"I think the fact that you're even asking means you've already made your choice."
Li Ke originally wanted to deliver that line looking incredibly cool, but the moment the words formed in his mind, he felt it wasn't quite right. Shifting his tone entirely, he tried a different approach.
"Mai, you wouldn't want the Shiranui style to fade away just because it lacks the funding to market itself, would you?"
His voice dropped into a deeply bizarre register—sounding part manipulative, as if he had just firmly grasped her absolute weakness, and part seductive, causing Mai to involuntarily shudder.
"Ugh... You sound so incredibly creepy."
Mai drove her elbow straight into Li Ke's chest, using the impact to twist completely out of his loose embrace.
"We can talk about that shady looting nonsense later. For now, let's focus on handling the crisis right in front of us."
She snapped her fans wide open. Li Ke raised Kashu as well, training his gaze onto the surging wall of monsters ahead.
Grip tightening around the hilt of the katana, he decided it was definitely wiser to stick to a ranged assault strategy this evening.
If he accidentally melted Kashu down with his dragon fire right now, he would be left with absolutely zero weapons capable of enduring his combat output for the foreseeable future!
"Yeah, keeping our distance is the smartest play."
The exact moment the words left his lips, Mai dropped into a rigid martial stance. In the next breath, a powerful, violent gale of concentrated energy erupted from her body.
The thermal shockwave blasted the loose leaves away from her feet, and the edges of her steel folding fans suddenly began to flicker with sharp motes of fire.
But this particular fire was fundamentally different from Li Ke's supernatural element. His advanced sensory perception picked up a faint mechanical detail—some hidden component inside Mai's custom fans had deployed a chemical accelerant, which instantaneously ignited upon colliding with the sheer friction of her martial Qi.
In the very next fraction of a second, fueled by a combination of her razor-sharp Qi and a localized powder propulsion, the flaming fan flew out of her grip, spinning at hyper-velocity through the dark air. Under his watchful gaze, the projectile slammed straight into the vanguard of the Night Parade, effortlessly tearing through the tattered flesh of several overlapping grunts.
And then...
And then the spinning steel weapon ground to a rigid halt, wedged deep into the hide of a colossal, heavily armored abomination. The creature featured the grotesque upper torso of a bull mated with a massive lower chassis supported by dozens of twitching, hairy spider legs—bearing a striking resemblance to the mythical Gyūki, though it was likely an alien variation.
As far as tactical efficiency went, the throw successfully vaporized a handful of minor paper-lantern grunts and sliced through a few small-tier yokai, but its kinetic momentum hit a hard limit against the giant.
Still, the sheer lethality of the martial technique was deeply impressive. Li Ke analyzed the trajectory of the throw, deducing that if his own reflexes had been even a microsecond too slow, the sharp, Qi-infused edge of that spinning fan could have easily sheared through his skin or even delivered a fatal blow.
Of course, that fatal scenario was practically impossible. Unless two or three versions of Mai Shiranui staged a perfectly coordinated ambush, he could effortlessly deflect a projectile like that with a simple torrent of Dragon Fire. There was no way it could actually end him.
"..."
Mai fell silent for a long moment, letting out a heavy, deflated sigh.
"I guess that settles it. Your strength has completely surpassed mine."
Her feelings were incredibly complex. She had just put every ounce of her martial prowess into that throw. A fan forged from solid steel, further accelerated by an explosive chemical charge, should have sliced through industrial iron plates with ease. Yet against these newly adapted anomalies, the tactical efficacy was borderline disappointing.
But when Li Ke utilized a throwing technique, his damage matrix completely overwhelmed the enemy. While part of it was due to the raw mass of his heavy greatsword, the sheer, staggering disparity in baseline output was undeniable.
Especially the flames. The powder-assisted fire she produced looked incredibly fragile and weak when measured against the primordial light of Li Ke's element.
"Well, obviously... I happen to be a bit of a prodigy, you know," Li Ke boasted without a shred of modesty before tossing Kashu back into her hands. "Still, the core principles of the Shiranui style are genuinely fascinating."
