Chapter Five: The Teachings of a Senior
Click!
A crisp metallic sound rang out.
“Well done, young man. Let me commend you once again.”
The sound came from the circular object on Gongsun Ce’s wrist, gleaming silver, two sturdy and solid rings joined by an iron chain.
Most people would call these handcuffs.
“Even I didn’t expect that a mere foot soldier among the Dragon Cultists could distort reality and unleash such a malignant divine power.”
One end of the handcuffs was fastened to Gongsun Ce’s right wrist, the other held by a blue-haired woman.
“When I saw the scene, I almost broke out in a cold sweat… Thank goodness there were no casualties. That’s a relief!” The blue-haired woman laughed brightly.
By Gongsun Ce’s standards of beauty, this slender woman was indeed attractive. She had brown eyes, long deep-blue hair, wore a black hunter’s outfit, fingerless leather gloves, and twirled a black short arrow between her long fingers. At first glance, she looked every bit a huntress from the forest.
Another hunter. The last self-styled predator was still lying on the ground; was he running into too many hunters today?
He glanced at the green-mohawked man’s pierced ankle.
That short arrow looked awfully familiar too.
The blue-haired woman shook the handcuffs with a smile. “I am Alice Aidar, a member of the Wild Hunt under the Seventh Knight of the Motan Royal Knight Order. I hunt the Dragon Cultists as an Impermanent Mage. I know you must have a lot of questions, but this is an emergency, so I’ll need your cooperation, okay?”
The young man let out a weary groan.
If the bizarre creature earlier was like a pistol firing a bullet called the Uncanny, then this Alice was a full-blown Uncanny machine gun.
Add the handcuffs and she’d be an Uncanny close-in defense cannon.
People say words are mightier than actions, but one wonders if the saying’s originator ever imagined what sort of person combines forceful words with forceful deeds. This double impact hit Gongsun Ce with a dizzying force, as if struck by a straight punch to the face.
Couldn’t anyone act with a bit of common sense? How did the entrance to his peaceful apartment building turn into this chaos? But with more urgent matters at hand, he set those trivialities aside for now.
The psychic raised his right hand, eyeing the handcuffs at his wrist. “Miss Alice Aidar, whether that’s your real name or not, I’ll call you that for now. My name is Gongsun Ce, and as you can see, I am a psychic.”
“Haha, of course it’s a fake name~ Who would give their real name to a stranger on a mission?” The huntress laughed heartily.
How unfortunate.
He had given his real name honestly.
Shouldn’t the most basic respect be mutual during introductions?
The feelings churning in the young man’s heart only grew stronger.
“Well then, Miss Alice.”
His words now carried a sharper edge—anger.
“I’ll give you five seconds to withdraw your challenge.”
Click!
The handcuff’s shell twisted instantly, making a strained, brittle sound.
“Hey, that was a custom order, top-of-the-line!” Alice shrieked. These were high-grade composite metal handcuffs, said to withstand three seconds in the hands of a wild Impermanent Mage, specially supplied before departure. Now, under her eyes, they were being ravaged by invisible force.
One side of the metal ring was crushed flat under immense pressure; the other developed countless pinprick holes. Then, the silver ring broke cleanly in two and was pulverized into several jagged fragments!
“Now it’s broken. You have three seconds left—I could just crush it into a ball while I wait for your answer.”
The young man kept his word.
He clenched his fist, and the handcuff debris swirled together in midair.
Alice stared, mouth agape, hand raised. “Wait, is there any need to get so angry?! I didn’t mean to fight you—”
“There are three things I despise most,” he interrupted her defense. “From least to most: rude behavior, abuse of force, and insulting others. That green-mohawked alien didn’t introduce himself before attacking—maybe he was just in a hurry, so I let it slide with a joke in conversation… but you are different.”
The fragments were kneaded and pressed into a perfect cube by his formidable telekinesis.
The huntress clapped both hands over her mouth, wailing silently.
“I’m far more courteous than that green-mohawked lizard, aren’t I!”
“Yet, without reason, you cuffed the hand I offered in trust. You used your words to earn my confidence, only to trample it with your actions. Miss Alice, we call that an insult to goodwill, and restraining someone without cause is called unwarranted violence. Even if you’d told me your name, your conduct would still be rude.”
“Five seconds are up. Ready?”
The psychic rose into the air, looking down on this woman from five meters up. “Let’s begin. Psychic, Gongsun Ce, coming in.”
