A hurricane seemed to whip up in the courtyard of the Yae Shrine as Fuli and RIN's figures crossed paths like in a samurai theater!
"Urgh!"
The hurricane left a wound on the demon fox's lower abdomen.
A large amount of blood splashed out along the wound, instantly extinguishing a large patch of fire.
"Stepping on flames of thousands of degrees Celsius, it's not unexpected that your blood has fire resistance."
Fuli withdrew his gaze from the wound and shook the blood off the coldly gleaming long sword in his hand (Chiburi).
Achieving the above effect was due to his use of Mikazuki Munechika, which had been charging for a full day and night.
The effect was quite outstanding. Combined with the innate skill Tenka-Goken (Five Swords Under Heaven), it easily broke through the demon fox's defense.
Who told her to be careless?
This wasn't over yet.
"Go!"
With a thought from Fuli, the seven Trailing Shadow Swords surrounding him whistled away.
Trailing Shadow Swords was a very free and imaginative skill. Before his regression, Fuli had developed many operational techniques for it.
For example, accelerating to the limit to attack the enemy with the speed of lightning—Feixiao (Flying Sky);
Rotating several swords around oneself at high speed, capable of both offense and defense—Yukong (Sky-Controlling);
Controlling them to opportunistically attack enemy weak points, dealing massive weakness break damage—Tingyun (Stopping Clouds);
And what he was using now, detonating the Trailing Shadow Swords themselves upon hitting the enemy to create massive damage in a short time—Baiheng (White Rainbow).
Sun Tzu, the great military strategist of the Spring and Autumn Period, once said: All warfare is based on deception (pun: explosion).
Translated, it means: Any soldier stepping onto the battlefield should be prepared to be blown to smithereens.
Unfortunately, Grandma RIN, aged fifty thousand, had not read this masterpiece.
Fuli's manipulation of the Trailing Shadow Swords had almost reached the realm of perfection. Even though she reacted and tried to intercept, four swords still penetrated her defense and exploded at the wound previously cut open.
This time, what flowed out wasn't just blood.
"ROARRRRRR!!!"
Facing such a vicious tactic of kicking someone when they're down, RIN, whose anger rushed from the soles of her feet straight to the top of her skull, no longer considered communication (although she hadn't considered it originally).
Facing this barrage of attacks, dense enough to rival a Touhou Project Stage 6 Boss spell card on Lunatic difficulty, a smile gradually spread on the corners of Fuli's mouth, hidden under his collar.
Because RIN, blinded by rage, didn't notice that the silver circlet placed on her head at some unknown point was now emitting a faint glow.
...
The demon fox roared with its back to the moon, wantonly stretching its four giant tails, indiscriminately shooting explosive flames from the tail tips in all directions.
Sky fire fell like sudden rain; sorrowful cries were like swift wind.
Half the mountain peak was instantly dyed red with heat and fire by her, like a masterpiece painting thrown into a furnace.
As if deliberately setting off the scene, Fuli's movements of wielding the long sword to slash open the explosions, shatter defenses, and cut through barriers were also exaggerated. His posture was twisted and wild, like dancing an exotic dance on the battlefield.
This wild combat style came from the Anti-Giant Beast Warfare section of the Schicksal Valkyrie Training Manual. Fuli had copied it down after seeing someone else use it once. Since he didn't learn it completely, there was no rank to speak of, but it was quite effective for dealing with large animal-type Honkai Beasts.
Including the Anti-Titan Gymnastics for dealing with Anti-Entropy mechs, he knew many similar little tricks, accumulated from his Honkai career in the previous loop.
And because of this frantic and unrestrained, eye-catching fighting style, coupled with the bombardment of the Trailing Shadow Swords, RIN, who was busy "painting," failed to notice that everything Fuli just did was merely to divert her attention.
The real trump card had long since been placed on top of her head, in her visual blind spot.
[Name: Incomplete Ring of the Moon]
[Rank: C]
[Category: Item]
[Effect: A Honkai Energy suppression device made imitating the principle of the Selene (Moonlight Throne). Wearing it will effectively reduce Honkai Energy activity within the body.]