Mai's ninjutsu techniques were highly intriguing. The core mechanic involved embedding compressed Qi directly within a layer of flame, imbuing the heat with a cutting edge while granting the physical kinetic force a searing, thermal parameter.
Li Ke found the concept highly valuable.
The beauty of the Shiranui-ryu lay in its sheer fundamental execution. Unlike the advanced swordsmanship and Haki of the One Piece world, which largely became obsolete outside its home dimensions due to altered world laws, her martial arts relied on base human mechanics. Still, it had its limits. The combat metrics were right there on display—while her compressed Qi was remarkably solid, the projectile velocity was strictly average. Li Ke knew he could reliably counter it with a basic high-pressure jet of fire.
"This is the most sacred, closely guarded secret of the Shiranui lineage... But if you are truly serious about helping me globally market and restore our dojo, I suppose I could formally instruct you in its execution," Mai admitted with a quiet sigh.
In her home universe, the baseline parameters of conventional martial artists were relatively balanced because the ceiling of human anatomy remained uniform. Consequently, almost every combatant qualified to vie for the King of Fighters title possessed either advanced Qigong, innate supernatural abilities, or anomalous physical structures that defied standard biology.
This was precisely why titans like Kyo Kusanagi, Iori Yagami, or the masters of the Kyokugenryu Karate school consistently outclassed her.
Their internal energy reservoirs were vastly superior, and they were backed by terrifying, bloodline-bound superpowers.
Because the Shiranui clan lacked a massive Qigong foundation and hadn't birthed a reality-bending prodigy in generations, their dojo sat strictly in the second- or third-tier brackets of the global fighting circuit. Mai had pushed herself to the absolute limit just to break into the ranks of the elite, but the structural positioning of her style remained volatile. On a flawless day with peak performance, they operated at a solid second-tier level; on a bad day, they sank straight into third-tier territory.
They belonged to that exact tier of fighters who looked like they could trade blows with anyone on the roster, yet possessed absolutely zero mathematical chance of securing a victory against the true monsters at the top.
After all, reality wasn't a balanced arcade game. If a warrior blessed with the god-tier Hakkeshu bloodline like Iori Yagami couldn't lock down a guaranteed, flawless victory against a conventional ninja like Mai, it would mean his cosmic inheritance was a total joke.
Mai was acutely aware of this painful reality. She knew deep down that relying on her strength alone would never be enough to revitalize the Shiranui clan.
"Yeah, I'm absolutely down. It's not like I'm swamped with other things anyway," Li Ke replied smoothly.
The mere thought of the girls in her home universe was more than enough to free up his schedule. His words, however, instantly triggered a wave of bittersweet memories for Mai. She remembered her grandfather's dying wishes, and the vivid image of him officially entrusting her to Andy.
Back then, her grandfather's ultimate goal had been for Andy to step up and help globally market the Shiranui style.
Regrettably, Andy harbored absolute zero interest in public relations or promotional stunts, which had always left her feeling deeply frustrated.
But a sudden jolt of survival instinct snapped her back to reality. She was perfectly aware of her own lethal level of beauty, and the memory of their past physical encounter sent a phantom flash of soreness through her lower back. Moving like she had just been hit by a localized electric shock, she bolted away from his side and assumed a highly defensive posture, glaring at him with pure suspicion.
"...You absolute scoundrel. Don't you dare think for a second that a deal like this will ever make me fall for a degenerate like you."
Li Ke merely scoffed, tossing a thoroughly unimpressed smirk her way.
"You're flattering yourself. If I want a girl, I have a million simpler paths to get her. Putting in the effort to court a stubborn kunoichi like you is far too much of a hassle."
Give me a break, he thought. Talk about classic overconfidence!
Mai had been genuinely anxious about his intentions a microsecond ago, but hearing him dismiss her so bluntly caused a prominent vein to violently throb on her forehead.
"You had better keep thinking exactly that, you absolute bastard!" she snapped back in pure annoyance, aggressively crossing her arms and refusing to throw another strike for the rest of the evening.
