As Iron Tomb calculated, the menacing black-red erosion virus encountered resistance from a force extremely similar to itself and carrying the power of [Destruction]. Like remnants of snow beneath the Rising Sun, its invasion was forcibly stalled, neutralized, and even began to collapse on its own.
Iron Tomb's power, combined with Lagurghos's mind, became a firewall as impregnable as a wall of bronze and iron, suppressing the erosion virus—which relied purely on brute force and had virtually no finesse—completely.
This raised a question in Lagurghos's mind.
"Strange. Such a powerful virus—why does it feel like a little girl who has never gone to school is piloting a Star Destroyer?"
Lagurghos realized that while this erosion virus was powerful, its handling seemed embarrassingly clumsy.
It was not that he was disparaging the virus. When viruses that targeted inorganic operational logic, functioning through contamination, erosion, and subversion, clashed with one another, whoever first understood the other's operating principles and tailored a response would win first.
Put simply, it was rock-paper-scissors. Whoever won three rounds first won.
Yet Lagurghos discovered that the other side only knew how to throw rock, and after throwing it, wanted to smash his face with its fist.
That move would work every time against a technologically oriented enemy it countered and whose strength fell short of Ksitigarbha, but against opponents like Lagurghos and Iron Tomb, who possessed both skill and strength, it was far from enough.
"As expected, it wasn't that easy. But then again, Lagurghos isn't a pay-to-win fighter like Otto, whose gear was basically all excavated from ruins and whose principles he never really understood."
Qianyi put Ksitigarbha away, then stroked its sheath to comfort Ling, who had become discouraged after failing to kill the target in one strike.
Unlike Otto, who possessed numerous Soul Steel