I don't know how he determined that I was an intruder, even though I did sneak in stealthily. But many others also wear this black robe, so wouldn't he think I'm just a curious general cultist? Or does he have other grounds for judgment? His gaze made me realize that he had truly concluded I was an intruder, and I had no intention of continuing to pretend.
I know almost nothing about the cult members here, and I have no performing talent. Since I've been exposed, I'll just have to face the challenge head-on. The burly man slightly bent down, bending his knees, and leaned forward.
Drink!
He suddenly exerted force with his legs, and the wooden floor suddenly cracked, as if someone had used a hammer to strike the floor. Driven by such powerful muscular explosive force, his body flew across the center of the basketball court in the blink of an eye, crossing the partition between the court and the stands with lightning speed, and approached me.
His speed was so fast that in that instant, I even felt that what was rushing towards me was not a human, but a high-speed car. There was no more time to hesitate.
As he approached me, he clenched his fist and struck me with a powerful straight punch.
I reflexively activated my psychic powers, raising my arms and crossing them in front of my chest. However, his lightning-fast punch changed direction just before striking my arms, and it hit my chest and abdomen instead.
His strength was enormous, and he also carried the inertial force of high-speed movement. I felt as if I had really been hit by a car, and my whole body was thrown backward.
Although I instinctively used my arms to block just now, my psychic protection actually covers my entire body, so whether the attack hits my arms or my chest and abdomen, there won't be any decisive difference. Therefore, even if he caught a gap in my movements, it wouldn't cause me greater harm, it would just look unseemly.
I fell from the front row of the audience to the back row, and several of the seats were damaged.
Just as I was starting to recover, I noticed that the burly man had already jumped into midair, and his landing point was right where I was standing.
I immediately got up and moved away.
He fell to the ground like a giant boulder from the sky, crushing the already damaged chair even more horribly.
These seats are all made of cheap plastic, only the supports underneath are black metal. I look at the plastic seat fragments at his feet, and an idea comes to me. Telekinesis activates with my thoughts, and the sharp plastic shards levitate and then converge on the burly man from various angles just as he notices the anomaly.
The burly man shielded his eyes with one hand.
The plastic shards were unable to pierce his skin, and the shards aimed at his eyes also failed due to his vigilance.
"Little flower."
He snorted coldly, then rushed towards me and struck out with his left fist.
I immediately attached my mental energy to my right arm, and struck out with a punch in the same way.
The two fists collided violently, producing a tremendous sound, like thunder suddenly rumbling on a calm day. I felt a strong gust of wind on my face, the powerful air current generated by the impact of the fists.
"I see, you're not just durable, but also quite strong."said the burly man.
He then raised his right fist.
"But it's too tender!"
The next moment, he pulled back his left fist and struck with his right fist.
I also retracted my right fist and struck with my left fist.
In the next three seconds, fists collided with fists, the wind howled, and my ears felt like they were about to be shaken by the constant barrage of impacts. I unleashed a rapid-fire series of blows that I had never used on an average person before, but the burly man's punching speed was even faster than mine. After three seconds, I was once again caught off guard and was sent flying towards the basketball court.
I used my telekinetic powers to adjust my posture in midair, landing steadily on the ground.
Suddenly, I found myself standing right next to that strange campfire, and saw the iron sword stuck in the fire pit.
He seemed to have said that this thing is some kind of ritual node, right?
I grasped the iron sword of the Runbun, and the psychic energy wrapped around my palm acted as a heat-resistant glove.
"Useless. The burly man standing in the back row of the audience said to me, "You can't pull it out."
Indeed, as he said, I cannot pull it out, it's as if it has been welded to the floor.
"Unless you kill me, it won't come out. This node is designed this way." The burly man walked over, "My task is to guard it."
Do not let outsiders damage the node here.
His words implied his high position at this stronghold.
"Is it okay to tell me this kind of thing?" I asked, "If you don't tell me, I'll just keep being completely in the dark."
"It doesn't matter."
I don't know why he said that, isn't this an important point? Is he setting some kind of trap for me in his language, trying to mislead me?
But I couldn't analyze it at the moment. I asked again, "You said Alphonse Elric has been here before, right?"
"Yes."
"Where is he now?" I asked, "Did you kill him?"
