A mory of a small toy given by Xiang Shan’s parents flashed through his mind.
The spirograph, also known as the Spirograph in English, is a once-popular drawing toy. This toy prototype was invented by a Polish mathematician in the late 19th century and was introduced to the mainland in 1976. A circular or annular fra with internal teeth and one or more small gears with external teeth and small holes that can roll inside the outer ring. When using it, the outer ring is fixed on the desktop, the gear is placed inside the outer ring and shed with it, a pen is inserted into one of the holes on the gear, and the gear is pushed to roll within the outer ring. Through the engagent and movent of different gears, anyone can easily create complex and beautiful curves like blooming flowers.
One winter, Xiang Shan’s father took him to a street stall and bought him a set.
The reason Xiang Shan thought of this was because he saw the Grim Reaper—holding a spirograph, casually sketching on the Book of Life and Death.
The King of Godspeed was the tip of the Grim Reaper’s pen.
Every flicker ant a deathly catastrophe. Every intersection ant a hero losing combat capability.
Tolstoy was sliced in two during the fourth attack—though perhaps "sliced" isn’t the right word, as the mont the blade contacted the armor, both spear and shield ascended simultaneously, and weak plasma ignited the sword’s path, turning into a tangible "sword light." The impact force far exceeded the material’s tolerance limit, so the energy was not effectively transford into a destructive result; this hero rely lost the middle section of his body.
Another hero, whom Xiang Shan saw for the first ti, lost half his body in the fifth attack.
In the seventh attack, a non-First Heavenly Layer hero, providing support using space debris, was pierced by a thrown spear, with his entire chest vanishing.
In the eighth attack, Bai Man lost the main propulsion unit.
Blades flying out of the combat spear were constantly chased down by Haya, brought back into the battle formation, and then flung toward heroes. These blades were initially slower than Haya himself, and lighter in mass. After colliding with a hero, the blade would deviate in trajectory and slow down even more. In this way, Haya, whose speed was constantly diminishing, could continue to pursue these blades repeatedly.
For most heroes, Haya was rely a blur, as elusive as a noise in an image signal.
—Too fast...
Even Xiang Shan could only make such an exclamation.
Haya’s speed was truly too fast.
Two hundred years ago, Xiang Shan had rigorously trained his reaction speed, and not long ago, he had his brain modified with the most advanced technology of the era in the Life Furnace Knights Order. This modification increased the speed of neural signal transmission, even implanting conductor filants and creating artificial neural circuits with optoelectronic signals...
Even so, facing Haya, Xiang Shan still felt "outpaced."
—Faster... faster...
The modification technology provided by the Life Furnace Knights Order was theoretically even higher than that prepared by the governnt for its officers, for it ca from the Six Dragons Sect, from the twisted ascension dreams of the Six Dragons Sect Leader, Xiang Shan. Xiang Shan’s brain held potential. It’s just that up until today, Xiang Shan had never encountered an enemy that required him to unleash this latent power.
—Must be faster... must be faster...
—As long as I can react...
—As long as I can react, that’s enough...
The spirograph-like path with intense nuclear radiation began to appear in space. The King of Godspeed’s energy usage was exceedingly extravagant. He continuously expelled fuel from the fusion reactor with reduced reaction efficiency, using it as part of the propellant thrust.
And that was rely part of what supported the King of Godspeed’s speed.
The King of Godspeed’s center—corresponding to what Homo sapiens martial artists might call the "dantian"—was a complete montum wheel system. A powerful magnetic field reaching as high as 500 Tesla could support a terrifying rotational speed of up to six million revolutions per second. The XYZ three-axis montum wheels were embedded within each other. At the very center of the montum wheel was the main reactor of the prosthetic body.
For igniting nuclear fusion, a magnetic field often only needs between 2 to 10 Tesla. A 500T strong magnetic field that supports a maximum of six million revolutions per second and the stability of the montum wheel structure at that speed even as a margin is enough to sustain the operation of a pseudo star device. The massive montum wheel itself is also considered part of a neutron moderator.
