059. Why Do Some People Only Communicate Properly After a Beating?
Blades erupted from the ripples of space-time!
Li Aozi's blade struck first. Liuer raised her hand to parry but was severely burned by the electromagnetic energy; the Dictator Form's armor was completely vulnerable to pure electromagnetic disintegration.
Sizzle!
The sword grazed her right wrist. Li Aozi swung the blade down hard, and Liuer tilted her head, dodging the sweep, and tore open space to jump behind Li Aozi, using her remaining left arm blade to stab at his back.
Fwoosh—!
Brilliant stardust wings flared out, and the [Power of Pegasus] unleashed a fierce, searing vortex, forcing Liuer to shield her face with her hand.
This reflexive movement completely disrupted her offensive rhythm.
Li Aozi quickly turned, his dazzling stardust wings slicing through vast amounts of meteor and metal fragments like twin laser blades. He accelerated straight toward her, both hands gripping his sword, putting all his strength into a ferocious strike in front of her.
Clang, clang—
Two consecutive heavy slashes were blocked by Liuer, raising her arm to deflect. Li Aozi struck again, raising his sword high. Liuer instinctively followed, raising her arm in a guard stance.
But suddenly, Li Aozi spun, whipping his stardust wings to send Liuer flying.
"A feint?"
Liuer was stunned, but there was no time to dwell on it as the fight continued.
[Body Reinforcement]
Reinforced muscles, iron bones, and steel tendons.
After much buildup, Li Aozi's assault pressed forward relentlessly. With just one arm left, Liuer couldn't withstand the fury of his swirling strikes.
Compared to a professional warrior, a scholar like Liuer, no matter how exceptional her learning ability, couldn't match his prowess in such a short time.
The tide turned.
Li Aozi stepped forward, his sword cutting through the air like a storm, forcing Liuer to retreat. Unable to keep up, she gritted her teeth and dove into the maze of space debris, leaving behind trails of discontinuous space-time.
Knowing her strength was fading, Liuer sought to shift the battlefield to take advantage of close-quarters.
In her current state, if she could trap Li Aozi in a confined area, it would level the playing field.
But for Li Aozi, the terrain was whatever he decided it to be.
"The end is already decided."
His entire nervous system surged with power, glowing yellow. His left hand plunged into the void, tearing open a rift.
His personal elemental pool began to spill out wildly.
Atmosphere, liquid, fire, earth, darkness.
[Elemental Colony]—construction initiated!
Instantly, countless elemental units, guided by Li Aozi's mind, condensed among the space debris.
The dark element summoned a terrifying energy, shaping a powerful gravitational field. The earth element whirled rapidly, forming a floating asteroid. Liuer, mid-arm replacement, was instantly trapped by the terrain.
Atmospheric elements filled the space, creating a pressure difference that broke Liuer's concentration. The sudden shift compressed her blood, nearly bursting her blood vessels.
If her head weren't effectively void, the sudden pressure would have drained the blood from her brain.
Liquid elements flowed into the asteroid, transforming barren land into lush grasslands. Li Aozi stepped into the terrain, as liquid elements regulated his electrolytes from intense battle, establishing a beneficial elemental domain.
He raised his sword, and burning elements gathered at its tip. Pointing forward, he shouted:
"Arm yourselves, everyone!"
Thunder crashed from the sky, and violent winds with lightning gathered into storm elementals, fierce spirits with eyes blazing as they fixed on Liuer, charging toward her in relentless waves.
Crack!
Liuer gripped with gravitational force, sweeping away the elementals, raising an earthen wall to block the metal spears thrown by rock elementals. But a freezing storm advanced as liquid elementals chilled and froze the air around her, slowing her further.
After struggling to melt the frost, activating her bio-dynamo to keep her systems from freezing, she looked up to see magma projectiles hurtling toward her, launched by combined fire and earth elementals.
"You're an Architect as well?"
Liuer shattered several magma projectiles, surprised by his versatility:
"Very few possess the talent for architecture… Leoz, you might truly be remarkable."
"Thanks for the compliment."
With no hesitation, Li Aozi let the dark elementals descend, their small, dark red eyes fixed on Liuer.