"No, he was taken away by the priest." The burly man said, "His luck was too bad. If the opponent was me, he still had a chance of winning; but the opponent is the priest, he is powerless to resist. Originally, the only mage guarding this place was me, but coincidentally the priest came here for an inspection, and he happened to run into the gun barrel."
What is a priest?
"He is our leader."
The sturdy man seemed quite approachable, as he answered all the questions I asked him.
"Why are you doing this? " I asked my biggest question, "What is your purpose?"
"All of this is for.....to offer sacrifices to the great deities."
The burly man suddenly accelerated, rushing in front of me and swinging his arm down.
I avoided that blow.
"Has the city of Beavers suffered many deaths, do you not feel any guilt?"
"The heretics who do not believe in God deserve their punishment!"
Once they start talking about their principles and beliefs, the burly man becomes incomprehensible. Previously he was very approachable, but now he exhibits a fanatical and extreme aggressiveness. I remember the two people I had interrogated before, who never yielded despite being tortured by my cruel methods, but I did not admire them, rather I found them incomprehensible and even highly distorted.
I fended off the attacks of the burly man while waiting for an opportunity to counterattack, but my counterattacks were all blocked by him.
He must have undergone years of martial arts training, each punch and kick displaying an order that ordinary people lack. I could hardly find any flaws in him.
It may sound ridiculous, but although I am a psychic with the power of telekinesis, I am engaging in close-quarters combat with this guy who specializes in physical enhancement. But to be honest, this is truly my full-power battle stance.
As I mentioned before, the power of my mental energy will diminish as the distance increases and will increase as the distance decreases. At close range, my mental energy can exert much stronger power. In other words, if I were to use mental energy to manipulate an object in combat, the closer it is to me, the better it can reflect the intensity of my mental energy. In that case, what in my vicinity can be a better vessel for my mental energy than my own body?
Perhaps there are even smarter ways to fight, but I'm really not a bright-minded person.
"Useless! The burly man shouted as he attacked, "I can see that you have never learned martial arts. Your movements are full of flaws! You are only relying on this bizarre defensive power to fight against me! Your defeat is just a matter of time!"
It is said that martial artists, while emphasizing strength and technique, also attach great importance to momentum. Robust momentum and diminished momentum represent vastly different strengths. Speaking during a fight is not a careless act, nor is it a sign of underestimating the opponent. It may be done to bolster one's own momentum and undermine the opponent's.
The burly man struck me in the chest with a powerful straight punch, and I was pushed back by the tremendous force, sliding nearly ten meters.
Although he had psychic protection, a small part of his strength still managed to strike me effectively. I felt excruciating pain in my chest and I felt suffocated.
He came at me again and punched me.
I took a step back to avoid the attack; then I jumped up and executed a flying roundhouse kick.
Innocent!
The burly man effortlessly blocked the strike, then followed up with a punch aimed at me in midair.
According to the general principles of martial arts, any action that puts oneself in a state where one cannot use external force is naive; he was not wrong about that. However, I am not a martial artist, I am a superhuman, and I can still take action even in midair.
I used a small amount of psychic power to change my position in midair, avoiding his attack. In the next instant, without anything to push off from, I used psychic power to spin my body around and unleashed a spinning kick.
The burly man was kicked in the face by me and flew several meters away.
Even for such a martial arts expert, it would be impossible to respond in time to such an attack that defies common sense.
He adjusted his posture in mid-air and landed steadily on the ground.
I seized the opportunity and rushed forward, kicking at him as he had just landed.
He immediately blocked my kick.
At this time, due to the movement of our fighting being heard by those outside, more than ten cult members entered this indoor basketball court. After discovering me fighting with the burly man, they immediately charged towards me.
I see someone holding a gun.
The burly man attacked me, but I immediately retreated and charged towards the dozen or so cult members.
"Run! Quickly!" the burly man shouted at the dozen or so cult members.
However, it is already too late.
I had brought them within the range of my psychic power, imagining my psychic power as a falling blade; in the next moment, fresh blood spurted from their necks, and they all collapsed.
If this move could also be effective against this burly man, that would be great. His defense is too high, this kind of attack will not be effective.
Damn!
My behavior angered him.
It seems like I'm the villain in this scene.
