I'm living off a woman in Arknights.

Page 127

“Old tricks—” the Rat King said leisurely. This time, prepared, it did not stand still to take the hit head-on. Instead, it swung its cane and suddenly accelerated a second time, quickly moving away from the blazing white sphere that unfolded in the next instant.

"Useless." It slowly added its infuriating assessment, thinking to itself: Please don't use it again!

With a sigh in his heart, the Rat King turned nimbly and flew into a passage, carrying the sand and dust with a clear purpose. "Catch up with me."

"Hey! This old man!" Yun Yi clenched his fist. "Wait, if you can't hit me with one shot, I don't believe you can't be hit by three, four, or five shots, or even by an entire platoon!"

As she spoke, she swung the giant blade away, and with a series of crisp "crackling" sounds and a low humming accompaniment, the giant blade instantly transformed into a thick, long weapon that resembled a gun, a cannon, and a scepter.

The blue breathing light still emanated a faint blue glow on the scepter, while a dangerous scarlet light appeared around the cannon-like muzzle at the top of the scepter.

Yun Yi snorted coldly, controlling the mecha to lift the scepter, and the size of the entire mecha shrank to a little over two meters in the blink of an eye.

Immediately, a surge of blue energy erupted from the back of the mech, propelling it into the passage.

Upon entering the passage, the surrounding steel pipes and patterns suddenly gave Yun Yi a sense of familiarity. "Hmm?"

She frowned and looked carefully, and after a while, it suddenly dawned on her, "The hotel's elevator shaft?"

Yun Yi looked up at the Rat King who had not stopped moving. Was he going to take her to the hotel on the ground, or did he simply want to take her to the ground?

There are people everywhere on the ground; what if someone gets accidentally injured...?

Before Yun Yi could figure it out, the two of them rushed out of the elevator shaft one after the other and arrived at the brightly lit hotel on the ground.

The once bustling elevator entrance was now deserted. Not only that, but even after the Rat King arrived in the lobby with his mech without any obstruction, Yun Yi didn't see a single person. She couldn't help but wonder: had everyone been evacuated?

As Yun Yi was puzzled, the Rat King stopped flying, and with a graceful movement of his robes, landed elegantly, tapping his cane on the ground.

The mech closed in at lightning speed, swinging its scepter down on the Rat King's head. Despite being the one being attacked, the Rat King smiled coldly, "Prepare to die."

Before he could finish speaking, a deafening roar followed the Rat King's last words. The marble beneath the Rat King's feet instantly turned into quicksand and carried him away, leaving Yun Yi knocking on empty air.

Yun Yi ignored that and immediately tried to look at the source of the loud noise, but was surprised to find that the sound was coming from all directions. It was not an illusion caused by the loud noise, but a real sound source everywhere!

For some reason, the entire hotel was shaking and rumbling. Various decorations on the walls were falling off with a "ping-pong" sound, and the walls themselves were cracking open with countless fissures, as if some huge thing was about to be born from them.

Considering Terra's bizarre technology and undeniably powerful upper limit, Yun Yi did not take any chances. He immediately raised the scepter with both hands, and the armor on his arms slid down to reveal a row of jet nozzles.

Azure energy bursts forth, giving the mecha's hands tremendous kinetic energy.

In half a second, Yun Yi rushed around and fired six larger cannonballs from the top of the scepter.

The shells were shot in all directions like a shower of flowers, and six blazing white spheres followed, unfolding and expanding. After colliding, they naturally merged into an extremely large sphere, which swallowed the hotel in one go, turning everything inside into redundant ashes.

The fiery sphere continued its outward expansion with undiminished momentum.

Seeing that it might be about to bare its teeth and claws and gnaw on the street outside, Hoshiguma suddenly stood up.

But before she could speak, Yun Yi spread his five fingers, "Hmph, trying to ambush me? No matter how powerful you are, once you've lost all your resources, you're useless anyway~"

Yun Yi's boastful words couldn't stop Hoshiguma's impulse to save people. What truly interrupted her was when Yun Yi opened his five fingers upwards. As the mecha made the same move, the palm of the mecha exuded an aura of pressure far exceeding that of the blazing white sphere.

The moment this aura appeared, the unstoppable, blazing white light fluctuated noticeably and unstablely several times, making Hoshiguma realize:

Yun Yi would not allow highly lethal attacks to wreak havoc on Longmen.

Therefore, she breathed a sigh of relief, shut her mouth, and sat back down to continue observing and thinking.

