"So weak…"
Watching the clash below, Orsaga couldn't help but recall the days of his youth—when he was still ignorant and naïve, when arson and murder were the only mischief he bothered with.
Back then, a battle of this level might have entertained him.
Now? Hardly.
Suppressing a yawn, he flicked his finger and released a small ring of energy. The ripple sealed the nearby space-time distortions. Otherwise, the moment Tzeentch sensed temporal fluctuations, he'd be poking his beak in.
At this point in history, Orsaga could feel it: apart from Slaanesh, half-dead and lacking strength, every Chaos God was actively scouring for fragments from other dimensions.
It might be a stone, a dog, or even a god.
The strength didn't matter. What mattered were the alien laws and principles those foreign things embodied. For the Chaos Gods, such novelties could spark insight.
Orsaga, however, had roamed countless universes already. Unlike them, he wasn't starved for inspiration. He joined in purely for amusement.
After all, after squatting in the Warp for so long, stumbling across a fresh, wild system host was rare entertainment.
Killing him was optional. What demon lord would ignore the chance to toy with a new bug?
As for sending Wagner down—it was no different than throwing crickets into a pit to fight.
No meaning behind it. Just idle cruelty.
---
Wagner, unaware of his master's true thoughts, was locked in bitter struggle with Li Ming.
'If only this battlefield were in the Warp…'
As a Daemon Prince, Wagner's power in realspace was heavily restricted. In the Warp, with its tides at his back, victory would already be his.
But "if" meant nothing. Reality was here.
Meanwhile, inside his armor, Li Ming was seething. His trump card—time manipulation—was utterly ineffective.
He had tried multiple times to freeze Wagner in stasis, but some unknown energy within Wagner's body counteracted the time-stop directly.
Reversing time fared no better. Normally, rewinding a few seconds preserved Li Ming's memory alone, creating an information gap he could exploit to anticipate his opponent.
But Wagner showed no such disadvantage. He reacted seamlessly, as if the rewind had never happened. If not for the environment resetting, Li Ming might have thought his ability hadn't activated at all.
'Time tech? Could it be mature temporal technology? No way… Warhammer's tech can't be this high, right?'
Unfortunately, it was exactly that.
Wagner's body carried multiple layers of chronotech. He had to—living in the time-twisted Warp demanded it. Otherwise, a single blink might have dropped him into a universe billions of years later.
And time-based weaponry wasn't rare. Khorne's hound legions, for example, could literally hunt prey through time.
To someone like Wagner, accustomed to temporal warfare, Li Ming's tricks were nothing. Unless Li Ming obtained higher-order control of time itself, his attacks barely qualified as scratches.
Li Ming, ignorant of this truth, glanced at his system panel. The Saitama card's timer was already one-third gone. Dodging beams from Wagner's floating drones, he grimaced.
He had tested everything. Even with over a dozen Rider powers stored, none of his "normal" attacks could do real damage. Any wounds he inflicted healed within seconds.
With Oma Zi-O's precognition, he could see it clearly: if things continued, he'd be dragged down until exhaustion killed him.
He needed something else. Something riskier.
Perhaps… using Oma Zi-O's ability to overwrite reality itself, erasing Wagner outright.
But this wasn't the Kamen Rider world.
Already, even light use of temporal powers left him drained and prickled by a constant sense of danger—as though something vast was watching. If he used a reality-altering strike, it might not just drain him. It might summon something much worse.
The choice was miserable: be worn down and die, or kill Wagner and probably draw in a stronger boss immediately afterward.
Like choosing between eating filth… or eating chocolate-flavored filth.
"Damn it all…"
Grinding his teeth, he snapped at his so-called cheat:
"This is all because of your teleportation screw-up! If you hadn't botched it, I wouldn't be stuck here! Don't you have any compensation measures!?"
[Negative. Minor transmission accidents fall under system disclaimer clause]
The words nearly made him spasm.
"What? You have a damn disclaimer clause? You're like Tencent and NetEase rolled into one useless parasite!"
Cursing furiously, Li Ming ducked another barrage. Knowing he was out of options, he threw everything he had into Oma Zi-O.
At once, a ripple burst from him, faster than light, engulfing Wagner before the machine-demon could react.
"?"
Wagner didn't even have time to comprehend. His body unraveled like a fading dream, dissolving into nothing.
A few seconds later, he was gone.
Truly gone.
Only when Li Ming confirmed it did his body collapse. He fell to his knees, gasping violently, head hanging low.
Oma Zi-O had drained him dry. Even the armor forcibly dispelled itself.
"Damn system, you…"
He hadn't even caught his breath when something entered the edge of his vision.
White.
A pair of spotless leather shoes.
'Shoes? Leather shoes? Am I seeing things?'
Before he could confirm, a man's voice, mocking yet lazy, reached his ears:
"You're really weak…"
A chill surged down Li Ming's spine.
At that moment, the system—silent until now—suddenly chimed.
[Ding!!]
[Detection—…]
.
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