Chapter 108 One Man Forms an Army

Verne's appearance was clearly beyond Fabre and Lewis's expectations, but it was within Holmes and Balzac's.

In most people's minds, Jules Verne is only known for his role as one of the founders of the UN. Aside from that, he's seen as a logistics worker responsible for preparing equipment and equipment and piloting submarines; almost no one associates him with combat personnel.

This is actually quite normal, because Verne rarely participated in battles.

On one hand, Verne was always a relatively pure researcher. Although his previous outdoor work experience gave him good physical fitness, he was a complete novice in combat, making him easily overwhelmed by experience.

On the other hand, Verne's "resonance chamber" is power-consuming. It is usually used freely on the Nautilus because the Nautilus is equipped with a generator set that can obtain power by extracting sodium from seawater and mixing it with mercury as a battery. If the resonance chamber is removed from the Nautilus, power supply will become a problem.

Moreover, without supporting safety equipment and cooling devices, the resonance chamber would be difficult to reach its maximum output. In addition, after Verne's ability covers the Nautilus, it can only extend a few meters outwards at most, which is basically not enough for combat. Verne only occasionally fights defensive battles, and he uses "Deep Sea Wandering" to suppress the unruly children more often than he fights battles.

The reason I'm here now is out of necessity, since he's the only one in the UN with strong and consistent physical combat power.

When Verne left the submarine, he brought a battery pack, which was enough to support his continuous and stable use of his supernatural abilities for about three hours and forty minutes. However, if the output was increased, this usage time would be shortened.

That's why Verne's initial plan was to force his way in using his speed, but he didn't expect Balzac's reaction to be so amazing.

"This is quite troublesome." Verne watched Balzac's arm writhing and deforming in mid-air, feeling irritated. "If they fight, the damage will be considerable. Can't we just pretend we didn't see it?"

Verne was met with two bone spurs that suddenly pierced the skin from Balzac's shoulder blades and extended outwards, along with his arms that were constantly mutating, twisting, and becoming abnormally enhanced.

Verne: ...To be honest, it's a bit of a morbid curiosity.

Pu Songling, on the other hand, accepted it well and even commented, "This looks more like a 'strange' thing than my own supernatural ability."

Balzac ignored Pu Songling's words, twisted his neck 180 degrees, and charged directly toward Verne in the sky, making no attempt to conceal his alien form.

He did not attempt to attack Pu Songling, who was within the range of Verne's supernatural abilities; at the current distance, it would be impossible to succeed and would only create meaningless vulnerabilities for him.

On the other hand, Verne clearly thought the same thing.

Under Verne's will, the air began to move, and the fluid air instantly transformed from calm into a terrifying gale, so violent that it seemed to have become solid.

Under Verne's control, the gale first struck the ground, and the asphalt surface, which had already shown signs of cracking during the first shock wave, shattered directly. Then Verne's gale, carrying gravel, rushed toward Balzac.

Fueled by the raging winds, each shard of rock was no less powerful than a cannon blast.

Balzac had no chance to dodge in the gale, and after being passively hit several times, obvious cracks appeared on his body.

Almost crashing back to the ground, Balzac, regaining his footing, looked at Verne in the sky, his eye twitching slightly: "He still dares to call me a monster..."

His body underwent further mutation, with multiple bone spurs emerging from Balzac's legs and embedding themselves in the ground. The bone spurs protruding from his arms and shoulder blades became increasingly grotesque.

Those mutated bodies did not appear to be a single entity. Rather, they were mutated products of countless twisted and randomly pieced-together bones. Most of them looked no different from ordinary bones, but the tips of the bone spurs were as sharp as knives, instantly splitting large chunks of concrete and asphalt in two upon impact.

Balzac straightened his stance and charged forward again.

It was clearly just a battle between two people, but the special effects created resembled natural disasters and monster invasions.

