The Almighty Ring

Klaus’ death was the trigger for Annie. For all he knew, Klaus might have been Annie’s elder brother, or even her lover. That was probably the reason why Annie charged toward Jiang Fei with eyes that shed tears of sadness and resentment.

Jiang Fei could not bring himself to feel anything toward the man. Even though he admired the selfless act of protecting someone else, sympathizing with the enemy would only be fatal to him. For better or worse, if Jiang Fei did something like that, Isabella and the other of the girls would be leading a mass to attend Jiang Fei’s funeral.

“Die! Pig!” Annie roared relentlessly as she hurled balls of fire toward Jiang Fei.

While dodging the oncoming fireballs, a shadow appeared behind Jiang Fei. One of the weakened Level 5 Mutants had gotten used to his state of power and quickly joined the fight.

“Took you long enough!” said Annie.

At this moment, Jiang Fei was facing with one ranged Mutant and a melee fighter. Even though he could not fight a Level 5 Mutant, provided that he or she was not affected by Jiang Fei’s Enfeeblement, he could still fight any other Mutant at Level 4.

With quick steps, Jiang Fei moved aside to dodge the Mutant’s fist that was coming for his head whilst keeping an eye out for the oncoming fireballs. In a split second, Jiang Fei managed to bring the melee fight away from the ranged Mutant. Both of them traded blows and dodged each and every attack flawlessly. Even though both of them could not yet kill each other, it was only a matter of time before one succumbed to the other.

The fight was not going to end so quickly, giving Annie more than enough time to chase after Jiang Fei and rain balls of fire down onto him. Even so, he still had more than enough breathing space to dodge all attacks coming from the melee Mutant and Annie. The melee Mutant was not impervious to Annie’s attack as he had to stop attacking a few times to avoid getting hit by the fireballs.

Feats like this was considered as a walk in the park for Jiang Fei but not the Mutant. In just a split of a second, Jiang Fei saw an opening when a large fireball came hurling down from the sky and the melee fighter had to take a giant leap back. In that moment, Jiang Fei ran all the way around the giant fireball, which was roughly the size of a stadium, and delivered a quick slash when he got behind the fleeting Mutant.

When one had been enervated of someone else’s power, a single slash from a Godblade would be lethal. The melee Mutant had only a second to scream in terror before the fast-acting poison of Valium seeped into his body, causing spontaneous combustion which ended with a huge gory explosion.

“KYAAAAA!” Annie screamed as she lost her mind. Without even thinking about herself, she conjured even more fireballs, more than Jiang Fei could count, and hurled them all toward him; almost like a meteor shower. This sort of aimless barrage was working well as Jiang Fei could only focus all his attention onto finding openings in between attacks.

In that moment, Lincoln appeared out of nowhere and shot Jiang Fei right in his back. It was a careless mistake on Jiang Fei’s part as he had thought he had control of the situation by facing all four Enfeebled Level 5 Mutants. He had completely ignored Lincoln, who was armed with weapons of Level 5 power output.

Weapons were more than capable of delivering any kind of attack without being affected by Jiang Fei’s domain ability. If it wasn’t for 0543 creating a barrier to protect Jiang Fei from the blast, he might have already died on the spot, with a large hole in the center of his chest.

“Tch! I’m too careless!” Jiang Fei scolded himself. He was too preoccupied with the thought of the Enfeebled Level 5 Mutants running out of his domain range and escaping. That was why he had been investing all his attention into killing them first. An ordinary level 4 Mutant like Lincoln had been completely ignored, granting him the luxury of becoming invisible to Jiang Fei. He had been watching and observing the fight from afar and when Jiang Fei had struck down the third Level 5 Mutant, he was wide open and that was when Lincoln shot him.

The beam attack landed a direct hit on the barrier that 0543 had manifested at the last second. Even though Jiang Fei was not in imminent danger, he was blasted of his stance and toward Annie. In that moment, Jiang Fei was full of openings. Annie took this chance and conjured a smaller, energy-packed fireball and hurled it toward Jiang Fei. The fireball hit Jiang Fei directly but was completely absorbed by the barrier 0543 had created. These two attacks had 0543 consume a lot of energy.

