Round 14: The Girl Is Mine

Foreword:

There should be more trust between people.

--Zhang Yimou

[Part 1: The Deadly Prestige]

"My reinforcements are on their way! And your Universal Elixir reserves are all gone!"

George Joshua slid down the ventilation duct, reverting to his original form, and stood on the scorching hot metal plate of the cabin, grinning maliciously.

"You're out of ammunition, Glory. You can't kill me now, you can't even pierce my scales."

The red-haired giant raised his arms and shouted—

"--Immortality! Superhuman regenerative abilities!"

"--Incredible luck! Soul power beyond that of ordinary people!"

"--Even if you can actually hurt me, you won't be able to find my Gate of Death!"

He walked step by step toward Glory, and halfway there his body began to deform, and a pair of soft wings emerged from his back.

"I am the Angel of Power from the mythology of the Celestial Order!"

[The Beast] maintains the balance of holy blood within George Joshua's body. This simple physical transformation is not difficult for George, who was originally a fierce eagle.

"It is the virtue of God! It is the executioner of miracles! It is the boldness and courage of God!"

"I have rescued the suffering from their prisons—everything you see in this city is my good deed."

"Those who follow me are..."

Before she could finish speaking, Glory quickly waved her hand and shook her head.

"You can fool your brothers, but don't fool yourself."

"Oh, even after witnessing my divine power, you still don't intend to surrender?" George Joshua chuckled. "The consequences will be dire, Glory. If you yield now, I might spare your life. But if you continue to resist, using your exhausted body and bare hands to fight me—such ungratefulness will leave me with nothing but your brains to use as an egg-laying machine."

The War King remained silent, grabbed the ceiling of the wrecked cabin, and ripped off the floor of the main stage. A huge crack stretched from the casino's bar counter to the long staircase entrance.

George Joshua wasn't in a hurry at all. "Trying to escape?"

"Where are your reinforcements?" Glory demanded as she recovered her mental strength. "Where are they?"

George Joshua's face turned extremely ugly--

--Just as the War King said, the security personnel who came to the rescue from Cruise Ship No. 1 seem to have disappeared.

"Are they in the casino?" Glory flicked her finger, casually pointing to the main hall above, where blood was everywhere and corpses littered the ground. "I think they're terrified—"

She turned her body aside, and through the small round window of the cabin, the vehicles drove away the same way they had come. When the armed rescuers arrived at the main venue, they passed over the layers of corpses blocking the entrance and saw Manager Todd hanging from the ceiling, his fighting spirit already thwarted.

Bai Lu, who Bailu a gun and on guard in the main venue, became the last straw that broke their psychological defenses. These soldiers mistook Bailu for the War King, and two of the rear guards were scared to death on the spot. The rest of them all ran away.

That's the downside of companies; the boss's life or death has little to do with the employees. No matter how much money you make each month, you have to be alive to spend it.

George Joshua was furious, but tried to appear nonchalant.

"--It's okay, I can handle you all by myself."

Before she could finish speaking, Glory ran off.

She leaped over the cabin onto the main hall, running faster than a cheetah, grabbed Bailu, hoisted her onto her shoulder, and sprinted towards the first-floor terrace.

George Joshua followed closely behind, flapping his blood-red wings and darting into the venue. He then saw the War King carrying Jiang Bailu toward the terrace, but the narrow corridor hindered his flight, forcing him to land again to pursue him.

In those brief ten seconds, an alarm suddenly went off in Joshua's mind, and this strange and inexplicable murderous intent left him in a state of utter confusion.

Why did Glory leave from the terrace? Why? Wouldn't the exit be closer if she wanted to disembark and escape? Was she trying to protect Jiang Bailu, so she jumped ship?

No, no, no. That's not right.

Could it be that she knows where my main weapon is?!

Just as George Joshua deduced, the date turned into the first round of the duel. The moment George took out the Spirit-Slaying Hand Cannon, he wanted to head to the office, but he didn't have time to get his main weapon—a light machine gun with forty rounds of ammunition specifically designed to deal with spirits. These bullets could shatter spirit power and send the psychic into a state of Gate of Death.

The War King wants to get his hands on this gun; perhaps it's his chance to turn the tide.

