Inside the Jianghai City Gaokao Temporary Command Center.
Complete chaos had erupted by now.
[Seven o'clock direction, suspect potential accomplice.]
[Requesting backup, requesting—]
[Argh!]
A blood-curdling scream echoed.
It sent the command center plunging into even deeper turmoil.
Fortunately, the Jianghai City Peacekeeper Bureau Special Operations Unit had already deployed.
"Every member of the special ops unit equips exoskeleton armor; their strength rivals Five-Star Demon Beast Hunters."
"Everyone, just wait for good news. The duty of our peacekeeper force is to eradicate all outlaws."
Before the words even fully faded...
On the main command screen...
Xie Litang glided behind a special ops member with incredibly eerie movement, casually swinging her sword. The exoskeleton armor, along with the person inside, instantly exploded.
Immediately after, she glided once more.
'Bang.'
'Bang bang bang bang bang bang.'
Wherever Xie Litang glided, explosions followed.
In less than three seconds total, all eleven members of the Peacekeeper Bureau Special Operations Unit were killed instantly.
Inside the command center, absolute silence fell, so quiet a pin drop could be heard.
However, there was no question that the situation had escalated.
Massive groups of the City Defense Force were mobilizing, putting together a force no smaller than one used to encircle and suppress a small beast swarm.
[Wanted criminal Xie Litang, listen up!]
[Clang.]
With a single Sweeping Blade, Xie Litang dashed across tens of meters straight to the person shouting, casually cutting them down as she scoffed, "Wanted criminal my ass."
[Open fire!]
[Fire at all costs!]
However, conventional weapons had long lost their intended purpose by this point.
Unless they blanketed the area with heavy artillery fire, they might barely pose a minor inconvenience to Xie Litang's defense stat, which exceeded six thousand.
"Kill!"
Every time Xie Litang glided to a new spot...
a City Defense Force soldier was bound to burst apart.
This was no longer something conventional forces could handle. As Xie Litang carved right through an encircling unit of the City Defense Force, the soldiers approaching from other directions began to retreat.
Xie Litang sheathed her longsword and prepared to leave, muttering, "Guess that's that."
She glanced down at her tattered Crane Whisper Battle Armor. If she kept fighting, how would it be any different from running around naked?
Just as she was about to pull a turbofan hoverboard from the spatial gem woven into her wrist bracelet...
An ultra-high-spec hovercar arrived above her, and a woman carrying a longsword on her back leapt down from it.
Inside the temporary command center...
Cheers instantly broke out.
[The Military District is here!]
[And it's Second Lieutenant Du Yan, a genius who came from our very own Jianghai City! Under twenty-one years old, yet she already possesses the strength of a Seven-Star Demon Beast Hunter!]
[This time it's definitely locked down!]
[A murderer like this must be severely punished!]
Du Yan stood ahead, her tone casual as she spoke.
"It ends here."
"Convict Xie Litang is to be executed on the spot."
Xie Litang drew her sword once more, using Sweeping Blade to dash behind the woman, and unleashed Steel Tempest.
Du Yan drew her blade to meet the attack as well, but in the next instant, she felt a terrifying force explode across her sword.
Under the immense shockwave...
Du Yan flew backward, smashing straight through a wall.
"Cough!"
"Impossible..."
Shock and horror filled Du Yan's eyes. Wiping away the blood at the corner of her mouth, she choked out, "You're only eighteen, and you just awakened your ability! How could you possibly unleash such terrifying strength?!"
Before she could think any further...
mostly because Xie Litang's Sweeping Blade was off cooldown...
leaving an afterimage where she stood, her longsword was already slamming into Du Yan's chest armor.
'Rumble~'
Du Yan's body smashed through the second-floor ground.
Just two hits had heavily injured her, dropping her HP right down to a precarious execution threshold.
She had a powerful premonition that the very next hit would kill her.
Xie Litang stepped down onto her chest, her face full of annoyance. "Convict? Who the hell are you calling a convict?"
