This was genuine power—the kind that could shatter the earth with a stomp and tear the sky apart with a raised hand. The force of his punches alone was enough to pulverize the Steel Legion.
Even when some of the mechs managed to get close to him amid this playful slaughter, the next moment—
His five fingers easily pierced the steel.
As if kneading freshly made silken tofu.
Jiang Cheng grabbed a Titan by the head and squeezed hard, yanking out the monitor along with its core. He bent and snapped the special-alloy supports with one hand!
"Crack, crack, crack—!"
It could only be called a massacre.
This wasn't a fight. Even slaughter had never been this easy. It was no different from crushing ants underfoot.
Even if humans wanted to deal with ants, making sure they crushed every single one wasn't that simple.
And the people inside the Titans?
He crushed them with one hand.
Jiang Cheng showed no mercy whatsoever.
Once he confirmed someone was an enemy, he wouldn't hold back. Especially with the local mechs—every single one of them had taken part in attacking him, Raiden Mei, and Kiana.
Whether they were pure steel or human beings,
they were all crushed into scrap metal like empty cans.
At the height of his frenzy, he even burst out laughing. He seized the heavy punch a Titan swung at him from behind, twisted his waist, planted his foot, and tore it off at the root with unrivaled force, wiring and all.
Then he raised the iron fist he had just ripped from its body and smashed it down hard onto the Titan's front.
"Creeeak, creeeak, creeeak—!"
The Titan's outer shell was crushed in an instant. He accomplished with casual ease what even a Titan Mech couldn't do. Only when a final scream came from inside the Titan, followed by something being squeezed out like a fly crushed to its limit in a syringe by a cruel, innocent child, did Jiang Cheng realize there had been someone inside.
—Who cared?
He didn't even glance at it.
Having embarked upon the Path of the Hunt, he wouldn't slaughter the innocent. But who here could be called innocent?!
Innocent people went to war? Innocent people piloted mechs?
Ordinary soldiers might have been dragged in as conscripts, but who in the Titan Legion wasn't one of Cocolia's elite?
His frenzied, brutal actions seemed to terrify the regular troops around him. Their steps halted for a moment.
The blue lights on the Titans' faces flashed wildly. Their signals connected with each other, though no one knew what they were communicating.
—It was meaningless.
Jiang Cheng wasn't some battle-crazed loner. He wouldn't give his enemies any chance to fight back.
The real feast was still waiting for him. There was no need to waste time on trivial matters like this.
Jiang Cheng clenched both fists.
For the first time during this massacre, he activated his Path power.
Blazing light appeared around him out of thin air, as if the sheer force of his presence had set the air alight. Energy surged like a flood, piercing the sky and swallowing the earth. The shock wave that burst from his side tore across ten thousand meters. Even the clouds, seemingly infinitely far above, were forcibly split open.
The cluster of Titans flew in every direction like dust in the wind. Most of the steel army was wiped out in an instant.
Countless blue lights turned into flashing red warnings: [Mech has sustained critical damage. Please retrieve.]
The golden patterns on his left hand seemed to become tangible, extending forward on their own and coiling through the air, turning into radiant gold that burned like a blazing fire.
Then the flames spread, consuming everything in their path, as if they would melt the heavens and the earth.
One strike landed—
Annihilation!
Everything was reduced to nothing. The so-called Steel Legion couldn't last even a second. It melted into pools of iron, which poured onto the earth, nearly boiled dry.
With all the gloom and enemies under the heavens gone, his gaze could finally turn toward Nagazora.
—Toward the steel fortress built at the city's edge.
Even the vast distance of thousands of kilometers couldn't escape his sight. He looked straight through the layers of buildings, the entire world narrowing to the arrogant, stubborn blond woman.
"You mutt. You're next. Get ready to howl and whimper."
"—!?"
As if she had sensed the gaze coming from far away, Cocolia's pupils shrank instantly.
No explanation was needed.
It was like some instinctive action, as natural as breathing, written into his DNA.
Jiang Cheng raised his left hand.
Three fingers extended.
—In the empty air, a fierce golden flame suddenly appeared, blazing brightly.
The flame had no heat—no, that wasn't right! Its temperature was too high! So high that the surrounding air began to distort, so high that anything approaching it would be vaporized in an instant.
