While the central district was rocking from horrifying battles, the atmosphere in the old rented apartment in the suburbs remained quiet and peaceful.
Late at night, little Loona, exhausted after a long day at the burger shop, had long been fast asleep clutching her pillow, her quiet breaths rising and falling softly. In the corner of the room, Ling Mo, his leg encased in a stark white plaster cast, had also fallen asleep to recover his body.
Only Yanagisawa Shin remained awake. Sitting with his knees pulled to his chest on the worn sofa, he occasionally poked his head out to look through the window, then glanced back at the carefully wrapped portion of food set on the table. Shin let out a soft sigh, muttering under his breath:
— "It's this late already, why hasn't Kento come back yet? The food saved for him has gone completely cold..."
He let out a massive yawn as the overwhelming drowsiness after a hard day behind the stove hit him like a storm. Unable to hold out any longer, Shin surrendered his body, slumping onto the sofa and pulling a thin blanket over himself:
— "Ah, screw it! I'm sleeping first. That guy is built like a bull, he'll probably be fine."
At the same time, atop the ruined penthouse floor of the lavish skyscraper.
Facing Kento's cheeky question, Xie Jingchen didn't seem annoyed at all. He lazily cracked one eye open, curling his lips into a slight smirk:
— "Sure do. I've got a top-shelf brand just for you."
With that, Xie Jingchen casually flicked his finger. Instantly, a small, dark black spatial tear opened in midair. From inside that pocket space, a premium imported pack of cigarettes was tossed straight toward Kento. Catching it with pinpoint accuracy, Kento pulled out a stick, lit it up, and took a deeply satisfying drag before nodding:
— "Now that's what I'm talking about! This stuff tastes amazing. Shall we get to business then? Thanks to this pack, I'll go a bit easier on you in a moment."
Xie Jingchen sluggishly stood up straight, stretching his waist before speaking:
— "Let me keep it low-key. Otherwise, the two of us will blow this entire building sky-high, which would be a hassle."
Saying so, he leaned his head back against the sofa again, a look of utter boredom washing over his face:
— "Though honestly... fighting is exhausting as hell. Let the black holes do the work!"
The moment Xie Jingchen's words left his mouth, the Sophion energy in the surrounding space abruptly condensed. The technique AUTOMATIC SINGULARITY was instantly deployed!
WHOOSH... WHOOSH... WHOOSH!
Three mini black holes, each no larger than a tennis ball, materialized out of thin air, hovering directly in front of Kento. Without a word, these three entities of darkness unleashed a horrifying gravitational pull, operating no differently than cosmic vacuum cleaners at maximum output.
All the concrete fragments and brick debris from the shattered floor were sucked toward the center of the black holes at dizzying speed. That bizarre gravitational field locked onto Kento's body, leaving him no time to run or react defensively. Within a fraction of a second, thousands of fractured stone pieces rushed forward, encasing and compressing Kento into a massive, rock-hard sphere right in the middle of the banquet hall.
Xie Jingchen looked at the motionless stone sphere, letting out a disappointed sigh:
— "That's all you've got? And here I thought you were someone formidable..."
BOOM!
Before Xie Jingchen could finish his sentence, a dense, thunderous explosion erupted from within the sphere. An arm blazing with wild Sophion energy punched right through the thick layer of rock, followed immediately by the second arm.
With a level of absurd, monstrous strength, Kento used his bare hands to rip the gravity-compressed stone sphere in two as easily as tearing a piece of paper. Shards of broken rock scattered everywhere.
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However, what made Xie Jingchen's eyes widen in absolute shock was Kento's current appearance. His pitch-black hair had completely turned a brilliant, radiant silver-white, his deep dark eyes now featuring pale white pupils radiating intense killing intent. He stood there, nonchalantly dusting himself off as if nothing had happened.
Xie Jingchen clicked his tongue, his lazy expression vanishing and replaced by absolute seriousness:
— "Looks like I understated you..."
Kento exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke, analyzing nonchalantly:
— "A wide-area crowd-control technique that locks the target in place... Did I get that right?"
— "Well, now things look a bit different!" Xie Jingchen narrowed his eyes at the atmospheric pressure swirling around his opponent. "The Sophion flowing inside you is skyrocketing insanely!"
Kento looked down at his hands, which were wrapped in a layer of interwoven silver-white energy, explaining slowly:
— "This is a state I haven't fully mastered yet because it's way too stubborn. But once I tame it, it will become a permanent active state. Right now, if I lose focus, it'll make me lose my mind... And this is only 50% of its power."
Xie Jingchen swallowed hard, his body shifting into a defensive stance:
— "Now you actually look the part of the 'White Oni'!"
Kento's razor-sharp eyes locked dead onto Xie Jingchen as he coldly called out his state:
— "This is BYAKKI KAKUSEI: HON’NŌ NO SHIRO ONI (White Oni Awakening: Instinct of the White Oni). Let's wrap this up quickly!"
SWOOSH—!
The instant the final word left his mouth, Kento vanished right before Xie Jingchen's eyes like a ghost. His speed far surpassed the sound barrier!
Xie Jingchen stood fully upright, all the senses of a spatial genius pushed to their absolute limits. He knew full well that in this fight, he couldn't afford to be lazy or fool around anymore, or he'd lose his life in a heartbeat.
— "Your speed... is truly beyond ridiculous!" Xie Jingchen exclaimed.
Yet even if his brain could react in time, the fragile physical body of a researcher could not keep pace with the White Oni's speed.
BOOM!
