“Dragon Soul is up!”
“So this is the captain Beixing’s officials trained?”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of him having any impressive combat achievements.”
As soon as Dragon Soul appeared in the Weight-Bearing Cavern, the spectators in the Myriad Sense Net Bubbles all focused their attention on him.
After Sandro lost the previous match, many Ascendants didn’t have the courage to keep watching. They left Spectator Mode and never returned.
Those who remained were the ones who refused to give up and still held on to hope, along with those who were simply interested in the fight.
There were also people who cared about the participants because they were connected to them.
“Dragon Team, you have to hang in there!” Silver Fox watched Dragon Soul in the arena and silently cheered him on.
Of the squad made up entirely of military personnel back then, only she and Dragon Soul were still alive. After enduring so much together over the years, their bond as comrades was naturally deep.
But...
Silver Fox looked at Dragon Soul’s opponent, and the sight of that “Oxes Beast” made her uneasy.
It was far larger than a human, and its imposing presence was much stronger than that of the opponents in the previous matches.
Fighting a giant beast like this would in itself put a fighter under a certain amount of psychological pressure. On top of that, the gravity in the environment would keep increasing. It was fair to say Dragon Soul was at a serious disadvantage.
Dragon Soul himself, however, was still fairly calm. He had no time to think about anything else, and focused all his attention on how to defeat the giant beast.
As the countdown hit zero, the match officially began.
In that instant, Dragon Soul felt his body grow heavy.
Twice as much? No, about three times.
The gravity in the cavern was already three times normal from the start. Fortunately, Dragon Soul was used to training with weights at the base, so this level would not affect his movements too much.
The muscles in his legs bulged. The next moment, he shot forward like a cannonball, charging straight at the Oxes Beast named “Tajia.”
To everyone’s surprise, Tajia merely raised its thick eyelid slightly and glanced at Dragon Soul. Then, with a rumble, it lowered itself to the ground.
It had actually just sprawled out on the ground!
Dragon Soul was startled, but didn’t change his attack. When he got close to Tajia, he planted both feet and leaped into the air, swinging his heavily muscled right arm and punching toward Tajia’s head!
!!
A sharp cracking sound rang through the cavern and echoed into every Myriad Sense Net Bubble.
The spectators thought Dragon Soul’s strike had landed and badly injured Tajia. Their faces lit up with excitement.
But before they could cheer, they heard Dragon Soul let out a pained grunt. He landed on the ground, his right arm dangling at his side at a clearly unnatural angle.
“What?!”
“Dragon Soul’s the one who got hurt?”
“That sound just now... Did he break his arm?!”
The spectators were aghast. Dragon Soul had swung his muscular arm with all his strength, and anyone could tell just by looking that the punch had immense force.
Yet he was the one who had broken a bone?
Meanwhile, Tajia remained motionless on the ground. The spot where Dragon Soul’s fist had struck showed only a faint mark.
It didn’t even raise its eyelid again, as if it couldn’t care less about Dragon Soul’s attacks and didn’t consider him a threat at all.
Countless spectators stared in stunned disbelief at this terrifying physical defense.
“What terrifying defensive power...”
Guan Tong was secretly shocked by what he saw, too.
He had experienced the force of Dragon Soul’s punches firsthand. Although he had blocked them with Shadow, they had still consumed a great deal of Mind Power.
Yet this Oxes Beast had just used its hide to withstand Dragon Soul’s full-force punch without suffering so much as a scratch. The gap between their offense and defense was undoubtedly enormous.
“If it were me, maybe I could deal with this thing by phasing Shadow and triggering an internal explosion from within. But Dragon Soul...”
Guan Tong’s heart sank. He felt Dragon Soul was in a bad position.
Both officially and personally, he hoped Dragon Soul would win this match. But after this opening, it was hard to feel any hope.
Just then, the commentator spoke up, explaining Tajia in a lighthearted tone.
“Oxes Beasts are famous across the Starsea for being ‘impossible to break.’ Their
</path> home planet has nothing but silicon-iron dust, and its surface is bombarded by meteor showers year-round.
“Just imagine these Oxes Beasts living in an environment full of metallic vapor and silicon dust. Such a harsh habitat led them to evolve meteor-iron scales capable of withstanding meteorite fragments.”
“Battle armor made from meteor-iron scales is highly sought after in the Starsea. Some small trading companies set their sights on these Oxes Beasts, but most of them came away empty-handed. The reason is simple: they’re incredibly hard to take apart!”
The human spectators no longer had time to berate the commentator. All their attention was focused on the information he had provided.
It left many of them feeling despair.
The meteor-iron scales covering this Oxes Beast could withstand meteorite fragments. It was easy to imagine how strong its defense was.
How could human fists possibly break through that?
Even the strongest Ascendants, with strength several or even dozens of times greater than an ordinary person’s, would be helpless against such absurdly tough meteor-iron scales.
“No wonder it sprawled out and closed its eyes to sleep as soon as the match began. It thinks we humans could beat ourselves to death and still fail to break through its defenses!”
“This is ridiculous. There’s something wrong with the matchmaking, right? Is the other side really a low-level civilization?”
“No, wait... If there’s nothing at all on this Oxes Beast’s home planet, it would be hard for them to develop technology. If their technology can’t advance and they only evolve their physical defenses, then this civilization really would remain at a low level, unable to cross between star systems...”
“Looks like all they can do now is stall! At least this thing isn’t attacking, so Dragon Soul can hold out.”
“Stall? Don’t forget the gravity keeps increasing!”