Volume Two: Fireworks at Dragon Gate: Chapter 253 (Bonus Chapter for Recommendation Votes) (Main Story) Turn to Ashes! (The End)

The same is true.

Where Hoshiguma couldn't see, the edge of the blazing white sphere, which was about to touch the street, stopped expanding instantly as if an invisible force had pressed the pause button. Instead, it began to slowly shrink inward, revealing a section of the foundation that looked like a part of it had been dug out of thin air by a spoon.

However, the main purpose of the sphere that Yun Yi was about to launch was not to stop the spread of his attack. It was just that it required a huge amount of energy, which caused it to absorb a portion of the blazing white sphere on its own.

In essence, this energy attack is no different from the attack caused by those cannonballs. Absorbing the portion of the expanding blazing white sphere is already the limit; it is impossible to absorb it all.

Yun Yi looked up at the sky. The hotel ceiling had long since disappeared along with everything else in the hotel. Unaffected by the blazing sphere, she could see the gray-blue sky with tiny particles floating in it.

At first glance, there were no flying objects in the sky.

Yun Yi breathed a sigh of relief, a look of eager anticipation spreading across his face. Without hesitation, he controlled the Nirvana to unleash the attack he had been holding back for a long time.

A blinding light exploded in the mecha's palm, transforming into a pillar of light that pierced the heavens and the earth, rising from the ground with a destructive force.

The surrounding air seemed to ignite instantly, emitting a muffled roar, and the blazing sphere was also swept away by the beam of light in that instant.

In the distance, the Rat King rose from the quicksand, gazing at the scene and touching his somewhat bristly whiskers.

Its eyes, tinged with solemnity, reflected the enormous, terrifying beam of light.

The airflow around the pillar of light twisted wildly, and the rubble and dust were stirred up by the invisible force, as if they were being drawn into a huge vortex, and then instantly turned into dust when they came into contact with the edge of the pillar of light.

Although it was obvious to anyone with eyes that the attack had inexplicably erupted in mid-air, where it wouldn't affect anyone and hadn't reached the ground except for the hotel, the Rat King was still shaken.

Fortunately, it and Wei Yanwu had evacuated the entire street in advance; otherwise, if the high-temperature sphere and the beam of light had not avoided the street and the ground, who knows how many lives would have been taken. The next location will have to be changed; it can no longer be in the city.

While the Rat King was relieved that Yun Yi could actually control the attack, especially the pillar of light, the sky was completely illuminated as a deathly white.

The light around the pillar was so dazzling that it was impossible to look directly at it. One could only feel a vast and suffocating energy roaring upwards, as if it were going to overturn and rebuild the entire world.

Every inch of space trembled slightly under the impact of this force, leaving a lingering shock.

After hearing the unusually loud noise, Swire and Lin Yuxia went outside and witnessed this shocking scene.

They all unconsciously opened their eyes wide and stared blankly.

Forced to broaden her horizons, Swire was the first to regain her senses. She glanced at the band of light on her wrist that pointed directly at the source of the beam of light, and instantly figured out who was responsible for this scene, but she didn't know, "Who could have made her use such an attack?"

Could it be that Wei Yanwu or Lin Yuxia's father, Lin Gerui, will personally take part in this?

"Who is 'he'?" Knowing that her old man had made preparations for battle before leaving home, Lin Yuxia's heart skipped a beat.

She knew more about Lungmen than Swire did, and the only people in Lungmen capable of creating such a scene, aside from those weapons that couldn't be used in peacetime and those who couldn't take action, were the governor and her father.

The governor is entertaining guests, and even if he finishes entertaining them early, Chen Huijie is waiting at the door to meet the governor, so the governor has no time to come to the lower city.

Then the only one who can stand against this terrifying person is her father!

Thinking of this, Lin Yuxia panicked. She grabbed Shi Huaiya's wrist and dragged her towards their car. "No matter who that person is, it's Dad who will be fighting them! Shi Huaiya, what if something happens to my dad—"

"What's the rush? The Rat King will be fine. The one fighting it is the same person I just told you about." Swire interrupted Lin Yuxia, using a clever move to break free from her grip.

She turned her wrist, which was a little sore from Lin Yuxia's momentary loss of control, and snorted at Lin Yuxia, who had immediately calmed down upon hearing this. "Besides, Xingxiong is right next to Yunyi. With Xingxiong watching over him, it's even less likely that the Rat King will get into trouble."

“Hoshiguma…” Lin Yuxia was completely relieved. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and looked at the terrifying pillar of light in the sky. Countless thoughts flashed through her mind.

