Life-and-Death Arena! Watanabe Munen!

The years had left no trace on Watanabe Munen's face.

Half his face still looked the way it had when he was twenty.

Yes, half his face.

Because Watanabe Munen had only half a face.

The right side had undergone mechanical modification. Cold, hard steel served as bone, flesh, and skin, while his crimson right eye was a creation of the most advanced technology.

Below that, he was nothing but an alloy machine.

He wore no clothes because he had no need for them.

From the head down, his entire body had become a silvery-white mechanical construct.

Energy circuits far finer and more complex than Steel Gale's covered his body, flashing with cold yet elegant pale-blue arcs.

"Three of you?"

Watanabe Munen spoke softly, his voice as gentle as a boy's.

Yet his one remaining human eye showed not the slightest trace of humanity.

Perhaps what flowed through his brain was no longer emotion or feeling of any kind-joy, fear, fighting spirit, hot blood, and all the rest—but cold data.

A hum sounded.

The energy core where his heart should have been began supplying power.

The energy circuits burst into brilliant blue light.

This was the sign that Divine Machine Watanabe Munen was about to strike!

At that moment!

Luo Qi and Augustine quickly retreated, all the way back to the elevator behind them!

"Roar!!"

A deep sound erupted from Iron Dragon Augustine's mouth.

He bent down and slammed both fists into the ground, making the earth tremble.

A ring-shaped iron wall rose from the ground, enclosing Xia Lin and Watanabe Munen in the center.

Such a miraculous sight was undoubtedly the effect of a skill.

[Life-and-Death Arena (Grade A): Active skill. Costs 10 spirit points. Select multiple targets belonging to opposing factions. Upon activation, creates a ring-shaped area that is extremely difficult to destroy. The arena automatically collapses when only one survivor remains inside, or after ten minutes. This skill has a cooldown of ten days.]

Neither Augustine nor Luo Qi had told Xia Lin about this skill beforehand.

But judging from the skill's description, it couldn't be said that they had played Xia Lin for a fool.

Ten minutes—that was what they had agreed on beforehand.

The Life-and-Death Arena merely forced Xia Lin to carry out that task...

Xia Lin's mouth twitched, and he gave a soft snort, paying it little mind.

After all, he had no intention of stirring up trouble during this operation.

Xia Lin was actually a clever man.

Though wicked, arrogant, and dismissive of rules, he wasn't without brains.

Thus, Xia Lin knew how to weigh the pros and cons, and he knew even better that farming attributes through Backstab depended on the occasion.

And this time, Xia Lin had no need to backstab Aoluosi.

First, Aoluosi was fairly straightforward in his dealings. Although he had thrown Xia Lin into the most dangerous place to hold off the most dangerous enemy and had even imposed a Life-and-Death Arena on him, Xia Lin had anticipated all of this. Aoluosi hadn't said it outright, but he had conveyed his intentions indirectly.

Second, Xia Lin did indeed have a grudge against Suzuki.

No matter how useless Suzuki Wan was or how little Suzuki Shinto valued her, she was still the eldest daughter of the Suzuki family. Xia Lin had killed Suzuki Wan, and the Suzuki Consortium would never let him off if it got the chance.

This was a blood feud.

Third, the side quest explicitly required Xia Lin to destroy the Suzuki Consortium.

The penalty for failure was having all his attributes halved, which ruled out any possibility of Xia Lin backstabbing Aoluosi.

Finally, even without backstabbing Aoluosi Pharmaceuticals, Xia Lin could still receive Backstab rewards from the destruction of the Suzuki Consortium itself-bringing down the Suzuki Consortium would undoubtedly disrupt the order of Fierce Martial City and backstab the city, which would surely reward Xia Lin with attributes.

This had already been verified.

Taking all four points together,

this time, the rebellious bone at the back of Xia Lin's head really hadn't grown...

Thus, a fight to the death became inevitable!

A surging arc of light swept across at light speed.

It was a laser fired from Watanabe Munen's right eye!

The beam cut into the edge of the Life-and-Death Arena, leaving a scratch of moderate depth. It swept across Xia Lin's body as if to cut him in half at the waist, and only after it had passed did Xia Lin sense it.

He looked down at his lower abdomen.

A faint scorch mark appeared out of nowhere.

"Heh..."

Xia Lin smiled.

Martial Artists Do Not Die from Gunfire had two layers of judgment.

The first judged the power of firearms and items. If it fell below a certain threshold, Xia Lin was completely immune and suffered no damage whatsoever.

But once the power of a firearm exceeded the limit, it would trigger the second layer of judgment for Martial Artists Do Not Die from Gunfire!

Under this judgment, Martial Artists Do Not Die from Gunfire would greatly reduce the lethality of firearms-by Xia Lin's estimate, the reduction was over 99 percent!

When he had faced the Radiant Knight before, its laser had already been able to break through Xia Lin's defense.

But at the time, Xia Lin's strength, agility, and constitution had been 61 each, whereas now they were 131 each!

More than double!

Watanabe Munen's laser was certainly stronger than the Radiant Knight's, but when that stronger laser struck the stronger Xia Lin, it caused no more damage than before.

That made perfect sense.

"No use?"

Watanabe Munen spoke softly, neither surprised nor pleased.

Two silvery-white wings suddenly spread from his back.

The wings adjusted their angle, and ten streams of light erupted in an instant, propelling Watanabe Munen toward Xia Lin at supersonic speed.

"Then, let's try this."

Long before that, Xia Lin had already thrown a heavy punch with a savage grin. The East Wind Missile exploded with a roar, blocking Watanabe Munen's path with flames and fragments.

But Watanabe Munen had an explosion-proof device inside him. He treated Xia Lin's East Wind Divine Fist as though it were nothing and rushed right into Xia Lin's chest in an instant.

A tremendous crash.

And excruciating pain!

Watanabe Munen sent Xia Lin flying to the edge of the arena, where he slammed hard into the wall.

His internal organs churned.

His head swam slightly.

The damage from that collision hadn't been caused by a technological weapon.

It was the result of a union between man and machine!

Watanabe Munen was a professional.

As a professional, even if his modifications had left him with only half a brain, the Ash Zone System still classified him as human.

And Martial Artists Do Not Die from Gunfire couldn't negate a collision initiated by a human, even with the aid of technological propulsion.

-For example, if someone drove a car into Xia Lin, Martial Artists Do Not Die from Gunfire could block it.

Because the main agent was the car, a technological "weapon."

But if someone wearing a rocket booster punched Xia Lin, Martial Artists Do Not Die from Gunfire couldn't block it.

Because the main agent was human.

The criteria for judging Mechanical Martial Arts lay between human and technology. From the looks of it, they seemed to lean more toward human.

A piercing sonic boom suddenly erupted beside Xia Lin's left ear.

Xia Lin instinctively raised his arm to block. A crack followed, and searing pain shot through his arm bone.

A heavy punch from Watanabe Munen had broken Xia Lin's left arm!

There was no telling just how strong this lump of iron called Watanabe Munen was.

But in terms of attributes alone, he seemed far stronger than Xia Lin!

A more intense blue light suddenly appeared at the corner of Xia Lin's eye.

He watched as Watanabe Munen's right fist was covered in blue light and hurtled toward his head at an even greater speed.

[Overload Heavy Punch (Grade B skill): Active skill. Mechanical Fighter class skill. Costs 2 spirit points to deliver a blow with three times the user's normal punching force.]

The third-generation Fierce Martial King, Divine Machine, Watanabe Munen.

A level-eight professional!

Class: Mechanical Fighter.