A moment later, his figure appeared beside Inori.
"Swift!"
Power surged throughout his entire body, granting him unbelievable speed. His dagger stabbed straight toward Inori's face. He had originally assumed that this little girl would be easier to deal with.
But then, he realized he was wrong.
The speed that had always ensured his victory was nothing more than child's play before Inori, who had slaughtered countless Seraph-class Honkai Beasts and elite zombies.
"Too slow. Beast-class at best."
Inori pivoted, and her blade rose and fell.
By the time anyone looked again, she had already flashed behind the ability-wielding Special Assault Squad captain.
She flicked the drops of blood from her blade.
Blood erupted from the body of the ability-wielding captain who had moved like a gale. He collapsed to the ground and died.
...
'Mm... Qili... Sa.'
Su recited a new maxim. A gentle breeze swept across the dazed Taixu Gang members present, restoring clarity to their minds.
"What happened to me?"
"Watch out for the mirror! Don't look at it!"
"Use automatic targeting!"
Thud!
Something heavy struck the ground.
Without making a sound, Su pitched forward onto the cushion he had prepared in advance.
"Gang leader!"
"Boss!"
"Where's the doctor? Get a doctor over here!"
Although Su had helped the unconscious Taixu Gang members, he had fallen unconscious as a result.
The power carried within that mirror exceeded Su's capacity to withstand it.
Although Su had prepared in advance, the mirror's bizarre nature still surpassed his expectations.
Hearing the urgent cries of the Taixu Gang members, the captains of the Ghostfire Syndicate's Special Assault Squads immediately realized that Su was their gang leader.
"Die!"
The square-faced Special Assault Squad captain attacked without hesitation. He swung an enormous steel guillotine blade forward, cutting down the Taixu Gang members surrounding Su.
Unlike the flashy mechanisms used by other cybernetic bikers, this steel guillotine possessed none at all. It was simple and crude, radiating an unstoppable weight and primitive destructive force!
Even the mechanical riot shields raised jointly by the Taixu Gang members around Su were completely unable to withstand the guillotine.
The enormous silver-white riot shield had been forged from refined steel, and its surface was covered in densely packed hexagonal cells, making it look exceptionally sturdy.
But as the guillotine swept across it with a shrill screech of tearing metal, the countless hexagonal cells shattered simultaneously. The riot shield was forcibly split in half down the center!
A watching member of the Ghostfire Syndicate asked in confusion, "Huh? Doesn't Captain Stone Man usually carry no weapon? Where was he hiding such a huge and heavy guillotine?"
Another member of the Ghostfire Syndicate explained, "Captain Stone Man is also a powerful ability user. The ability he obtained from the Awakening Serum isn't a steel body... It's body substitution! He can replace parts of his body with other substances. Earlier, when he blocked the bullets, he replaced his body with a bulletproof protective mesh."
"And now, Captain Stone Man has replaced his palm with a gigantic guillotine. To Captain Stone Man, his own body is his weapon!"
Just as Stone Man was about to sever Su's body with the guillotine, a red-haired girl appeared before him and blocked his hand.
"Flash Step · Great Gate."
Bang!
The ability-wielding captain's guillotine struck the girl's elbow. To his surprise, the blade failed to injure her. Instead, the returning shockwave sent pain through his own body.
Years of accumulated combat experience guided him even in his fury. His palm abruptly transformed into a pitch-black iron pincer that screeched sharply as he reached for the petite girl's wrist.
"Reverse Grapple."
Hua lightly shifted aside, smoothly caught his hand, then drove an elbow straight into the man's chest.
"Ki—Impact."
Thud!
A muffled impact unlike the collision of flesh rang out as a wave of force spread through the air.
Anyone else would already have collapsed while clutching their chest.
Even a bulletproof vest would have been useless.
Yet this man remained unmoved, as solid as bedrock.
Hua noticed that the Special Assault Squad captain's body had changed.
