Surging crimson fire, in an instant, cleared away every last flake of flying snow.
The summit of Mount Buzhou revealed itself—shockingly clean.
Nothing remained but rock.
Bolue's body stood several meters tall.
Those deeply knotted muscles and jutting bone spurs made him look like a demon god descending into the world.
And across from him, within that red silhouette, there still seemed to linger a trace of blue-green.
This was...
KAMEN RIDER OOO · TAKADOL COMBO ETERNITY
Like an undying bird reborn from nirvana.
And at the undying bird's side were two figures no ordinary person could see.
Perhaps, like medals craving perfection, they too were thirsting for some kind of wholeness.
Bolue wasn't afraid of Sora taking on this stance.
Because no matter what, the advantage was on his side.
His body had absorbed countless Abundance blessings—his power had swollen to its absolute peak.
Aside from the fact that this form's appearance introduced the faint possibility of death, he had held the upper hand the entire time!
Not to mention, even his brain had been reinforced by Abundance's power.
After that reinforcement, his processing speed was faster than many ordinary computers by far.
And precisely because of that, Bolue could project every one of Sora's forms and moves onto the screen of his mind.
And those analyses kept updating as he fought him again and again.
Whether it was his fists and kicks, or him gripping the hand axe and the snake sword—
Bolue had already collected all the necessary data, stored neatly in his head.
Even his self-acceleration, his control of water, his mastery of gravity… and so many other powers—he understood them all!
With this foundation, even if Sora revealed other powers, Bolue could infer the new from the old and grasp them quickly!
And the only thing that caught him off guard was—
"Why didn't I predict that just now?"
He was certain: just now Sora had simply been standing there. Even the temperature around them hadn't changed at all.
Meaning—he hadn't controlled flames, and he hadn't launched an attack.
But…
Sharp claws brushed the spot where he'd just been hit, and his condition synchronized through his mind.
It recovered fast, yes—but the ruptured capillaries in that area and the bruising made it plain as day.
Which only made Bolue even more puzzled.
What the hell kind of attack did you use just now?
Blazing flames had evaporated all the flying snow around them—an ability that obvious, once used, would absolutely cause a violent local rise in temperature.
Hiding it would be extremely difficult.
But when Bolue was struck just now, he hadn't felt any high heat scorching him at all.
It was like, at the same moment, he'd been punched from two sides at once.
But there was no one else on this battlefield. So where did those two punches come from?
Everything about it exceeded Bolue's expectations—like a precise mathematical formula that suddenly gained an unknown variable.
And that variable, to some extent, could even overturn every calculation that came before it.
On a battlefield, this kind of situation was rare to the point of absurdity. Even though Bolue had lived hundreds—maybe a thousand—years, he'd only seen it a handful of times.
And now he'd run into it, on this Xianzhou that was about to shatter and vanish completely…
Hah~~
The fur on his body drifted lightly in the mountain wind as Bolue drove his brain to full utilization.
Everything around him, and everything within him—he knew it all.
If an experiment encountered an unknown variable, then inside the Intelligentsia Guild, there were only two ways to handle it.
The first was to abandon the experiment and fail the course.
And that had never been Bolue's way—he was a graduate who'd cleared every subject.
So the method he chose was the second.
If an unknown variable appeared, then the best method was to probe it until you understood what it truly was!
The Abundance power in his body was still plentiful. Yes, there was a risk of death—but if you really did the math, it capped out at thirty percent.
"In other words… I still have a seventy percent win rate…"
Seventy percent was enough!
Bolue's eyes narrowed. Every twitch of every muscle on Sora's body fell into his sight.
Like this, none of Sora's bodily changes could escape his vision.
The ground spat out gravel as the wolf claws exploded with force.
The next instant, he shot forward like an arrow loosed from the bowstring—straight at the front!
"Come!"
Seventy-thirty split—advantage in hand!
At a moment like this, it was time to show the tactical micro-control that belonged to Bolue!
Bolue's body was many times larger than before, yet his speed wasn't slow in the slightest.
His figure turned to a wisp of gray fog, the tearing air so shrill it stabbed at the ears.
His four massive hands—fist, palm, thrust, chop!
And his targets weren't random. Every strike aimed for a primate's vital points.
Throat. Skull. Heart. Lungs.
Any one of those, taking even one of his heavy blows, would likely kill on the spot.
And every one of those ruthless killing moves was used on Sora.
And that undying bird that had stood in place all this time—like it had been summoned by someone—chose to meet Bolue head-on!
What?!
Sora's decision startled Bolue. With a difference in size this obvious, he still dared to fight face-to-face.