Fabre squinted and peered out of the long-shattered window, observing the battlefield: "It seems that Commander Balzac is at a disadvantage now, but the good news is that Commander Balzac is not using his full strength. The bad news is that, judging from his expression, Verne is not using his full strength either."

Whether it was to compress the power or something else, the range of the gale that Verne created was very small; at least for Fabre and Lewis, it only felt slightly painful on their faces.

Lewis took a pair of goggles from his pocket—the ones Holmes had given him before he came out—put them on, and then tossed one to Fabre.

“There’s bound to be a testing phase at the start, it’s hard to say who’ll have the upper hand right now.” Lewis took his pocket watch out of his jacket pocket, opened the case with one hand, and while silently counting down the seconds, he was also talking to Fabre, “Help me, I’ll keep watch, I’ll try to pull that, that Verne into my dream…”

Fabre picked up an eco-box at his feet: "No problem."

Lewis's gaze followed the constantly ticking second hand, and as the hands moved, his gaze became increasingly unfocused.

Lewis's ability requires a preparation period to activate. During this time, he will gradually be enveloped by a sense of "drowsiness" and fall asleep. When Lewis enters a dream, he can pull everyone around him into the dream as well.

However, this ability has a drawback: the sleep it creates is not forced and can be easily awakened by pain, vibration, or noise.

Although Lewis can instantly pull others back even if they leave the dream, this ability disappears once Lewis wakes up.

"I'm sorry, I can't help you fall asleep yet."

Pu Songling's voice came from behind Lewis and Fabre, followed by a piercing sound of gongs and drums.

The sound was so shrill and unpleasant it was practically a sonic weapon. Lewis jolted awake from his drowsiness and turned his head in annoyance.

Pu Songling had somehow wandered into this place. Beside him was a dark green figure covered in gongs, drums, and suonas, still playing. He only stopped when he was sure that Lewis and Fabre had both turned their heads and were fully awake.

Noticing Lewis's angry expression, Pu Songling nodded, his voice full of satisfaction: "[Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio: The Noisy Ghost] seems to have worked quite well."

Fabre, who was standing closer, kept rubbing his ears: "That's amazing, I think I almost went deaf..."

Lewis was annoyed that he had forgotten that Pu Songling had come along. He pulled his hat down to cover the upper half of his face and observed Pu Songling from under the brim: "Troublesome."

"Keep him occupied!"

Knowing that his severe stuttering made him unsuitable for such emergency command, Lewis only shouted a few words before turning and running off in another direction.

His goal was clear: to find a place where he could trigger a "dream adventure".

If he can use his supernatural abilities to control Verne and help Balzac win, then the rest will be much simpler, and he won't need to deal with Pu Songling now.

Fabre remained where he was, so Pu Songling did not rush to chase Lewis. Instead, he took out five pages of paper and threw them at Lewis with the help of the wind.

The paper began to deform in mid-air, folding and expanding into a dark figure clad in full armor, holding a sword in its left hand and a gun in its right. Before the latter half of the body could even take shape, it used the impact of its descent to attack Lewis.

At the same time, Fabre deftly picked up a small jar that he always kept clipped to his clothes and opened the lid.

A much heavier thud than the paper general's landing followed by the sound of paper tearing and fragments of paper falling in the wind.

"Oh dear," Pu Songling uttered a meaningless exclamation, "It's more troublesome than I imagined."

A green praying mantis, about three meters tall, shook off some pages of paper stuck to its front claws and turned to look at Pu Songling.

"The African green mantis, the largest of all mantis species." Picking up two small jars, Fabre gave a brief introduction to the species of mantis, as if giving a lecture.

"Actually, in terms of combat power, I prefer the Demon Flower Mantis. But it's a rare species, so it would be a waste to use it in battle."

With one hand on each side, they lifted the lids, and two more green praying mantises poked their heads out of the specially made small jars.

"I personally believe you have no chance of winning, Mr. 'Strange'."