, it should actually earn a bonus point, so it should be more of a 6 out of 5 situation.
(Edit: though the specific fights description go over my head most of the time)
Grammar:
I found no issues. Granted, I was engaged enough not too focus on looking for them, still... 5/5
Character:
So, at least at the start, the characters seem very emotional and not too logical. However, they are very believable in their ways, and they show a lot of promise. I could imagine them as real people, not just cardboard cutouts - which at this point is great.
Story:
The one thing I loved a bit less than the others so far is the story. The plot seem to be influencing the events in a bit visible way, subtly but noticeably getting the characters in and out of trouble. It is engaging though, I'll definitely go and read more.
Edit: So, it gets better pretty soon.
(review edited at part 2 chapter 6)
BullerRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Some people know how to draw. Some people know how to write. And those two bubbles are people that can do both.
This story brings in the greatest part from both sides, giving mental images through actual images while also showing off a pretty decent style. There are a few parts that would cause questions, yet the images just bring it all together in a great way.
And, sure, the art might not be the best, but it's more than enough for what we need. For that, this gets a 5/5
MusicarnaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The story is still currently in its infancy, but it shows promise. It is certainly not a slow burn by any means, as the main characters are headstrong and have "gotta go do it now" kind of personalities.
With vivid descriptions of the world, entertaining banter and a rapid pace of plot, it is certainly reminiscent of a comic book/action heavy light novel, which is further helped by the amazing art shown once in a while.
Style:
This story is told in a third person omniscient perspective. However, the jump between Quang and Selene can be slightly jarring on occasion, but it doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment of the story. It tries its best to cover both of their thoughts.
However, the vibrant description of the story's scenes serve to make up for this more than anything else. I would say besides the excellent protagonists, this is the second strongest point of the story.
Without beating around the bush with prose, the author's descriptions paint the scene in one's mind with is, immersing the reader into the Isla Lucrecia's streets, placing us firmly in the shoes of the protagonists.
Combined with excellent combat choreography so far with weight to every action, and smooth dialogue, this story excels in this front.
Story:
Unfortunately, this is where it peters off a tiny bit.
Isla Lucrecia is a vibrant city, that seems to be falling apart at the seams with gang activities being conducted openly, and a seeming economic recession resulting in the city falling on hard times.
But there are still some contradictions that stick out. Quang's restaurant is struggling to make payments to the "insurance", but can afford to replace tables and supplies to cook everytime they get extorted. Yet, business is supposedly down since the city is in trouble, so why not just pay directly instead of buying more food to feed them?
Similarly, Selene is called in for a night shift when nobody is around. It seems slightly impractical and an unnecessary expense on the company's part, whe