"What?!"
"He's flying at high speed through the air using the spring in his legs!"
When Ato got a good look at the newcomer, he was genuinely shocked.
In his eight thousand years of campaigning across the universe,
he had never seen such a bizarre fighting style.
However,
as a Sergeant Major of the Demon Civilization,
he was no brute who relied on strength alone.
After all, technology was the foundation of civilization.
"Connect to the Demon One Database," Ato silently commanded.
"Connection to the Demon Database successful. Identity confirmed. Welcome back, Sergeant Major Ato." A voice like a system notification sounded in Ato's mind.
"Calculate all of his combat data," Ato ordered.
"Target acquired. Analyzing target. Collecting data."
At that moment,
Ye Yang had already closed in.
Ato had no choice but to meet his attack.
He gathered strength and swung the sword in his hand.
A crescent-shaped wave of energy tore through the air and shot straight at Ye Yang.
But Ye Yang didn't even try to dodge.
His thick, dark-red arms crossed in front of him, forming a shield.
The sword wave shattered on impact.
Ato was stunned.
Then,
Ye Yang, propelled by blasts from his legs, launched a surprise attack and began making impossibly sharp feints to either side in midair.
Ato's eyes were always half a beat too slow to lock onto him.
"What incredible speed!"
"But with the Demon One Database calculating for me, he can't defeat me."
Ato thought to himself.
At the same time,
Demon One, connected to his mind, sent him a message.
"He will appear on your right in one second."
Ato's lips curled into a faint smile.
He gripped his sword, ready to kill.
"Wait! The calculation was wrong! His actions can't be precisely predicted!" Demon One sent another message.
But the instant the warning came,
Ye Yang appeared on Ato's left.
"Gomu Gomu no Stamp Gatling!"
Ye Yang's feet, wrapped in dark-red Armament Haki, shot forward like projectiles.
They slammed viciously into the left side of Ato's face.
In an instant,
the armor on Ato's head burst apart.
The air between Ye Yang's foot and Ato's cheek exploded into visible rings of sonic booms.
Ato's massive body became a streak of light, hurtling through the clouds toward the distant sky.
His enormous red wings, spread behind him like banners, looked from afar like a kite with its string cut.
"How... could this happen? How could Demon One's calculations be wrong?"
As he flew backward,
Ato fought through the pain and questioned the voice in his mind.
"Sergeant Major, the target appears to possess some kind of precognitive sensory ability. At the last moment, he predicted your prediction, making his combat behavior uncontrollable. The calculations required have increased exponentially," the Demon One communications officer replied.
"He predicted my prediction. What a bizarre ability. This man will surely become an obstacle to the Demon Army's conquest of Earth," Ato said.
After flying an unknown distance,
Ato spread his banner-like wings and stopped in midair.
Ye Yang quickly caught up.
Jets of air blasted from his legs as he hovered, facing Ato.
"Had enough?" Ye Yang asked.
"Your physical strength is indeed terrifying, but I have third-generation Demon Gene. You can't defeat me."
Ato knew just as well that he couldn't defeat the man before him.
But he possessed Micro Wormhole technology.
He could leave at any time.
Still, facing a Super Soldier who would become an "enemy" of the Demons in the future, even if he couldn't defeat him, he could at least gather enough combat data for research.
"What Demon Gene? You're just an alien who hasn't been beaten into submission yet."
Ye Yang could understand at least some of what the alien was saying.
Basically, his body was incredibly tough.
Punches and the like wouldn't work on him.
Bang!
Ye Yang immediately gathered strength in his feet and blasted off.
He shot upward, quickly climbing above the clouds.
Ato tilted his head up to watch Ye Yang.
His body instinctively tensed into a defensive stance.
What was he planning?
"Complete Simulation! Trafalgar Law!"
High above,
Ye Yang silently called out to the system.
At the same time,
the steam rising from his skin, his dark-red Armament Haki armor, the swirling demonic patterns, and his round body all rapidly faded, returning to their original forms.
He lost all momentum in the air and began to fall freely.
"He's canceled his combat form. Those last few moves must have taken a lot out of him."
Ato tightened his grip on his sword.
His banner-like wings began to beat.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
With a thunderous crack that broke the sound barrier, his wings beat hard.
He shot straight upward at incredible speed, attacking the "fragile" Ye Yang.
Ye Yang's clothes flapped violently as he fell.
He looked down at Ato as he charged up toward him.
Then he raised his right index finger.
Pointing straight at the rapidly approaching Ato,
Ye Yang suddenly curled his finger.
He murmured:
"ROOM!"
A pale, transparent sphere appeared at his fingertip.
In an instant,
the transparent sphere rapidly expanded,
forming a hundred-meter spherical field that enclosed both Ye Yang and Ato.
"Scalpel."
Ye Yang made his move again.
Using his finger as a blade,
he made a cutting motion through the air at Ato's heart.
The next moment,
Ye Yang used the Op-Op Fruit's power again.
He appeared on a narrow path between the fields in a rural village.
In his right hand, he held a blue, membrane-like cube.
Inside the cube
was a beating heart, about the size of an adult's head!
Ye Yang looked up
at the tiny human-shaped dot in the sky.
He clenched the heart in his fist.
His clearly defined fingers sank deep into it.
The heart was as soft as tofu and seemed ready to burst at any moment.
Suddenly,
Sword Demon Ato vanished from the sky.
The next second,
a Micro Wormhole distorted the air above the fields in front of Ye Yang, forming a portal.
Ancient Sword Demon Ato tumbled out of it in agony.
He crashed heavily into the muddy ground.
Half his body was smeared with mud.
He writhed on the ground, his face twisted in pain, stretching out an arm toward Ye Yang in a plea.
At his chest, it was easy to see
a smooth, square hole that went straight through him, where his heart had been.
"It hurts! It hurts so much!"
"Give my heart back!"
"Ah!!!"
Ato's pained, desperate cries sent flocks of birds scattering from the nearby trees.
A few farmers were so frightened they nearly wet themselves.
"Where's Yu Baosheng?" Ye Yang asked, holding the heart tightly in one hand.
"He no longer exists in this world. Queen Morgana used his body as a vessel to resurrect me. You could say that I am Yu Baosheng—or that Yu Baosheng became my nourishment and turned into part of me."
"Ah!!! It hurts so much!"
Ato managed to hold on to the last shred of awareness through the pain.
He told Ye Yang what had happened to Yu Baosheng.
After hearing this,
Ye Yang tightened his grip on the heart.
It was nearly crushed, its shape distorted.
Ato, Sword Demon who had fought beside Morgana for eight thousand years, writhed in agony in the fields, frantically mutilating himself
in an attempt to escape the pain.
"Forget it. I'll take your heart back to Baosheng's parents."
For some reason, the anger in Ye Yang suddenly ebbed away.
He felt empty, as if he had lost his purpose.
"You, go turn yourself in at the nearest police station."
"And tell that woman to turn herself in too."
"Aliens, don't come back to Huang Village."
After giving those instructions,
Ye Yang turned and left with the heart.
Baosheng was gone now.
Then he should take care of those who were still alive.
That was just how Ye Yang was.
When something he cared about changed, he quickly stopped caring about it, even treating it with indifference.
And when it came to dealing with aliens, Ye Yang still held to the moral standards of human society in the Pre-Nuclear Civilization.
Even if an alien had killed someone, they still had to be handed over to the police.
Before you continue