Within the King of Godspeed’s body, there was even an auxiliary reactor specially used to maintain this strong magnetic field.
Except during maintenance, this system always maintained a speed of several hundred thousand to a million revolutions per second. The King of Godspeed left the Godspeed Court several days ago. As he used photon propulsion to slowly decelerate in the universe, these montum wheels were slowly accelerating, storing energy. He could at any ti draw angular montum from the montum wheels through the magnetic field, altering his stance with agility akin to magic, and also complete reorientation with minimal kinetic energy loss.
This was also the King of Godspeed’s pre-battle store of "power."
Various forms of "energy," various forms of "ominous signs."
If one were to slow down the King of Godspeed’s speed by a million tis using a high-speed cara, an observer would only feel that his stance was so free and uninhibited, imbued with an indescribable vitality and beauty. He was like a dancer mastering speed.
—Do you see it?
Xiang Shan seed to catch a glimpse of a flickering color block. Was it a remnant blue trajectory, or a precursor to an attack?
An explosive light appeared once again. The King of Godspeed’s butterfly-shaped stream jets instantly sublimated and ionized all the dust and tallic foil released by Xiang Shan.
Xiang Shan, however, re-positioned the mirrors.
At this stage, the effect of micro obstacles was limited. The forward-propelled nuclear fuel could vaporize most of the tiny dust particles, and the montum of the jets themselves was sufficient to push away most minor harms. The high-temperature plasma would be drawn aside by the protective magnetic field. Slightly larger small objects could be pushed away before collision.
At this stage, the King of Godspeed found it difficult to aim and equally difficult to destroy.
Hoping to use small weapons to wait for the King of Godspeed to crash into them or guide him to self-destruct was indeed sowhat difficult.
All Xiang Shan could do was continuously create reflective mirrors and radar decoy to cause the King of Godspeed to misjudge.
"An error as tiny as a milliter can lead to a deviation of a thousand miles" held true for both sides in this battle. The smallest misjudgnt by the King of Godspeed could cause his attack to miss its mark.
The worst case scenario was an outright collision with an enemy.
At such speeds, neither party could survive.
Of course, Xiang Shan didn’t mind this point.
Although this ti the primary goal was to kill Hartman, trading one for one with Haya wasn’t unacceptable either.
And surprisingly, the King of Godspeed held a similar attitude.
In Xiang Shan’s eyes, Haya’s action of breaking through the labyrinth appeared like riding a wild horse through a minefield— theoretically, it’s possible to get through unscathed, but no sane person would attempt it that way...
Light replaced sound.
The azure flas once again turned the tal dust into a plasma glow.
This ti, Xiang Shan finally saw Haya clearly.
A pair of primary hands, a pair of auxiliary wrists, nurous working arms hung with butterfly-like jetting assembly. The headcrest extending backward should be so form of inertia compensation structure.
——Finally... I’ve seen it...
The mont this thought was born, Xiang Shan lost his left calf.
A blade was completely shattered and sublimated just like that.
Xiang Shan had a mont of trance. He seed to see a spirited but cautiously treading young African man. He recalled watching Haya and himself engage in all-night conversations about the future of their holand with comrades, and smilingly responding to young people’s resistance against Superman Enterprise’s actions in Africa.
Two hundred and fifty years... or almost three hundred years ago?
Haya’s figure disappeared from Xiang Shan’s sight once again.
——Is it abnormal brain discharge that evoked aningless mories? Now is not the ti to consider this...
Xiang Shan was sent spiraling in the void by the imnse force transmitted through his leg. He understood that he had not suddenly advanced to a level where he could perceive Haya’s movent techniques.
As his reaction speed increased, Haya was also slowing down.
However, according to the experience of the Tenth Martial God, the most dangerous phase hadn’t passed yet.
