Chapter 157 VS Great Completion Rank 4
Upon seeing the opponent charging straight ahead in this "portal armor," I first unleashed a massive wave of fire at him.
We were fighting high in the air, and he was below me. This massive wave of fire looked like a torrent of water trying to overwhelm the upward-flying mosquitoes. But the reality was quite the opposite. The black "mosquitoes" were not overwhelmed by the fiery red "water" at all; instead, they rushed up as if it were nothing.
As expected, this level of attack had no effect on him at this point.
If I'm not mistaken, his ability to manipulate shadows is of the same nature as the shadow manipulation abilities used by the strange people I've encountered in the past.
His ability to suddenly disappear at the very beginning of the battle was likely a shadow teleportation. He probably slipped into the shadow beneath him at supersonic speed and then leaped out from the shadow behind me.
In other words, he's actually an oddball? But I've never heard of an oddball at the Great Completion level. In any case, the possibility that he's the Water Master Xuanwu is practically zero in my mind. The people connected to him aren't the Zhu family, but the Humanity Department and Ying Lingyun.
So, what was his purpose in attacking the Zhu family? And now he seems intent on killing me. Even though I attacked him first, if I wasn't originally among his targets, he shouldn't be lingering here. Is he merely seeking revenge against me? Or is it because I killed the creator of the monster in the past, making me a target of the Humanitarian Division and Ying Lingyun's revenge?
I charged at him, wanting to observe his portal armor through close combat. This situation was certainly welcome for him, as he excelled in close-quarters combat, and he immediately threw a punch at me.
I thought he'd just ram me through the portal armor and banish me to the Shadow World. Perhaps he saw my fire teleportation and didn't think banishing me to the Shadow World would be effective; that assessment wasn't wrong. That said, punching me isn't necessarily the right decision either.
His fist struck me squarely on the forehead. It was a solid impact. And contact is mutual; since he made contact with me, I made contact with him. The instant he hit me, my skull exploded. This explosion wasn't due to destruction, but rather because I actively triggered the explosion of my skull while being attacked.
The firepower, no less than that of dozens of fireballs exploding before, roared again, blowing me away to a distance, with flames covering an airspace with a radius of three hundred meters.
Even though I'm wearing such ridiculous teleportation armor, I have to temporarily disable the teleportation function if I want to kill my opponent with my fists and feet. This is the best time for me to counterattack.
But what happened in my perception was once again beyond my calculations.
He remained unharmed; all the flames had been absorbed into his black armor without any return.
Did he activate the armor's teleportation function in an emergency when he was counterattacked? No. I'm certain my counterattack and his attack occurred simultaneously. In other words, he attacked me with his fists and feet while maintaining the armor's teleportation function. He was able to interfere with me while remaining unaffected by my interference.
Is this even possible? It's not impossible; even I could immediately think of at least one workaround—he could simply attach a force field to the outside of the armor that could physically interact with the outside world. But unfortunately, it seems he really didn't use any tricks. I didn't sense any similar magical fluctuations on the armor's surface, and the pain when he punched me was exactly the same as the feeling from previous attacks. He probably truly did something against the laws of nature.
He charged at me again at high speed, and I could only keep my distance. I was faster, and it was difficult to teleport at such a high altitude; besides, in my fire elemental form, I didn't have any shadows he could exploit. I had to find a counter-strategy as quickly as possible.
In all the monster information I've seen in the past, I've never seen any monster use "portal armor." While portal armor is undeniably creative, using a shadow portal as a defensive measure isn't an inconceivable idea. The reason it's not used is probably because even for monsters skilled in manipulating shadow power, shadow portals are extremely complex techniques; they would collapse under intense external magical attack.
Moreover, if one were to actually wear the teleportation portal, not only would the enemy be unable to access the armor, but one would also be unable to access it, let alone wear it.
However, none of the above limitations are visible in this man.
I recalled a theory I had seen in the monster data before—based on Luo Shan's analysis of the monsters, all monsters likely share the same source of power, which is also the place where their heart seeds return after escaping.