Was this guy stupid?!
No. A man who'd forced him this far couldn't possibly be stupid.
Which meant—he absolutely had something to rely on.
In an instant, Bolue's mind spun out countless countermeasures.
And a frontal clash could be said to favor him the most.
He was a Borisin who'd just undergone Path Reversion—if he got injured trading blows head-on, he'd be the one profiting.
So after weighing it for a heartbeat, Bolue didn't retreat. He kept charging.
The next moment, gray fog and flame collided in an instant.
BOOM!!!
Fierce fire erupted outward, and the surrounding cosmos seemed to clear, just a little.
Even the air froze for a brief moment—then the shockwave from their impact blasted the ground beneath them into countless cracks!
Kakakakaka.
The fissures spread and spread, ringing out in crisp snaps.
Soon, a thunder-like roar drowned those tiny sounds out.
And the source of that thunder was the battlefield where Sora and Bolue were colliding head-on!
Sora threw a punch straight for Bolue's chest.
Bolue reacted instantly—and seizing that chance, swung a fist for Sora's chest as well.
Wound for wound—he'd profit!
But right then, his arm suddenly got interfered with by something, shifting a bit to the side.
Ankh pulled his fist back, then tilted his head toward the other side, smiling at the corner of his mouth.
Bolue had already expected it in his heart, but he hadn't thought it would come so suddenly.
With the counterstrike foiled, his remaining hands crossed before his chest in defense.
Sora's punch slammed down violently. The power within it let Bolue hear his own bones creak.
But just as Sora's fist spent its force, another surge of power threaded through those crossed arms and poured into Bolue's body.
"Ghk—!"
Under that blow, flames burst from Bolue's body at once!
The high heat, riding on a shock of force, punched into his insides, making him let out a pained, involuntary howl.
His figure shot backward, carving a broad trench across the ground as he skidded.
Seeing that, Sora had a thought.
With a body that big, using Bolue to plow fields… might actually be pretty good.
And after Sora, Eiji—who had thrown the second strike—drew his arm back.
He looked at Ankh beside him, eyebrows lifting.
Ankh, seeing that, immediately wore a complicated smile.
Contempt, relief, happiness… and more than anything else, remembrance.
Between the two of them, words weren't needed anymore. Sometimes a thought, a glance, was enough to understand what the other was thinking.
But being treated as the proof of their bond was not a pleasant experience for Bolue.
His arm hung at an unnatural angle—bone already broken from that last attack.
"Haa…"
Bolue healed as he stared forward, face heavy, at the enemy.
What the hell is going on? Who the hell is this guy?
"It seems you still haven't figured out what I'm made of."
Sora's voice came from the front, laced with a trace of mockery.
Bolue had said before that he'd recorded everything about him—yet after this exchange, it clearly wasn't as he claimed.
If he'd really "figured him out" completely, how would Bolue have ended up like this?
"Don't run your mouth!"
Bolue roared. He refused to admit defeat.
How could he lose? How could he lose to this guy—this idiot with something wrong with his brain?!
Bolue's arm snapped back into place, fully restored, and he launched his counterattack immediately!
He wanted to tear Sora's mouth apart—to use these claws to peel his flesh off, piece by piece.
Hatred drove Bolue on, pushing his power higher and higher.
He forced his speed to the absolute limit, like a drifting, unreal shadow!
At the same time, those four massive arms struck in turn—each blow carrying the weight of thunder and mountains.
His strength was already terrifying, and paired with that kind of speed, his destructive power hit its peak.
But…
It didn't work!
That speed really was insane. If it were just Sora alone, there was no way he could respond perfectly.
At the very least, he'd have to eat a few hits.
But right now, he wasn't alone here.
Your speed is fast. Your attacks are strong. But if you can't hit, it's all meaningless!
So something downright eerie unfolded on that battlefield.
Every time Bolue's fist was about to land on Sora, Sora seemed to slip away at the very last instant—then counterattack immediately.
The kind of movement that looked like he'd turned on some auto-dodge cheat… was happening right here, in real time.
And paired with that cloak behind Sora, swaying like peacock feathers after every evade, the whole scene blurred into something like a brand-new kind of combat art being performed.
As for what the "demonstration piece" felt like—Sora didn't care.
Anyway, Bolue was miserable to the bone right now.
He was the one attacking, but with Sora's constant counters, wounds kept piling up across his body.
If some clueless bystander saw this, they probably wouldn't even understand what was happening on the field.
And it only made the irritation in Bolue's chest burn with nowhere to go.
All he could do was turn it into an even sharper offensive—burn with rage and pray the other side made one mistake, just once, and died on the spot.