Inside the cavern, after breaking his own arm with that first punch, Dragon Soul didn’t give up in despair. Instead, he quickly adjusted and attacked again.
Unlike his previous strike at the head, this time he attacked all over, striking different parts of Tajia’s body at high frequency.
Zhang Minglu was watching the match. Though the unfavorable situation weighed heavily on him, he could still see that Dragon Soul had no intention of giving up.
“Is he trying to find a weak spot in the giant beast’s defenses and focus his attacks there...? The trouble is, this thing may be covered in meteor-iron scales from head to toe.”
Zhang Minglu knew Dragon Soul well. He could tell at a glance what the other man was trying to do.
He wasn’t optimistic about the outcome, though.
Just as Zhang Minglu had expected, Dragon Soul struck more than a hundred places across Tajia’s body in a short time, hoping to use the force rebounding from each blow to locate a weak spot and break through it.
But all those strikes gave him much the same feedback. That meant every part of Tajia’s body was covered in exceptionally tough meteor-iron scales!
This wasn’t working.
Dragon Soul stopped attacking. He looked at the motionless Tajia and felt the gravity pressing down on him inside the cavern.
It had already increased to six times normal.
At this level, it was starting to affect his movements and weaken him.
What should he do?
There was no time to wait. He could only risk everything and try.
Dragon Soul summoned his Mind Power. The muscles throughout his body began to swell and contract in turn. As this happened, his left fist gradually turned red, as if it were a heated iron.
Silver Fox thought, “He’s going to use ‘Fire’?”
She often sparred with Dragon Soul, so she knew the direction and progress of his ability development.
To specialize in muscular strength, he had developed three techniques, each targeting a different aspect: “Wind,” “Fire,” and “Mountain.”
“Wind” channeled the strength of his entire body into his legs, allowing him to unleash a burst of speed in an instant. He could use it to charge forward or leap straight up to a tremendous height.
During one of his attempts, he had even managed to use “Wind” to leap from a standing position onto a helicopter in flight.
“Mountain” was for defense. It lasted only an instant, but at its peak it could withstand an attack dozens of times stronger than his own Mind Power. It was extremely useful at a critical moment.
“Fire,” on the other hand, was an all-or-nothing attack. By transferring the strength of his entire body into a single point, he could deliver a devastating blow meant to decide the fight in one strike.
Once his left hand had turned completely dark red, Dragon Soul charged forward. He leaped up and punched at the eyelid of Tajia.
If even his strongest move couldn’t break through the weakest part, the eyelid, then there was nothing more to say.
The fist, carrying terrifying force, struck Tajia’s right eyelid!
Boom!!!
This time, there seemed to be an effect. After a dull thud, Tajia’s body shifted slightly, as if it were about to get up.
But the next moment, it lay back down. The eyelid Dragon Soul had struck lifted a little, then dropped again.
Dragon Soul’s whole body trembled. He fell back to the ground, and the increased gravity forced him to bend at the waist.
He was completely out of options.
“It’s over...”
When Silver Fox saw that Dragon Soul’s “Fire” had failed, she knew what the result would be.
Unable to bear watching any longer, she left Spectator Mode.
Zhang Minglu’s expression was also ashen. Dragon Soul’s strongest strike had failed. All that awaited him now was to be crushed to death by the ever-increasing gravity.
For Dragon Soul himself, and for the spectators who cared about him, this was undoubtedly a form of torture.
“Oh dear, it seems Tianshui Star’s competitor’s full-force attack didn’t have any effect,” the commentator said cheerfully. “Now he’s in real trouble. All he can do is wait to die, right?”
“You bastard, shut your mouth!!!”
“Commentator, do you dare show your face? I really want to slap you across it!”
“Why won’t the commentator show himself? I want to see what kind of sleazy civilization this guy comes from, always talking down our humanity!”
The human spectators were already upset by Dragon Soul’s disadvantage, and now they couldn’t stand the commentator’s attitude either.
But to everyone’s surprise, Dragon Soul simply sat down where he was inside the cavern.
Many spectators thought he had given up in despair and sat down to wait for death. One after another, they left Spectator Mode, unwilling to watch him die.
But some people thought there was more to it than that.
Guan Tong was one of them.
He had dealt with Dragon Soul many times and knew that the latter was a man of unshakable conviction. Even in a desperate situation, he wouldn’t give up easily.
“Could he be trying to... outlast Tajia?” Guan Tong wondered.
The gravity in the Weight-Bearing Cavern wasn’t only pressing down on Dragon Soul. It was pressing down on Tajia as well.
In an environment where the gravity kept increasing, being large was actually a disadvantage.
The larger the body, the greater the pressure on each unit of bone and joint.
Under the same doubling of their own weight, the difference in pressure borne by an ant and an elephant was enormous.
If Dragon Soul could last longer thanks to the advantage of his smaller human body, perhaps he would have a chance to win after all.
Just like humanity’s opponent in the second match, K-17739. Hadn’t it used the rules of its environment to turn defeat into a draw?
If Dragon Soul could do the same...
Guan Tong thought this was the case, but he didn’t know that at that moment, a strange image had already appeared before Dragon Soul’s eyes as he sat on the ground.
The image of giants walking across the land appeared again. But unlike the previous times, he realized that he was on that land too.
Dragon Soul lowered his head and looked at his own hands, utterly bewildered. “Wasn’t I... competing in the arena?”
Thud, thud, thud...
The giants’ footsteps sounded just ahead. Unable to figure out what was happening, he simply stopped thinking about it and began walking forward as well.