When the countdown for the sixth match ended, the gaseous individual Gui struck first.
The mass of blue-gray gas spread into a vast mist, drifting toward Satan from all directions as if trying to engulf him.
Satan stuck out his huge belly and narrowed his eyes as he scanned his surroundings. He sucked in his stomach with all his might, and it immediately shrank by nearly half.
“Whoosh!”
He opened his mouth wide and blew. His thick neck spun rapidly, seeming exceptionally nimble at that moment. A powerful stream of Mind Power gusted from his mouth, blowing away the encroaching mist in great swathes.
What was astonishing was that he didn’t stop after one breath. He kept blowing for a full half-minute, leaving quite a few spectators dumbfounded.
“Damn! So half his belly was full of air that day?”
“His lung capacity is seriously impressive.”
“Haha, this is a classic case of one thing countering another. Gui’s getting blown apart. Makes sense, doesn’t it? What’s gas afraid of if not strong winds? One gust and it scatters.”
“Could he actually blow his opponent to death with this move?!”
In the spectators’ eyes, Satan had seized a tremendous advantage right from the start.
The fierce wind from his breath scattered most of the mist around him, leaving it unable to get anywhere near.
But the commentator’s next words made everyone’s hearts sink.
“Underestimating gaseous life can come at a price. Such life is difficult to bring into existence, and even harder to keep alive. Its survival strategies are far more varied than most species can imagine.”
The commentator’s relaxed tone made it clear that it still favored Gui.
The human spectators were indignant, but they were also beginning to worry.
In the next moment, the scene in the arena changed. The gas Satan had blown apart rapidly gathered again, darkening in color as it formed a wall of gas more than two meters high.
When Satan’s breath struck it again, the wall no longer dispersed.
“Its density has changed…” Watching from the sidelines, Guan Tong’s eyes sharpened. He suspected this gaseous civilization could alter its own density, and might even be capable of physical attacks.
This was an exceptionally troublesome kind of enemy for humanity. If you used a powerful attack, it could lower its density, making the attack feel like it had struck cotton.
But if you chose a weak attack or focused on defense, it could increase its density and seize the chance to counterattack.
This kind of transformation was a headache. It bore a striking resemblance to the way Guan Tong’s Shadow could switch between physical and non-physical states. Many of his enemies had died because they were helpless against that ability.
Still, if one had to compare them, Shadow was even more formidable than this gas. When intangible, Shadow could not be affected by anything physical except Mind Power, but even gas at its lowest density still had limitations.
Now transformed into a high-density wall, Gui showed no fear of Satan’s breath and forced its way toward him.
Satan narrowed his eyes. Suddenly, he planted his feet and thrust his belly forward, ramming into it.
His solid frame crashed into the gas wall, and it immediately scattered.
“Yeah!”
Many spectators cheered, convinced that Satan had suppressed Gui with his strength and seized the advantage once more.
But the spectators who had watched closely were all alarmed. They had keenly noticed that Satan hadn’t smashed the wall apart. The instant the two made contact, it had dispersed on its own.
Gui’s transformation was so swift that Satan hadn’t even realized what had happened.
Sure enough, Satan couldn’t shed the momentum of his charge. His body lost its balance, and he tipped forward uncontrollably.
The scattered gas seized its chance and surged all over Satan, seemingly trying to burrow into his body and kill him from within.
The spectators let out a tense murmur. But in the next instant, the situation suddenly turned around. The gas that had surged onto Satan stopped at the surface of his skin, unable to seep inside.
What was going on?
The human body had countless “entry points,” such as pores, sweat glands, and airways. As a gaseous life-form, Gui should have been able to easily invade through them and destroy a human body from within.
Yet now it couldn’t get in.
A faint smile appeared on Han Qiu’s face as he watched from inside the Myriad Sense Net Bubble. “Satan looks like such a damn fool that he even fooled an alien life-form.”
Satan, who had regained his footing, gave his whole body a shake. Much of the gas clinging to him immediately dispersed, and the rest hurriedly pulled away.
That shake also dislodged the rough outer layer of skin on Satan’s body, revealing the slightly grayish-white skin beneath.
At first glance, the layer underneath looked like human skin, but a closer look revealed something strange.