Li Ke didn't waste any more breath on her. Turning his focus back onto the wall of squirming phantoms, he locked into a solid stance and began practicing his unarmed forms.
The specific katas he executed originated from the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe—specifically, the aggressive, circular Northern Shaolin routines designed to help Firebenders seamlessly channel and manipulate their element.
He fluidly moved his limbs through the traditional sequences. While the physical choreography itself yielded minimal intrinsic power in a reality like this, executing the forms served as an exceptional psychological anchor to massively elevate his internal concentration.
Even if his ultimate mechanical goal was to eventually project flames with a mere thought, now was not the time to be picky about form; his immediate objective was to learn how to maximize his absolute energy output.
In perfect response to his rhythmic movements, a sea of crimson fire naturally manifested around his frame. Under the precise tracking of his sweeping limbs, the element condensed into multiple violent fire tornadoes that spiraled tightly around his position. Once the localized thermal density reached a critical mass, Li Ke thrust both of his open palms dead-center toward the waiting horde.
By leveraging the martial forms to sharpen his focus while aggressively burning through his stamina to spike the baseline temperature, the blast erupting from his palms scaled to a much higher, far more devastating thermal parameter!
In a flash of blinding light, a massive, sweeping wall of roaring crimson fire exploded outward, rolling like a volcanic tidal wave directly toward the encamped yokai.
Li Ke had already deduced from his earlier skirmishes that his specialized Dragon Fire possessed an absurd degree of over-kill damage metrics against these common grunts. Because his primary element was wasting too much energy on weak targets, he wanted to use this ideal farming session to experiment with a completely different skill in his portfolio.
Furthermore, he wanted to test something from a Firebending scroll that Azula had given him!
"...Fill your heart with intent to kill, hatred, and total dominance..."
Li Ke stared at the swarming monsters. While he didn't fully understand the underlying mechanics of Azula's specific style, he planned to experiment using a combination of his Conqueror's Haki.
The Conqueror's Haki flared to life at his command. But just like how his Observation Haki had warped upon entering this reality, this dormant willpower was completely transformed by the local laws, manifesting as an absolute, raw projection of his own emotions. For this exact time and place, such an ability was a flawless tactical fit!
The Haki seamlessly fused with the gathering element in his palms. In the next fraction of a second, the crimson flames breached a critical thermal threshold, aggressively shifting from a burning red to a blinding, cold azure blue! Its baseline temperature and pure kinetic impact spiked exponentially in an instant!
The azure inferno rolled forward like a massive tidal wave, violently crashing straight into the encampment of the yokai. The terrifying volcanic surge completely submerged the vast majority of the monsters, slamming relentlessly against the fortress stone. It lapped over the grand city gates like a high-pressure tsunami, leaving glowing, melted scars along the face of the walls.
The phantoms tethered within the city limits let out frantic, deafening roars. Yet, despite thrashing around in pure rage, scrambling blindly over the writhing mass of their peers and the charred husks of the dead, they rigidly refused to cross the spatial boundary. They simply stood their ground, forced to be incinerated alive by Li Ke's relentless bombardment!
If anyone had been standing atop the ramparts at that moment, they would have witnessed a staggering sight: this entire face of the city walls was completely swallowed by a churning ocean of sapphire fire, the thermal shockwave splashing outward to cover a radius of well over a hundred meters!
Staring at the silhouettes of the monsters as they twisted and warped into even more grotesque caricatures amidst the azure heat, Li Ke gave a slow, satisfied nod.
It was definitively confirmed: these things possessed absolutely zero cognitive intelligence.
Or, more accurately, they were tightly bound by absolute universal constraints.
Exploiting their rigid positioning without a shred of hesitation, Li Ke aggressively amped up his output. The azure sea roared with newfound ferocity, the sheer displacement of the superheated air creating a localized gale that whipped fallen leaves high into the night sky. His travel cloak snapped violently in the thermal wind, a visual testament to the staggering, cataclysmic scale of his offensive output.