He thrust his right hand forward, preparing to attack. Alice, upon seeing this, waved her hands frantically. “Wait, wait, wait! If we fight here and his comrades show up, things could get out of hand!”
“That’s not my concern. That’s your problem to worry about.”
“You know this is a residential area, right? If any civilians get hurt, that would be bad! You’ll frighten old folks and schoolchildren!”
“I’ll relocate the battlefield immediately. And as for the neighbors, don’t worry—Granny Wu who sells breakfast next door would probably cheer on the punishment of the rude.”
“Do all the elderly in this city have such a martial spirit? Calm down—”
“I am calm. A respected senior once told me, ‘If your opponent shows no remorse, beat it into them. Fix them. That way, not only will they apologize, but they’ll even mend their ways.’”
“What sort of world’s strongest senior is that?!”
He clenched his right hand. The surge of energy whipped up a fierce wind at the apartment entrance.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Boom!
An invisible hammer smashed down from above. He controlled its force precisely, so that, at the instant of contact with the huntress, the power would unravel into threads and bind her in place.
It wasn’t anything too serious—he was just a little angry, so he put on a big show without causing real harm…
But he missed.
Alice had vanished from where she stood, as mysteriously as she had appeared.
Hovering high above, Gongsun Ce’s wide field of view confirmed it wasn’t just a trick of speed or a sleight of hand, but a true, literal disappearance.
…
He scanned the entrance below.
The green-mohawked man lay motionless, and that little freesia still bloomed in the shadows.
A rough guess formed in his mind.
He sent out invisible threads of force, weaving a dense net in a ten-meter radius around himself.
Then he closed his eyes and began to count.
One, two, three…
At five, one of the threads quivered—behind him, in the shadow cast by the sun.
Gongsun Ce pressed his fingers together, picturing the shape of his next attack.
He needed something powerful enough to intimidate both psychics and so-called Impermanent Mages. With that thought, he made his choice.
“White Matter…”
Opposite to illusion is reality.
Invisible, intangible, elusive power gathered in his hands, layering and solidifying, then, in a flash, reversing—becoming pure, featureless white, revealing the other side of the spiral.
The disturbance in the threads intensified. The psychic opened his eyes.
The blue-haired huntress stood in his shadow, a tiny freesia blooming at her feet.
Alice swept her long hair back and laughed. “Are you calm now—what is that?!”
Her outcry was for the massive weapon in the young man’s hands.
A giant white hammer with an impossibly slender handle and a head so broad and thick it would give a structural engineering professor a heart attack. It looked just like a prop from a children’s cartoon in the United States, complete with “100T” cutouts on the sides.
“Shock Strike!”
Without another word, the psychic swung the hammer down.
The head, larger than the apartment building’s front door, hurtled toward the huntress, powered by gravity, muscle, and telekinesis.
Alice’s smile froze. This battle-hardened Impermanent Mage made a snap decision. “Sorry! It was wrong of me to handcuff you. I admit I wanted to seize the initiative, but I mostly wanted to protect your goodwill. I’m truly sorry!”
Instantly, the psychic’s giant hammer vanished. The pure white substance turned back into invisible force, and he landed, nodding at the huntress. “It’s fine. I forgive you.”
“Who’s really the rude one here…” Alice’s face fell, unable to muster a smile. “With that kind of power, you just scare girls for fun…”
“With all due respect, I think a woman several years older than me can’t really call herself a girl anymore, and at nineteen, I’m hardly a boy.”
“Say that again! I’m in the prime of my early twenties—a girl from any angle!”
The huntress glared at him.
The psychic only sighed and shook his head.
A rather eccentric woman, an unconscious green-haired punk on the ground, and a host of unresolved issues. Already ten minutes late for getting through his apartment door.
Not that there was anything urgent at home, but this flurry of surprises left the young man, already troubled by nightmares at noon, feeling frustrated and speechless.
“I was only speaking the truth. If that offended you, I apologize.”
“It’s not quite that bad… Just don’t bring up age in front of women…”
Alice drooped again.
Where had her dazzling confidence from five minutes ago gone? Whose fault was that?
Gongsun Ce sighed once more.
“Let’s end this topic. I believe you have some explanations for me? About this Kuka-Pupu alien, your purpose, and all those strange terms you mentioned…”
Dragon Cultists. Wild Hunt.
Alice Aidar.
Impermanent Mage.
These uncanny elements left his mind in chaos.
He was sure to have nightmares again tonight.