Era of Mist

Thrown off-balance, the Black Warrior nimbly rolled to safety behind a steel plate, simultaneously blind-firing to prevent another precise headshot. The spray of bullets forced Shi Tiexin to take cover behind a thick steel beam. Sparks flew everywhere, but the shots posed no real threat.

As he quickly reloaded, Shi Tiexin considered how to press his advantage into a decisive victory.

“One more round, and you’re dead for sure.”

Shi Tiexin continued his psychological warfare in a quiet but confident tone, all while scanning his surroundings.

He didn’t believe the people surrounding them would just stand by like spectators. The age of generals dueling in front of their armies while everyone else just watched from the sidelines was long gone.

Even if the Black Warrior truly wanted a one-on-one duel, that didn’t mean everyone else wanted to let him have one.

And even if the men surrounding them held back for now, they would surely attack once the main force arrived, or once he killed the Black Warrior.

Shi Tiexin glanced up at Mai Ba, who was suspended from above. He had to figure out a way to get him down before the situation spiraled out of control.

Across from him, the Black Warrior sat behind the steel plate, panting heavily as he wiped his chin.

His hand came away covered in blood.

A crack had spiderwebbed across his helmet. The impact, combined with the searing heat, had torn a gash in his scalp. Blood flowed from the wound, down his chin, and dripped onto the floor. A helmet’s protection wasn’t infinite, and neither was the mortal flesh beneath it.

“To think I’m inferior to you in every way…” A low, bitter laugh echoed from the strange voice changer. “I truly wish we could have a pure duel. To die in such a fight would be no dishonor. But alas, for the sake of the greater good, I too must resort to dirty tricks.”

The Black Warrior took a sharp breath. CRACK. A faint snap echoed from beneath his armor. His breathing grew heavy under the Celestial Dog Mask, as if he’d been saddled with some immense burden. But a moment later, the Black Warrior twisted his neck, producing a loud CRACK from his vertebrae, and his aura grew darker and more powerful.

He pulled out another gun. Now dual-wielding, the Black Warrior sounded both apologetic and confident. “My apologies, but it’s time for me to cheat!”

WHOOSH! The Black Warrior shot forward like a cheetah, leaping into the air in a spinning volley of gunfire. The faint, dark light in his eyes seemed capable of dominating the entire battlefield in an instant.

The next moment, BANG! BANG! The Black Warrior tumbled backward again, two new, glowing dents appearing on his helmet. THUMP. He landed flat on his back, limbs splayed, groaning in pain as he clutched his neck.

‘My own accuracy is garbage when I try shooting in mid-air, and this guy’s even worse than me. What a moron, trying a flashy move like that. He was asking for it.’

Shi Tiexin figured that after those two shots, the Black Warrior should be pretty much out of commission. Never mind how many bullets the helmet could take; the sheer impact would have wrecked his neck. With a cervical spine injury, forget shooting—he probably couldn’t even pick up a spoon.

Looking up at Mai Ba, Shi Tiexin began planning his route. He never forgot that his mission was to rescue someone, not to duel this Black Warrior. The only question was how much time his opponents would give him to strategize.

In reality, he didn’t even have three seconds.

“Turn off those damn cameras!” the man in the suit roared, stepping forward. “All of you, get him! Kill him and end this ridiculous farce!”

“No…” the Black Warrior struggled on the ground. “This is… my duel… Only… I can kill him…”

The New Rangyi men hesitated for a moment, then decided to follow the suit’s orders. After all, one was a so-called leader who had been parachuted in, with no accomplishments and a shallow foundation in the organization. The other was the genuine representative of their financial backers, a man with deep, tangled roots and numerous supporters.

“Avenge our leaders, the Red Samurai and the Ashen Samurai!”

Someone shouted, giving them the pretext they needed to swarm him. At the same time, with a soft ZAP, every screen in Tokyo went dark, cutting off the view of the duel. Everyone who had been watching exchanged glances. It was obvious to them that the Black Warrior had been losing.

The duel, it seemed, was won by the Black Venerable. But what about survival?

With the New Rangyi shamelessly ganging up on him, could the Black Venerable possibly survive?

No one thought the Black Venerable could make it out alive, including the menacing New Rangyi gunmen themselves. They had the high ground, and four or five of them had a direct line of sight on Shi Tiexin’s hiding spot. They raised their guns, ready to roar as they unleashed a hail of bullets.

This was the most dangerous moment.

But Shi Tiexin already had a plan.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Four shots rang out in quick succession.

The first one burst a steam pipe next to a few of the gunmen, blasting them in the face with a massive cloud of scalding gas. Amid their screams, their barrage of bullets went wild. Shi Tiexin followed up with three more shots. Without waiting to see how many he had hit, he dove, rolled, and sprang back up in a single fluid motion, narrowly finding cover amidst a more complex section of machinery.

Huff… huff… Shi Tiexin was drenched in sweat. So far, everything had gone exactly as planned. The situation was extremely dangerous, but his execution had been flawless.

‘As for the rest of the plan… I didn’t have a fucking long-term plan!’

‘Damn it, I only had three seconds to think, okay?!’

RAT-A-TAT-TAT! PING! PING! Machine gun fire zeroed in on his position, sending sparks and ricochets flying everywhere. Hot shrapnel sprayed in all directions. Although Shi Tiexin kept himself well-protected, his arms were still getting peppered with cuts and burns.

‘I can’t even peek out!’

‘The difference in firepower is just too great! I’m completely pinned down!’

Shi Tiexin felt as if their bullets were a raging flood, and he was a lone survivor clinging to a tiny rock, with no hope of a safe escape.

‘At this moment, he truly understood. He’d much rather face a single expert than be cornered by a mob of amateurs.’

‘Guess being a one-man army isn’t really my style right now!’

“Surround him! Surround him!”

“Everyone else, full suppression! Reload in shifts, don’t let him escape! You few, circle around! Rip open the sheet metal from above and fire down on him! We can’t let him get away!”

‘He could faintly hear the shouts; it was the man in the suit. Solid commands, a tight encirclement, a thorough extermination plan… a damn shame they’re the enemy…’

‘Am I going to die here today?’

‘I wonder what will happen to my self on the Main World Line if I die in this one?’

‘I’ve kind of let down the me of this world line. Sorry, man. I was reckless.’

‘But today—’

HSSSS—

Sparks flashed all around him. Shi Tiexin took a deep, deep breath. The false Dan in his lower abdomen hissed, steaming with heat. In a single instant, he could unleash all of his accumulated vital energy.

‘Even if I die today, I’m taking plenty of them with me!’

“Their main force is coming! Stop screwing around and just blast him with the RPG!”

‘Holy shit!’

Shi Tiexin was shocked. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? You won’t even give me a chance to go down fighting?’

On the factory roof opposite him, a man shouldered a big, black, thick tube and aimed it at Shi Tiexin’s hiding spot with a savage grin. There was no problem a single RPG couldn’t solve. And if there was, you just fired another one.

His finger was about to squeeze the trigger.

But in that very instant, his head suddenly exploded.