"You are truly beyond saving."
"You leave me speechless."
The two spoke simultaneously. Their usual peaceful gaze was gone, replaced by a sharpness that viewed the other as an enemy. The bandages wrapped around Yama body writhed like living things, baring fangs and claws, while Lin left hand reached behind his back to draw his pistol.
"You cannot stop the coming of the future."
"You cannot look only at the past."
Lin raised his leg for a knee strike to Yama abdomen, but the snake-like bandages precisely blocked his knee and coiled up his ankle to bind his entire thigh. Yama released her grip on Lin throat, and the bandages, like tentacles, hoisted him upside down before slamming him violently away.
Thud!
"Enough with your big talk!" Yama floated expressionlessly in mid-air, watching Lin slowly rise amidst the dust of the collapsed building. "You and I are the same person. Your foolish ideas have already been proven a failure through me."
"I am not like you..." Lin pulled the pin of a grenade. He took a deep breath, feeling the long-lost scent of the battlefield swirl within his lungs. "I am not an execution machine. I am a human being."
"Is that so?"
A twisted, cruel smile curled Yama lips. She extended a finger, pointing at the man who struggled even to stand. "Then you, this lowly and wretched human who cannot even resist an incomplete Herrscher like me—your big talk is nothing but pathetic self-consolation."
"Cannot resist?"
To Yama disbelief, Lin actually looked up and returned an arrogant gaze.
"The Herrschers I've hunted could form a line. And just who are you supposed to be?"
Boom!
...
Amidst soaring flames, Lin flew out wretchedly, rolling several times on the ground to extinguish the fire on his body. He raised his pistol, but before he could pull the trigger, a seemingly ordinary bandage pierced through the gun. The exploding parts left a bloody gash on his face.
Yama was right. In this bubble world, she was an incomplete Herrscher, possessing less than a tenth of her peak power, but it was still enough to leave the injured Lin—lacking Fire Moth weaponry—completely helpless. Moreover, their thinking patterns were identical. Even if Lin tried to use his old methods of fighting Herrschers, Yama would easily dismantle them.
She was not a Herrscher with human memories, but a human with Herrscher abilities; there was a fundamental difference between the two. Yama combat methods were highly diverse, carrying shadows of many different Herrschers. Of course, restricted by her current incomplete authority, her destructive power fell far short of a normal Herrscher.
Lin hope of victory was exceptionally slim. But Lin would win.
The clash of their ideologies wasn't something that could be resolved simply by one killing the other. But as Yama said, if he couldn't even get past her, how could Lin fulfill the "big talk" he spoke of?
Yama reached into the empty void and pulled out a straight longsword with a patterned white scabbard and a black blade and hilt. As she unsheathed it, an ominous aura of death coiled around the blade. Lin heart skipped a beat. This feeling was...
Yama pointed the blade at Lin. This sword was the Divine Key she was most adept at using. Through long-term use, not only had she been tainted by its characteristics, but the Divine Key itself had transformed into a form suited for her use due to the malleable nature of Soul Steel.
The Sixth Divine Key, Abyss Flower—a weapon that unified decay and creation.
As she activated this Divine Key manifested through her authority, a black fog of erosion appeared before Lin again, surging toward him like a mad thing. Lin currently had no phase-shift device or anti-gravity flight gear. Faced with this large-scale, touch-and-die attack, he could only turn and run.
He dashed back to the tunnel he had dug earlier and jumped in without hesitation. The black fog followed, pouring into the pit. Yama did not rush to pursue. She stayed in place, watching coldly as the hole was gradually filled with black fog. She could imagine Lin being swallowed within, leaving not even a bone behind.
The authority of the Herrscher of Reason allowed her to manifest Divine Keys she had used before. However, the amount of Houkai energy in the Core of Reason is lower than that of other Herrschers, and her total energy in this bubble world was even lower. Thus, she could only manifest the Divine Key she was most familiar with and could not exert its original power. Had she not been one of the most special among Herrschers herself, she might not have been able to manifest it at all.
But this was enough.
Click.
Just then, Yama heard the light sound of a mechanical latch engaging behind her. Without looking, she turned and slashed a projectile flying toward her. This time, the resulting explosion was blocked outside her Houkai shield. She looked down to see Lin appearing from another side, dropping a rocket launcher and jumping into a hole again. She frowned slightly, then understood the reason.
He had actually spent the night digging a network of tunnels here?
Once, she would have fought in a similar manner, but such a laborious and redundant effort was now beneath her notice. Yama snapped her fingers. Gravity descended upon the ground beneath her. Lin tunnels, dug overnight with tools, collapsed instantly. Even the abandoned buildings within a hundred-meter radius were reduced to ruins.
She scanned the collapsed ground coldly, searching for Lin trace. But he was nowhere to be seen. This made Yama frown again; she didn't believe the Lin who could dodge the black fog would be crushed to death by gravity.
Swoosh.
A very faint sound rang out beneath her feet. The two turrets hovering by Yama side immediately fired beams downward.
Bang!
But when she looked closer, it was just an old, used rocket launcher that had been struck by a pebble.
"Because you failed to do it yourself, you no longer believe that another 'Lin' can cross the hurdle that stopped you."
Lin stern voice came from the lower right. Yama manipulated the cannons again to fire lethal light, piercing the person speaking...
Person?
A phonograph disintegrating under the beams seemed to mock her.
"I have seen countless versions of myself commit the same mistakes. Not a single one has ever reached the end I achieved." Yama long hair danced in the wind. Her rainbow pupils stole the sun's radiance, filled with aggression.
"So you despair of them, and you despair of yourself. Even if the hurdle can't be crossed, you just want the people important to you to live a little longer."
The speaker was another phonograph.
"But you're still hoping, aren't you? That one day, a 'Lin' will come along who can defeat you."
"Just like the 'Yama' you left behind in this false world—she is the beautiful version of yourself that you envisioned."
Upon hearing this, Yama thoughts stalled for a single second.
And in that moment, less than half a meter away from the pit created by the cannon fire, a figure buried under the dust rose and leaped. The sharp blade in his hand drew a perfect arc, slicing through the sunlight—
Blood sprayed everywhere!