Sasha crossed his arms before his chest. The instant the force of the punch arrived, his whole body was blasted backward. He flipped twice in midair before steadying himself.
When he stopped, his breathing was noticeably more rapid than before, and a clear fist-shaped dent had appeared in the armor plate over his chest. Then he turned his head, looking first toward the Folded Spatial Field, then toward Xu Wuyi.
A low sound emerged from his throat, carrying an ancient hoarseness that seemed to have lasted for thousands of years. "Your predictive ability has updated. You deciphered the waveform of my skeletal ridge patterns."
"Next question," Xu Wuyi said. "Can you still walk?"
Sasha did not answer. His body shifted several steps sideways, probing the Folded Spatial Field once again. This time, when the tips of his claws touched the barrier, he applied even greater force, but the barrier's surface merely rippled before returning to calm.
Then Sasha's retreat path was blocked. His posture in the void did not change, but as his gaze rapidly swept through the available directions around him, Xu Wuyi noticed the faintest pause in his pupils.
He had not immediately found a way out.
Xu Wuyi gave him no time to search for one. The third punch shot out at that very moment, its target locked onto Sasha's abdomen—the armor plate around his ribs, already cracked from the earlier blows, had now become the weakest point on his entire body.
Before the fist reached him, Sasha made one final attempt to evade. In less than half a breath, his body slid dozens of meters sideways, while his right claw tore open a small black rift beside him in an attempt to slip inside.
The rift had barely opened before it closed—not because an outside force