[Gene Transplant: Dark Source Devourer] granted Li Aozi an added "Dark Oppression" effect when manipulating gravity, letting him sustain a fixed gravitational field by consuming dark elements.
Since the start of the battle, he had never eased the gravitational pressure. Now, the dark erosion effect reached 99%!
Immobilization!
Liuer's body froze, unable to move.
"You can actually immobilize another gravity manipulator—"
"—because my understanding of gravity surpasses yours, sir."
He set up two gravitational fields, pulling Liuer from both sides. The replacement arm in her grasp flew out, ripped into fragments as the intense gravity distorted light and drew matter in, igniting it with an orange glow.
"So this is your answer? Impressive, Leoz!"
Liuer praised him, her temporary Tyrant eyes flashing with a golden halo.
[Gravity Null]
She canceled all gravitational fields, restoring the warped space to its original form.
In essence, she "liberated" herself from the distorted universe.
Free from any spatial influence, Liuer discarded her replacement arm and raised her light blade.
"This has been an exceptional battle. Even a scientist like me, unsuited for combat, feels stirred. Your mastery over gravity proves your control over this power… You're right; my thinking was flawed."
Then her form vanished into a ripple of space-time:
"But this fight isn't over yet!"
Li Aozi raised his sword, also swallowed by the spatial ripple.
They clashed repeatedly in the cosmos.
One moment, they crossed swords in the upper atmosphere, with her kicking at his neck.
The next, above the starport of a space station, with Li Aozi flinging her toward the sun by her leg.
They clashed like comets tearing across the sky, streaking red trails as they fell into the atmosphere.
Boom!
Liuer crashed, raising dust and leaving a kilometer-wide crater. The ground nearby melted into lava from the impact.
Li Aozi retracted his wings and landed steadily, the Pegasus wings shattering into a shower of sparkling light.
He walked toward Liuer, looking down at his defeated elder, and said calmly:
"Does this answer satisfy you?"
"…Hah."
Liuer's helmet dissolved back into spatial ripples as she let out a sigh:
"It's… barely better than my grad students. The elemental construction is crude, the modified body structure lacks efficiency, and there's no proper gravitational deflection or collapse display. You should consider going back to university."
"True," Li Aozi replied, "I never went to university. My highest degree is from vocational school."
Liuer was speechless, her head, once refusing to acknowledge his void form, slumping to the ground.
"All my life I studied, only to be schooled by a vocational grad."
She muttered self-deprecatingly:
"Anyway, you came to me with a question initially, right? What was it?"
"It's like this," Li Aozi crouched beside her, speaking calmly, "It's less of a question and more of a favor."
"A favor? Fine, as long as it's within my power and principles."
Liuer waved her hand, having been bested with no complaints left.
"I always knew about the [Echoer] path."
Li Aozi continued:
"I wanted to tell you… that among the Sequence Omega Energies, four have fixed paths to obtain them. One of these is gravity."
"—So my original theory is unfounded?"
"Not entirely. By the time the general public realizes, it'll be at least two centuries."
Li Aozi shifted gears, stating his request:
"More people will begin to master gravity in the future. I want the advanced techniques of the [Echoer] path from you, to help other [Mutants] master their powers and expand the [Dominion] path's influence."
"Ha, I figured that's your goal—to expand the path and ascend as a god, dive into the Star Abyss, and become the main deity of the [Dominion] path."
Liuer chuckled, and Li Aozi didn't deny it, so she added:
"Leoz, your name may be common, but perhaps you do carry a trace of the original 'Leozi'—not much, just a little."
"So?"
"For Leozi's sake, I'll agree."
Liuer raised her hand, pulling a data storage device from her personal dimensional fold and handing it to Li Aozi:
"Take it. It's a good thing, after all. Hopefully, you'll help more people—hopefully."
Li Aozi checked the device, satisfied, and commented:
"Honestly, Liuer, if we'd started with this conversation, we wouldn't have had to fight."
"That's just my temper. Engineering types say what's on their mind; who has time to sugarcoat? Why do you think the Director assigned me a bodyguard?"
Liuer sat up, dismissively adding:
"And really, burning my wheat and corn fields to distract Tro—were you a bandit in a past life?"