“Enough of this,” Jiang Fei snarled. Even though he had managed to escape completely unscathed, he was not having it and it showed on his face. He had just killed three Level 5 Metahumans, a feat no ordinary human could claim, yet he was attacked by a Level 4 Mutant. The shame of being protected, being shielded for such a shallow attack was not being taken well by Jiang Fei.

Jiang Fei was still a young man. Succumbing to shame was like being humiliated by the mass. The rage built up in his chest and was rushing to his head. In that moment, Jiang Fei was only thinking about redeeming himself. With effort, he manifested all the energy in him and forcefully activated Bloodrage, granting him temporary powers of a Level 5.

And there he stood, stationary, when the last fireball came. With a simple slash, Jiang Fei cleaved the fireball in two. Before Annie could make any sense of what was happening, Jiang Fei appeared behind her.

Like any other Level 5, defeating a Level 4 Mutant was as easy as snapping his fingers. Annie, in her current power level, was but a little rabbit being targeted by a veteren falcon.

Before she could even turn her head to face Jiang Fei, before she could even channel her powers into manifesting a fireball, Jiang Fei’s sword was already halfway through her chest.

The deed was done and Jiang Fei still had another to kill. As he flashed away, literally in the next fraction of a second, Annie had finally moved her hands closer together to conjure the fireball. In that power level, Jiang Fei’s movement was almost lightspeed. The entire kill was done in only less than one third of a second. Just as a complete second passed, Jiang Fei was already in front of Lincoln.

“You… This isn’t fair! How is it that you’re alive?!” Lincoln roared, his voice filled with vile anger and resentment. He knew that he was about to be killed by Jiang Fei but the vengeance in him did not allow him to accept death right then. He was facing the man that had murdered his sons. Right now, Lincoln was not afraid of death, but of the thought of not having his revenge on Jiang Fei.

Jiang Fei didn’t care for any of Lincoln’s words. He raised his sword and swung it down with such force that the ground beneath his feet cracked. Any other day, that cleave would have sliced a mountain in half, but Lincoln was protected with a powerful Level 5 grade barrier. A genuine Level 5 already took more than a single hit to break it, what more a pseudo-Level 5? The cleave had only made the barrier tremble a little, like a wave created by a dragonfly landing on calm waters.

At that second, Lincoln knew better than to lay down on his knees. He quickly got up to his feet and started shooting at Jiang Fei. Unfortunately, rifles and guns were just too slow for Jiang Fei. Temporarily ditching his attacking stance, Jiang Fei focused all his powers into evasion. Lincoln had lost the element of surprise. All he could hope for was a lucky shot.

After dodging thousands of beams, Jiang Fei landed a few heavy cleaves and managed to break the shield. It took him more than ten hits to break the Level 5 barrier. Even though it sounded tedious, landing ten hits in a row had only taken one tenth of a second. The fifteenth strike broke the shield and cleaved Lincoln in half. He died, still regretting not being able to have his revenge.

Once the deed was done, Jiang Fei quickly exited Bloodrage and fell to his knees. He had only spent close to four seconds in Bloodrage mode yet the damage inflicted on him was too sudden and too much for him to bear. At this point, Jiang Fei was incredibly weakened, still able to fight but only with 20% of his combat power.

The Mutants had everything planned and had even invested four Level 5 Metahumans just to kill Jiang Fei. They would have known about Jiang Fei’s ability if the enemy Unknowns had informed them about it, but they didn’t and that was why all four Level 5 Mutants were killed.

“Captain, I have control over the base.” 0543’s female voice rang in Jiang Fei’s ears when he was still on his knees.

“Just in time,” Jiang Fei said as he cracked a smile. How lucky he was. Not only he was able to fend off the enemy’s sudden reinforcements, he had also gained control of the enemy’s base!

“Reactivate the defense system, target all enemies and exterminate them with great prejudice!” said Jiang Fei as he roared the command. The cannons unfolded from inside the base and when they started to rise above ground level, the bombardment began.