The Sky Fortress had arrived too suddenly. Lin Qing had been on his way to find Lord Arima when he heard Shinnō's broadcast, followed by destructive rays descending from the sky.
Gelin City covered an enormous area, far surpassing Kyoto. To intercept the destructive rays, Lin Qing could only activate Time Stop in advance and fly at full speed for 9.9 seconds.
Even that was not enough. In the final second of Time Stop, he could only pour a massive amount of Ripple into the Blade of Ruin and throw it.
Lin Qing had been fighting while enduring the exhaustion left behind by Time Stop. Now, at last, he caught his breath.
Swoosh—
The two-meter-long Blade of Ruin seemed weightless in Lin Qing's hand. Its ink-black edge carved a long afterimage through the air as it...
Flowed upstream and cleaved the destructive ray apart in reverse!
"Power! Increase the power!"
The smile had vanished from Shinnō's face at some point. He roared at his subordinates.
"But..."
The adjutant wanted to remind him that they were already at 150% power. Raising it any further risked causing the main cannon to explode.
But before he could voice his concerns, Shinnō seized him by the throat.
"Obey—my—orders!"
Shinnō's expression was savage.
"Y-Yes!"
The main cannon's power continued to rise, and the destructive ray deepened in color until it became a murky purplish-black, like a tide of negative emotions from the underground space.
But it was useless.
The blade's swinging speed rose in tandem.
With slash after slash, Lin Qing shattered the destructive ray's assault—and with it, the faith of every Sky Ninja Legion soldier inside the Sky Fortress.
Machine and human.
The first to fail and shut down was actually the main cannon they had been so proud of!
"Lin Qing... what kind