Even I don't have the confidence to be distracted by gunfire from other directions while fighting this burly man, as that would make my defeat almost a foregone conclusion. In other circumstances, I might still consider showing mercy, but in this tight situation, I have no choice but to choose to kill them.
I'm afraid I have to kill them - this statement makes it seem like I had no choice but to kill them, as if I'm making excuses for myself. In reality, if the situation was different, would I really have shown them mercy? They are all the culprits who turned Beaver City into this state, so logically I have no reason to spare them. They are not patients, not victims - they deserve to be punished, and their deaths are justified.
No, this is still an excuse.
Although I can claim to the outside world that I killed them because they were evil, because they were guilty, but at the root, my psychological motive for killing them was solely out of my own selfishness. They posed an obstacle to me and increased my risks, so I eliminated them. The reason I feel so conflicted about my own killings is because my motive was self-serving.
I don't feel guilty about my actions, I just feel that I have taken another irreversible step.
The sturdy man attacked me, and I parried his moves.
"You..." The burly man had a look of astonishment on his face.
I know what he's thinking, he's probably wondering why he can't easily break through my defenses like he could before.
"Since becoming a superhuman, my intuition has become very good," I told him.
"What do you want to say?" The burly man looked grim.
"What I mean is..." I took a step back, "although I have not learned martial arts, basically, as long as I follow my intuition, I can make the right judgment."
This step backward made the burly man's punch miss.
Seizing the opportunity, I swung around and delivered a powerful kick, pushing him back about ten meters.
"Just go with the flow, huh?" the burly man said. "Do you really think I'd believe that?"
"I don't need you to believe me. Your martial arts skills are outstanding. I've seen people practice martial arts before, but they can't compare to you. It took me a long time to finally get used to your pace. In the future, even if I encounter another martial arts master as skilled as you, I won't be flustered anymore. For that, I have to thank you."
Shameless!
The burly man attacked again.
I followed my feelings and engaged in mutual attack with him.
The mutual attack lasted for ten seconds, but he was unable to break through my defenses.
In the previous attack and defense, he could grasp my weakness in just three seconds; but now, even after ten seconds have passed, he still has not found my weakness. Even if you give him another ten seconds, it won't help, as I think he can see my weakness, but just can't grasp it. Unlike ordinary muscle movements, my body is driven by mental power, and mental power is controlled by my thoughts. This mental power-driven technique allows me to make any motion literally according to my will, without any sign of muscular effort.
But this can't go on forever.
Although he has never been able to harm me effectively, neither have I.
We must have stronger attacking power.
I withdrew five meters from the offense and defense.
The psychic energy that was previously distributed evenly throughout my body has now started to concentrate in my right palm.
The burly man rushed at me, trying to give chase.
My right palm is open, with the five fingers together.
Vital technique - palm strike.
I approached the burly man and swung my right palm.
His fist was cut off from the wrist, and blood was gushing out.
"What!" The burly man exclaimed in surprise.
Seizing the moment of his surprise, I made full use of the precious experience I had gained from our previous battle, exploiting his weakness and ruthlessly cutting open his carotid artery.
The blood spilled out like a water gun.
He fell to the ground helplessly, struggled for a while, and eventually stopped moving.
.....
I finally breathed a sigh of relief.
This single palm strike poses a great risk to me as well. Because the mental energy that was previously evenly distributed has now been concentrated on my right hand, while strengthening the attack power of my right hand, it has also weakened the defensive capabilities of other parts of my body. If I fail to seize his weakness and he successfully counterattacks, with my current defensive power, I will likely be severely injured and fall into a disadvantageous position in the ensuing battle.
This burly man is very strong, and even caused me to be at a disadvantage for a time, but I won.
I approached the campfire, stopped about ten meters away, and used telekinesis to draw out the iron sword.
Just as he had said before, this iron sword can only be drawn after his death.
How strange, I thought he was so straightforward before, maybe he set some kind of trap for me, so he stood a bit farther away and didn't go too far
Recently, did nothing actually happen? Was everything he said the truth? But if that's the case, what was his motivation to tell me everything?
I took out the black phone and checked the map.
Another red cross has disappeared from the map, precisely the outpost to the south where I am located.
So that's it, as long as you remove the ritual node, that's considered destroying the stronghold? Thinking back to what the strong man said before, this stronghold was most likely set up for the purpose of that ritual node.
I carried the iron sword and left the stronghold.