The massive, multi-limbed spider-bull ghost king bellowed from the center of the sapphire inferno. Breaking through a barrier of this caliber would have been a trivial feat for an entity of its raw physical mass, yet it remained completely stationary. Its colossal, bulging eyes stared dead-center at Li Ke through the heat, locked in a rigid, frozen stance.
Li Ke harbored no intention of playing nice. He relentlessly channeled his energy reserves to maximize the payload. Encircled by a dense, swirling vortex of newly harvested golden and crimson World Energy fragments, the azure tidal wave violently surged forward once more, completely drowning the massive ghost king beneath a crushing, sapphire slipstream!
"HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
The pure World Energy continuously flooded into his system, aggressively nurturing his muscles and instantly refilling his stamina pool. Caught in a fit of wild, bloodthirsty laughter, he threw the entirety of his newly restored physical strength right back into maintaining the roaring, apocalyptic inferno!
The marching phantoms of the Night Parade continuously shrieked within the river of fire, but their voices and twisted figures were utterly swallowed by the flames Li Ke was so wildly unleashing!
Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have been able to sustain an output this intense. However, the exact moment his roaring torrent of fire slammed into the monsters, scattered fragments of World Energy began continuously flowing into his system. This non-stop replenishment actively restored his stamina, allowing him to maintain the terrifying thermal onslaught at absolute maximum capacity.
Otherwise, his physical reserves would have been completely cleaned out after barely five or six seconds, forcing him to rest before he could ever dream of manifesting such a cataclysmic inferno again.
This scalar output was, in reality, the absolute maximum limit of what his full-power fire manipulation could achieve; it was only because the local universe kept aggressively refilling his stamina pool that he could pull off such an impossible feat.
Because of this self-sustaining loop, he didn't just hold the line in a single, unbroken breath—the moment he finally cut off the flames, he even spun around to flash a brilliant, highly satisfied grin at the completely stupefied Mai Shiranui, Shinobu Kocho, and Kanae Kocho.
Down in the wake where his sapphire fire had just ravaged the landscape, nothing remained but a massive field of charred husks. The rest of the swarming yokai had literally stood their ground and been burned alive right where they stood!
"This is truly..."
Kanae Kocho's jaw dropped in absolute shock. Meanwhile, Shinobu stared at the apocalyptic, purgatory-like scene, tracking her gaze back to a perfectly calm Li Ke who wasn't even breaking a sweat. The sight solidified her conviction to an absolute degree: no matter the cost, she absolutely had to tether this man to the Corps' side!
"...Incredible power."
Feeling the residual, searing heat baking the air and watching the gray ash drift away on the wind, she was completely awed. The very same anomalies that had paralyzed an entire port city, forcing thousands of citizens to huddle indoors in sheer terror, had been systematically annihilated by this single stranger with absolute ease!
Earlier, with Li Ke's analytical help, she had successfully mapped out the weaknesses and spatial boundaries of these monsters. Yet she had still been agonizing over how the Corps could possibly amass enough high-tier slayers to consistently farm the yokai without getting overwhelmed. Li Ke had just stepped up and physically demonstrated exactly what it meant to be a one-man army!
Beside her, Mai Shiranui's reaction was far more visceral. From the exact microsecond the violent river of sapphire fire had violently erupted from Li Ke's palms, her entire mind had gone completely blank.
The dancing image of the azure inferno continuously reflected in her wide eyes, her chest thrumming with a profound, suffocating shock.
In all her years on the global circuit, she had never witnessed anyone weaponize fire on this cataclysmic scale. Even a generational titan like Kyo Kusanagi could absolutely never manifest a raging elemental tidal wave this massive in a single breath!
Granted, she knew that Kyo Kusanagi possessed the raw martial power to cleanly intercept or trade blows with this sapphire fire in a direct clash, but an output of this magnitude had already drifted completely past her own capability to handle!
If I possessed a miraculous fire power like this... why would I have ever needed to rely on Andy to revitalize the Shiranui clan...
