Solo Cultivating in Superhero Academy -
Chapter 81: You are kidding me
Chapter 81: You are kidding me
Elius stood there, eyes narrowed, face like stone.
The air was tense. Thick. Every breath tasted like sand and copper.
Soilandor’s grotesque body glimmered under the flickering dungeon light, his skin glistening not with moisture, but the glimmer of compacted grains—each one possibly older than some nations.
Elius lifted one finger. Just one. A casual, almost lazy flick.
SHNK!
One of his five flying swords streaked forward, whistling through the heavy air like a reaper’s blade.
THWACK.
The sword pierced through Soilandor’s ribcage with a clean hiss, driving straight through and emerging from the other side.
But.
Nothing.
No blood.
No shriek of pain.
No tremor of impact.
Just a low, shifting crunch as if someone had pressed their fingers into a pile of dry sand.
Soilandor’s body trembled—not from pain, but from casual movement. The wound around the sword rippled, and instead of tearing or breaking, it flowed like disturbed silt in a river. The sword had gone through, but it may as well have gone through fog.
Elius frowned.
He flicked again.
SHNK SHNK SHNK SHNK— all five swords darted forward in a graceful arc, aiming at joints, legs, head, spine, waist.
PIERCED. PIERCED. PIERCED.
The swords didn’t stop. They tore through Soilandor’s limbs and torso like arrows through a tapestry.
But again—
No blood.
No howl.
No reaction.
Soilandor didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. His arms hung loosely at his sides. His thousand eyes blinked slowly, like he was vaguely amused.
Elius growled under his breath and snapped his wrist—his swords recoiled instantly, spinning back behind him like obedient wolves returning to their master.
Soilandor finally shifted.
But he did not attack.
He stepped forward, deliberate, slow, as if savoring the silence before a feast.
His voice rang out, low and echoing.
"You do not understand," he said, almost kindly, "you cannot hurt me anymore."
He raised one of his arms—massive, muscled, but made entirely of shifting stone and dust, like a walking clay sculpture sculpted by gravity and time.
"I am a little like Lava Scissor, yes..." Soilandor’s voice sharpened, like the grating of sandstone against bone. "But I am more—invulnerable. The more you strike, the more I scatter. The more I scatter, the more I reforge."
He turned his head to the side, cracking his neck audibly.
"It is like trying to destroy a mountain by throwing pebbles. Brave, perhaps. Stupid, absolutely."
But Elius didn’t care.
He had already raised his hand again.
The five swords gleamed.
And then—strike.
WHIRR-CLANG!
The swords darted forward again, this time not just in a direct line. They curved, weaved, danced around the air like living beasts—each with its own intent, its own strike pattern.
One curved behind Soilandor’s back, aiming for the base of the spine.
Another shot low, aiming to sever an ankle.
The third darted in a corkscrew spiral to confuse his senses before snapping toward an armpit.
The fourth moved vertically, carving down from above to cleave through his neck.
The fifth paused—then pulsed forward in a sudden lunge, targeting the center of his chest.
Each strike was calculated, purposeful, exact.
SHNK!
CRKK!
SSSHHH!
But again—
Nothing.
The strikes landed. But the sand absorbed them. Like a sponge accepting water. Like the earth welcoming the dead.
No pain.
No damage.
No reaction.
Soilandor tilted his head.
"You’re not listening to me," he said, louder this time.
He rolled his shoulder, and the motion sent ripples through his body like waves through a dune. The sand re-compacted, reforming joints and ridges, the holes left by Elius’s swords filling themselves within seconds.
Clint, watching from the side, clenched his fists. "He’s healing. No—he’s not even healing. He’s not taking damage."
Balkan’s dreadworms growled in unison. Monkaar’s mouth was tight with fury.
Soilandor’s voice dropped to a growl. "Really? After all that, you just—keep trying the same thing? Do you think repetition will change the outcome?"
But Elius didn’t care.
Again—swords flared.
WHOOSH!
He spun them differently this time, using more internal Qi, weaving the blades with slight illusion techniques, hoping to create distortion in Soilandor’s sand-form. Maybe enough to confuse the cohesion. Maybe enough to—
THWACK.
THWUMP.
SNNNK!