Finally, Lin Yuxia took a deep breath, turned around and looked up at Shi Huaiya, "Yun Yi... right? Come with me, let's talk about this person again."

“Oh, no, don’t waste my breath,” Swire said, crossing her arms and refusing.

A polite smile graced her face, but a warm glint flashed in her eyes. "I have more important collaborations to discuss with Governor Wei. Our exchange ends here."

“…I’ll raise the stakes.” Lin Yuxia glanced disdainfully at the guy who had inexplicably started to seem greedy, then turned to lead the way, promising impatiently, “The more you explain, the more I’ll give you, okay?”

“Of course.” Swire chuckled and followed. The towering pillar of light behind them dimmed slightly at this moment.

The same blinding white light was also reflected in the eyes of people from all other factions, both overt and covert, throughout Longmen.

They all gasped in shock, and then made their respective choices.

Unsure of these details, Yun Yi and Xing Xiong, along with the others, immediately began searching for the whereabouts of the Rat King who had just run away, once the pillars of light had completely dissipated.

Yun Yi piloted his mecha out of the hotel site, which had been reduced to ashes and was now just a bowl-shaped base. With each step he took, the mecha grew larger.

Upon reaching the still deserted street, the mech was already over ten meters tall, though this was not its limit.

Yun Yi, controlling his conspicuously conspicuous mech, wandered aimlessly across the newly cleared street, scanning his surroundings with a puzzled look. "Where's the Rat King? Did it stop fighting so soon after it even started?"

"They must be making preparations?" Hoshiguma was also unsure about the current situation. "Well, while your attack just now served as a deterrent, it might still be difficult to deter other countries from taking action against us who have established independent regimes."

“The same might be true for the Rat King,” Hoshiguma slowly stated her guess, “so it’s most likely preparing to go to a place where it can demonstrate even greater power.”

"It's still not good as expected. Well, it's only basic weaponry after all." Yun Yi accepted the fact that it could tear the sky apart, had a core power similar to a regular nuclear bomb excluding radiation, and that the controllable attack couldn't intimidate outsiders.

After all, Terra had been subtly demonized in her eyes, and anything outrageous was possible.

PS:

This section is finally finished. Next, I should post some updates and introduce the new characters. Oh, I forgot to mention the reactions from all sides. I'll have to continue in the next chapter, but not reading it won't affect the reading experience (although I felt pretty good about it when I was writing it).

Volume Two: Fireworks at Longmen: Qi Erlong and Jiu Qi (Part Three) - Chapter 254 (Main Story): Epilogue, Reactions from All Sides (Partial)

Having reached a conclusion, Yun Yi quickly turned his attention to the Rat King and the hotel. "Then let's wait and see. By the way, since I razed the hotel to the ground, I guess I can call it blown up, right? Hehe, target achieved~"

Yun Yi glanced back at the now-empty foundation, then chuckled and crossed his arms. "And all those bounties held in the prison I built—what a haul!"

Hoshiguma tilted her head slightly, a few strands of her lustrous green hair slowly sliding down her shoulder. Bounty hunters? Oh! "You mean those wanted criminals and suspects?"

"That's right." Yun Yi nodded with a smile. The explosion was even more spectacular than a mushroom cloud, and all her negative emotions vanished completely. Now she felt incredibly relaxed—no wonder Ke Li loved frying fish and other things so much; it was definitely fun, hehe~

Just as Yunyi was feeling euphoric from the explosion, Hoshiguma, never one to sit still, stroked her chin and offered a new suggestion, "Leaving them here won't get us any bounty. Let's take advantage of this free time and go directly to the nearest city government to exchange them for tangible resources, how about that?"

Her hand, which had been touching her chin, moved down her neck to support the back of her head. Hoshiguma held this position with her head slightly tilted back, a thoughtful expression on her face. "There are also innocent civilians who might be mixed in there; we need to send them back as well."

“We have limited time, so why don’t we just send all these people to the city government as well?” Hoshiguma recalled the people she had seen in the meeting room.

Intuitively speaking, everyone in the group could be considered a villain, but legally speaking, some of them don't actually commit crimes. Moreover, there are also some people who have long lived in the gray area and belong to the Rat King.

"Oh right, we still need to change the people and release them!" Yun Yi patted his head, letting his overly excited mind cool down, and nodded in agreement, "Okay, let's go now."

After she finished speaking, she looked up at the outside world. The mecha bent slightly and jumped up as she moved. The moment it jumped into the air, blue flames shot out from the jets behind the mecha, propelling it steadily into the air and charging forward.

The mecha flew to the edge of the street in one breath, and then disappeared into thin air in the next moment.