That too-fast speed tore through the air again and again—until, on this mountaintop, a black storm formed.
The storm roared and wrapped itself around everything, sweeping through and destroying all it touched.
Even the Mount Buzhou stone, cut off from Abundance's power, was ground into powder the instant that black storm rolled over it.
And even so, the black storm couldn't swallow that streak of fiery red.
More than that—fiery red was waiting.
Waiting for a chance. Waiting for the one chance where the counterattack would finally land clean and decisive.
And that chance would come the moment the other side slipped because of emotion.
"Right here!"
The opening vanished in a blink, but Sora caught it precisely.
In the instant Bolue exposed a flaw, the power of the three of them moved like it was one body—together, they threw a punch!
Bolue, tearing forward at high speed, never imagined Sora would strike at that exact moment.
And by the time he tried to dodge, it was too late!
BOOM!
Three fists—yet in that moment, only a single dull sound rang out.
Where the knuckles landed, flames erupted!
A black figure traced a streak of light through the sky.
Three dents pressed into his body—smooth, clean, perfectly aligned.
At a glance, someone might even think Bolue was the one who'd inherited OOO's power.
But that was just a joke.
Under that blow, Bolue's whole body was driven deep—embedded firmly into Mount Buzhou's rock.
"Looking at this guy… he's actually making me think of Kazari. How unpleasant."
Ankh clicked his tongue. He hadn't expected that, in a place like this, he'd be reminded of those disgusting bastards.
Annoying. Seriously annoying.
"Hahaha, Ankh, you're still the same."
Eiji lightly patted his friend on the shoulder, like old friends meeting again.
And the bond between those two—absolutely qualified as friends of friends.
"It's not over…"
Right then, Bolue—still wedged in the stone—forced himself back up.
"It's not over!"
My wish isn't fulfilled yet. How could I stop here?!
Bolue didn't choose to give up. After wrenching himself free of the rock, he grabbed a handful of broken stone from the ground and shoved it into his mouth.
Even though Abundance's power had been cut off, Mount Buzhou itself was part of an Abundance blessing.
The power within couldn't gush out—but the thing itself was still Abundance.
And what Bolue was doing now was like swallowing Abundance's "gift" head-on!
And the consequences of receiving that kind of "gift" directly—across the entire universe, there were almost no beings who could bear it.
Because Abundance—YAOSHI—could be said to answer any plea, but THEIR blessings always existed in the form of external things.
Whether it was the Ambrosial Arbor of the Luofu, the Redsprings of the Borisin, or the Buzhou of the Cangcheng—
These blessings were all "external." And now Bolue had chosen to swallow that blessing into his belly, to obtain undying power.
So under Sora's gaze, Bolue's body convulsed violently. Broken bones stitched back into wholeness.
After that… he looked as if he'd never been injured at all.
Black mist rose off his body, and Bolue's silhouette turned even more ghostly.
"For my ideals… for my dreams…"
Sora immediately charged forward to attack again, but the other side suddenly exploded outward with a savage aura.
That gray-black presence burst up—so huge it could be seen even from the foot of the mountain!
"Th-That… what is that?"
The people down below couldn't help blurting in shock.
Black fog—so thick it almost wrapped the entire summit.
The sudden change left them unable to tell what had happened.
And those Borisin, already shifting between advance and retreat, felt a tremor rising from deep in their blood!
That sensation made their bodies sturdier, their strength heavier.
"This is the Khan's gift to us—Khan Bolue's might makes us unmatched!"
Those Borisin, who'd been pushed into a disadvantage after Abundance was cut off, seemed to be blessed by some kind of power.
Their bodies began to swell larger and larger, no longer resembling their earlier werewolf forms.
"What happened to these guys?"
Yu Qi could never have expected the Borisin to change like this.
It went beyond anything she could imagine.
But very soon, the Foxians here clutched at their chests one after another.
"So uncomfortable—so uncomfortable!!!"
Those Foxians began changing too, just like the Borisin in front of them—tufts of fur bursting out across their bodies.
Before long, enormous foxes appeared across the field one by one.
"What the hell is happening now?"
The sudden transformation left everyone at a loss—and at the same time, a boundless chill flashed through their hearts.
If the enemy could do this… would Xianzhou people be forced to molt into apes?
"You don't need to worry. This is resonance from the same kind of Abundance blessing."
Jin Xing was hot-tempered, but she was still a Dragon Lord who'd inherited a legacy.
In countless past lives, she'd seen things like this before.
Abundance's blessings could resonate with each other—and burst out with an even more powerful force.