The blades pierced again—more strikes this time. Dozens. He weaved them faster, made them turn in spirals, zigzags, reversals, feints—every single strike designed to be unpredictable, impossible to memorize. His spiritual energy strained from the effort. His eyes shone with pressure.
He attacked high, low, from angles even he had to improvise in real-time.
A waterfall of gleaming blades.
A silver storm.
And yet—
Soilandor stood still.
No blood. No pain. No damage.
The grains of his body just shivered and re-aligned after every strike. The dungeon air was filled with the faint hiss of shifting sand, like wind through the bones of a tomb.
Soilandor turned his head to the side again. His eyes blinked slowly.
"You really are not listening," he said, louder.
Elius didn’t stop.
Another flick. Another barrage.
A storm of flying swords surged in—so fast that the entire battlefield seemed to blur. Light danced off the steel like sparks from a forge, and the very air split under the pressure of Qi.
Soilandor rolled his neck.
He sighs.
"Really?"
Elius glared at him, sweat on his brow, teeth clenched.
"You think if I repeat it enough, you’ll crack," he muttered. "Everything cracks eventually."
Soilandor’s body shifted again. For the first time, he moved with intent.
He raised one foot, stomped slightly—and the sound was subtle, not loud, but there was a feeling beneath it.
Like the dungeon flinched.
Soilandor lifted both his arms.
And then, his voice rose.
It didn’t just rise—it boomed. It echoed. It shattered silence.
"ENOUGH!!!"
The word wasn’t a voice—it was a shockwave.
It blasted outward like an earthquake wrapped in sound. A pressure wave rippled through the air, visible, shimmering like heat haze.
BOOM!
Elius’s swords—caught mid-flight—were struck by the invisible force. They snapped back, flung through the air like toys tossed by a child. The impact made them spin wildly, vibrating from the force.
Elius took a step back, arms raised instinctively to shield his face. The shockwave didn’t hurt him, but it warned him.
This was no longer about tricks.
No longer about testing.
This was war.
Soilandor lowered his hand slowly, calmly.
He looked at Elius with a hundred blinking eyes.
"I already told you it won’t work," he said softly.
"Clint!" Elius barked, his voice slicing through the tension in the dungeon like a sword through silk. "Fire! Shoot him—again and again!"
Clint didn’t hesitate.
With a click of his tongue and a sudden pivot of his heels, he thrust both arms forward, palms turned outward like a gunslinger preparing for the final showdown at high noon.
Click.
His fingers straightened.
Six in total.
Three on each hand.
Twisted in shape, with knuckle joints slightly bent like revolver hammers, each digit igniting with a fierce glow.
WHHRRRRRMMM...
The sound of condensing combustion filled the air.
Thin streams of steam hissed from the seams between Clint’s fingers as the heat intensified.
Red-orange light flared, making the shadows in the dungeon dance madly on the wall.
Then—
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Bullets of condensed flame, shaped like miniature meteors, exploded from his fingertips.
They spun through the air, shrieking with the howl of infernal pressure, trailing smoke and sparks in every direction.
The heat was so intense that the cracked stones beneath their path glowed faintly, scorched by the very passage of the shots.
BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!
Clint fired without pause.
His arms moved like pistons, recoiling slightly after each shot. His face was twisted into a fierce scowl of focus, sweat flying from his brow.
The bullets slammed into Soilandor’s body—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!—like miniature sunbursts.
Each impact tore chunks of sand and rock from the creature’s body. His shoulder blasted apart. His hip vaporized.
One of the bullets struck his stomach, and his entire midsection disintegrated into a sandstorm swirl.
But Soilandor...
Didn’t even flinch.
He didn’t grunt.
He didn’t cry.
He didn’t defend.
He simply stood there, casually turning his head to glance at a crumbled wall as if admiring the architecture.
One of Clint’s flame bullets hit him square in the face—and the sand exploded outward, tearing his jaw into hundreds of pieces.
But before the flaming debris could even hit the ground...
WSSSHHH.
Soilandor’s face reformed.
The grains flew back into place, realigning as if pulled by invisible strings. His shoulders reconnected. His legs solidified. His waist pulled itself together in a perfect spiral of granular control.
He turned his head back slowly, looking toward Clint, and chuckled.
A slow, mocking sound that felt like sandpaper scraping against a mirror.
"Are you quite finished?" he asked. "Do you want to reload?"
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