Before Bailu could say or do anything, she arrived at the broken glass room on the terrace, smelled the fresh moisture in the air, and then a sudden feeling of weightlessness made her scream.

The War King threw his sister about ten meters away, over the side of the boat, where she was submerged in the rushing river.

The situation was critical, Glory couldn't worry about anything else. Bailu was a psionicist and should have a way to survive in this environment. If Joshua captured Bailu as a hostage, the situation would become much more complicated.

As she passed through the glass room, she sensed the rubbery shapes moving rapidly in the corridor. Rushing into the office, she immediately spotted the RPK light machine gun on the desk.

She picked up the gun, instinctively crouching down and lowering her head, feeling a burning sensation on the back of her head.

Two sharp, rubbery tentacles, like spikes, cut open her scalp, pulling out a lot of hair.

George Joshua had already climbed into the office and launched a sneak attack on Glory; the two spikes were his fingers.

The War King, gun in hand, tumbled and leaped around the office. The mythical angel of power used all ten fingers, like a slingshot or crossbow, to smash the floor and tables, shattering everything from wood and iron to bricks and slabs.

George tried to grab the gun. Glory had already engaged the safety on the RPK, but as she pulled the trigger, she suddenly realized that the thing had a fingerprint lock!

"Hahaha!" George laughed. "Modern technology! A woman! Never seen anything like it before, have you!"

"I've never seen this before." The War King dodged the rubber fingers' pokes, not daring to let the Fragrant Dream leave her body. Without the Flash Butterfly Armor as armor, once she was poked, her body would be injured and unbalanced, and she would be unable to avoid the next attack.

The gun only had a trigger lock, so she quickly pulled out the magazine and darted to the side wall towards the exit.

George shouted "Rubber Machine Gun" while throwing punches to block, seemingly a comic book enthusiast, really thinking he was the Straw Hat Boy.

Like raindrops, rubber fists clashed with Fragrant Dream. Glory used the RPK as her escape fee and tossed it into the office's ventilation window.

George, blinded by concern, immediately tried to intercept the guns and get the second seal back into his hands.

At this very moment--

--Fragrant Dream protected her true form, dashing from the office door to the recreation room, across the conference room, and along the way Glory ran and destroyed the house, collecting steel bars and ironware.

She didn't possess the gunsmith's magical creative abilities; she found a suitable steel pipe and began deep-hole machining of Fragrant Dream.

SD couldn't transform its spirit into a drill form, even with its face flushed red. After losing its little brother, all its stats skyrocketed, but its ability to create machines and tools disappeared.

Without thinking twice, Glory took a bullet out of the magazine and asked Fragrant Dream to find a plastic water pipe. She then stuck the pipe onto the bullet, but the bore didn't match, so the ammunition gas couldn't exert its full kinetic energy. Without rifling, it had little stability.

The moment George Joshua arrived at the recreation room with his gun, he caught a glimpse of the plastic hose in Glory's hand and suddenly burst into laughter.

Hahahaha!

He thought to himself, "This woman's actually going to tap the primer? Is she using this plastic tube as a gun barrel?"

She fired so many shots at me, didn't she know the bullets were useless against me? Even these Destroy Spirit Ammunition wouldn't work as long as [In Your Name] is still protecting me!

"Bang!--"

The bullet flew horizontally out of the plastic tube like a slow-moving dart, with an initial velocity of only 180 meters per second, completely negligible in terms of the power of a machine gun bullet. At the moment the primer exploded, it even burned Glory's hand.

"Hahahaha! Hahahahaha!" George Joshua was overjoyed. "Where are you aiming? How come you didn't hit a single hair on my head!?"

"It's hit! George Joshua!" Glory didn't even aim for George's body. "It's hit!"

The stray bullet struck the steel frame of the recreation room's doorway and shattered into pieces.

--The bullet turned into powder, becoming tiny, sharp knives that harmed spirits.

"You still have one bullet left!" Glory reminded Joshua, "There's a loaded bullet left in the RPK's bolt!"

[Part ② First Blood]

The crimson angel of power stiffened; he could feel his bare skin beginning to sting.

He stared in disbelief at the sky above him. Glory hadn't even locked onto him when she fired; the power of [In Your Name] hadn't worked.

