The Almighty Ring

What should I do? Do I run to survive or do I fight the boy until one of us is dead?!

Bison asked the same question over and over again in his head.

Despite being injured and pressured, Bison could not shake the thought out of his head. At that moment, when Jiang Fei tried to get up, he slipped and fell to the ground. His body was giving in and that allowed Bison to finally decide on an answer.

“F*ck it! Judgement Day is coming and the chances of survival are just as good as fighting Jiang Fei. Better to die with honor than to suffer a few days of humiliation!”

Any normal being would have noticed the sudden change in Bison’s stature. If Jiang Fei was fully conscious at that time, he would have caught the abrupt burst of killing intent in Bison and promptly prepared himself for an incoming attack. Unfortunately, Jiang Fei was drowned in pure instinct and a flooding desire to fight for victory.

“This is the end!” Bison snarled as he took out a bottle of viscous liquid. He broke the seal at the top and swallowed all of its content in one go.

Bison was mad, not at himself but at Jiang Fei. Well, all conscious beings possessed emotions to a certain extent. While some would argue that all humans were born evil, others would say otherwise. In the vast universe of uncountable civilizations and races, egoism or a sense of geocentrism that everything revolved around an individual’s own race or self, existed even in the most advanced species. Bison was most certainly not the brightest or the most knowledgeable being in all of Tallgeese. He still thought that he was the strongest. He bore too much hatred for Jiang Fei since he had forced him to resort to his trump card. If he had not been stupid enough to succumb to his greed to claim what was Jiang Fei’s, he would not have been in that situation.

From his vantage point, however, he was not at fault. He came to Jiang Fei and did not recognize that he was the one who brought the war to him, asking for a share of the Ultralisk meat. It, by all means, belonged to Jiang Fei since he had single-handedly defeated all three of them. Since he had rejected the request, Bison thought he had every reason to put the blame on Jiang Fei.

“Oughhh!”

Albeit still dazed, Jiang Fei twitched from the sensation of raw power that came from Bison.

There was a deafening roar, and the next instant, he was in front of Jiang Fei, thrusting his fist at beyond supersonic speeds. His combat level was boosted up to over ten million, granting him an enormous power surge, unlike anything he had ever felt. The fist delivered by Bison was so fast that even if Jiang Fei was conscious and sharp-minded, he would have still failed to react to it.

That punch was strong, and finally, after being thrown off his feet like a ragdoll so many times, the battlesuit, which had been protecting him from countless hits, was completely destroyed. The suit was the only defense Jiang Fei possessed, and now he had lost it.

“Die, die, die!” Bison roared as he chased Jiang Fei. He charged a ball of energy so saturated that it glowed with intense brightness. Its brightness rivaled that of the orbiting star itself. Before Jiang Fei could even bounce off the ground once, Bison sped in front of Jiang Fei and made him “eat” the energy ball.

Jiang Fei was on the verge of losing consciousness completely. The Bio-Armor he had on was completely useless as a protective suit as it literally vaporized the moment the energy ball made contact with it.

Wham!

Before Jiang Fei could fling himself away from the blast, Bison flashed toward himself again, delivering another devastating punch to his face.

“Let’s see how long you can keep this up!”

Wham!

Bam!

Boom!

Slam!

“Have you given up?

“You know you want to…

“There is no way you can make a come back now that all of your insides are ruined…

“You’re weak…

“You’re fragile…

“You couldn’t protect anyone, not even yourself…

“Take the power and turn yourself into a being of pure energy!

“Surrender to fate and defeat your enemies!

“Join me and you will never suffer defeat! Forever!”

Just as Jiang Fei’s mind was about to collapse, the voice with words of temptation returned to his sea of thoughts. The voice spoke in such an alluring tone that Jiang Fei could not help but believe in its words…

Right before Bison delivered the final killing blow, Jiang Fei flung his eyes open and telepathically said, “0541, prepare for a full energy conversion…”

“Wake up!”

“Huh?! The heck is going on?!”

Jiang Fei was seconds from completing the order when his mind was dragged out from the darkest corner of his own sea of thoughts. It was like being poured with a pail of cold water, and Jiang Fei was now awake.

“What’s going on? Who was talking?! Who saved me?!” Jiang Fei asked himself before he could make sense of what was going on.

“Dumb student! Wake up and focus solely on your opponent! I won’t help you again!” Theon’s voice rang in his mind as clear as the bells of Big Ben.

The great Plunderer was true to his words and had kept his promise to watch over Jiang Fei. He had always been watching him from the shadows, never revealing himself and never intervening in any of his problems. However, as promised, he came to help at the last moment of desperation, to help Jiang Fei survive.

“Thank you, my master!” Jiang Fei said.

The red hue in Jiang Fei’s eyes faded, and he was back in play. The devastating punch that approached him was avoided with a quick evasive maneuver. He got back to his feet a good distance away and quickly channeled energy to fix his broken bones as well as internal organs.

Even though his face and chest were f*cked up beyond any recognition, Jiang Fei could recover to a certain extent as long as he was still filled with energy.

Everything he did, he did by paying a price. Jiang Fei was restored to a non-fatal state, and in doing so, he had used up so much power in him that it decreased his combat level. Firstly, since he was back and focused, the extra combat level granted by Omnisurge was removed. Secondly, the energy from his own body was reduced by a large notch. All in all, Jiang Fei’s combat level dropped down to a staggering 6,000,000.