EP5: Briskly Windy Moonlight

"Strong Wind!"

Bu Liuxing shouted the name of the god and knocked the mechanical ninja down with a punch. His right arm was trembling violently, as if it was not obeying his commands. He could feel that Hot Wind was still hesitating and wavering.

This electronic ghost does indeed agree with the views of the gods of Shinto City. Its genetic prototype is the Fen Feng —its thoughts are also influenced by the Fen Feng, which is why Meteor has difficulty controlling this arm.

But now, he has to subdue this Qilin arm and open its [Triple Burner Gate].

After being scorched by the high temperature, the C60 armor at his knuckles finally turned into scattered fragments, revealing the fresh white flesh underneath. Meteor was in so much pain that he almost lost his mind; his eyes could practically spit fire.

He kept a close eye on the physical body of the Gale Ninja, while remaining constantly on guard against the corpse of the North Wind Warrior.

That punch truly knocked them down.

"--Not enough!"

Meteor extended his right arm, an arm belonging to Hot Wind Kid. Now he wanted to show the electronic ghost who really called the shots in this body.

"I won't believe a single word of your fallacies and heresies!"

Enraged, Gale let out a trickle of bright red blood from under his mask, seemingly from a punch to the lips and teeth.

"Foolish! It's because of unreasonable people like you that, within the social structure of Homo sapiens, there are far too few insightful progressives and far too many barbarians like you! That's why this race is like this."

Before Gale could finish speaking--

"--Put away your arrogant, compassionate facade!"

Meteor's cuffs and arms were stuck together; the textile fibers, burned by nano-iron, were almost fused to his skin.

He simply tore off his quick-release carrying gear and shirt, once again facing the enemy naked.

His latissimus dorsi muscles bulged suddenly, and his beard and curly hair grew together, making him look like a primitive human.

"You've been rambling on and on with all that nonsense! Didn't you consider that I can't understand a word of it?!"

Gale: "What?!"

"The Boss and Ming Ge often look distressed about what you say, about all this nonsense political stuff you talk about." Bu Liuxing clenched his fists, his mind completely focused. "Every time they try to lecture me with grand principles, I'm sick of it—it's too abstract, too big, too impractical for me."

Gale was shocked; it completely failed to understand what Bu Liuxing was talking about. Just as Meteor didn't understand what Gale was saying, they were two different kinds of beings, and even if they were reborn as humans, the difference between them was greater than that between a human and a dog.

"You keep emphasizing to me how hypocritical and despicable people are, how unforgivable they are, how base human nature is, and how fragile the human body is," Meteor gritted her teeth and cursed, "But damn it, why do I feel so angry listening to you?!"

"When it comes to politics and reasoning, I'm truly a novice!"

"When I went to the areas ravaged by the Madness Butterfly Sect, people asked me—"

" --General of Tears, when will we be able to live a peaceful life?"

At this point, Meteor's fists cracked.

"All I can do is cry! All I can do is keep crying! I can't say anything! I can't do anything!"

"Strong Wind!"

"My hands and my heart have become so strong because of protecting the weak and upholding justice!"

"I didn't know before that I was wandering around in a daze when I heard people screaming for help! I immediately woke up, not knowing what was happening, but my legs were already taking steps and running forward!"

"Because I'm a complete novice! So I don't care how powerful the enemy is! No matter how advanced their ideas are, or how mature their ideologies are! I can't understand them! I can't figure them out!"

"What kind of evil person would throw living people into a meat grinder just for an idea, a religious doctrine, or a few rules!"

Jifeng collapsed to the ground and took a while to get up. It never expected that Bu Liuxing's explosive power would be so outrageous. This Homo sapiens used Rose Shining Stone to amplify muscle power, and with the addition of this artificial arm of Yezhong, he was actually able to beat it until it was insane and paralyzed.

"[Cybernetics] is your lie." Bu Liuxing kicked North Wind's corpse, shattering it into pieces. The moment the Gale Ninja lost his will to fight, his Soul Might returned to his body.

"It's the science fiction of slave owners!"

"It's a dark fairy tale fabricated by imperialism in order to prolong its own existence."

"You want a giant steel brain to control all production activities, and Homo sapiens are one of your products."

"Humans will become appendages of machines, thus achieving complete enslavement."

"The idea of Fen Feng was completely wrong from the start. It is not about embracing progress, and it has nothing to do with progressivism."

