Chapter 3011: The Wandering Dragon and the Black Dragon

As it turned out, the Storm King was not immune to storms.

Striking second but arriving first, the breath from Three Faces landed a solid hit.

This strike, once judged to be at the Tier 1 level, instantly left its mark on the target, violently tearing through everything.

But lacking immunity was one thing; the Storm King still displayed the grace of a wandering dragon.

Specifically, even as the breath drowned him and his physical form began to disintegrate, he remained firmly rooted to the spot, his gathering momentum completely uninterrupted.

Though it could easily be described as just standing there taking a beating, in a clash of apex powers, Fu Qian's praise was by no means unearned.

To stubbornly endure an opponent's brutal opening strike and remain completely unmoving—anyone could imagine the sheer caliber of such a feat.

Aside from the Storm King's desperate will to fight to the death, this Tier 1 strike had fallen far short of achieving its full effect.

He wasn't immune, but his resistance was still absurdly high. The probability that the entity before him was the source of Three Faces had only increased after that strike.

Boom—

It was still increasing, because the next strike had arrived.

Endurance finally paid off, and the long charge was complete. Along the axis aimed straight at Professor Fu's chest, a far more turbulent and surging breath erupted from the Storm King.

Since Fu Qian had specifically adjusted the launch point of Three Faces to align perfectly with his own chest axis, the highly anticipated cannon-beam clash became a reality. Wait, the intel seemed off—who said the braver one always won the beam clash?

A moment later, Fu Qian concluded that artistically embellished tropes really couldn't be trusted.

Even though he had seized the initiative and possessed the sheer audacity to use the opponent's own magic against him, the situation took a grim turn immediately after his brief initial suppression.

The moment the Storm King's breath erupted, the tide of the clash instantly reversed.

Three Faces' lightning detonation was forcibly pushed back, just like a cinematic beam struggle in a movie, rendering it completely unable to deal further damage.

...

The good news: the probability that the Storm King was an old acquaintance from Lanphilai couldn't possibly be higher.

Watching the beam clash devolve into a stalemate, he suddenly realized he was giving off faint villainous vibes, as if he were currently on the receiving end of a protagonist's explosive comeback.

Still, Fu Qian seized the chance to look on the bright side.

In his view, while stationary beam struggles were incredibly common in fiction, the actual conditions for them to occur in reality were quite strict.

Neither side pierced through or experienced Dislocation; not a single spark landed on the opponent, entirely neutralizing and consuming each other midair. No matter how he looked at it, their powers had to share a highly similar origin to achieve this effect.

If that reasoning wasn't enough, Professor Fu even had further evidence—the lightning detonation seemed to be betraying him.

Aside from the initial hit being less effective than expected, the blast he fired during the beam clash seemed to be getting drawn in and turned against him.

As one side waned and the other waxed, his beam steadily lost ground, getting pushed back toward him faster and faster.

It was undeniably the Storm King leveraging his mastery over the relevant forces to rapidly seize the upper hand in the struggle.

In short, looking at it optimistically, his series of theories regarding Excellency Half-Art had pretty much been confirmed.

As for the bad news—if you didn't look at all the above optimistically, wasn't it unequivocally bad news?

He was steadily losing ground in the beam clash, his defeat becoming imminent.

And if that news wasn't bad enough, he could add one more detail: according to his experience, Three Faces' breath had a time limit.

It was no longer just a matter of winning the clash. If this stalemate dragged on for even a moment longer, his beam would simply sputter out.

"You truly possess many tricks... even with such an identity."

Regardless, his current performance had already drawn a marveling sigh from the Blasphemy Monarch. Furthermore, the entity seemed to have dumped all its stats into a summoning build this time; even though Professor Fu was steadily losing ground, the monarch showed no intention of stepping in to land a finishing blow.

"What identity?"

Even though he could tell the entity was still emphasizing his "evil," Fu Qian didn't mind in the slightest, taking a moment amid the chaos to speak through the head he was gripping in his hand.

"Heh... heh..."

Unfortunately, the Blasphemy Monarch learned bad habits remarkably quickly. In just a few short sentences, it had somehow picked up a fraction of Excellency Patches' malicious chuckle.

In that case...

The other party had already shared a great deal, so Fu Qian didn't press the matter, merely glancing down.

In the blink of an eye, his beam lost even more ground. The Storm King's breath was practically at the gates, looking ready to blow another hole through his chest—a pity.

Fu Qian extended his other hand—the one not holding the head.

Mechanical tentacles, thrashing chain pythons, spiked whips... A burst of tentacles, completely overflowing with the base Skin aesthetic of the Mechanical King of the Abandoned Prison, violently erupted from his arm.

Who said beam clashes were purely visual effects? A physical wave was a wave too.

Why did they think this seat chose the authentic method of firing a beam from the chest, rather than crossing his hands over the same spot? Aside from using one hand to hold the head, what exactly was his empty hand getting ready to do?

The Mechanical Ascension edition of the Biochemical Demonic Arm, the ultimate enhanced Physical Black Dragon Wave—he invited the Storm King to savor the taste.

...

If one truly planned to use the opponent's own tricks against them, it was always best to keep an extra trick up one's sleeve.

Even against an opponent who seemed to rely somewhat on animalistic instincts, Fu Qian hadn't abandoned this excellent habit.

The Storm King certainly exerted a fair amount of pressure, but dealing with him was nowhere near that difficult.

Since it was inconvenient for the Blasphemy Monarch to directly usurp control of the avatar, there were simply too many methods available to exploit.

Thus, facing this situation, Fu Qian had ultimately chosen a combat strategy designed to extract the maximum amount of information. And now, it was clearly time to wrap things up.

How did the saying go again? Only a massive bundle could shatter a storm?

The overwhelming tide of grotesque tentacles had indeed twisted together into a massive bundle, plunging straight into the Storm King's chest.

It was like dropping a nuke into the eye of a hurricane, utterly shattering that mysterious and frenzied rhythm.

Boom— At the exact same time, the Golden Flame of Madness erupted across the Storm King's body, completely annihilating any remaining winds attempting to reform.

[SAN Value -10, inspiration +10]

He even got numerical confirmation. Amid the pleasant chime, his inspiration had already reached thirty-one points.

"Thank you very much."

Furthermore, it wasn't over. Ringing out synchronously with the prompt was an utterly heartfelt note of gratitude.

And accompanying those words, the Puppet Demigod—who had been spectating from the sidelines for quite a while—lost its final spark of animation.

It simply stood there in dead silence, exactly as it had been when they first met.

Oh?

Slowly retracting the tentacles back into his body, Fu Qian gazed around the shop, which had suddenly become eerily desolate.

The presence of theoretically the only surviving living creature instead made the entire place feel all the more dead.

And this wasn't merely a superficial feeling; it was equally true on a perceptive level.

Excellency Blasphemy Monarch's earlier warning seemed to have become reality. Because their beam clash just now had been a bit too spectacular, the Temporary Folder keeping the entity trapped inside had accidentally been punctured, creating a loophole.

And having stayed out of the fray this entire time, the monarch hadn't wasted this opportunity to pursue its freedom.