Where's the promised Third Honkai?!!

Another forty minutes or so passed, and Fu Li, finally fully prepared, stood at the shrine entrance.

He gripped the baseball bat tight and silently activated the Demonic Blade · Unknown Fire.

Heat-haze-like Honkai Energy surged from within his frail frame, a liquid-gas hybrid of glazed-colored flames, dyeing the silent night in a dreamlike, resplendent hue.

With him at the center, the surrounding temperature began to spike sharply.

But soon, this illusory flame retracted back into Fu Li's body, leaving only a thin film on his skin.

This was his first time activating the Demonic Blade · Unknown Fire, and the life force being frantically drained from within told him why its rating was only C, despite being able to boost the user's physical abilities to A-rank.

Finish this quickly.

He thought so, issuing the command.

The Shadow Blade descended from the sky with a piercing sound, striking the Sessho-seki at the courtyard's center, spiderweb cracks spreading across its surface.

'Crack!'

'Crash!'

Heaven! Earth! Roar! Quake!

Herrscher! Descends!

"ROOOOOOOOAR!!!!!"

A canine giant clad in red-and-white coating burst from its cocoon, howling at the sky, its massive nostrils spewing scorching breath tinged with sulfur. The corded ropes wrapped around it unfurled alongside its four fox tails, fanning the air and lashing the atmosphere into ear-splitting thunderclaps.

The demon fox leaped from the pit, landing on the vast earth after five hundred years. Its four paws, wreathed in flames, suddenly expanded, scorching the soil beneath to black char.

That was the least of it—the shrine ruins, the true target, were now nowhere to be seen.

After all this, the monster amid the sea of flames lowered its head, its crimson eyes the size of carriage wheels focusing on the tiny figure who had freed it. Its mouth curled in a human-like smirk.

Ling didn't know why this person had freed her, nor did she care.

Die.

She raised a forelimb and slammed it down toward Fu Li's position.

The scorched, softened earth instantly cratered, dust kicked up and ignited by the high heat around the massive claw, forming a rapidly spreading burst of sparks.

Blame your bad luck.

Ling sneered, retracting her paw.

Five hundred years of will struggle had long exhausted Yae Sakura, sealed alongside her, leaving her dormant most of the time.

If luck had it that the miko was awake, Ling might have held back under her interference.

But now? Blame your bad luck—

Hm?

The dust burned away by sparks, revealing nothing beneath the rubble.

A long blade, long poised, struck from the side!

A cold weapon forged by man, held in hand, yet its flight roared like a supersonic fighter at full speed!

Air shockwaves wrapped around it, shattered Sessho-seki fragments, scorched earth, and sparks from residual particles in the air all swept up by the shockwave, spinning around it at high speed!

A hurricane seemed to whip through the courtyard the size of a basketball court, their figures crossing like a samurai play!

"Ugh!"

The hurricane left a wound on the demon fox's belly.

A torrent of blood spilled from the wound, instantly dousing a large patch of flames.

Chapter 22: "Ling's Blunders Keep Coming"

A hurricane seemed to whip through the Yae Shrine courtyard, Fu Li and Ling's figures crossing like a samurai play!

"Ugh!"

The hurricane left a wound on the demon fox's belly.

A torrent of blood spilled from the wound, instantly dousing a large patch of flames.

"Treading on flames at thousands of degrees Celsius, blood resistant to fire—not unexpected," Fu Li said, withdrawing his gaze from the wound and performing a Blood-shaking on the gleaming long blade in his hand.

Achieving that effect came from using Mikazuki Munechika, charged for a full day and night.

The results were outstanding, and with the inherent Five Blades Under Heaven, it easily broke the demon fox's defense.

Whose fault was her carelessness?

This wasn't over.

"Go!"

Fu Li's mind stirred, and the seven Shadow Blades circling him shot forth with a roar.

Shadow Blade was an incredibly free and imaginative skill, and before his rebirth, Fu Li had developed countless techniques for wielding it.

For instance, accelerating it to the extreme to strike enemies with the speed of a tempest—Flying Sky;

maneuvering several blades to spin rapidly around him, offering both offense and defense—Yu Kong;

controlling them to opportunely strike enemy weak points, dealing massive Weakness Break damage—Tingyun;

and the technique he was using now, detonating the Shadow Blades themselves upon impact to unleash a torrent of damage in a short burst—Bai Heng.

The great military strategist Sun Tzu of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods once said: "All warfare is based on deception."

Translated, that means any soldier stepping onto the battlefield should be prepared to be blown to smithereens.

Unfortunately, the fifty-thousand-year-old Granny Ling had never read this classic.

Fu Li's control over the Shadow Blades had reached a near-miraculous level. Even though she reacted and tried to intercept, four blades still pierced her defenses and exploded at the wounds she had just sustained.

This time, it wasn't just blood that flowed.

"ROOOOAR!!!"

Faced with such a vicious tactic of kicking her while she was down, Ling, with rage surging from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head, no longer considered communication (not that she had ever intended to).

Confronted by this barrage of bullets as dense and absurd as a Touhou Project six-stage boss's spell card, a smile instead began to spread across the corner of Fu Li's mouth, hidden beneath his collar.

Because the enraged Ling failed to notice that the silver ring, somehow placed atop her head, was now emitting a faint glow.

The back-moon howling fox freely unfurled its four massive tails, the Flame Burst at their tips indiscriminately shooting out in all directions.