This immediately drew the attention of a considerable number of people. Throughout the entire Dragon Gate and even the wilderness, some were unable to contain their shock and lost their composure.

"Target track lost, repeat, target track lost... Received! Let's continue the mission."

"Boss, that big guy has disappeared again... I don't know either! It... it... it vanished in the blink of an eye!... Yes, yes, I'm going right now!"

"Damn it, damn it—I specifically switched to high-altitude positioning this time, but it still failed! Ugh, where did this old bastard come from?!"

"This won't work, that won't work—you're all useless! Last time we lost its signal, and even after giving you so many resources and strengthening our defenses for several days, we still couldn't capture it. What use are you to me? Huh?"

……

Yun Yilin was oblivious to and too lazy to care about the commotion throughout Lungmen. She was chatting and laughing with Hoshiguma while piloting the now-shrunken Nirvana in stealth mode, quickly flying towards the city government building that Hoshiguma had pointed out. She had no time to pay attention to those irrelevant people she had never even met.

However, the Rat King, the shadowy figure behind the city of Lungmen, could not ignore the situation. After using quicksand to send himself back to his temporary lodging, he immediately took the lead in ordering his subordinates to take swift and decisive action against several forces and lone wolves that had stood out too much, as a warning to others.

Only then did it arrange for people to return those it had sent out of the hotel and underground space in advance to where they were supposed to go.

Among these people were some who had been attracted, kidnapped, or trafficked into the event and had nowhere to go, including infected individuals and undocumented immigrants.

Despite his headache, the Rat King wasn't too anxious. Following his usual practice, he helped those who were capable find jobs to make a living, recruited those who weren't into his gang for training, and gave those who wanted to leave some money or a favor.

In short, apart from the fact that there were a lot of people this time, everything was running smoothly as always.

With this increased workload, it's estimated that he and his gang won't be able to sleep tonight. The "exhibition match" that was originally planned to be completed today will have to be postponed to tomorrow. Plans really can't keep up with changes.

The Rat King rubbed his temples, which were a little loose due to old age, and casually handed a processed document to Pero, who was waiting in front of him.

After the other party left the office, it picked up the teacup next to it, and with an elegant manner, first lightly smelled the lingering fragrance on the lid before taking a small sip.

The rich aroma of tea invigorated the Rat King. But if it were to continue the competition with that unknown child today, it really wouldn't be confident. It would be better to take this opportunity to prepare so that it wouldn't lose too badly tomorrow and wouldn't lose face at Longmen.

Having already sensed something and long past his youthful impetuosity, the Rat King calmly let go of his guilt, picked up a stack of documents, and buried himself in his work again.

Meanwhile, Lin Yuxia and Swire, who had just finished a round of negotiations, received intelligence from the Rat King's trusted confidant, who had taken the time to deliver the details of the current events.

The two huddled together and flipped through the book. Swire's lips twitched after reading it. "This guy..." was too reckless! Where was Hoshiguma? She could have at least stopped him!

Oh, Hoshiguma also had a blast charging in and out of the melee, huh? So everything's alright—yeah, not at all! What's wrong with those two?!

Shi Huaiya's temple bulged with veins, which then deflated in disappointment. "I should have known..."

Yun Yi acts on instinct, while Xing Xiong acts on conviction. At certain times, the two can be said to be no different.

It is true that Hoshiguma is calm and restrained, but it is also true that she often calmly and restrainedly does things that are morally sound but not of great benefit to the whole.

Swire doesn't object to Hoshiguma's sense of justice; after all, she herself sometimes... cough cough!

Swire cut off his "stray" thoughts and continued to ponder in his mind while looking at the intelligence. But there was clearly a better way to achieve the best of both worlds. With Hoshiguma and Yun Yi doing this, it could be said that the final battle was truly inevitable.

In that case, at least on the surface, their own organization, which hasn't been officially established yet, will have no room for cooperation with Lungmen in the short term, unless... they offer Lungmen a benefit that outsiders can't refuse, a benefit that they must continue to cooperate with even if it means losing face.

Poetry and elegance paused, his fingertips on the back of the newspaper pausing thoughtfully. He looked up at Lin Yuxia beside him, whose expression was constantly changing. Could it be that the Rat King and Wei Yanwu were planning this?

The thought flashed through her mind for a moment, but Swire immediately dismissed it. No, if that were all, it wouldn't be worth the Rat King's personal intervention, nor would it explain Wei Yanwu's previous perplexing behavior—there must be something else she didn't know involved, and that was the key.