Give Life to the Barren, Give Fire to the Cold. (Part 2)

"I like the phrase work-life balance. Useless Seele, you should rest. Hehehe, I won't laugh at you."

Handsome Fang Jie wasn't too tired. Even though Seele had been poisoning him the whole time... well, forget that. He wasn't afraid of low health—the lower his health, the fiercer he became.

He could still keep sending bolts of lightning crashing down onto the Rift monsters converging from every direction. The commotion here had grown rather large, and the scent of life drew them in to destroy it.

Fortunately, most of them were fodder. Usually, they couldn't withstand a single slash.

If they could withstand it, though...

"A big one's coming."

Seele's gaze suddenly sharpened. Turning around, she grabbed the scythe she had discarded with one hand. She clearly had no sense of restraint and was already exhausted enough for her legs to go weak, yet she still wanted to fight?

"It should be the source of the Rift in this area. Kill it, and things will stay peaceful for a long time."

Seele would never allow some damned thing to destroy her garden, even if all these flowers came from a single tree—a hardy, unremarkable birch-like plant from seven hundred years ago.

Seele did not know what it was, so she treated it as a flower. There were many things she did not know.

Flowers, trees, the sky, the breeze, pebbles, sand, the earth...

But she had already claimed this garden.

An overwhelming pressure accompanied by a massive life-energy reading surged from ahead!

Even faster than that was a storm-like spiral arrow shooting toward them!

It came from the distant edge of Rivet Town, from deep within another Rift zone.

"Woooooo—!!!"

The raging gale howled, wrapped in ice and snow, splitting a corner of ruined Rivet Town in two. The arrow tore enormous holes through the wreckage, like a scene replayed from myth.

This was an Anti-Matter Legion elite equivalent to a Treader, a vanguard that sounded the death knell of civilization.

During its reforging in the War Furnace, fragments of a Twilight Beast had been fused into it. It was a fusion warrior, possessing both intelligence and strength.

Then, during the Rift's expansion, it had suffered corruption. The source of its power mutated, granting it a more flexible combat style.

That was why Seele was nervous. Fang Jie was indeed efficient at killing fodder, but he had been slashing for so long, and he had also expended a great deal of energy with her...

"Return Blade! Unleash—"

A deep, phantom-like figure flashed with strange light. Her purple eyes did not blink as they locked onto the target. Seele dragged out countless afterimages, her scythe striking the violent arrow as though delivering a thousand blows in an instant, reducing it to nothing.

Precise, elegant, rapid, flashy, and low in destructive power.

Fang Jie could tell she was truly exhausted.

That did not affect her strange ability. It was odd—did she swing her scythe first and then hit the target, or did she first determine the "result" of her scythe, or herself, hitting the target, then launch herself toward it?

Launching herself repeatedly like this also wasted a lot of energy. The better choice would have been to dodge—she simply did not want to.

Fang Jie did not waste time observing further. Another slash descended, cutting through Stormbringer's wind barrier, dense to the extreme and without a single blind spot. It also cut through its force field, far stronger than that of ordinary troops, and sliced into the body fused with an ancient beast...

But.

"This thing's way too nimble. Damn mutt."

Despite being so enormous, it was incomparably agile.

Before its vital core could be severed, Stormbringer let out a shriek. Its sonic roar blasted outward, while the limbs capable of kicking apart walls built by the City Builder erupted with light. It charged away as though teleporting.

That was not merely a dash. It was a warp, leaving the current space and moving at subspace speed.

Naturally, that canceled the follow-up force of Four Souls Severed. Fang Jie was not so extravagant that a single high-speed slash could carry enough force to tear open space. He did not possess that level of control, especially since... he should have been tired too.

Stormbringer was not one of those lowest-ranking grunts that would have their ability to resist instantly paralyzed by Mental Shock, then be killed in one blow. It could still struggle and resist, so it was merely injured.

But what did merely being injured matter to a beast born for war?

Its wounds visibly healed before their eyes, not affecting its combat ability in the slightest.