Haya wasn’t simply weakening over ti.
............
If two pieces of tofu support a thin wooden stick, and it’s struck hard with a steel ruler, the stick may break while the tofu remains unhard.
But if an iron wire is used, even the best case for the tofu would be getting sliced open by the wire.
At a young age, Haya Veight, before he beca a Deity, witnessed Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan perform this demonstration. It was in a setting akin to a "friendly gathering."
Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan had an obsessive habit of teaching, almost incurable. But when he spoke on non-professional topics, his knowledge was only slightly above average. Mr. Kanhara’s daughter was sowhat helpless about Xiang Shan’s obsession, often coaxing him to amusent parks.
But for a child like Haya Veight, who had not attended school, this was akin to magical trickery.
To this day, the King of Godspeed rembers the principle. When the speed of a blade far exceeds the limit of what a material can endure, the impact energy is dissipated through the destruction of the material itself, sparing the surrounding structure from the full brunt of the impact and potentially causing less overall damage.
If he cannot subdue all Heroes in an ultra-high-speed state, he cannot guarantee his own survival in a high-speed struggle.
In this battle, the King of Godspeed ordered the Swift Army soldiers to stand by elsewhere. Should they join the fray, a bloodbath would be inevitable—for both sides.
The Royal Court Guard were important comrades for the King of Godspeed, and he wished to lose none of them.
Among the Heroes was the King of Godspeed’s most important target. Only he had the potential to accomplish a "no-kill" mission.
At least, to not kill anyone important.
In this battle, Haya Veight had to personally see it through to the end.
In reality, Haya couldn’t clearly see ahead. The superheated jet stream propelled by nuclear reactions and the magnetic field that restrained it interfered with most frontal detection thods.
The "Moonlight Butterfly" created a stream resembling a butterfly due to the need to leave a window for observation. The magnetic field restraining the stream tore open a gap to provide a narrow observation window for the laser radar system equipped with the most advanced technology.
Moreover, this observation window for the laser radar was extrely limited. Without the battlefield data sent in advance by King Aqini and the supporting mory from battlefield modeling, relying solely on this observation window was akin to navigating a minefield with only a tiny slit on his helt.
But Haya didn’t mind.
If it ant perishing together with this generation’s Martial God in a collision...
Perhaps that would be acceptable.
That’s what he thought.
Haya tossed out several flying blades at the front, then swept through the tallic dust once again. It felt like crashing into a wall. Normally, instinct would compel one to evade. But with the prior intelligence, the King of Godspeed was sure this was a decoy. At such speed, any unnecessary evasion could be deadly.
The King of Godspeed had seen a guard who accompanied him to battle crash into a warship out of a mont’s fear, taking down a warship ally along with him.
Eliminate fear. Dispel dread.
The King of Godspeed brought a blade in front of a First Heavenly Layer Hero. From a ter away, he let the long blade fly, and with its trendous inertia, it collided before it could even spin. Heated by the jet stream, the blade carried high temperatures and upon collision with the Hero, shattered, sublimated... once again, a plasma arc of light flashed.
The King of Godspeed charged along a narrow and safe route.
Hundreds of miles away, the King of Godspeed turned around, describing a large curve, gaining height, and caught up with a blade that had decelerated after slicing a Hero and gouging through battleship outer armor. Facing a blade so fragnted that only its spine remained, the King of Godspeed reached out, grabbed it, and turned towards the fleet.
In the next mont, he was in front of a Hero, delivering a stab.
The King of Godspeed kept repeating this action, repeating, repeating...
The volu of the blades decreased, and their numbers dwindled. His dual auxiliary wrists unsheathed two blades he carried.
Successful attacks, missed attacks...
The data transmitted from Hartman’s flagship allowed the King of Godspeed to continuously refine the battlefield modeling. He glimpsed the Martial God "behind the barrier."
