If You Don't Love Me, Don't Take Off My Mask

Midou Ban could naturally continue attacking. With enough hits, he could still break through the nut barrier, but there was no need. It would only give Mo Yi, hiding behind the Wall-nut, more time to dodge and respond.

After failing to land a blow, Midou Ban burst forth with extreme speed and circled around to the other side of the Wall-nut. Sure enough, no such walls had grown in the other directions yet. After all, forcing plants to grow required time and energy.

"Checkmate."

Midou Ban smiled and reached his right hand toward Mo Yi's face, intending to take down this typical plant-type Awakened in a single blow.

Normally, Cultivators specialized in one kind of ability. Especially Awakened who had gained special powers, they generally focused on developing those abilities. An Awakened like Mo Yi, who controlled plants, would surely develop his potential around plants.

In other words, someone like Mo Yi, who resembled a summoner, could not possibly be too strong in close combat.

"I think I can still ***—"

Having already switched his Character Card ability to Dark Sovereign Syndra, Mo Yi smiled and opened his right hand toward Midou Ban. A powerful yet invisible force of telekinesis erupted from him.

"Scatter the Weak!"

Dark Sovereign Syndra was a powerful mage skilled at wielding dark magic to control energy and matter. To master this character, Mo Yi had spent countless days and nights on her years ago. Fortunately, the dreams at night did not affect his daily life and even provided rest far better than ordinary sleep. Otherwise, Mo Yi might not have lasted this long.

Other than her powerful dark magic, what had left the deepest impression on Mo Yi was her white hair, red eyes, and mature beauty with legs that could be admired for years. The weakness in Mo Yi's soul—'Chinese people can never resist white-haired beauties'—had been healed beneath her lash.

Midou Ban's right hand was only two or three decimeters from grabbing Mo Yi's face and pulling off a face-grab kill. Plants needed time to grow, and that was more than enough time for Midou Ban to seize Mo Yi's face. Naturally, he felt as steady as an old dog, certain that victory was in the bag.

Who could have expected Mo Yi to suddenly switch to a combat style completely unrelated to plant-type abilities? An invisible wall of telekinetic force forcibly stopped him several decimeters short of Mo Yi.

"Ahhh—"

When narrow paths met, the brave won!

Caught off guard by Mo Yi's telekinetic wall, Midou Ban could only keep exerting force, testing whether his Snake Bite was stronger or whether Mo Yi's telekinetic force would give out first.

"Bang—"

Unfortunately, Mo Yi's telekinetic force pressed against Midou Ban's entire body from every direction. With his whole body serving as a surface under pressure, he was the first to fail, blasted away by the telekinetic force and slammed hard into the ground.

"Psychic Force—"

It seized energy or matter with telekinetic power, then hurled it at the enemy.

Dark Sovereign Syndra's most essential ability was naturally the signature skill of her dark magic—Dark Sphere. Formed from pure and dangerous dark power, these energy spheres were the foundation of every one of her abilities, allowing them to reach their greatest effect.

At this moment, the skill Mo Yi used, Psychic Force, could naturally create a Dark Sphere and hurl it at Midou Ban. If a flesh-and-blood body was struck by such densely concentrated dark energy, even if it was not blown apart, it would be scorched away by the dark power.

But Mo Yi had no intention of truly hurting Midou Ban. From his earlier actions, it was clear that he was a Cultivator of the order faction. Since Mo Yi also considered himself part of the order faction, how could he kill a potential teammate for no reason? Besides, if he really killed the man, he would become an arch-enemy of the Cultivator Association. They would have no choice but to take him seriously.

Thus, Mo Yi's Psychic Force merely transformed telekinetic power into an invisible hammer and smashed it down at Midou Ban, who had just landed.

"No, when did this happen?"

Just as Mo Yi was about to assess the situation and decide whether to follow up, he sensed a hint of discord. He immediately activated the Resolute Rune within him, which resisted negative statuses.