The once boneless limbs have returned to normal human form. How long will this effect of eliminating spirits last?

He himself had never tried or verified the power of the second seal. It was like a holy decree that forbade magic, and the third seal would also leave him, making it impossible to summon his soul power!

"Come on!" Glory spread her arms and re-entered the Pankrasen fighting stance. "You'll only have this one bullet, so make the most of it."

"I...

"Is this the spirit of the War King?! To still insist on a fair knightly duel with me even when you have the upper hand?! This makes my blood boil! This is exhilarating!"

Glory continued to fan the flames, "Butt in shoulder, is the sight adjusted?"

"Don't rush! Don't rush! Don't speak!" George Joshua cursed. "Don't try to tell me what to do, you son of a bitch!"

Glory: "Slouch down, tuck your chin in, you shoot like a Boy Scout who's never touched a firearm before."

George Joshua: "Fuck you! I said shut up! Give me some time!"

Glory: "Straighten your back, don't look up, be careful. Even though the bullet is locked, it doesn't have a magazine. Who knows if the ammunition will fall out?"

George Joshua was driven almost insane.

He could feel Glory slowly approaching, even though the woman seemed to be standing still and spouting nonsense, her intense spiritual pressure was getting closer and closer.

He only had this one bullet to rely on. If he couldn't deliver the Soul-Destroying Bullet into Glory's body, he would be subjected to a one-sided beating from Fragrant Dream. Without the help of Soul Power, he was as vulnerable as a child.

"Bang!--"

The moment the bullet left the barrel, Fragrant Dream closed its eyes, trembling with fear. The Little Kitty simply couldn't withstand such a weapon specifically designed to attack spirits. It was very likely that, like the dragon scales on George's body, it came from a giant dragon, either fossilized medulla oblongata or dried powder from the heart and lungs of a dragon. These catalysts for breaking down spirits were extremely precious.

The sudden roar of the dragon proved this point--

That was the mournful cry of a dragon's spirit as it was annihilated; it could tear any spirit apart.

But Fragrant Dream, clutching her head and stomach, appeared trembling, yet her body was unharmed.

George Joshua's face was half-blown by bullets, and his RPK gun exploded. He was stunned for a moment, just like Tom, and it took him a long time to catch his breath.

This time it was Glory's turn to burst into uncontrollable laughter.

"Hehehehehe!~"

The War King let out a laugh that sounded like his wife's.

"Hehehehehehehehe! Hahahahahahaha!"

She crushed the shattered Steel Heart into a block of iron, which she used to block the barrel of the RPK. The moment George Joshua pulled the trigger, a ball of azure gunfire erupted from the ejection port, turning into a massive fireball. Within it, a surging psionic storm stirred up bursts of thunder, and along with it, the gas system, barrel, steel bars, and grip exploded.

These things practically skewered George Joshua like a meat skewer. The kinetic energy of the annihilating bullet exploded in the barrel, followed by a momentary gasp. After the gunpowder had completely burned, oxygen suddenly collapsed towards the center of the explosion. This reverse pressure caused George's entire body to tilt and fall, taking full damage from the barrel explosion.

The War King received the first blood from George Joshua.

[In Your Name] is still at work, only this time, it was George Joshua who pulled the trigger on himself, resulting in the greatest damage.

"You didn't even have a chance for the last shot! You scraggly bird!" Glory didn't immediately give chase; the ethereal bullet dust floating in the air was still taking effect. "Didn't your mother tell you that the prettier a woman is, the more likely she is to lie?"

Fragrant Dream draped itself over its shoulder, and the figure gasped in amazement, covering its mouth.

"--Oh no! He doesn't have a mother!"

The moment Joshua regained consciousness, he felt a burning pain on his face. He roared in agony, losing all reason in the pain. How long had it been? How long had it been since he had been beaten so brutally? How long had it been since he had felt such pain?!

I was deceived, tricked, and hurt; even the dueling ceremony was a lie!

Woman! Woman! This woman is unforgivable. This...

His head was tilted back, his eyes rolled upwards, and his brain seemed to be colliding, squeezing, and vibrating inside his skull.

