Volume Six: What She Lost, What I Gained - Chapter 593: Cannon Fu
"... Huh?"
Neumann, who was waiting on the sea, suddenly noticed something strange about his body.
It was a chilling cold that penetrated her entire body, icy and sticky, as if the very core of her body was being eroded. The strange emptiness that followed was even more overwhelming, as if a bottomless black hole inside her was slowly gnawing at her flesh. Further discomfort followed: difficulty breathing, utter weakness, and a splitting headache. Yet, her consciousness remained terrifyingly clear, allowing her to perceive the process of her body breaking down bit by bit with millisecond precision.
"Ha... ah... how...?"
Neumann tried to use her powers to adjust her physical condition, but found that the power was extremely sluggish and she had no clue what to do about it!
(Is it possible?!?)
She remembered something, and with her last remaining strength, she immediately unbuttoned her clothes and looked at her body—
"!!!"
Strange markings appeared on his pale skin.
It is dark red overall, and its shape resembles both thorns and spider webs, spreading slowly and continuously throughout the body.
This is the source of that sticky, chilling feeling.
Neumann knew what it was.
Having spent so much time with Blood Sister, I have some understanding of her moves and abilities.
Among them, Blood Sister has an ability that she doesn't use very often.
Its name is "Blood Poison".
As the name suggests, it is the ability to transform blood into a deadly poison and inject it into the enemy's body, defeating them from the inside.
Although the single-target damage is terrifying, it's actually not as useful in combat as things like Blood Flame or Blood Crystal, and its efficiency is very low. So she only uses it occasionally when she feels like it.
The strange symptoms he is experiencing now, including the dark red spots on his skin, are signs of blood poisoning!
One of the characteristics of blood poison is its latency. People infected with it will not experience immediate symptoms. The blood poison will remain in the blood for a period of time, secretly eroding the body. During the latency period, the blood poison is no different from ordinary blood, and even Neumann cannot detect it. However, once the latency period is over, it will have a terrifying outbreak! Moreover, the longer the latency period, the more severe the insidious erosion of the body, and the more terrifying the outbreak will be!
(Moreover... I'm completely exhausted, and even my superpowers are difficult to use. This is a phenomenon that only occurs when one is deeply infected by the blood poison! Why? Could it be that I was infected with the blood poison a long time ago? But when exactly? No, in the end, who was it--)
Thinking of this, Neumann felt as if he had been struck by lightning.
Blood Sister is dead.
So where does the blood poison come from?
It could only have been created before Blood Sister died, preserved by someone, and then somehow introduced into her body, solely to strip her of her fighting ability!
How was it deployed?
There's only one possibility left.
(A traitor!)
Business Capital, Second Floor --
The city, stained crimson with blood, still exudes a chilling, eerie atmosphere, a deathly silence that keeps all living beings at bay.
Rumble rumble rumble!!!
--However, this deathly silence was broken in an instant.
A massive blue-green beam of light pierced through the city's foundation, leaving a huge crater hundreds of meters in diameter. Before the aftershocks had even subsided, a blinding purple lightning bolt tore through the blood-red backdrop, plunging down along the zigzag path of the laser's remnants, leaving a distinct zigzag trail in the air! Directly below, the screeching sound of metal scraping rapidly approached as hundreds of mechanical humanoids swarmed forward, propelled by their propulsion wings!
The mechanical Julia have completely shed their beautiful exteriors, revealing their mechanical skeletons and ferocious weapons. They have now been reduced from autonomous intelligent weapons to mere Floating Cannon! Lasers, missiles, grenades, high-explosive shells, cutting beams—all the relatively portable firepower is hurled at Xiao Wu! Multicolored flames illuminate the city, a spectacular display like a large-scale fireworks display accompanied by countless searchlights. These attacks are not intended to hit, but to form a dense network of fire to suppress her!
The denser the barrage of fire, the faster Xiao Wu moved. Sometimes she was as swift as lightning, sometimes as light as a feather. She dodged the stronger fire with minimal movement, and withstood the weaker fire head-on! Conserving time was her primary objective; Xiao Wu knew she couldn't waste it on these weak robots, because the main course—
"--Still down there!"
Xiao Wu's right hand unleashed a burst of purple lightning, expanding into a hundred-foot-long purple thundercloud, only to be forcefully forced back into Xiao Wu arm in the next instant. Her right hand was now as crystalline as amethyst! Her gaze pierced through the densely interwoven net of fire, past the robot army, and aimed at her target, before she swung her right fist down with tremendous force—
Li Bai 24 Style - Heaven's Collapse!
The compressed power was fully released, transforming into a solid bolt of lightning that crashed down! Wherever the lightning passed, all fire nets were torn apart, and all robots were either thrown away or instantly pulverized! At the final point of impact, a giant cannon with a caliber of over 800mm finally appeared!
"Four-type high-explosive modified version, let's try it!"
With a deafening roar, a massive, imposing cannonball shot straight into the sky, colliding head-on with the solid lightning strike! The explosion was devastating; the shockwave alone shattered dozens of mechanical Julia! But this was far from enough to stop Xiao Wu's attack. In a blinding flash, the cannonball vanished, while the lightning strike remained intact, its power undiminished except for a slight decrease in speed!
However,
The thing Julia was holding, which was dozens of times larger than her, was neither a warship's main cannon nor a train cannon, even though she had flown up to the second floor of the Business Capital.
It's a Gatling gun.