Yet the flame, seemingly capable of scorching the entire world, hovered quietly and obediently at his fingertips, like a hound waiting for orders. Its flickering tongues of fire were fangs.
Jiang Cheng raised his right hand.
His five fingers spread.
—A golden bow appeared in his palm as naturally as if it had been there all along.
Dark-golden light flowed along its limbs.
The bowstring was pulled taut to its limit, giving off a faint, almost inaudible tremor.
Jiang Cheng pinched the golden flame between three fingers of his left hand. The flame then expanded in both directions. In an instant—
It transformed into a blazing golden arrow.
How powerful would this strike be? How devastating? What price would he have to pay to fire it?
—Who cared?!
Whenever he remembered Mei being hurt again and again, his fury spread through him, impossible to suppress.
Reason, thought, calculation—all those worthless things burned away in an instant. Jiang Cheng only needed to remember one thing.
Draw the bow.
Then—
—Release the arrow.
Inside the operations command room.
Layers of defenses surrounded it like the walls of an iron barrel.
The first layer: a long-range detection system. Any flying object entering the perimeter would be locked onto immediately.
The second layer: automatic intercepting cannons. They covered a full 360 degrees with no blind spots and could unleash thousands of rounds per second.
The third layer: an energy shield, strong enough to withstand a direct hit from a tactical missile.
The fourth layer: alloy armor, measured in meters of thickness.
The fifth. The sixth. The seventh—
Not a single gap remained. Every extreme scenario had been considered from the very beginning. The defenses were completely watertight.
She had managed to torment the main cast to such an extent, destroy a major city of several million—perhaps over ten million—people, and nearly leave Raiden Mei homeless and bereaved, yet still survive to the end. She had never relied on other people's goodwill.
Siberia's fear of insufficient firepower was only more severe, especially among upright officers who had personally witnessed corruption in the past.
—Cocolia leaned back in her command chair.
Watching the boy on the screen draw his bow, she let the layers of defenses soothe her uneasy heart and sneered again.
"I admit I misjudged you. You're not a bug. You're a prickly little rat. But so what? I have plenty of time to play with you. I can easily create dozens, even hundreds of Welts and order them to attack you whenever I want. From now on, you'll be lucky to get even a single day of peace."
"What about you? Can you find me? Can you reach me? Don't tell me you think you can hit me with that bow?"
Her voice was filled with undisguised mockery.
"—Foolish."
"Utterly idiotic."
She turned to look at the silent figure wearing a snake-shaped mask at the edge of the screen.
"Grey Snake."
"Did your people get it?"
"Once everything's ready on your end, I'll go all out. Against someone like this... a full firepower barrage really is the most effective option."
"..."
There was no reply. Everything around them was far too quiet.
—Quiet?
Cocolia's brow furrowed slightly.
The instruments that should have been running constantly, the screens that should have been flashing with data, the energy cores that should have been humming softly, and the people watching from the sidelines—
At that moment, they were all silent.
All she could see—
Was the boy on the screen, one foot planted on the earth, the outline of muscles bulging on an arm that had once been thin.
Not an exaggerated swell like a bodybuilder's, but more like a body filled to bursting with power, poised to strike, taut with tension like a bowstring pulled to its limit.
A deeply chuuni poem appeared in his mind, as if it were an incantation for a Noble Phantasm, a spell summoning magic.
He spoke.
"Sky, tear apart! Earth, shatter! Until all things under heaven are reduced to scorched earth, let all that does not change be hunted down and destroyed—!"
"Let this be my testament—"
His voice pierced the screen and the layers of defenses, as if sound itself had surpassed every weapon in that instant.
"I shall."
"Pursue. Hunt. Track. And slay!!!"
◇
—BOOM!!!
◇
P.S.:
The calm he had been forced to suppress in Amphoreus, despite knowing everything but being unable to act on even the tiniest bit of it; his hatred for Laigushi, Cocolia, and Welt; and his "anger/idiocy" at choosing to make things difficult for himself despite there being better endings—he could have told the World Serpent to switch to easy mode from the start, or chosen to run away after entering the Path Interstice.
It was only reasonable that all of that had become his strength by now, right?
Please toss me some votes~
Pin Cocolia to the Wall!
Sky.
Before you continue