"This is escapism, this is surrender! The gods of Shinto City— "

Meteor's arms emitted scalding steam, and he clenched his fists and stood in a defensive stance, resembling a wrathful Vajra.

"--Do you believe that science and technology created you? Created Artificial Intelligence? Created the fifty-one towers of Shinto City that connect heaven and earth?"

"No, no, no, that's not right. It is precisely because of the weakness of Homo sapiens that you demons have the opportunity to descend upon the world."

"Fear created you; [Venom·Poison] and [Vita·Medicine] are always inseparable, two sides of the same coin."

"In earlier times, before the advent of pyroxene, Morpho butterflies relied on fear to unleash their inner spiritual power and create incredible miracles—mediocrities and traditional wizards called these tricks magic."

The gale swayed as it straightened up, then began to roar.

"You clearly understand everything! -- Why? Why are you pretending to be confused? It's utterly unreasonable! You're the one who's crazy!"

"Enough with the nonsense." Meteor beckoned tauntingly, urging Gale to his doom. "Come on! I'm throwing punches to protect the weak. You talk about survival of the fittest, I talk about fairness and justice—we're not on the same page, we just think the other is in a state of perpetual madness."

Meteor gestured with his right hand, and the tattered prosthetic began to glow. Under the illumination of the Rose Shining Stone, it gradually changed from pale zombie flesh to crimson.

"Besides, this arm isn't mine. Since you treat me as an inferior race, I'll treat you as a machine that's out of control."

"A tool can't reason with its owner! I bet you're out of warranty and can only be considered a scrap electronic product!"

"So here's the question! According to garbage classification, what kind of garbage are you?"

The mechanical ninja drew the Chamo Sword from its back once more; the gleaming silver blade could reflect the image of a shooting star.

They stopped arguing and abandoned all illusions.

--The key factor in deciding the outcome of this match was the Hot Wind Kid.

Meteor's right arm has been modified. The Venom apparatus and the artificial body belong to Hot Wind. Psychic energy requires the support of chirality. If Hot Wind Kid doesn't stand by Meteor's side, and without Mr. Wei Meng's protection, A Xing will undoubtedly lose.

The ocean currents, sweeping in from Niflheim over 700 kilometers away, pounded against the pebbles and sand on the shore, while the violent sea winds made the mechanical ninja's clothes rustle.

The blade gleamed with the reflected light from the streetlights, like constantly flowing, liquefied stars. As the ninja's right-handed swordsman turned, he tried to direct the reflected light into the meteor's eyes.

At the moment when light and shadow intertwined, the two moved simultaneously!

"[Mr. Wei Meng Rap]!"

In the instant he threw his punch and charged forward, Meteor shouted Soul Might's true name. He firmly believed that even if Hot Wind had come to terms with reality and accepted the fact that it was dead, the ghost of Fen Feng would definitely be able to understand him and comprehend what he was saying.

After all, it was once a warrior of Guangling Zhixi. No matter how many years have passed, the passage of time and the fleeting years cannot change the warrior's fighting spirit.

What are we fighting for? Even military treatises from two thousand years ago emphasize how important fighting spirit is to a soldier.

Hot Wind would definitely come to help. Meteor never doubted its partner, even as it became less and less talkative, even as its heart began to waver, even as it, like its original form, began to be captivated by the beauty of Extreme Bliss Space.

At this moment, Meteor spreads his arms, still ready to disarm the enemy with his bare hands, completely destroying their offensive.

He held almost no back, exposing his vital points—the heart-piercing Gate of Death —to the Wind Ninja.

He had this confidence because he had used this tactic against Yezhong before.

The children of the Fen Feng also possess the power of the Fen Feng. If Mr. Wei Meng could defeat Yezhong with this move, he can definitely defeat Gale!

The Chamo Sword that was about to strike was stopped by a broad and powerful hand, and at that moment, time seemed to slow down, slower and slower!

At first, Meteor mistakenly thought it was a side effect of adrenaline, that the brain slows down the body's perception of time due to near-death experiences.

But when the blade stopped in Meteor's palm, it didn't move again. Meteor then realized that this was not an illusion; a powerful psychic tide had frozen everything in this moment.

The ninja with a ferocious expression remained in his aerial leaping strike pose, like a sculpture frozen in mid-air.

Mr. Wei Meng didn't respond to Meteor; he'd vanished somewhere—perhaps still loyally guarding Brother Xue Ming's side. A Xing was completely unaware of this; he couldn't even move his head, his eyes wouldn't move. It was as if he were under a spell, only able to watch helplessly.