This was it.

—The death knell of civilization.

Imagine it: an agile being that could not be intercepted, possessed immense destructive power, could use individual warps and Mach-speed charges, had a tough body, exceptional regeneration, and could manipulate force fields and storms.

When all those factors were gathered in one "individual," calling it the death knell of civilization was no exaggeration.

But Seele was already used to it.

"Hey, shouldn't you draw that sword already?"

She did not want to charge across such a long distance and risk her life to kill Stormbringer. She was afraid she would not be able to protect the garden, even if she could create it again afterward...

She did not want that.

Put some effort into it, Fang Jie.

Seele placed her trust in him and awaited his performance.

"It's actually all the same."

Fang Jie was not deliberately keeping his sword sheathed to look cool. On the contrary, drawing it was what made him look "handsome."

"This sword, Jizo Mitama, was also called 'Devourer' in another world. Besides Soul Steel and the Authority of Corrosion, the material used to forge it included a virus that corrodes everything."

As he explained, Fang Jie headed toward Stormbringer.

By flying.

BOOM—!!

The ground shattered in response, like an erupting volcano or thunder exploding in an instant. He propelled himself forward, skimming close to the ground through the torn-open streets of the town, leaving rumbling echoes behind.

"Its attacks don't rely on drawing the blade to slash. Every use causes it to corrode more phenomena, and everything it corrodes is absorbed into me, the one wielding it."

Every God Key came with considerable side effects. An-Utu was especially notorious, and Jizo Mitama was no exception. Fang Jie might have easily unlocked Mental Projection, but Jizo Mitama could grow automatically and surpass its limits.

If he kept using it to kill Honkai Beasts, Herrschers, and corrode everything, who knew what its wielder would become?

Presumably, one would either be stopped midway or be unable to withstand the ever-increasing corrosion and fall into becoming an "evil demon."

That was why Fang Jie preferred using it to wield the authority of the Herrscher of Thunder rather than corrosion itself. The things contained in those automata he had devoured with a single slash earlier...

Belobog Martial Arts called it the expansion of life, but Fang Jie had no desire to expand in the direction of a Twilight Beast.

Amid rumbling explosions, Fang Jie did not draw his sword. Instead, dark green light coiled around his right hand, taking the shape of a blade, an arrow, and a spear all at once.

Stormbringer moved at high speed, carrying howling winds and sonic waves. Wherever it passed, destruction followed, yet it saw light flooding the sky and converging upon its position...

"Try mine."

He did not possess Seele's strange ability. All he had was...

Probably higher stats than hers.

Even exhausted, they were still higher!

The world froze. Everything turned black and white. In a single thought, he escaped the realm of real numbers and entered the Imaginary. Space and time fractured, lightning flashing in flowing shadows.

Like Seele, this state was difficult to describe in terms of speed. But that did not stop Fang Jie from having time to gather power, or from moving like a shooting star.

And he even had time to explain.

Without the mystical reversal of cause and effect, this strike could not skip its process. It truly traveled from the past into the present, then toward the future.

"Man, blade, gods, and demons; the world passes like flowing water. Deliver me—"

It was not one strike. Multiple projections unfolded, endlessly and without cease. They did not lock onto a single point. Countless lightning beams erupted, blanketing the entire region and annihilating ten thousand things!

"—A Thought, Immeasurable Kalpas!"

The dense wind barrier shattered at once. Its terrifying fluidity might have allowed it to withstand Lightning Cutter, but it was still not enough against this barrage of lightning beams. Its body and vital points were pierced hundreds and thousands of times in an instant, and through the holes, the melting and fragmentation around the wounds could be seen.

High attack and low defense were Legion traits. Even fusing with ancient beast fragments could not change that much.

In response, Stormbringer chose—

The Legion's signature death rattle.

"KILL!!"

Hundreds and thousands of lights suddenly burst through the air. They were winds that could slip through any opening, firing in concentrated volleys to slice the enemy into countless pieces.

