Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 111 - 088. Siege

Chapter 111: 088. Siege

Thump...

Blood and flesh splattered across his chest, with the lingering smell of gunpowder entwining the still twitching remains.

Qiu Ran stared blankly ahead, so shocked that she forgot to be afraid for a moment and stood still as the bald girl stepped out of the biochemical pod and turned her gaze toward her.

Li Aozi’s pupils constricted sharply, with a golden circle lighting up in his eyes.

Gravity Compression!

The latter collapsed to the ground instantly, with a broken neck, her head hanging in front of her chest swinging like a ball, her gaze immediately turned toward Li Aozi.

[Warning! You have been locked on by Arcane Energy "Directed Blast"!]

Hum——

Li Aozi’s cells seemed to be stuffed into a microwave in an instant, his body’s air pressure slightly expanding.

[Judging... Your main attribute "Charm" overpowers the target.]

[You are exempt from this attack.]

Swish!

Li Aozi charged forward, his chains sweeping across, smashing the bald girl to the ground, her youthful and sickly face immediately splattered with blood.

[Based on your attributes, you have obtained the following information]

[Third Generation Ersha Armament—Code ES-3-022]

Li Aozi didn’t bother to look at the information that followed.

Bang!

He stomped on the girl’s chest, her ribs immediately piercing through her lungs and collapsing inward.

She lay prone on the ground, stiffly lifting her head as if she didn’t recognize the pain at all, still turning her head aiming at Li Aozi.

Smack!

Li Aozi’s chains shot out instantly, piercing her eye sockets. He rushed forward in two strides, grabbed the chain, lifted his knee, and slammed it hard into her face.

His arms suddenly mutated, with two black and red neural tentacles popping out from his palms and instantly piercing through the girl’s body.

Li Aozi’s supernatural capsules opened up on the side of his forearms, cunningly concealed by the windbreaker.

[Supernatural Capsule Activation]

[Arcane Energy extracted from the target]: [Directed Blast]

[Rating]: Delta (Δ, the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet)

[Active Effect]: (Adapted to your body) Causes an explosion from within any object your organs touch, with damage based on 120% of your "Charm" attribute.

Note: If the target’s main attribute is lower than yours, the blast damage increases by 300%. For targets with a main attribute more than twice your "Charm", there is no effect.

[Current Development Level]: Perception Level, at this development level the Arcane Energy consumption rate is —— 110%

[The Arcane Energy contained in the capsule will not burden your genes, but you will only enjoy the active activation effect and the development difficulty will be higher.]

[You can promote its evolution by repeatedly containing the same Arcane Energy or choose to crush the gene sequence of this Arcane Energy and feed it to other Arcane Energies.]

As the message of 480 experience points came in, the girl’s body fell heavily, her red and black eyes dimming like a scrapped machine.

Li Aozi remained on alert, his heart beating faster, adrenaline rapidly secreted, making it difficult for him to calm his mind.

If it weren’t for the enhancement applied by Xeno before, reacting to these Ersha Armaments...

If it weren’t for Nomi acting as the scout ahead...

If it weren’t for him having high enough attributes...

Never before had Li Aozi felt breathing to be so burdensome as in this moment.

"Nomi... Nomi..."

Qiu Ran collapsed to her knees, as a simple country woman, she had never witnessed such an intense clash before.

Just a while ago, Nomi was still babbling on one side, comforting her, that Rose Army Warrior who could take a barrage of bullets without even a furrow to his brow...

Nomi’s head lay on the ground, less than half a meter from her.

His remaining half brain and unrecognizable face beyond recognition where one couldn’t even tell his identity.

"Nomi... is dead?"

"Not yet," Li Aozi glanced at the team list.

Nomi’s health points were at the bottom, but he was still alive.

Bang—Bang!

The doors of two biochemical pods burst open at the same time, Li Aozi’s combat instincts kicked in, dodging an Electric Shock instinctively, the high-energy plasma pulse grazing his temples and instantly vaporizing a few strands of hair.

"Keep Nomi’s head safe!"

Li Aozi only had time to say one sentence, then jerked the chain back out, straightening it into a spear, and thrusting it forward.

The chain, accelerated by thirty times the force of gravity, struck like divine retribution, instantly nailing the plasma-wielding Ersha Armament to the wall.

Li Aozi followed swiftly, pressing his palm onto the young warrior’s face, neural tentacles popping out from his palm again:

[Supernatural Capsule Activation]

[Arcane Energy extracted from the target]: [Electric Shock]

This was a regular Beta level Arcane Energy with no real potential. Li Aozi retracted his neural tentacles, the Ersha Armament now devoid of Arcane Energy, hung his head, the red and black of his eyes turning paler.

"Kill me... I beg you to kill me..."

The boy muttered, tears streaming from his eyes.

Li Aozi’s face was expressionless as he applied the Arcane Energy to the boy’s head.

[Directed Blast]

Pop!

The blast splattered, rendering the wall filthy beyond measure.

Whoosh—

A youth, half a head taller than Li Aozi, with pitch-black skin and a figure as slim as a bamboo pole, quietly appeared on higher ground nearby. He lowered his head, staring at him with his deformed, upside-down triangular skull.

Taking advantage of the moment Li Aozi dealt with the Plasma Arcane User, the figure flickered, instantly teleporting behind Li Aozi. Space rippled, and he raised his unnaturally long and skinny arm, now mutated to grow numerous deformed bone spurs, and immediately swatted towards Li Aozi’s head.

Thud!

The sound of cleaving air revealed the teleporter’s position. Li Aozi stepped back, stepping on the other’s foot, and using it as leverage, leaped into the air, flipping onto the assailant’s back. His left arm, like a scythe, looped around the other’s neck, as he raised his right hand pointed at his deformed brain, agitating a ferocious blue plasma in his palm.

