When Fang Li returned to Genos's side, Bang had arrived as well.
"What happened?" Bang asked, his deeply wrinkled brows tightly furrowed. "Why did you suddenly start fighting Metal Knight?"
"Nothing much," Fang Li answered casually, glossing over the matter. "Just a personal grievance."
"Settling a personal grudge under these circumstances?" Genos stared at him intently. "That's far too irrational."
He wasn't wrong.
Although Metal Knight was a morally ambiguous figure and few people in the Hero Association liked the reclusive mechanical genius who operated from the shadows, no one could deny that many of his cutting-edge technologies were extremely useful.
Take those missiles with their overwhelming destructive power, for example. They might have been highly effective against the meteor.
Or perhaps Metal Knight even possessed weapons specifically capable of destroying it.
If that were true, then by eliminating Metal Knight's machine, Fang Li was effectively gambling with the safety of Z-City and several neighboring cities for the sake of a personal dispute.
How could anyone possibly agree with that?
Fang Li offered no explanation.
He merely said, "Don't worry."
He raised his head and looked at the meteor, its enormous outline already clearly visible in the sky. His expression remained perfectly calm.
"I'll take care of everything."
Not just destroying the meteor itself, but also preventing the shattered fragments from turning into a second disaster, a deadly meteor shower that would rain destruction upon Z-City.
Fang Li had only one objective: to complete the Side Quest that had just been triggered.
'Objective One:' Destroy the meteor.
'Objective Two:' Ensure there are no casualties.
'Objective Three:' Prevent any damage to Z-City.
Nothing more.
Of course, accomplishing all three was unimaginably difficult.
How could anyone stop a catastrophe of this magnitude without paying a price?
Indeed...
If Fang Li were acting alone, even if he managed to destroy the meteor, there would be no way to prevent the secondary disaster.
Once the meteor shattered, countless fragments would fall from the sky, causing widespread devastation and turning Z-City into a sea of flames.
Unless Fang Li could completely annihilate the meteor.
Destroying it was easy.
Erasing it without leaving anything behind was impossible.
After all, no matter how skilled Fang Li was at killing, a corpse always remained.
The same principle applied here.
Therefore, if he relied solely on himself, achieving all three objectives at once would be nearly impossible.
But...
If he wasn't alone...
As though sensing something, Fang Li lifted his gaze toward the distant horizon and smiled faintly.
"They're here."
Almost the instant those words left his mouth, two figures flew in from the horizon as though riding the wind.
A gust swept across the rooftop as they landed gracefully.
There were two newcomers.
"...If possible, I'd really rather not come to a place like this," a tall, elegant beauty wearing a fur-lined coat sighed as she spoke.
"Hehe..."
The peerless diva, dressed in a magnificent gown like a princess, let out a soft laugh and met Fang Li's gaze.
"You two are..." Bang's eyes widened in surprise. "Blizzard of Hell... and..."
Genos first looked at Fubuki before turning his attention to the other woman. "Sigrdrifa..."
One of the newcomers was Sylvia.
Sylvia wasted no time on pleasantries. She had also received the system notification when the Side Quest was triggered.
However, even before that, after receiving the Hero Association's emergency report about the incoming Dragon-level disaster, Fang Li had already contacted her and asked her to come immediately.
Having heard the entire situation from Fang Li himself, Sylvia understood perfectly well what he intended to do.
Looking directly at Fang Li, she smiled radiantly.
"Then... let's begin."
Hearing that, Fang Li smiled as well.
'Clink.'
The pure white 'Bozakiri' fell into his hand.
'Boom…!'
Fang Li shattered the rooftop beneath his feet, his body shooting into the sky like a streak of light.
"Wait…!"
"You…!"
Genos and Bang seemed about to say something, but by then, their voices could no longer reach Fang Li's ears.
At that moment, Fang Li himself resembled a meteor streaking toward the heavens.
'Buzz…!'
Brilliant starlight burst forth from his body, surging violently and forming a dazzling torrent.
Without even looking up, Fang Li could already feel it.
He could feel that embodiment of pure destructive power, a massive object of astonishing mass hurtling toward the earth.
The wind howled past his ears as the atmosphere roared around his body.
His ice-blue Mystic Eyes gazed upward, cold and indifferent, devoid of even the slightest emotion.
Fang Li simply watched the enormous meteor, its surface transformed into a blazing fireball by violent friction with the atmosphere, descending amid an earth-shattering sonic boom powerful enough to rupture eardrums.
A memory surfaced in his mind.
It was from the world of 'Tsukihime', when he had been forced to fight Arcueid after she went berserk.
At the very end of that battle...
The True Ancestor Princess had summoned the Crimson Moon and brought it crashing down from the heavens.
'...Moon Fall.'
A cataclysmic attack created through the power of 'Marble Phantasm', materializing the moon itself and sending it plummeting toward the earth.
Back then, to stop that attack, Fang Li had lost his life.
His flesh had been torn apart by the raging winds, his bones shattered beneath the overwhelming shockwaves, and his internal organs ruptured from the crushing atmospheric pressure.
Before the attack had even reached him, merely approaching it had caused his body to fall apart.
Had Arcueid not later poured her own power into him, allowing the strength of a True Ancestor to reconstruct his body, Fang Li would have remained dead.
And that had only been an attack unleashed while Arcueid was still far from her full strength.
Now, the object before Fang Li was another gigantic celestial body descending from the heavens.
Although it was nowhere near as large as the moon Arcueid had summoned, this enormous meteor was still powerful enough to completely destroy one city, or even several.
And what Fang Li intended to do was exactly the same as before.
Using these ice-blue Mystic Eyes... to shatter the catastrophe descending upon the earth.
In other words, to kill the meteor.
How did he feel?
Of course he had feelings about it. After all, this was the second time he had confronted such overwhelming power.
Did he have confidence?
Yes.
Because this time, things were different.
"I..."
"...have already gotten stronger."
The proof was right before him.
Even as he charged straight toward the disaster in the heavens just as he had back then, his body remained completely unaffected.
His flesh remained intact.
His bones remained intact.
His internal organs remained intact.
His entire body remained completely unharmed.
Fang Li now possessed the qualifications to face this level of power head-on.
In that case...
"There's no reason I can't accomplish now what I managed back then!"
His ice-blue Mystic Eyes suddenly blazed with light.
'"Flashing Scabbard - Imaginary Moon of Absolute Slaughter!"'
Countless sword slashes converged into a pure white full moon. Carrying an incomparably sharp edge, it soared upward into the sky.
Down below, Genos, Bang, and Fubuki all stared with wide eyes.
They watched helplessly as that immaculate white moon rose to meet the descending meteor.
Then, the two collided.
'Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang…!'
Countless flashes of blade light streaked across the gigantic meteor, accompanied by a deafening chorus of cutting sounds that echoed across the sky.
And the enormous meteor... was sliced apart into countless pieces.
(End Of This Chapter)
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