Heavenly fire fell like a sudden storm; wails rose like a fierce gale.

Half the mountain peak was instantly dyed crimson by her scorching heat and flames, like a peerless painting cast into a furnace.

And as if deliberately set to contrast, Fu Li's movements as he swung his long blade to cleave through Flame Bursts, shatter defenses, and sever barriers were equally exaggerated. His posture twisted and wild, as though he were dancing an exotic dance on the battlefield.

This savage combat style came from the Anti-Beast Combat Tactics in the Schicksal Valkyrie training manual. Fu Li had copied it after witnessing someone else perform it once; learning it incompletely meant it had no grade, but it worked well enough against large, animal-type Honkai Beasts.

Including the Anti-Titan Gymnastics for dealing with Reverse-Entropy creations, he had many such little tricks accumulated from his Honkai career in the previous cycle.

And it was precisely because of this frantic and flamboyant fighting style, combined with the relentless bombardment of the Shadow Blades, that Ling, busy with her 'painting,' failed to notice that everything Fu Li had done was merely to divert her attention.

The true killing move had long since been placed atop her head, in her visual blind spot.

[Name: Incomplete Moon Ring] [Grade: C-rank] [Category: Item] [Effect: A Honkai Energy suppression device modeled after the Selene's principles. When worn, it effectively reduces Honkai Energy activity within the body.] [Note: It's all fake! It's all fake! —Theresa Apocalypse]

Who knew whether Fu Li was lucky or unlucky? In his only ten-pull, a majority of the items were equipment, and quite a few of them actually worked.

Before coming to Yae Village, he had tried wearing the Moon Ring, and the circulation of Honkai Energy within his body immediately dropped by over eighty percent.

The remainder was sluggish and stagnant, nearly reducing him to an ordinary life.

Of course, temporarily.

After removing the Moon Ring, the blocked energy resumed flowing.

From that moment on, Fu Li had been drafting a plan to "fasten the Moon Ring onto the fox."

His plan consisted of three steps:

First, inconspicuously place the Moon Ring in a blind spot on the enemy's body.

Second, divert the enemy's attention, making them confuse the ring's suppression effect with the Honkai Energy consumption from combat.

Third, once the enemy's internal energy was mostly depleted, use the final trump card—a nuclear explosion—for a swift harvest.

Sounds pretty crude, doesn't it?

That was exactly the effect Fu Li wanted.

Plans in many movies and novels are incredibly complex, spanning years or decades, where any single misstep ruins everything.

Why design them that way?

Because it highlights the villain's prestige.

But in reality, the simpler a plan, the better.

A plan is nothing more than a means to achieve a goal.

In the process of achieving that goal, the more cumbersome the means, the easier they are to disrupt.

Every step in a plan must not fail—that itself is the plan's greatest flaw.

Conversely, the simpler the plan, the higher its fault tolerance when problems arise, making it more likely to succeed.

In the simple three-step plan above, Fu Li was fully confident in completing the first step.

The charged draw of Mikazuki Munechika—just the damage from this single move was enough to force the enemy to brace themselves, thereby overlooking the Moon Ring quietly placed in the blind spot atop their head.

What was truly difficult was the second step.

The Demonic Blade · Unknown Fire only enhanced physical constitution. Everything else—defense, energy reserves, all of it—Fu Li remained at C-rank. This meant that if Ling's attack landed on him even once, when the funeral feast came, Prometheus could sit at the kids' table.

Thankfully, his pre-battle preparations were thorough. Whenever Ling's Flame Burst, Sharp Claws, or Tail Sweep were about to touch Fu Li's body, the Shadow Blade descending from the heavens would interrupt the assault—an attack that would wound on contact and kill on impact.

It drove Ling into a frenzy of impotent rage, cursing nonstop.

Put yourself in her shoes and you'd understand. Imagine a scorching summer day nearing fifty degrees, with three or five flies buzzing 'bzz bzz' before your eyes, occasionally landing on the lunch you just bought, eyeing it greedily for a share.

And in your hand, you have neither a flyswatter nor an electric racket. You can't catch them with your bare hands, the air conditioner is broken, and the repairman hasn't shown up yet.

If you could still keep smiling under those circumstances, take my advice: buy a ticket to Sichuan, then take a cab to Leshan City. There's a big Buddha statue there. Make him get up, and you sit in his place.

Ling clearly didn't have the mental fortitude of a living Buddha. Fortunately, Fu Li wasn't that fly either.

As time passed, the Shadow Blade suspended upside down in the night sky began to run thin.

With a C-rank energy reserve, just how many Shadow Blades could he be expected to forge?

Besides, Ling wasn't stupid. Even if rage clouded her mind, her eyes weren't blind.

Falling from the sky, huh? This old lady will burn that very sky down with a single Void Dog Cannon!

Thinking this, Ling opened her gaping maw. Surging energy formed a visible black void in her mouth.

She took a deep breath, like a dragon whale swallowing water. The endless flames outside and the Honkai Energy dissipating in the air all transformed into particles of light, devoured and funneled into the black hole in her mouth like a hundred rivers returning to the sea.

The next moment—

'Boom boom boom boom boom!!!'

As if the angel guarding the Garden of Eden had swung down its flaming sword!

A blazing white pillar of light, dozens of meters in diameter, sheared through an unlucky mountain peak that happened to be in its path, then swept across half the starry sky with irresistible force!

Sporadic explosions rang out—the Shadow Blades suspended in the air were caught in the blast and detonated!