Du Yan coughed up blood, her vision blacking out. "You... you killed so many people..."
Xie Litang sneered back, "That's because they were trying to kill me."
"But some of them... were just students."
"Before this, I was a student too."
"Sophistry! If they did wrong, it should be the law that punishes them!"
"The law? Talking to me about the law makes me want to laugh."
Xie Litang scoffed. "Are you referring to the law that detains me on trumped-up charges to await trial? Now that really is hilarious."
"When I was expelled from school because my awakened ability was deemed trash, where was the law?"
"When I was hiding from Peacekeeper Bureau searches, soaking in sewage in the sewers, where was the law then?"
She shook her head.
"I'm an idiot too..."
"...talking all this nonsense with you."
Xie Litang grabbed Du Yan by the throat and lifted her up.
Just as she was about to send her to the afterlife with a single punch, another person leapt down from the hovercar.
"Hold on!"
Xie Litang frowned. "And who the fuck are you?"
The man raised his hands to signal no ill intent and quickly said, "I am Major Wang Ping of the Eastern Military District. If you kill Du Yan, it will truly mean an endless fight to the death between you and our Eastern Military District."
"Are you threatening me?"
"I am stating a fact. The consequences of offending the Military Department are not something you can bear."
Xie Litang knitted her brows, but the corners of her mouth curled up into a mock smile. "Oh, I'm so scared."
As she spoke...
she exerted force with her hand.
[Clang.]
With a crisp sound, Du Yan collapsed limply to the ground.
Wang Ping's eyes instantly shot bloodshot red.
A subordinate he had led here himself had just died right in front of him. This was something he absolutely could not accept.
Wang Ping's muscles tightened, and his arms instantly expanded dramatically. His awakened ability was Steel Arms, capable of smashing solid steel to pieces with his iron fists.
'Boom~'
Possessing the strength of an Eight-Star, Wang Ping was indeed formidable.
A single punch landing on Xie Litang's defense actually dealt six thousand damage—a whole one percent of her health bar.
Keep in mind, Xie Litang's base defense stat itself exceeded six thousand.
Yet Wang Ping was even more alarmed; nobody knew better than himself how ferocious a full-power punch of his was.
At full power, a single punch could deal over thirteen thousand attack power.
With this kind of strength, even a steel plate one meter thick could be smashed to scrap metal in one hit.
"So this is the strength of an Eight-Star?"
Xie Litang grinned wildly.
She countered with a punch of her own right back at him.
[Clang.]
Wang Ping suffered a violent shock, feeling as though his pair of steel iron fists were on the verge of fracturing.
"Xie Litang, do you truly wish to make enemies of us?!"
"I never thought about making enemies of you. It's you people who keep making an enemy of me."
Xie Litang moved with fluid agility.
She evaded Wang Ping's wide, sweeping attacks several times. As soon as Heartsteel's cooldown was up, she hurled another punch straight into him.
[Clang.]
"Argh!"
Wang Ping let out an agonized scream.
Fissure-like cracks covered his right arm.
Wang Ping roared, "If you lay a hand on the Military District's people, there will be no place left under the sun for you in the future!"
[Clang.]
[Clang.]
With the final blow...
the arms Wang Ping raised to block exploded directly, and he collapsed to the ground at death's door.
Xie Litang looked down at him from above and said calmly, "Sparing your life isn't mercy. It's so you can deliver a message."
"Whether it's the Military District, the Peacekeeper Bureau, or whatever monsters and demagogues come my way—I'll take them all on."
"If your side has no place for me, there are places that do."
"Like your enemy organizations?"
The moment Wang Ping imagined Xie Litang joining an enemy organization, an involuntary shudder ran through his entire body.
Someone who had only awakened for a month or so was already like this.
If she were given more time to grow, it would be an absolute catastrophe.
Xie Litang stepped onto her turbofan hoverboard and said neutrally, "Lastly... don't speak to me from such a high horse."
Amid the soft hum of the turbofan...
she swiftly departed the area.
Rate on N.U.