It was too uniform. There was no color, no moles, no scars, and not even any visible skin texture.
Guan Tong’s eyes lit up as he watched.
Plastic!
He suddenly understood why the gaseous life-form couldn’t seep into Satan’s body. Satan’s body wasn’t made of flesh and blood at all. It was made of plastic!
Plastic was a dense polymer material that was extremely difficult to penetrate. It was like a sealed glass jar, giving a gaseous enemy nowhere to get in.
“I see… Looks like he was one of the people who adapted during the plastification reaction, and Han Qiu later recruited him as a subordinate.”
It was no secret that Han Qiu liked to buy off victims of various rules and people on the fringes of society. It wasn’t surprising that several of his trusted subordinates had problems like this.
But…
Guan Tong looked at Satan, wondering if this was the result of him developing his ability himself.
Or would those groups once mockingly called “Plastic People” gradually become entirely plastic as time passed and they consumed more and more plastic products?
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Guan Tong would never have considered the question.
He remembered his conversation with Gao Liangwei that day. The latter had said he “had no chance to come into contact with ordinary people,” meaning that he “didn’t understand the hardships of ordinary people.”
At the time, Guan Tong had found the remark unpleasant. But on further reflection, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
His daily life really was isolated from ordinary people, and even from ordinary Ascendants. He knew nothing about the living conditions of groups harmed by the rules, such as the “Plastic People” and the “Truth-Bound.”
Perhaps there were times when he really did need to make some changes, depending on the circumstances.
As Satan’s outer layer of skin fell away, more and more spectators began to understand.
“So Satan’s a Plastic Person!”
“No wonder the gas couldn’t get into his body. Haha, it looks like he turned a disaster into a blessing.”
“This is a guaranteed win!”
The human spectators cheered excitedly, as if victory were already within their grasp.
The commentator was also somewhat surprised. “Satan, the competitor representing the Tianshui Star Civilization, actually has a plastic body. Well, that’s… ugh…”
Along with its surprise, there was a hint of disgust in its voice, as if it really hated plastic.
That reminded many human spectators of the details of the Microplastic Infestation Doomsday Rule.
The Fire Thief had indeed mentioned that, on the Star Sea Court’s list of pollutants, microplastics were rated as more polluting than radioactive dust.
If all civilizations agreed that it was a pollutant, it was hardly surprising that the commentator was disgusted to discover Satan had a plastic body.
Of course, after witnessing all the commentator’s double standards, the human spectators no longer cared what it said. They focused solely on the state of the match.
With his plastic body revealed, Satan began to attack relentlessly. As he blew fierce gusts gathered from Mind Power out of his mouth, he also picked up metal ore from the ground and ate it.
Each time he swallowed some, the wind he exhaled grew stronger and spread farther. It even took on a hint of the metal’s properties.
Everyone watching realized that Satan’s ability probably let him gain energy through eating, perhaps even recover Mind Power, while imbuing his Mind Power with some properties of the food he consumed.
The ability certainly suited his title, Gluttony Frenzy.
Gaseous life-form Gui was beaten back again and again, relying on the speed of its movement as gas to dodge.
However, some people noticed that the mass of gas was gradually shrinking, while its color was slowly turning red. The change was slow, but it kept intensifying.
Most spectators thought Satan’s attacks were steadily weakening it and that it wasn’t far from death.
But the few who remembered its ability to change density felt a growing sense of dread.
“Oh no! It might be trying to…”
An Ascendant who knew a great deal about gaseous life guessed what was happening and tried to warn Satan, but there was no way to send his words through.
So, just as Satan swallowed another piece of ore, Gui launched a decisive attack.
Its body rapidly contracted to an incredibly tiny volume, becoming a golden-red streak like a laser as it shot toward Satan’s left eye!
Satan was startled. He reacted quickly enough to lift his head and try to dodge, but the golden-red streak still struck the left side of his face.
Pain and an intense burning sensation spread across his whole face in an instant. Satan couldn’t help crying out, “Ah!!!”
The sudden turn of events left many human spectators shocked and confused.
“It’s a stream of superheated gas!” the same spectator shouted anxiously from inside the Myriad Sense Net Bubble. “It compressed itself into a stream of high-temperature gas and is trying to burn a hole through the plastic by exceeding its melting point!”