The fierce antelope punch lifted his legs off the ground, giving him the boxing-themed air service that Pellegrini once enjoyed.

The flight attendant was the top star of the Abyss Special Train. The War King's fixed-step sprint and hook punch brought up a violent hurricane. The combined punch with Fragrant Dream almost broke the neck of this 300-pound giant, sending him flying.

"Not enough!" Fragrant Dream pointed out, "His chin is so smooth! It's as if some strange spiritual energy is protecting this beast!"

The psychic energy that SD sensed was the strange power of [In Your Name].

Despite the powerful punch, it failed to take away George Joshua's consciousness. The man was thrown through the air by the force of the impact, his neck firmly locked around his spine, and his central nervous system continued to function!

Glory then unleashed a flurry of punches!

Fragrant Dream followed closely behind--

--A barrage of punches rained down on George Joshua's head!

But even with the hair cut off, the skin torn open, and blood splattered everywhere, not a single brain fragment popped out!

His brain was like a slippery eel, swaying along with his tough spine and trapezius muscles. The immense force of the punches pulled at George's upper limbs, and no matter how many times Glory tortured him, she couldn't break the beast's hypothalamus or shatter his center of consciousness.

The entire recreation room was now completely red, covered in George Joshua's blood.

The wings of the Angel of Power were all broken by the Demon King.

George Joshua experienced multiple nerve necrosis symptoms. His body could not bear the pain and he had to actively disconnect the pain feedback from his limbs and some muscles. These muscles began to become numb, and he also developed severe hemiplegia, unable to stand up.

Although it was a tragic scene, he was not dead, nor had he completely stopped breathing!

This hellish torture continued. Glory, like a robot that didn't need to eat or sleep, had been delivering these relentless, all-out punches for sixteen minutes, sustained by her terrifying physical strength.

Those sixteen minutes felt like a dream to George Joshua. He wished Glory would have the mercy to use her special psychic powers to knock him unconscious; that pain was worse than death. He was floating in mid-air, about to land, when he was immediately beaten and sent flying.

The nausea, the pain, the coldness of blood loss, the itching during regeneration, the burning sensation of a fist cutting through flesh, and the aroma of smoky meat bursting forth when a super-fast spirit breaks bones.

All of this filled George Joshua with despair, and his will to fight had completely vanished.

When Glory stopped, panting heavily, she ran to the water room, cursing and swearing as she replenished her energy by drinking water and eating cookies.

"Why isn't this guy dead yet?!"

Fragrant Dream was also clueless. "How about we let him fall asleep?"

"No! There might be more than one enemy. I have to kill him immediately!" Glory was already bloodthirsty. "If I'm controlled by other enemies and can't maintain the hypnotic psychic power, it'll be troublesome if this guy wakes up again!"

George Joshua was speechless; how he wanted to say—

"--Go kill the other psionicists first; it'll be faster to kill me that way."

Unfortunately, he couldn't do it.

After an unknown amount of time, Joshua felt a tranquility in his soul and a peace in his mind.

The endless suffering seemed to be coming to an end; Glory seemed to be gone.

"Gone? Just like that?"

The quiet recreation room was empty, except for his mangled body with its many broken bones and the filth spilled from his incontinence.

"Oh"

George looked up and could feel the First Seal still working. He needed to recover his strength soon, but he didn't know how long the effects of the Soul-Destroying Bullet would last.

"You're probably tired, Glory. You ran away? You couldn't kill me, so you ran away out of fear?!"

Before the words were finished, a unique and terrifying sound of footsteps came from the door of the recreation room—

-- George recognized that voice all too well. It was the Black Immaculate high-heeled boots of the Flash Butterfly Armor.

"I'm still worried. Go back to Bailu's room and change your gear." Glory took a break to go back to the hotel, grabbed a can of gasoline, and ran back to the ship to explain everything to Fragrant Dream. It only took her two minutes. "If this doesn't kill him, I'll have to take him somewhere else, as far away from other psionicists as possible. Their soul power is protecting this beast, but soul power has a limited range."

President Joshua's newly ignited fighting spirit has been extinguished once again.

--The mask of the Flash Butterfly Armor Cloak fell off, transforming into a golden V-shaped character.

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