Based on this, there is a hypothesis that the power of all the monsters comes from the same person, who possesses power at the Great Perfection level or above and is the "original body" of all the monsters.
Is the man I'm fighting the so-called "Primarch"?
I unleashed another massive fireball at him—this time with all my might. The fireball was more than capable of destroying a street, let alone several; its impact on the ground was simply unimaginable. I wanted to see if this level of attack could violently dismantle the portal armor.
He still let the fireball fall on the armor, and the fireball disappeared without a trace, as if it had sunk into the sea.
There was no parrying, no dodging; the strongest defense in the world has never been any fancy techniques, but rather being in a state of invulnerability from the very beginning. He was no longer a physical entity, but a "hole in the world."
This portal armor is practically the ultimate protection; he could probably be thrown into the sun and still not get hurt.
Since there's no way to break through the armor from the outside, could I try sending the flames directly into his body? I tried to sense the inside of the armor, but I still couldn't. This time, it wasn't the magic binding him that prevented me from focusing on him. Rather than being hindered, my senses were too unimpeded; they passed right through his portal armor, allowing me to perceive the shadowy world on the other side.
“Just as I heard,” he suddenly said. “You have immense power, but you don’t know how to use it. Just now, if that attack had been aimed at my soul, I would already be dead.”
I heard it from someone—was it from Ying Lingyun, who is suspected to still be alive?
As for his claim that he wanted to attack the soul, I had already guessed it without him saying it.
Logically speaking, since my flames are transformed from my own spirit, or rather, my soul, they should inherently possess destructive power related to the soul.
Actually, I'm not sure if I've truly run out of flames now. Maybe the reason the enemy was panting so heavily wasn't entirely due to exhaustion, but also because I damaged his soul. However, one thing is certain: the primary destructive force of my flames isn't on the soul.
The reason for this is quite obvious—it's because I lack an intuitive understanding of the concept of the soul.
Even if I know that the soul exists, I have never actually come into contact with one.
But things are different now.
I have personally experienced the pain of my soul and come to know its existence. Therefore, if I focus my attention on this realization, I might be able to directly damage the soul of my opponent.
The prerequisite is that I must first break through his unprecedented "turtle shell".
I analyzed his words and caught the flaw in them: "Your armor does indeed have a defect, otherwise you should have taken it out from the beginning, and you wouldn't have risked being burned to death by me. Is there some condition that needs to be met? Or is there some price to pay?"
"You seem to think you've found my weakness, what a huge misunderstanding." He laughed dismissively. "'Shadow Binding' is my basic ability. Using this skill requires neither any conditions nor any price."
"It's too late to make amends now."
As he replied, I sensed that he was mostly telling the truth.
Given his demonstrated combat experience, he would never so carelessly expose his weaknesses during the battle. While it's incomprehensible why he didn't use the portal armor from the start, he probably could use the skill at will. My guess is that the skill has a limited lifespan, preventing him from using it for extended periods.
However, judging from his fighting posture, he had no intention of a quick victory, and the pace of his attack did not seem any more aggressive compared to the beginning. This steady and methodical approach had nothing to do with being "unable to fight for a long time".
Is this really a flawless defense?
He relentlessly closed in on me, while I maintained my distance, observing and contemplating my next attack. To engage in close combat without finding a way to break through his defenses, in Zhu Shi's words, was nothing more than "impotent rage." Besides, I'm not the type to fight in close quarters; he's the true master in that area. I don't need to limit the battle to his preferred distance.
However, my not getting close to the other party doesn't mean they don't have ways to get close to me. This situation of being kept at a distance is probably a common problem for close-combat demon hunters like him, and he clearly has his own methods.
He suddenly raised his right hand and fired a high-speed shadow arrow from his palm, aimed at my head.
I immediately turned my head to avoid the arrow. At the same time, he vanished from his spot. And the moment the arrow reached behind me, it instantly transformed into an extremely flat shadow portal.
His armored arm blasted out from the black door, aiming for the back of my head.
(End of this chapter)
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