If only...
Noticing that Mai's expression had gone entirely vacant, her posture completely freezing up, Li Ke couldn't resist reaching out to give her shoulder a firm tap, a highly smug, triumphant smirk playing across his lips.
"How about it? Is this enough to globally market and revitalize your Shiranui style?"
Mai Shiranui cast a deeply conflicted look at Li Ke, but she remained entirely silent.
She didn't know what to say. Her relationship with Li Ke was already far too complicated, and in that exact split second, a sudden, jarring thought had flashed through her mind: 'Maybe letting Li Ke inherit the massive burden of reviving the Shiranui lineage isn't such a bad idea after all.'
But as Li Ke waited for Mai to formulate a response, Shinobu Kocho rapidly stepped forward. She firmly grasped Li Ke's arm, and her eyes, which had always exuded a hollow, lifeless quality, were now filled with absolute concern and ecstatic joy.
Li Ke could feel that Shinobu's hands were visibly trembling against his sleeve; more accurately, her entire petite frame was shaking with intense emotion.
"Lord Li Ke... you aren't completely exhausted, are you?"
Shinobu forcefully tried to stabilize her breathing as she stared up at him. She immediately checked his pulse, only to find with profound pleasant surprise that his vital rhythm remained as rock-solid and phenomenally powerful as ever!
His heart rate hadn't even accelerated a single beat!
"Ah, I'm completely fine. Like I mentioned earlier, once you slaughter these yokai, those scattering golden motes of light instantaneously refill your stamina... You guys have fought these monsters before, so you should be perfectly aware of how the mechanic works, right? I'm entirely relying on that passive buff to pull this off."
Li Ke felt completely unbothered, but Shinobu gave a slow, reverent nod.
"Yes... but even with that blessing, this is still an absolutely legendary feat!"
She tilted her head back to look at Li Ke's face. The lingering temperature in the air remained intensely high, clashing with the cool night breeze sweeping in from the wilderness—a stark physical testament to the cataclysmic scale of his raw power. The realization sent a massive surge of adrenaline through Shinobu's chest. Driven by a mix of profound awe and medical instinct, her palms began to trace along his frame to thoroughly verify his physical condition.
She originally intended to merely check for hidden structural injuries, but the moment her fingers pressed against his dense, rock-solid muscles and traced the powerful definition of his physique, her breathing grew noticeably heavier. The involuntary trembling racking her body intensified.
He was strong, peerless, possessed a fierce and unapologetic desire for women, and wasn't remotely bad-looking. To the current Shinobu, Li Ke—who could effortlessly command a raging volcanic river of sapphire fire—was the most blindingly brilliant existence she had ever beheld.
In this moment, Shinobu felt as though her identity as a butterfly had shattered, transforming her into a helpless moth instead. Drawn by his absolute strength and her own desperate survival instincts, she found herself submissively edging closer to him. She knew with absolute clarity that committing to a man of his nature might leave her with nothing of her old self, yet for the sake of that staggering power and radiant warmth, she felt that even if she were completely devoured, she would harbor zero resentment. There would only be pure, unadulterated joy!
To think she could leverage her tattered, poison-soaked body to secure the favor of such a cataclysmic powerhouse! To tie an entity this magnificent to her family's fate!
This couldn't be categorized as a tragic sacrifice, nor could it be labeled as a degrading submission.
This was an absolute, miraculous blessing bestowed upon her!
What lingering reason did she have left to hesitate?
Turning her gaze briefly back toward the scorched, glowing craters of the dead yokai, her eyes passing over the melted steel ribbing of Mai's ruined fan, Shinobu slowly let her entire weight lean directly into Li Ke's robust chest. Unable to master her racing emotions, a soft murmur escaped her lips.
"If... if I could simply rest inside Lord Li Ke's embrace forever... it would truly be absolute bliss, wouldn't it?"
Her raw tactical reality and her deep, hard-wired intuition had delivered a singular, liberating truth:
She no longer had to struggle or worry all by herself.