"Boom—"

The scene before his eyes instantly shattered like a mirror. Yet the scene before him was no different from before—his telekinetic hammer was striking exactly where Midou Ban had landed.

"Still not right—"

Mo Yi still felt that something was wrong.

"A dream within a dream?"

In battle, even a second of distraction could bring defeat. Mo Yi did not care whether he was merely being paranoid or was still trapped in the other party's illusion. He immediately used another powerful skill of an Honor of Kings summoner on himself—Cleanse!

Cleanse instantly removed all negative buffs from the body and increased resistance to negative effects for a short period.

PS: Among all the female champions in Honor of Kings, this author thinks Syndra's splash art is the prettiest!

If You Don't Love Me, Don't Take Off My Mask

In reality.

Midou Ban had assumed Mo Yi was merely a squishy mage skilled at controlling plants. How could he have expected his common sense to deceive him? Mo Yi was not an ordinary player at all, but a legendary card-inserting cheater. If he did not switch through several abilities in a single fight, he would be too embarrassed to call himself a passing Kamen Rider.

His rash close-range attack had instead given Mo Yi an opportunity, and he was sent flying by a telekinetic wall.

Midou Ban was, after all, an A-rank Cultivator, one of the mainstays among Cultivators. Aside from the legendary S-rank Cultivators who could form an army by themselves, turn the tide of war, and fight S-rank Honkai Beasts, he was already an exceptionally formidable figure.

In these times, when Honkai Beasts appeared frequently in everyday life, it was the relatively few A-rank Cultivators who protected every city.

As for S-rank Cultivators, they were more like a firefighting squad. Wherever an especially severe disaster occurred, they would go there to fight.

Of course, there were also many S-rank Cultivators of the neutral faction with strong personalities who did whatever they pleased. As for powerful Cultivators of the chaos faction, they naturally would not join the Cultivator Association.

While Midou Ban was contending against Mo Yi's telekinetic force, his eyes, which housed The Ominous power, had already met Mo Yi's gaze. His Evil Eye immediately activated, plunging Mo Yi into an illusion for one minute.

Evil Eye was Midou Ban's famed ultimate technique. It could make anyone who met his gaze fall into an illusion for one minute. It could be used on multiple people or animals at once, but only three times a day, and never on the same person twice. Once the usage limit was exceeded, the user would completely disappear, including every trace of having ever existed in this world. It was an Eye of Nonexistence that could change fate.

Although he was still sent flying by Mo Yi's Scatter the Weak, Mo Yi's subsequent Psychic Force never actually struck. Mo Yi had merely fallen into the illusion created by Midou Ban and believed that he had landed a combo.

"Ginji—"

As Midou Ban's partner, Amano Ginji immediately understood what he meant from that shout.

While Mo Yi was trapped in the Evil Eye's illusion, Amano Ginji would use his electricity-manipulating ability to send a current into Mo Yi's body, disrupting his nerves so that even if he woke from the illusion, he would be unable to resist.

Midou Ban used Evil Eye, an ultimate move that ignored resistance and distance, to hard-control the target. Amano Ginji followed with Ten Thousand Volts to finish them off. They had used this combo so many times they had lost count. In a two-on-one, it was practically a guaranteed catch.

"Leave it to me—"

One minute sounded like plenty of time, but if they dawdled, getting counter-killed would be a perfectly ordinary outcome.

Amano Ginji quickly walked up to Mo Yi, who stood motionless in place. His hand crackling with electricity slapped onto Mo Yi's body, accurately shocking him.

"Done."

"I've been sick of the sight of this mask for a long time."

Midou Ban climbed out of the crater he had smashed into, dusting dirt and grime from his T-shirt. He muttered irritably, "Let me see whether you're hiding your face because you're too ugly to show it to anyone."

"Hm?"

Midou Ban grabbed the mask and pulled, but it would not come off. It was as though it had grown there from the start.

"Interesting—"