After another attack, the plasma arc dissipated. The Hero, with most of his body destroyed, was launched into the distance.
The speed generated by the King of Godspeed’s attack naturally surpassed the second cosmic velocity. This Hero, deprived of all power, was banished just like that.
If he had the good fortune not to collide with anything, humans might have the chance to catch up with his remnants.
After everything settled.
——Very good, the dangerous mont has begun.
This thought sprouted in Haya’s mind, and thus the ti in his subjective world slowed down.
The primary focus of Haya’s brain modifications was on "overclocking thoughts." As a complentary alteration, he had also deeply restructured his "sense of ti."
Few people noted that "sense of ti," "reaction speed," and "speed of thought" are actually different trics. The speed at which subjective ti is experienced is based on the physiological behavior of certain neurons periodically discharging. Simply extending the subjective sense of ti doesn’t make thoughts swifter; rather, it often causes one to feel as if their thinking is slowing down in painfully long durations.
"Thought overclocking" was a crucial skill mastered by the King of Godspeed. Having implanted a wealth of artificial circuits, he accelerated thinking to the extre at the cost of potential dangers of abnormal brain discharge and overheating. Not all thoughts could accelerate smoothly. Through long training, Haya learned to selectively speed up his abilities in graphic processing and posture control.
After entering this state for a few minutes, the King of Godspeed would fall into a state of fatigue.
Of course, this is not the full price to pay.
Sotis, the King of Godspeed would involuntarily feel that ti is being stretched. This might be so kind of side effect of brain modification. He would feel as though the people around him were moving slowly in a stagnant gelatin. He wouldn’t easily activate his super-speed thought process, as the sense of stretched ti was rely a pure torture for him.
From an outsider’s perspective, it’s easy to think the King of Godspeed’s patience gets worn thin. But that’s actually not the case. As a three-hundred-year-old man, Haya’s patience was much better than most people’s.
It was just that, due to this side effect, Haya’s patience would be consud rapidly.
Over ti, Haya almost lost his normal sense of ti. He would spend dull and dreary objective ti within the slow, stagnant subjective ti. He couldn’t even think. Sotis, ti would suddenly fly by. He gradually couldn’t distinguish what "normal speed" was. Was it that he had spent too long in slow subjective ti, to the point where he’d forgotten what "normal" speed was, or was this a reverse symptom? Could the neuron anomalies cause not only an elongation of subjective ti but also a compression of it?
Haya still leaned towards self-perceived chaos.
So far, he hadn’t had an episode during a battle. Maybe it’s not a physiological disorder but a cognitive bias.
The trendous price paid by the King of Godspeed was exchanged for incomparably great power—the power of speed.
Ten kiloters beyond the fleet cluster’s periphery, the King of Godspeed once again turned his body. The frontal jet weakened, and the thrusters behind him ignited in an instant.
It flashed by.
This ti, he saw the enemy clearly.
The Twelfth Martial God was curled up behind a semi-transparent dust mirror. The Tenth Martial God’s disciple, Regulos, was hiding with the help of the Twelfth Martial God’s ans.
Niyaguti was attacked multiple tis. Haya could skim without hitting, leaving only a few "grazes." She temporarily lost her posture control ability, "slowly" spinning in the air.
Martial God, two bodies. One was destroyed half a minute ago. According to King Aqini’s intelligence, that body leaked astonishing nuclear radiation. With the position of the previous attack, the damage ran through the body, and the fusion reactor would inevitably stall under the impact, perhaps causing the nuclear warhead it carried to lose its warhead. The rampaging neutrons would be enough to cause most of his body’s functions to fail. The other body only lost its lower leg, perhaps still having the strength to fight.
The hero, lion-like, and this Martial God, are the last opponents that can make Haya feel dangerous.
—Co on...
Haya thus growled lowly in his heart.
A flicker of light turned into a twisted line, piercing through the battlefield just like that.
This ti, Tuoba lost his left calf.