[Electric Shock]

Bang!

The drifting plasma struck an empty space. The slender youth teleported again to gain distance, but just as his body settled, he looked up to see Li Aozi rapidly charging towards him.

Li Aozi fired three plasma shots with his right hand, forcing the opponent to make short-range teleports, with each teleportation stressing his tall and slim body with severe strain.

After four consecutive moves, the young man’s skin had cracked open with countless fissures, with the vibration of the air and the difference in high temperature and pressure causing his moisture to rapidly deplete.

This was a common problem with teleportation abilities—after a period of specialized training, the path could basically be predicted, and this type of teleportation put too much strain on one’s physical strength and endurance.

Li Aozi grabbed a handful of air with his left hand, activating [Directed Blast], the explosive shock giving him accelerated change of direction in mid-air, avoiding the thin youth’s bone spur attacks.

At the same time, Li Aozi’s gaze sharpened, the gravity diverted, flinging his adversary against a wall, fracturing bones all over.

To prevent the other from teleporting away, tendrils sprang from the palms of both hands, piercing the other’s eye sockets.

[Severing Life]

Supernatural Capsule Activation!

Life and Arcane Energy were both extracted by him, Li Aozi’s eyes gleamed with a red and black ferocity. The Ersha Armament youth, stripped of pain, stiffened, his mouth wide as if to scream aloud.

His muscles withered visibly before the eyes; his skin, like peeling plaster, flaked off completely. His already deformed, inverted triangular skull quickly turned into a dried-up skeleton, and the wooden-like skin enveloped his head, as he was drained of life, Arcane Energy, and soul.

[You have extracted a target’s life. You may choose to refine its abilities and personality.]

[Refinement complete]

[You have obtained [Human Amber] (Small)—which can be used to create equipment of ’Exquisite Craftsmanship’ quality or higher.]

[You have obtained [Hollow Soul] (Small)—which can be used to heal soul damage, create equipment of ’Exquisite Craftsmanship’ quality or higher, or as a material for casting in the Mysterious Series.]

[Supernatural Capsule Activation]

[Arcane Energy extracted from the target]: [Iterative Movement]

[Rating]: Theta (θ, the eighth Greek letter)

[Active Effect]: (Adapted to your body) Decompose the body into molecules for a progressive short-range movement.

The process is as follows: uninterrupted, continuous movement towards a target location within a range less than 20 yards, reaching speeds of up to a third the speed of light (i.e., 100,000 kilometers per second).

In the process of teleporting, you will be interrupted by obstacles and attacks, receiving an additional 30% damage.

When you molecularize and reassemble, a noticeable vibrational effect will be caused in non-vacuum environments.

[Current Development Level]: Perception Level, under this development level, Arcane Energy consumption rate is—110%

"Leo Aozi!"

Qiu Ran wrapped up half of Nomi’s head with his jacket and shouted in horror at the remaining 8 biochemical pods,

"There are still——"

Bang!

Another bio-pod exploded, and a figure completely different from the Ersha warriors stepped out.

He was a sixteen-year-old of medium build, 178 centimeters tall, with well-defined muscles that made him look lean and strong. His face was completely destroyed, covered by a full-face breathing mask, showing only a red and black cyclopean eye on the left.

Unlike the other Ersha warriors, the muscle on the youth’s left arm had been removed and replaced by a long sword in a scabbard, standing up towards his shoulder like a branch that had grown out extra.

He lifted his head and immediately looked towards Li Aozi.

Unconsciously, Li Aozi was also drawn to his singular eye, and for a moment, something stirred in his heart. The two struck a confrontational pose as if by tacit agreement, and when he noticed the other’s right hand gripping the sword handle, he instantly understood where that stirring came from.

[Inscription Sword Saint]

Zing——

The fierce blade set off layers of sonic booms, and the sword-wielding teenager seemed like a samurai, hardened and honed through countless battles, instantly closing in on Li Aozi. A flash of cold light briskly swept past Li Aozi’s sleeve cuff.

Almost causing him harm.

"It’s the same Arcane Energy as mine."

Li Aozi swayed slightly, activating [Iterative Movement]. His body dematerialized, distancing himself, moving to the side of the corpse of the plasma Arcane User. He raised his hand to pull out chains and flung them violently at the newcomer.

Whiz-crack!

The chain missed on its first strike, the opponent’s body, ghostlike, having seen right through Li Aozi’s lash.

The youth sheathed his sword, lowered his posture to dodge the chains, and suddenly kicked off the wall to leap up, as if assisted by specters, evading plasma shots.

He gripped the long sword in the air and swung the scabbard on his left arm to deflect Li Aozi’s chains. While airborne, he slipped back in a mysterious retreat, ’conveniently’ dodging the neural tentacles that Li Aozi had released from his palm, along with the attached [Severing Life].

Then, the blade was drawn from its scabbard!

Clack——

The next moment, the invisible oppression of the soul exploded instantaneously. The Ersha-equipped youth, as if possessed by a battlefield demon, aimed the sword from a vicious and tricky angle directly at Li Aozi’s throat.

Decapitation strike!

"Kneel."

Li Aozi said coldly,

"I wasn’t using gravity when I tested the Arcane Energy. I’ve really given you too much face!"

Thud!

The youth’s body was instantly slammed to the ground, his spine shattering into four sections, his neck bone fracturing, and his solitary eye squeezed out and rolling to Li Aozi’s feet, where he crushed it with his boot.

No matter how skilled or technical you are, as long as you’re a planetary creature, gravity makes you useless.