Stage Two! Complete Form Lifeform vs. Divine Machine!

Suzuki First Research Institute.

The fifty-fifth basement level.

The arena surrounded the two trapped beasts, enclosing them at its center.

Xia Lin slowly raised his head and looked at Watanabe Munen.

Yet everything he saw was utterly different from before.

The dim light here had originally affected Xia Lin's vision, but now, when he looked again, he found that every detail of his surroundings stood out clearly!

Whether it was the dust hanging in the air or the energy circuits on Watanabe Munen's body, everything was perfectly clear.

Explosive power surged through his body.

More frightening still, trivial thoughts kept arising in Xia Lin's mind, yet they did not affect his thinking or judgment in the slightest.

My opponent's attributes should be around three hundred points.

But as a mechanical martial artist, he also has a mechanical martial artist's weakness: he isn't agile enough.

Watanabe Munen can't use fighting techniques. His mechanical body's structure doesn't seem to support advanced technical moves.

The differences between humans and machines existed in every respect.

Mechanical bodies were tough and powerful, but they were indeed incapable of executing certain joint-locking techniques and variations.

To put it bluntly, Mechanical Martial Arts relied on overwhelming force. In their eyes, refined techniques were meaningless, nowhere near as useful as installing another weapon module.

And now, in his second stage, Xia Lin's attributes were no lower than Watanabe Munen's.

When the strength of a human body and a mechanical body were roughly equal, which was stronger, man or machine, was open to debate.

Not to mention-

Martial Artists Do Not Die from Gunfire could neutralize at least three of Watanabe Munen's active attack skills, such as his laser eyes.

At that thought, Xia Lin slowly raised his fist, the smile on his lips growing more fierce.

"Now then..."

Before Xia Lin could finish speaking, chaotic-colored light burst from his fingertips.

It was Rapid Nourishment again!

Since Rapid Nourishment worked on Watanabe Munen, Xia Lin had no reason not to keep using it!

But when the second use of Rapid Nourishment struck Watanabe Munen, a thin film of pale blue light blocked it.

Superpower Barrier took effect!

Within the professional system, Rapid Nourishment seemed to be classified as a negative status effect.

But it didn't matter.

The wings behind Watanabe Munen swiveled rapidly as he prepared to countercharge Xia Lin.

But just as the scorching streams of light erupted, they suddenly went out!

For what appeared before Watanabe Munen was Xia Lin, grinning fiercely as he punched with all his might, and a massive missile that had materialized out of thin air!

The missile was five meters long and a full meter in diameter.

It was enormous and impossible to miss.

As Xia Lin drew back his fist, a scorching exhaust flame ignited at the missile's tail.

The flame propelled the missile forward at a less than impressive speed.

But this time, the East Wind Missile no longer attacked the spot where Xia Lin's punch landed...

Instead, it charged toward the target of Xia Lin's strike: Watanabe Munen!

The Complete Form Lifeform buff had increased the power of East Wind Divine Fist.

And what Xia Lin saw was not merely a dramatic increase in East Wind Divine Fist's power. Under the effects of Complete Form Lifeform, this outrageous skill had even gained a basic ability to track and home in on enemies!

Red light began flashing in Watanabe Munen's electronic eye.

His calculations told him he should run.

But inside the life-and-death arena, he had nowhere to run.

He could only watch as the missile flew to within three meters of him.

Then it exploded with a thunderous boom!

This time, the missile was no grenade, no bomb...

It was a miniature nuclear bomb!

Generally speaking, a miniature nuclear bomb had a yield of less than one kiloton of TNT—not weight, but yield.

But Xia Lin's East Wind Divine Fist could not reach the maximum yield of a miniature nuclear bomb. It was probably only around three hundred tons.

Its effective lethal radius was around six hundred meters.

Even so, its power was already terrifying!

The instant the missile exploded, Watanabe Munen felt despair.

In his calculations, a string of "danger" warnings sounded from the combat assistance system, rapidly turning a blood-red scarlet before shifting toward the black that represented death.

A shock wave powerful enough to flatten a person in an instant and thermal radiation capable of incinerating one in a moment erupted from the detonation point and struck Watanabe Munen, setting off a series of blasts from his built-in explosion-protection device!

One East Wind Divine Fist could not punch through Watanabe Munen's defense system.

But missiles were the one thing Xia Lin had in abundance!

With a bang, Xia Lin launched himself forward with his legs, his agile body hurtling low across the ground toward Watanabe Munen.

As he went, Xia Lin's fists left trails of afterimages, and an endless stream of East Wind Missiles materialized out of thin air and flew toward Watanabe Munen.

At that moment, Watanabe Munen shut down his combat assistance system himself.

He too hunched forward, his propulsion system erupting as he shot toward Xia Lin.

He would use his explosion-protection device to withstand East Wind Divine Fist's destructive power, close the distance to Xia Lin, and then kill Xia Lin as quickly as possible.

This was Watanabe Munen's only chance of winning the fight!

The two beasts, both with attributes above three hundred, charged at each other across the small life-and-death arena and collided in the blink of an eye.

With a bang, they separated as soon as they made contact.

Neither retreated. After a brief moment of stiffness, they immediately began a close-quarters fight to the death.

Their fists and feet whipped out, leaving trails of afterimages like a mirage.

Missiles appeared in disarray, some horizontal, some vertical, darting wildly left and right. In the blink of an eye, there were more than ten.

The air itself ignited, and the building trembled.

Dozens of moves passed in a single second.

An Overload Heavy Punch came at him from the right.

Xia Lin clearly caught the howl of the wind.

In his Complete Form Lifeform state, Xia Lin's combat instincts had evolved to their utmost limit.

Although his martial arts cultivation was not high, and he did not even have much fighting experience, the combat instincts in his genes still led Xia Lin to make the perfect decision.

He bent his legs, and Overload Heavy Punch grazed his scalp as it passed—the mechanical martial artist's ability to vary his moves really was poor.

Then Xia Lin snapped out a heavy punch, striking Watanabe Munen in the abdomen.

The punch did not penetrate Watanabe Munen's defense system, but it summoned a missile.

Before Watanabe Munen could twist away from the missile, Xia Lin's right foot shot out and hooked hard like a sickle, knocking Watanabe Munen off balance and sending him crashing to the ground.

Before Watanabe Munen could get up, Xia Lin had already grabbed the East Wind and, grinning fiercely, shoved it hard against Watanabe Munen's head.

With a boom, it exploded.

The intense thermal radiation made Xia Lin feel the heat.

The shock wave also made Xia Lin feel the pressure.

At the very center of the explosion, East Wind Divine Fist's destructive power had surpassed the defensive limit of Martial Artists Do Not Die from Gunfire!

But Xia Lin could readily accept trading injuries to this extent!

The shock wave from the East Wind explosion pinned Watanabe Munen down, leaving him unable to rise.

Before the flames had faded, a second missile had already appeared before Watanabe Munen's eyes!

At that moment, the whole world seemed to tremble.

The missile's shock wave struck the edge of the life-and-death arena and bounced back.

As the reflected waves piled up, all matter in the life-and-death arena, apart from the two monsters Xia Lin and Watanabe Munen, was crushed to powder.

The booms continued without pause.

After only a minute, the life-and-death arena collapsed with a crash. Unable to withstand Xia Lin's Deadly Chain Missile Fist, it had been pushed past its limit and fallen apart prematurely!

Yet even then, Watanabe Munen still had not died!

His built-in defensive device seemed to possess an unlimited supply of energy and still had not failed.

Only the electronic eye on the right side of his face grew dimmer and dimmer.

Until, at a certain moment, it suddenly went dark.