His originally bulging muscles contracted and thinned, while his skin gradually became dull and lusterless, as though covered in a layer of lead-gray metal.
The definition of his muscles disappeared, replaced by incomparably hard blocks of refined lead that densely encased his body beneath his leather armor.
Seeing this, the nearby Ghostfire Syndicate members immediately mocked Hua. "Ha! Captain Stone Man can transform his body into blocks of refined lead. Even a diamond drill wouldn't work against him. You think those skinny little arms and legs can hurt the captain? Dream on."
"Whoo! That girl's pretty. Captain Stone Man, don't go easy on her!"
In contrast, the Taixu Gang members turned pale with alarm after hearing this. "How can such a troublesome ability exist? Can Azure Empyrea handle him?"
"Where's the Taixuan Divine Sword? Save us!"
Yet while they were still panicking, the battle had already ended.
Golden light erupted from the flowing-cloud sleeves of Hua's qipao.
Stone Man felt an enormous force slam into him head-on. Even replacing his body with the heaviest refined lead in the world could not stop it in the slightest.
The force sent his entire body flying more than ten meters backward.
The members of the Ghostfire Syndicate paled in alarm. "Captain Stone Man!"
Because Stone Man had no time to restore his original body, the hardened blocks of refined lead crashed heavily into the ground and shattered into pieces.
Refined lead was not diamond. Although hard, it was also brittle, and its interior consisted of crystalline grids. If subjected to excessive vibration, it would still break apart.
This substitution reaction was fundamentally a form of biological mimicry. The density of diamond was not something biological cells could achieve.
And if the substituted substance shattered, his body would naturally shatter along with it.
The red-haired girl in a qipao stood before the main entrance, giving off the imposing presence of one person holding back an army.
Azure Empyrea's appearance injected new hope into the Taixu Gang.
"Azure Empyrea!" "Azure Empyrea!" "Azure Empyrea!"
In terms of defensive ability, this Special Assault Squad captain ranked among the top three in the Ghostfire Syndicate. Yet Azure Empyrea had eliminated the immensely durable Captain Stone Man with a single defensive strike.
Who else could possibly rival such power?
The fighting members of the Taixu Gang regained their soaring morale.
But Hua still understood her own limits.
Although inch force could transmit power through one object to strike another, the "ox" on the other side could not be made of iron.
Had she not happened to be wearing Vill-V's Elderly Massage Shirt, Hua truly would not have possessed any effective method of dealing with that ability user.
Hua naturally did not possess enough strength to send a heavy block of lead flying, but the Elderly Massage Garment Vill-V had given her did possess such power.
The Elderly Massage Shirt, fully named the Auspicious Massage Qipao, possessed an extremely powerful massage function. For elderly people suffering from pain in the waist, shoulders, and neck, it could be considered a blessing.
It could not only massage its wearer, but also provide close-contact massages to nearby people. Vill-V's design had even thoughtfully and practically accounted for situations in which many elderly people gathered together.
"But why does a massage function powerful enough to send a grown man flying even have this level of intensity? Are there really elderly people who need massages this strong? Wouldn't it hammer their bones apart?"
According to Vill-V, someone who stayed inside a cryogenic pod for fifty thousand years would greatly need it after awakening. It was extremely effective at promoting blood circulation.
Fifty thousand years...
Forget it. I'm done commenting on that. It has nothing to do with me anyway.
The immediate crisis still takes priority.
Dealing with a single Special Assault Squad captain had already been difficult enough, yet three captains stronger than Landro still stood before her, along with the unfathomably powerful leader of the Ghostfire Syndicate.
Inori was already holding off an entire Special Assault Squad, while Su remained unconscious.
Hua had no chance of winning by herself. She could only find a way to restrain them and hold on until Vill-V arrived to help.
As for fleeing to bring reinforcements?
The legends of Azure Empyrea had never once spoken of abandoning her companions!