He saw the waves freeze, the spray remaining in mid-air.

He saw seagulls flying low overhead, just past the bridge behind the ninja, heading towards a farther place.

He saw a shadow getting closer and closer on the straight blade of the Chamo Sword.

This figure seems to be the only thing that can move in the frozen space-time; this figure is the only deity.

He couldn't speak, couldn't shift the focus of his pupils, and could only watch the figure get closer and closer, completely unaware of what was happening.

Who is that person?

He didn't understand, he didn't comprehend.

Until this familiar stranger came before the shooting star--

--It was a soul whose body was broken and almost completely mutilated.

It is no longer human, but it possesses the characteristics of a soul's power.

Its shape resembles a half-orc covered in bird feathers, with neat and regular brown and white fur covering its entire body, and strange hands growing from its arms and torso.

These hands also grew hair, hugging the waist and shoulders, and two hands branched out from the back of its head to cup its cheeks, turning into armor like a mask.

Its heart is empty, with a dark, sticky ball of mud inside, like the Earth's core, slowly wriggling and rotating.

Its head resembles that of a cuckoo, with its beak protruding slightly forward, much like the mask of Yezhong and Yoguang.

When this wondrous spirit came before the shooting star, it spoke.

"I am [Hot Wind], kid."

"This may be the first and last time I unleash my psionic power."

"My power comes from my very being—from the Fen Feng."

Meteor was completely immobilized. He was astonished and began to have wild thoughts. Could the Soul Power of Fen Feng really stop time? Otherwise, how could this strange spectacle be explained?

"This is the first time I've seen you from this angle." The Hot Wind pressed close to the shooting star, and the Cuckoo Knight carefully observed its appearance with one eye. "Quite interesting."

Previously, Hot Wind could only see the world through the eyes of meteors, but mirrors can be deceiving—the images in mirrors are completely reversed from the real world. People look in the mirror to recognize their own appearance, but that's not how they truly look. In ancient times, people would hire realist painters to depict their true faces. Later, with the advent of cameras, we were finally able to see our true selves.

"I want to talk to you."

With a formidable enemy at hand, Hot Wind remained completely unperturbed.

"At this very moment, under my psychic influence, you are in a state of accelerated thinking."

"It seems like everything has stopped moving, but that's not what you think. I don't have the superpower to stop time. It's just that your thought process has become faster, so things are getting slower and slower until they completely stop."

"In this state, the brain's operating speed and the load on the bioelectric system will be overloaded by hundreds to thousands of times."

"A flood of sensory signals will rush into your brain, especially from the optic nerve—the human eye can receive an incredible amount of information."

"But you don't need to worry--"

"--My Liman model is processing this information for you. Before long, I will overload and self-destruct, dying forever."

The Cuckoo Knight gently stroked the blade of the Chamo Sword, as if seeing a long-lost comrade-in-arms, and then told the Meteor about their past.

"My prototype was once such a reckless, arrogant little bastard."

"He often overloads his brain, gaining astonishing perception in a short period of time, and possessing extremely strong concentration and judgment in an instant."

"He can also damage the enemy's brain, causing them to experience thousands of times more pain, resulting in an extremely slow and agonizing death."

"This self-destructive fighting style permeated the entirety of Fen Feng's life; you might be curious—"

"--What exactly is the reason, what kind of personality, that would shape such a soul?"

"Bu Liuxing, we are just like you, we are all Red Stone People."

"We are burning while we are alive, only the speed and intensity of our burning differ."

"In order to keep burning, to keep burning forever, the Fen Feng Legion needs to use the VENOM machine, a kind of electronic brain, to maintain the Fen Feng's sanity."

"You're right, it is fear that gave birth to the Shinto People. When I heard your call, when I saw your tears, at that moment I seemed to see another version of myself from a very, very long time ago."

"I'm not sure if that person was really me. I don't dare to think about it too much. I don't want to make any assumptions. All sorts of guesses will only make me more and more troubled and confused, and I'll lose all my courage."

"[Mr. Wei Meng Rap], you've grown up. You're stronger and more powerful than me. I'm not your teacher; you are my teacher."

"I am about to burn out, but I have no regrets. When I turn to ashes, you will regain your freedom. Your soul power will return to you, just like your flesh and blood limbs, and it will cooperate with you wholeheartedly."

"I've been in this cage for too long; I can't become your cage."

"No rain lasts forever, no fog is too thick to clear."