"I refuse."
Lin Yi's "re—" had barely left his mouth, and even its afterimage still lingered where he'd been standing, but his real body had already merged with space and vanished completely.
"Watch out!"
Though they had been on guard, the three Kunmo prodigies' alarms still rang wildly at Lin Yi's attack. It had come without warning, before he had even finished speaking.
Almost the instant Lin Yi disappeared, they drove their compressed domain fields to their limits and sprang backward as if launched by powerful springs.
Lin Yi's target was clear: Salis, the most enigmatic of the three Kunmo, whose rules were most likely to interfere with spatial movement.
He knew that when outnumbered, the best thing to do, if possible, was to first take out the enemy's core support and disruption specialist.
"Rip!"
The tip of the Space Splitter spear was wrapped in silver spatial cutting power and golden, ultimate sharpness. Like a venomous snake striking from its den, it abruptly appeared in front of Salis.
The moment the spear tip touched the field surrounding her—a combination of the flexibility of water and the distortion of light and shadow—it let out a strained tearing sound.
The field buckled and warped violently, trying to deflect the spear's force, but the concentrated spatial penetration tore through its defenses.
Still, that brief moment of resistance bought Salis precious time to react.
Her slender figure rippled backward like a wave, moving in a way that defied the laws of physics. She narrowly avoided a strike to the heart.
The spear tip grazed her shoulder armor, sending several fragments of blue carapace flying.
The three flickered out of sight and retreated several thousand meters before steadying themselves. A trace of lingering fear flashed in their dark red compound eyes.
That was what fighting