And that was exactly why those Abundance freaks kept collecting Abundance blessings across the universe.
That was what they wanted: the stronger Abundance power that came after resonance!
"And the reason the Foxians are changing like this…"
Jin Xing's gaze swept the area—over fox after fox with feral eyes.
It was because the Foxians' Abundance blessing, just like the Borisin, originally came from a single Redsprings.
That's right. Borisin and Foxians were different species from the same planet.
And the boundary between those species was extremely blurry—because between the two, there wasn't even reproductive isolation.
From that, you could see the relationship between Foxians and Borisin.
The ancestors of both races had once accepted the Redsprings bestowed by Abundance—and gained power.
Now the Borisin's Abundance resonance had ignited, and they wouldn't be spared either!
"Then, Dragon Lord… I want to ask one thing."
Yu Qi's tone suddenly shifted, faintly off: "After resonance—can the Denizens of the Abundance keep their sanity?"
"It's hard. Only extremely special existences can stay rational. Otherwise, why do you think everyone in the universe calls for Abundance freaks to be beaten down?"
Jin Xing shook her head.
"Then us, right now…"
Yu Qi said nothing more, because Jin Xing had also noticed something was wrong with the situation around them.
Those foxes—one after another—were circling the Xianzhou Alliance coalition with vicious expressions.
In an instant, the whole scene turned chaotic. The coalition suddenly had to deal with Foxian attacks and the Borisin threat at the same time.
The Foxians, because of the Abundance resonance, also began attacking indiscriminately, friend and foe alike.
The Borisin, already bloodthirsty to the bone, joined the melee as well.
The chaos on the field boiled over in the blink of an eye.
And at the summit of Mount Buzhou, at the site of Abundance's resonance, Bolue also successfully completed resonance with Abundance's power.
The dark, blackened color in his blood receded, leaving behind a silver-white giant wolf.
Countless snowflakes rose around him, trying to pour into his body.
And a streak of crimson flame melted them completely.
But even melted, those snowflakes became countless raindrops gathering around Bolue.
For a moment, he didn't look like that past evil apparition at all—there was even a hint of sanctity to him.
But the instant he opened his eyes, that sanctity vanished completely.
His appearance might have been brand-new, but those hate-filled eyes proved he was still him!
"Now I've changed my stance too—come and witness my brand-new power!"
The water gathered from those snowflakes moved under Bolue's control, launching an attack at Sora.
Strand after strand of water was razor-thin, able to slice through stone with ease.
And those high-pressure torrents—one hit could snap hard bone in an instant.
He refused to believe Sora could dodge all of that!
But faced with that incoming assault, Sora wasn't flustered at all.
"Putting on a show." Ankh was naturally disdainful.
He glanced at Eiji beside him, then said to Sora, "Use these!"
As he spoke, he extended his right hand—and several red Core Medals spat out.
The revolving disk on Sora's arm opened, drawing all those red medals inside.
He set the Scanner over it; as the disk turned, each medal was read out one by one.
'[SCANNING CHARGE!]'
Flames gathered, swirling with the spinning disk.
That blistering heat made those water-threads—made of pure flow—unable to even come near Sora's body.
"Hah!"
Sora clenched his fist, and the flames that had been spiraling tighter and tighter seemed to hit a peak.
A violent blaze burst out!
A fierce shockwave exploded outward from the center of Sora's arm.
That temperature swept across Bolue in an instant, turning every stream of water into mist—erasing it into the air.
His fur, scorched by the heat, blackened again.
Bolue fell into complete silence this time.
"Why?"
Why are you still this strong?!
I'm the one who changed color, the one who got stronger—you're the one who just changed your stance and became this strong!
"Why can't I?!"
Bolue threw his jaws wide, fangs snapping as he lunged to tear at Sora.
He wanted to crush this guy in front of him—tear him apart, rip him open, gut him!
With his roar, countless snowflakes gathered again.
The lingering high heat turned those flakes into flowing water, making Bolue look like a god wreathed in surging currents.
And opposite him, the raging flames made Sora look like a fire god descended into the world.
This time, their battle was no longer confined to the summit—it spiraled around Mount Buzhou, erupting into all-out war.
A fire god and a water god—locked in a life-and-death clash at the edge of Mount Buzhou!
And on the mountain path…
"I want to run… I want to escape…"
No, Feng Liqi! You have to hold on. You have to make it. Sora is still waiting for you!
"I-can-do-this! HAAA..."
A cluster of white flame—already grown countless times stronger—continued to crawl upward, little by little.
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T/N: so this is how feng liqi got so strong hueheuhuehuehue (webnovel got a little tfs reference)