More terrifying still was the charge that followed—the creature itself, trampling forward at subspace speed.

A Treader's strongest attack was this charging kick. Even after its power source mutated and it became the more agile Stormbringer, this was still engraved into its instincts.

If it landed, even kicking apart a spaceship in one blow would not be surprising.

Seele might have been able to dodge it. Her speed was abnormal, something that could not be described merely as speed. Her physical body was simply fragile, her attacks relied on her scythe, and she had never attended school. Her imagination had also been constrained by harsh reality until it became desperately lacking.

Fang Jie... was not as fast as she was.

If the Stellaron Spirit had been here, it could probably still swing its bat and break Stormbringer's leg... Fang Jie did not possess such a powerful Curio, and Jizo Mitama was not known for its defensive strength.

Even if he wanted to predict it, Stormbringer's giant centaur-like body, its physical structure, force habits, and combat reactions...

Were all unfamiliar.

So he was sent flying backward.

Ripples spread through the air. Under Seele's stunned gaze, Fang Jie became an afterimage as he flew backward, soaring high at an angle that was neither too far nor too close, but perfectly placed!

Only then did a solid, muffled boom explode all around them, like roaring thunder. Stormbringer's forward charge was instantly broken, preventing it from crashing straight into the garden—or into Seele, who would certainly have moved to stop it.

The scene was like Adam Smasher meeting Rebecca, or Ah Fu beating Jackie Chan flat.

Because the Underworld had no sky, Fang Jie slammed into the "ceiling."

The violent tremor made Seele's lips twitch twice. For a moment, she suddenly could not move.

That feeling, that feeling...

She seemed to want to move, but in the end, her entire body was weak. She remained motionless, panting heavily, unable even to speak.

She was exhausted.

"Damn..."

Before the curse could leave her lips, lightning descended from the sky, fiercer than when it had left. It fell perfectly straight, carving a ninety-degree line through the chaotic battlefield.

Three times faster. He was at least three times faster than before!

If Seele had gone to school, she could have given it a unit—Mach 7, thirty percent of the first cosmic velocity of the Trailblazer's homeland.

So, whoosh.

The earth turned into scorched soil. Even the frigid air was ignited by the intense friction. Stormbringer, whose "anti-matter engine" had already been pierced by the lightning spears, had the remnants of its life snuffed out on the spot.

Its head was smashed apart, its body driven into the earth and turned into a deep crater, in a savage burst of violence.

—Heavenfall Ignites the Earth.

It was, in fact, overkill.

But it also suppressed the subsequent self-destruction. Even after its power source had mutated, Stormbringer's self-destruction was weaker than that of a Voidranger.

Its death rattle was blown apart as well. Even the surrounding air, its particles compressed by Mach-level speed, was no longer a murky milky white.

Through this intense frictional heating, the high-density air became searing crimson and turned into flames!

Even steel lacking sufficient strength would inevitably heat up, glow red, and soften. Let alone air.

But this heat was nothing to Fang Jie.

He felt that he truly could bathe in magma.

After all, compared to his savage flight, where merely touching and rubbing against the air turned all things into scorched earth, magma was not nearly as efficient.

In short, the scene was like Adam Smasher meeting Rebecca, or Ah Fu beating Jackie Chan flat.

"Rumble—!"

Only then did the sound of the atmosphere tearing apart arrive, mixed with a murmur:

"Can't avoid slipping, huh."

Though tired, Fang Jie still had some strength left, and he felt a little gloomy.

That was also why he always stayed in place while cutting things apart. He was unfamiliar with exerting force and moving while flying. He always felt as though he had nowhere to push off in midair, like Furina had just received a Vision and was cautiously practicing walking on water.

And if he instinctively borrowed force...

Fang Jie raised his head. The murky sky of the Underworld suddenly had a huge hole punched through it by the high-speed passage of an "object," stretching all the way to an enormous crater. Even the edges of the crater glowed with a scorched, glassy sheen!