How do 'no action' powers interact with the events that trigger them?

Question

I'm not sure how to generalize this question, so I'll give the specific example my player is concerned with. Hope it's not too chatty.

A monk, adjacent to a single enemy, lands an attack such as Crane's Wings [Attack Technique] on that enemy. Its hit line reads:

Hit: 1d10 + Dexterity modifier damage, and you push the target 1 square.

The monk wishes to maximize his damage by using Centered Flurry of Blows against that same enemy.

Centered Flurry of Blows No Action Melee 1

Trigger: You hit with an attack during your turn

Effect: The target takes damage equal to 2 + your Wisdom modifier, and you slide it 1 square to a square adjacent to you, or 1 square in any direction if the target wasn’t targeted by the triggering attack.

Can the monk use the successful Crane's Wings hit to trigger Centered Flurry (no action, "Trigger: You hit with an attack during your turn"), and target the enemy hit by Crane's Wings?

The monk's player argues that, as a "no action" power, Flurry can trigger off the successful attack before the attack's effect (hit line) is applied.

The counterargument is that the attack's hit line effects are applied before the Flurry has a chance to trigger off the hit, so the target is pushed out of range and the Flurry cannot be triggered without a target in range.

We agree that if it were a free action or immediate reaction the answer would be clearly "no" because Flurry has a range of "Melee 1" and when the hit effect is applied the target gets pushed out of range--but in this case I honestly don't know, and am getting flashbacks to when they change the "interrupt" rules in Magic: the Gathering.

Answer 1

The push prevents the Centered Flurry of Blows

See also: What is the difference between "No Action" and "Free Action"? and Are the effects of a power applied in an "atomic" mode?

Centered Flurry of Blows is "No Action" and, though not explicitly described as an Immediate Action, the DDI Glossary entry for IA's^DDI reads, in part:

If an effect has a trigger but is neither an immediate action nor an opportunity action, assume that it behaves like an immediate reaction, waiting for its trigger to completely resolve.

According to that, the Centered Flurry of Blows could not [normally] meet the requirement of Melee 1 after the 1 square push from the Crane's Wings.

Note that there are exceptions - if the target was a dwarf who resisted the initial push or was stopped by impassible terrain, such as a wall.