Six massive cannon barrels, each comparable in size to a railway gun, are bound together in a hexagonal arrangement by a restraining device weighing countless tons. If one ignores their exaggerated size, it truly resembles a Gatling gun. At its base is a dizzyingly complex loading system and an ammunition magazine that requires numerous mechanical propulsion wings to move with Julia. One after another, heavy, enormous shells are loaded into the six barrels at astonishingly high speeds through the loading system.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom--!!!
Not much slower than a real Gatling gun, each shot was a high-explosive shell specially made by Julia with explosive combat power. Such high-explosive and high-frequency bursts were all concentrated on Xiao Wu's solid lightning strikes, and the vibrations and shock waves continued to scatter in all directions, causing countless high-rise buildings to collapse instantly!
Ding!!!!!
With a final, earth-shattering explosion, the solid lightning strike was finally and completely dissipated! Julia let out a piercing laugh and raised the giant cannon once more—
"Faced with a troublesome attack, instead of avoiding it, you choose to fight head-on and waste ammunition? You idiot!"
During this time, Xiao Wu had already circled around behind her.
Click!
Xiao Wu's hand, from behind, pierced Julia's heart squarely.
"...!!"
Julia convulsed dramatically a few times, every part of her body trembling, and her scarlet eyes grew increasingly dark—
"--What? I was just kidding, hahaha!"
Creak creak creak!
"!?"
Xiao Wu felt intense pressure on her hand, and an astonishingly high temperature suddenly erupted from Julia's body; she could even feel her flesh rapidly melting! She initially thought she had damaged Julia's central nervous system, but...
"Haha~ I was complaining to your Ye about this before, who said 'a robot's vital organs have to be the same as a human'? Only an idiot would design it like that!"
"Cut!"
Without any hesitation, Xiao Wu drew her White Spear - White Night, with lightning speed. In a flash, the sharp bayonet severed the arm that was fixed inside Julia's body—and a new arm grew back instantly!
"Sure enough, women have to be ruthless to themselves!" Julia's tone was full of sarcasm.
"Stop talking nonsense!"
"Hahahahaha!!!!"
Julia suddenly swung the giant Gatling gun like a hammer at Xiao Wu, but Xiao Wu had already drawn another gun— Black Star! The seemingly slender bayonet actually blocked the cannon, and when the trigger was pulled, the bullet fired at point-blank range deflected the cannon! At the same time, Byakuya had already aimed at Julia's head and was about to pull the trigger when Julia suddenly waved her hand to block. In her other hand was a giant laser sword comparable to Ship Slicing Blade, with a thick trigger on the handle!
(Gun Fu? This guy knows that too? And he uses such a bulky thing to perform it?)
"My data is very comprehensive, you idiot! And it's as light as a feather to me!"
The Ship Slicing Blade clashed with the white night, bayonets and laser blades sparking blinding flashes! Xiao Wu immediately fired, but the bullet only grazed Julia's cheek. Julia fired at the same moment— Xiao Wu dodged the light bullets fired from the Ship Slicing Blade! The bayoneted pistol and the barreled Ship Slicing Blade clashed fiercely, while the attacks from the train cannon on the other side were even more rapid, colliding dozens of times in just a few seconds! The rumbling impacts, mixed with the gunfire and cannon fire, intertwined into a strange melody! Countless bullets of spiritual energy and light bullets grazed the two bodies, the afterimages of the giant cannon and the Ship Slicing Blade overlapping layer upon layer. Xiao Wu's speed surpassed that of the cannon, but neither of them could inflict a decisive blow!
The Gatling gun rammed into Xiao Wu again. Taking advantage of the moment Xiao Wu, Julia immediately fired a light bullet, while simultaneously creating distance and re-aiming at Xiao Wu with her six-wheeled 800mm giant cannon!
"Will this ever end?!"
Xiao Wu couldn't help but shout out.
Troublesome. Utterly troublesome.
Why waste time with this guy?
If she were to fully transform into a demon, or simply use the Extreme Night Style techniques, finishing off her in a few seconds shouldn't be difficult. But for some reason, she always has this annoying feeling that "she lost because she used all her strength in a serious battle."
"Where are you looking, Urushihara!"
The naval Gatling gun began spinning again, ready to fire specially made high-explosive shells, while the Ship Slicing Blade was also aimed at her—
Ta-da! Ta-da!
Xiao Wu activated the Gun Array of the Black Star White Night and fired two shots in quick succession. The enhanced bullets left the barrel one after another, but they were not aimed at Julia, but at the two adjacent barrels of the ship's Gatling gun! Xiao Wu's timing was perfect, firing just as both cannonballs were about to leave the barrels! The bullets and cannonballs collided inside the barrels with two loud booms, metal fragments were scattered everywhere, and thick smoke billowed out. Both cannonballs exploded inside the barrels, causing both barrels to explode simultaneously!
"Oh? Aim at the muzzle? And use my shell to destroy the barrel? What a cute little trick! But oh--"
Julia raised the Ship Slicing Blade in her hand.
At this moment, Xiao Wu noticed that her Ship Slicing Blade also bore the same symbol as the so-called nuclear bomb from before.
"The power and romance of a nuclear- Ship Slicing Blade far surpass that of a naval Gatling gun!"
Clang!!!!
A blue-green glow swept across the sky.
However, the Ship Slicing Blade did not deliver the expected explosive damage.
The buzzing, menacing light blade was blocked by Xiao Wu with one hand.
Between her fingers, some ominous scarlet substance, both liquid and gas, was slowly rising.
"... Alright, I'll use you to test it out. I've never used this power in actual combat before. It was given to me out of kindness, it would be such a waste not to use it!"
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That was a great game! Remember to collect your chicken leg backstage after get off work.