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Chapter 1353: Enemy of the World

The long-armed Fallen Evil changed direction instantly, pivoting sideways and launching both fists straight ahead.

Its arms stretched to their limit — the full reach of them — and drove into the vehicle several meters away with enough force to punch two ragged holes straight through the chassis. Anyone inside would have taken that impact without warning.

This was the attack it prized above all others. Extending and snapping back, limitless strength, no Force of Nature required — none of the Awakened it had killed managed to react before the blow landed. Every one of them had died with disbelief on their faces, and that expression had always been a pleasure to see.

But when its arms hit, the Fallen Evil’s face went wrong.

From beneath the flung wreckage emerged a woman.

She was kneeling in the debris with her body leaned forward, weight distributed, the posture of someone who had been waiting — not a person who had just been struck by a freight-train force. She had moved before the impact landed. Faster, far faster, than the Fallen Evil believed possible.

The silver light came alive in her hands again and formed a whirlpool that accelerated, pulling everything inside its orbit. The vehicle exploded outward in fragments. The arms the Fallen Evil had extended vanished into the spinning light — and when it ripped itself free, only the biceps and shoulders came back with it. The severed portions hit the ground with a wet, thick sound. The smell that followed was immediate and nauseating.

A blood-curdling shriek tore across the bridge.

In a single exchange: one Fallen Evil in two pieces. One with nothing left below the shoulders. Both had been formidable enemies to any Martial Artist alive.

“Is your idea of equal grounds sending three people against one little girl?” Fei Yuhan let the radiance settle from her hands, revealing a sword that was plain and unadorned. “I think this is barely enough to call it even.”

“Master—” Zero moved toward her at once and took her hand.

“I already called your Uncle Roland,” Fei Yuhan whispered, one eye closed in a wink. “Don’t worry.”

“What?” Zero blinked. “But shouldn’t the Association be handling something like this? Uncle can’t fight like Sister Garcia — he’s seldom reliable. If he comes, won’t he be too—”

“He’s the only one who can actually help us here.” Fei Yuhan placed her hand briefly on top of Zero’s head. “Your most important job right now is to get as far from this spot as possible. Can you do that?”

Zero started to say something. Under Fei Yuhan’s gaze she closed her mouth, bit her lip, turned, and ran toward the edge of the sealed boundary.

“How were you unharmed from that crash?!” The long-armed Fallen Evil was screaming now, the malevolence in its voice cracking into something closer to outrage.

“Simple. I did what you did.” Fei Yuhan shrugged as the Force of Nature settled across her whole body like a second skin.

The creature’s eyes narrowed. “Channeling the force outward — rendering all ordinary damage ineffective? That’s something only a Defender-ranked Martial Artist can—” It stared at her. “Could it be that you are the one they call the genius—”

“I’ve never found it strange that even the lowest tier of Fallen Evils can do it.” Fei Yuhan’s voice had returned to its careful calm. “As for you — I originally wanted to see how many you were before deciding how to respond. As it turns out, I’ve learned something far more interesting. I should thank you. You’ve confirmed several suspicions I’ve carried for a long time.”

“Master Oracle—” The long-armed Fallen Evil’s expression went ugly. It had lost the malevolence completely now. Fei Yuhan’s gaze alone drove it back two steps.

Delta raised one hand and made a grasping motion.

The creature’s words stopped in its throat. It froze as though seized by invisible fingers. The red cyclone at the center of its chest ripped outward through its back, carrying with it a spray of flesh and blood, and flew toward the Oracle. The thing that had been alive dropped with shock still written on its face.

The gargoyle’s remains received the same. Its core tore free and climbed into the air.

Both cyclones merged into red mist and flowed into Delta’s body.

“Those who fear their enemies do not deserve the power of the Gods. Your service ends here.” He said it as he might remark on the weather. His gaze shifted to Fei Yuhan. “Rather amusing — the Creators are the true targets, yet these two were misled and intimidated by a Martial Artist. Did they lack the foresight, or simply borrow their fear from what they used to be? Much like yourself—”

Fei Yuhan moved.

She had been waiting for Zero to reach safety, not listening. Experience had taught her that the longer someone spent announcing their own superiority, the more volatile they became when interrupted. Extreme mood swings were a factor in any fight, and she used every factor available to her.

Her read on the masked figure was this: its strength was on an entirely different level from the Fallen Evils. It had bizarre offensive capabilities. To keep it from reaching Zero, the only sound approach was to press it so hard and so constantly that it never had room to look elsewhere.

She grabbed a broken steel rod from the bridge surface and hurled it at Delta with her full strength.

The Oracle had to stop talking. It knocked the rod aside with a palm strike.

In the space that created, Fei Yuhan was already moving.

She rarely carried weapons after mastering the corporeal channeling of Force of Nature — but weapons were not useless. They saved the time required to build up force and extended her reach. Competition rules banned them, so very few people knew that her sword skill ran far deeper than her hand-to-hand. The blade settled into her grip and she channeled the Force of Nature through it until even steel would have parted like cloth—

The blade stopped against an intangible ripple, held back from Delta’s body as though the air itself had thickened.

Nothing came through. It was impregnable.

The same source as Force of Nature. No question.

Fei Yuhan didn’t break the attack stance. She raised her left leg and drove her heel into the Oracle’s waist.

This time she felt it land.

The kick threw Delta into the truck container hard enough to cave the metal surface in. She catalogued it immediately: he can’t use the invisible force twice in succession. Both hands required. Her mind processed the data without pause; her body was already moving before the thought completed. She covered the distance in three strides and was on him before he found the wall.

In less than ten seconds they had traded more than ten blows. The Oracle had been cut several times and bore wounds across its body — wounds that would have ended an ordinary person where they stood. They did not slow it. She was suppressing it, clearly, and yet she was the only one present who understood that suppression and victory were not the same thing.

A fatal wound. Somehow, I need a fatal wound.

The mask was the anomaly. Trading strikes had shown her how carefully it protected its head. She filed the observation, then made a deliberate choice: she loosened the barrage, dropped her shoulder, let a gap open between them.

Delta read it as disengagement.

The moment she saw the arms extend toward her, she reversed completely — drove off the ground and launched herself forward rather than away. The transition looked simple. It was not. Shifting from retreat to charge at speed demanded absolute precision in Force of Nature control; the inertia that lived in joints and spine would betray anyone who tried it without full command of the Force running through their body. A half-second’s delay and the invisible hand behind her would have closed around her.

She felt its wind on her back.

But she was already inside its reach.

She put everything she had into the thrust and drove straight at the mask.

Crack.

The strange, decorated surface split.

Then she felt the wrongness.

By every right, the thrust should not have stopped at the mask. It should have gone through. Half the blade had entered — she watched it happen — and yet the tip did not emerge from the other side. The blade had simply ceased somewhere inside.

The mask fell away.

In its place: darkness. A darkness that was not absence of light but presence of depth, an abyss with no bottom, and inside it — countless stars turning slowly around a center, a vast astrolabe rotating in silence. Her sword had entered the mechanism and not disturbed it by a fraction.

The abandoned factory. The alliance mission. The monster there had the same—

The delay cost her.

Half a breath slower, and the invisible force hit her from the side.

Force of Nature defended against ordinary harm. Against an attack from the same source, it was gauze against a blade. She felt her organs shift. The pain rose into her throat and she could not release it — not a sound. She tumbled across the bridge and used her sword to arrest the skid, and when she had finally stopped moving she opened her mouth and spat blood.

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