A straight punch like a sledgehammer slammed squarely into Xie Jingchen's left cheek. The impact sent his body flying, crashing heavily into the reinforced wall behind him and punching a massive hole into it. Xie Jingchen coughed painfully, staggering back to his feet as a mouthful of fresh blood welled up from the corner of his lips.
Before he could regain his composure, Kento appeared right in front of him like an impending executioner. This time, a lightning-fast upper-hook slammed directly into Xie Jingchen's abdomen.
THUD!
The shockwave from the fist was so powerful it penetrated straight through his body, creating a blast of wind that tore off a chunk of Xie Jingchen's suit jacket behind his back. He instantly fell to his knees, clutching his stomach, his face pale as he retched repeatedly:
— "Gah... cough, cough... uggh... Damn it, what kind of freakish power is in that punch... I can't block this at all..."
Seeing his opponent wide open, Kento coldly raised his center of gravity, unleashing a vicious Muay Thai knee strike aimed straight at Xie Jingchen's solar plexus to finish the fight.
However, a strange phenomenon occurred. The moment Kento's knee came within centimeters of Xie Jingchen's body, the entire trajectory of the strike suddenly veered off course at an impossible angle, slamming directly into the adjacent concrete wall and collapsing a massive section of it.
Kento raised an eyebrow slightly, looking at his knee in mild surprise:
— "What's this? I clearly aimed dead on."
Xie Jingchen forced himself up, a warped spatial light radiating around his body. He had just cast his ultimate defensive technique: SLOTH SANCTUARY!
By bending the spatial structure around his body within an exact two-meter radius, Xie Jingchen had created an absolute barrier of folded gravity and space. Within this domain, he didn't need to dodge or raise a hand to block. Any physical or energy attack entering the range was slowed down to the maximum and forcibly deflected elsewhere by gravitational forces.
Wiping the trace of blood from his lips, Xie Jingchen let out a bitter laugh:
— "This is a technique I created... to cover up my fatal weaknesses in technique and physical stamina."
Kento pulled his leg back, nodding slightly in evaluation:
— "I see. As someone who specializes in spatial Sophion, it's only natural you'd have an absolute defense of your own. But... what about this?"
The killing intent of the White Oni abruptly flared into tangible reality. The technique TEN-DIRECTIONAL FLESH BIND was instantly triggered by Kento!
Within the technique's radius, the atmospheric pressure surrounding Xie Jingchen dropped rapidly and continuously, completely freezing the pressure and molecular density in space. The entire supply of oxygen vanished in an instant.
Xie Jingchen immediately fell into a state of total body rigidity—his muscles unable to move, his chest tightening from severe oxygen deprivation. But as a genius, Xie Jingchen reacted with lightning speed, frantically burning a large amount of his own Sophion to forcibly pump and circulate oxygen internally within his own body to maintain life.
Kento gave his opponent zero chance to turn the tables. Spreading both palms wide, his ten fingertips trembled slightly. The technique SOUL-BINDING MYRIAD THREADS opened fire!
From Kento's ten fingertips shot out countless microscopic, razor-sharp, invisible threads of Sophion. Dashing like bolts of lightning, they pinned directly into and pierced through all of Xie Jingchen's Sophion neural pathways and energy flows, completely sealing off his ability to unleash power.
Even while maintaining absolute control over the match, Kento held back just enough force so Xie Jingchen could still open his mouth to speak.
Xie Jingchen trembled, forcing out words with great difficulty:
— "These... these two chained techniques... are absurdly oppressive... Freezing the body to isolate space while directly controlling the entire nervous system..."
Kento answered nonchalantly:
— "This technique was personally taught to me by a teacher, a grandfather figure I deeply respect."
Xie Jingchen's lips curled slightly, his eyes flashing with the cunning spark of a spatial art master:
— "However... even though this technique is extremely hard to counter... that doesn't mean there's no way out!"
Just as Kento was about to pull the threads tight to end the battle, Xie Jingchen abruptly activated the hidden energy deep within his Sophion core. The technique VOID DISPOSAL PORTAL erupted!
A small, pitch-black spatial tear opened directly beneath Xie Jingchen's feet. His body immediately dropped into the dark void. The spatial tear snapped shut in a microsecond, directly severing the absolute connection of all the Sophion threads from SOUL-BINDING MYRIAD THREADS pinned into him.
In another corner ten meters away, another tear opened, and Xie Jingchen stepped out, safely escaping the pincer grip. Witnessing this, Kento didn't seem overly surprised, merely rotating his wrist slightly.
Xie Jingchen clutched his neck, taking a deep, greedy breath of air:
— "Cough... cough... Finally able to breathe freely! That was a close call."
Kento raised an eyebrow at him:
— "So you even know how to teleport away. And here I thought you were about to pull off some grander trick."
Xie Jingchen looked at Kento seriously, his voice deepening:
— "Your last two techniques... in a real life-or-death battle, their radius and power definitely wouldn't be restricted to such a small scale, right? We're both holding back our true strength so we don't level this city... But you are far more dangerous than I imagined, White Oni."
Kento let out a faint smile, his silver hair glowing brilliantly under the moonlight streaming through the shattered hole in the wall as he assumed his final combat stance:
— "Then let me finish this quickly, my new member. I'm not in the habit of keeping my opponents waiting!"
Xie Jingchen stood tall, the black hole energy around him beginning to erupt violently like never before, preparing for the decisive strike:
— "Then let's go! Let's see... if I can actually survive under your hands tonight!"
END OF CHAPTER 33