The destructive power soared, causing damage as well. Tuoba involuntarily spun.
However, he roared, throwing the blade of the thermal sword to decelerate while pulling out another thermal sword.
Under the speed of the King of Godspeed, the flight speed of this sword was like a snail.
The Tenth Martial God had painstakingly developed a secret technique against the King of Godspeed, the "stance" to hunt him down, which included throwing weapons.
For the average hero, their speed is relatively stationary compared to the King of Godspeed, and thrown weapons seem almost stationary. Therefore, the Tenth Martial God considered making ammunition and throwing weapons part of a "fixed stance" using "stance" to parry.
Blades and knives collided, then weapons turned into shrapnel, affecting the surroundings.
The King of Godspeed lost a weapon.
His shoulder armor showed scales-like fractures.
After enduring the powerful frontal jet in the downtown area, the King of Godspeed also lost a layer of defense. Even if he didn’t hit any large wreckage, the dust cloud could significantly reduce the lifespan of his armor. The splashing debris was also a test for him.
The King of Godspeed shed the fragnts of armor from his body when he turned five kiloters away.
Attack.
Attack again.
Attack again.
Tuoba Xuanyuan Fourteen felt as if nine enemies were attacking him simultaneously from nine directions.
The King of Godspeed’s attack intervals were truly too short!
And even the Martial God bore at least two attacks.
Even though the dust mirror built by the magnetic field hindered detection, Haya’s attacks still hit the mark.
By the seventh attack, Regulos’s "defensive stance" caused Haya’s left group of thrusters to explode. Almost simultaneously, the right symtrically arranged group of thrusters also stopped functioning and detached.
Haya’s turning made this fragnt, moving at the sa speed as Haya, into a cannon shot, hitting the fleet’s outer escort ship. It almost matched the ferocity of shelling, causing the escort ship to tremble.
Before the fractures from this collision spread, the King of Godspeed attacked once more.
This strike arced towards Xiang Shan.
In the stagnant ti, Haya saw the movents of the other side.
—Able to react...
...............
—Not dead...
Such thoughts arose in Xiang Shan’s mind.
Should it be said, truly worthy of being the top team assembled by the Dark Xiang Shan? The technology level of the Six Dragons Sect is indeed reliable.
Xiang Shan unexpectedly kept up with this speed.
Restricted by the prosthetic body’s functions, he couldn’t physically keep up with the speed of the King of Godspeed. However, he could react, could see, could think at this speed.
Could... anticipate!
Before starting, Xiang Shan forcibly overclocked all the devices he could invoke, crazily calculating along the solution path of the Tenth Martial God, compressing enormous possibilities into just a few strategies.
Just like gambling.
Xiang Shan was unsure how many waves of attacks he could survive, unsure which preparation could et the prerequisites.
He also asked Niyaguti about the reflection speed and other paraters of other Heroes, and finally concluded that perhaps only he was eligible to use these counter strategies.
Tuoba Xuanyuan Fourteen might be able to counterattack, but he has his own martial studies system.
——If I were still the from two hundred years ago, perhaps I’d have been cleanly and swiftly defeated already.
On Xiang Shan’s body surface, magnetized components, long stored and ready, were suddenly launched out by drastically changing magnetic fields. These components might return after a brief flight.
But this "brief" will be all the ti he has with Haya.
These little things are part of the stance.
The Tenth Martial God had ntioned Haya’s weakness.
The King of Godspeed certainly has weaknesses too. Haya’s prosthetic body is not designed for prolonged combat. Over ti, he loses accumulated montum, loses performance, and the waste heat accumulated by the prosthetic body will soon reach its limit. Haya must compress the engagent ti.
The fleets of the Sixth and Seventh Martial Gods also have strategies to deal with the King of Godspeed. It’s said that the Seventh Martial God’s plan included "releasing a nuclear bomb."
