Slade

The faint chill of air conditioning mingled with the heavy stench of gunpowder, filling everyone's nostrils and making it hard to breathe.

Under the bright fluorescent lights, the soldiers froze in shock for an instant, their bulging eyes staring up in terror at Ba Di, who stood like a giant.

Ba Di stood proudly, holding a soldier aloft in one hand, his face split into a savage, demonic grin.

Beneath the lights, the image seemed frozen in that moment. He was a terrifying demon king risen from the earth.

"Ah!!"

The scene shifted from stillness to motion again. The terrified soldier's eyes bulged as he instinctively screamed in fear.

Countless gunshots rang out again in that suffocating space.

A hail of bullets once more filled Ba Di's vision.

Ba Di grinned. Instead of using the dead soldier's body as a shield, he raised his chest and extended an arm, letting the countless bullets rain down upon him.

Every bullet was like a needle, faintly pricking his nerves and reminding him that he existed.

Ba Di's mouth stretched into an abnormally wide smile, revealing his teeth. His icy eyes held a crazed amusement.

Ba Di stepped forward and struck again, advancing into the bullets fired in terror from every direction.

He reached out to meet them. Several bullets hit his palm, like several needles piercing him at once.

Was it painful? Not really.

It could not even be called troublesome.

It merely happened to awaken the long-dormant bloody madness within Ba Di, making his blood boil for a brief instant.

The ground cracked more severely than ever before. Spiderweb-like pits suddenly appeared beneath his feet, and even the faint dust was kicked up as Ba Di pressed his bullet-facing palm onto the forehead of a nearby soldier.

"Ah..."

The still-warm bullets burned the soldier's skin, making his eyes nearly bulge from terror.

Then he died.

His death was more miserable than anyone else's. Ba Di crushed his head with sheer force.

Especially because Ba Di still wore that abnormally wide grin, his neat white teeth exposed, his cold eyes gleaming with mad delight. The soldiers felt a chill rise from the depths of their hearts.

Slade bit his tongue. The taste of blood jolted him awake from the cold fear gripping his heart. Through the afterimages, he saw Ba Di grinning coldly and madly as he caught bullets with his fingers.

Ba Di possessed fifteen tons of strength. That did not mean fifteen tons was his maximum strength; fifteen tons was simply his normal level.

Once he erupted, those fifteen tons of power, applied through Ba Di's bodily technique, could exceed a hundred tons.

This was also Ba Di's first time unleashing such exhilarating power amid a forest of bullets, even though the flesh on his fingers was being scraped away until bone showed.

The bullets spun red-hot from friction. Even though Ba Di's two fingers were like steel, the kinetic force of their supersonic rotation gradually tore away his skin and flesh, until his stark white finger bones were exposed. The bullets stopped just at the tips of his bare bones.

Yet in the end, he caught the bullets with his fingers amid that supersonic friction.

Then the flesh scraped from his fingers regenerated with an itchy sensation.

Everything seemed to slow in Slade's eyes. Only because his body was trembling horribly and adrenaline had surged through him could he witness such a terrifying sight.

The gunfire grew increasingly tragic and desperate.

The trap Slade had planned to set with the soldiers' lives had caused Ba Di some trouble—sonic waves, high-voltage currents, poison gas, and so on—but they were only trouble.

In that space, amid the smoke of gunpowder, terrified screams occasionally rang out. Corpses flew through the air and splattered against distant walls, turning into pulp. Some heads were blown apart directly, while others had their spines snapped by a single sweep of Ba Di's leg.

This was Ba Di's one-man silent play. In his world, there were no other sounds; only he existed in color.

This time, Ba Di used no firearms. He did not use his mind to calculate positions, angles, airflow, or psychology. He did not use super hearing to evade bullets.

It was a thoroughly exhilarating battle, one that stretched his muscles and flesh to their fullest.

"Whew!"

Ba Di let out a soft, satisfied breath.

Fighting without using his brain.

It felt amazing!

No wonder Superman possessed the greatest brain in the world, yet always brawled mindlessly with all kinds of alien monsters. Not having to use one's brain actually felt pretty good.

There were no more screams of agony, no more sobbing.

Other than Slade, every soldier was dead.

It would not be an exaggeration to describe the scene as a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

After that breath, the hot blood in Ba Di's body seemed to have been completely spent by the previous battle. The smile on his face and the cold madness in his eyes faded, returning to indifference, as though he looked down upon the world like a god, uncaring.

He did not care how many lives had died by his hand, nor did he care that blood flowed beneath his feet, soaking the soles of his shoes.

He stood high above all else. Perhaps sometimes, he did not even care about himself.

With a clang, a sharp sword left its sheath.

"You won't escape, Ba Miu Luo Di. You can only be buried in this Underground Base."

Slade's pupils trembled and contracted to pinpoints. A savage gleam shone from his eyes. Only by giving off the fiercest aura and constantly telling himself that he was brutal and ruthless could he stand up and attack Ba Di at close range with his sword.

Only then did he have the courage to approach this savage alien.

Slade's spine was straight. The Samurai Sword in his right hand gleamed under the lights, its cold sheen marked by the patterns of countless hammerings.

It was a finely forged blade, giving Slade a sliver of confidence that he could cut through Ba Di's flesh.

Sword in hand, yet it was gunfire that attacked first.

Slade held the sword in his right hand low to the ground as he charged forward, its tip scraping sparks from the floor with a clang-clang.

Suddenly, something snow-white appeared in his left hand.

Desert Eagle.

The muzzle spat bullets furiously. He knew firearms could not defeat Ba Di, could not even injure him.

He needed only one opportunity.

The opportunity came.

Ba Di extended his right hand, his palm facing the Desert Eagle's muzzle. He suddenly found that he rather liked the feeling of being pricked by needles. It was slightly numb, making him feel how powerful he was, while that faint pain reminded him of how "weak" he was.

Each Desert Eagle bullet followed behind the one before it, driving deeper with increasing force. Seven bullets struck directly into Ba Di's palm, barely reaching the bone within.

Those needles brought Ba Di a trace of pain that spread along his nerves, before his growing flesh pushed the bullets back out.

He remained expressionless, watching Slade charge before him with the same indifference.

Slade abruptly discarded the Desert Eagle in his left hand and placed that hand upon the Samurai Sword he had been dragging behind him.

His spine suddenly seemed like a soaring dragon. Power surged through his charging body, rising from the soles of his feet. Blood and strength burst forth from his heart. His finger bones were hard and white as he gripped the hilt with every ounce of strength, veins like Zha Long's about to burst from his neck.

He gathered all his strength and courage into a single strike, glaring with bloodshot, furious eyes.

There was no flashy swordsmanship, only a strike that poured everything into it.

The Samurai Sword swept upward from below.

The blade flashed.

Like a streak of moonlight in a clear night sky shining upon an ancient spring, silver light shimmered and blurred the eye.

It also blurred Ba Di's vision.

For one instant, Ba Di's pupils shifted slightly.

Then he did something utterly unexpected.

Ba Di lowered his head slightly and grinned, his neat white teeth clamping down on the blade slashing toward his neck.

The collision between teeth and blade produced a resonant hum.

Slade's face flushed crimson. He clenched his teeth, thick veins bulging across his arms and neck from the strain, a terrifying sight.

Seeing Ba Di bite the blade, even his protruding eyes widened abnormally.