The Seventh might not be able to hit, but hitting is unnecessary; spreading light radiation is enough. Low-yield vacuum nuclear explosions are insufficient to destroy space warships, but light radiation can quickly deplete the thermal resistance of the King of Godspeed’s prosthetic body, which is already stretched thin.
From birth to martyrdom, the Seventh Martial God was always in a state of resource scarcity, yet even so, they were willing to sacrifice nuclear fuel to initiate low-yield nuclear blasts for the defense against the King of Godspeed.
A martial artist like the King of Godspeed, who stands at the divine attribute realm, possesses such power.
However, this strategy has limited effect on Earth Heroes. The nuclear fuel Earth Heroes can access cannot compare with the Seventh Martial God, backed by Saturn and Uranus Hero groups.
Haya’s mind seems to be in an unhealthy state. He has resisted change for a long ti. As per the data collected by the Tenth Martial God and the lone battle record between him and the King of Godspeed, Haya hasn’t rewritten his usual strategy set for a long ti.
It’s not the abstract, taphysical kind like "an overall personal style summary," but more specific. Haya’s prosthetic body progresses, martial studies advance. He adjusts himself accordingly, optimizing his martial studies to ta outstanding performance for his own use.
——Predictable.
——You are still too much like , disciple.
The next strike from the King of Godspeed missed Xiang Shan. Instead, a part of his abdominal external armor was crushed from impact.
Now Haya is like a molting insect, constantly losing parts, actively tearing off parts on the other side to ensure symtry.
——You must have realized too...
Xiang Shan watched as Haya pulled out the final blade, slicing through the dust mirror surface.
The small missiles Xiang Shan had released in advance were thus detonated by the King of Godspeed’s laser. The King of Godspeed bypassed the explosion, another wound added to his shoulder, and his calf showed fish-scale-like tal cracks.
The shattered armor on Xiang Shan was blown away by the impact.
As Xiang Shan turned, the King of Godspeed had already lunged behind him.
Fragnts of external armor collided with the King of Godspeed. A large burst of sparks mixed with plasma highlighted him like a deity.
——You are too similar to ...
——Therefore, the moves designed to deal with are also effective against you.
As the magnetic chain weapon fractured, three blades were catapulted, incorporated into the "defensive stance" developed by the Tenth Martial God.
This is "counterattack."
This "defensive counterattack stance" continues the tradition of Hiroshi Matsushima’s "Half-step Heaven Conqueror." Xiang Shan slightly modified that strategy set and grafted it onto the Tenth Martial God’s solution against the King of Godspeed.
——If it were Xiang Shan from two hundred years ago, you would have won, King of Godspeed.
Unfortunately, the enemy faced by the King of Godspeed is Xiang Shan of the Twelfth Martial Gods.
——Pure external strength surpassing technicians like you and have been born. Surely in different fields, people capable of defeating us continue to erge.
——Why help that guy...
——Perhaps... I did not teach you to be strong enough... leading to another faith breakdown for you... I’m sorry...
Three blades, one pierced the highest level laser radar on the waist, one hit the left-side hanging external radar, one nailed through the left prosthetic eye.
The blades themselves lack ferromagnetism. The magnetic chain weapon does not serve as an electromagnetic gun to launch them but snaps itself to eject them with reaction force. They traversed through the strong magnetic field in front of the King of Godspeed.
The external armor, having been eroded several layers, was unable to withstand these three specially made blades.
Shattering, sublimating...
Xiang Shan successfully destroyed the unilateral perception of the King of Godspeed.
The carbon fiber cable wrapped around Xiang Shan’s arm swept across the left side limb of the King of Godspeed in the stasis.
Xiang Shan almost imperceptibly lost an arm.
Brilliant sparks appeared over the mothership.
Haya’s body brushed past the mothership of the Protector.
After stabilizing his stance, Xiang Shan imdiately clenched his remaining fist, raising it high.
The victory belongs to the Tenth Martial God.
He feels proud of this.
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