[Note: It's all fake! It's all fake! —Theresa Apocalypse]
God knows whether Fuli counts as lucky or unlucky. In his only ten-pull, more than half were items, but quite a few of them were actually useful.
Before coming to Yae Village, he tried wearing the Moon Ring, and the circulation speed of Honkai Energy in his body dropped by more than eighty percent on the spot.
The remaining part was also sluggish and obscure, almost returning him to a mundane life.
Of course, temporarily.
After taking off the Moon Ring, the blocked energy resumed its flow.
From that moment on, Fuli began preparing the operational draft of "putting the Moon Ring on the demon fox."
His plan had a total of three steps:
First, quietly place the Moon Ring in the enemy's visual blind spot.
Second, distract the enemy, trying to make them confuse the suppression effect of the Moon Ring with the consumption of Honkai Energy during combat.
Third, once the enemy's internal energy is mostly depleted, use the final means for a nuclear explosion light-speed harvest.
Does it sound particularly simple?
That was the effect Fuli wanted.
Plans in many movies and novels are incredibly complex, often spanning many years, where a single mistake in any step means total failure.
Why design it that way?
Because it shows off the villain's style.
However, in reality, plans are truly better the simpler they are.
A so-called plan is nothing more than the means used to achieve a goal.
In the process of achieving a goal, the more cumbersome the means, the easier it is to disrupt.
"Every step of the plan cannot go wrong"—this is the biggest flaw of a plan itself.
Conversely, the simpler the plan, the higher the tolerance for error when problems arise, and the easier it is to succeed.
In the simple three-step plan above, Fuli was fully confident in completing the first step.
Drawing Mikazuki Munechika after charging: the damage caused by this move alone would force the enemy to be on guard, thereby ignoring the Moon Ring quietly placed in a hidden spot on top of her head.
The truly difficult part was the second step.
Demon Blade Shiranui only improved physical fitness. In other aspects like defense or energy reserves, Fuli was still only C-rank. This meant that if RIN's attack hit him even once, Prometheus could go sit at the kids' table for the funeral banquet.
Thanks to the adequate pre-battle setup, whenever RIN's explosions, claws, and tail sweeps were about to touch Fuli's body, the justice-from-above Trailing Shadow Swords would interrupt the offensive that would injure on graze and kill on impact.
This made RIN furious and incompetently rageful, spewing profanities continuously.
Put yourself in her shoes and you'll understand. In a hot summer close to fifty degrees, three or five flies buzz chaotically in front of your eyes, occasionally landing on the lunch you just bought, eyeing it greedily wanting a share.
And you have neither a flyswatter nor an electric swatter in hand. Not only can you not hit them with your bare hands, but the AC is broken and the repairman hasn't arrived.
If you can still maintain a smile in this situation, listen to my advice: go buy a plane ticket to Sichuan, then take a taxi to Leshan City. There's a Big Buddha there; tell him to get up and you sit there.
RIN obviously didn't have the mental cultivation of a living Buddha, and fortunately, Fuli wasn't that fly.
As time passed, the Trailing Shadow Swords hanging in the night sky began to run out.
With C-rank energy reserves, how many Trailing Shadow Swords could one expect him to make?
Besides, RIN wasn't stupid. Even if blinded by rage, she wasn't actually blind.
Coming down from the sky, huh? This old lady will blast a Cero (Void Flash) and burn this sky for you!
Thinking this, RIN opened her bloody mouth. Surging energy formed a visible black hole in her maw.
She took a deep breath, like a dragon-whale swallowing water. The endless flames from the outside and the dissipating Honkai Energy in the air turned into light particles and were swallowed, flowing into the black hole in her mouth like rivers returning to the sea.
The next moment—
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
As if an angel guarding Eden swung down a flaming sword!
A blazing white pillar of light, dozens of meters in diameter, after shearing off an unlucky mountain top that happened to be in range, swept across most of the starry sky with crushing force!
Sounds of explosions rang out one after another; those were the Trailing Shadow Swords hanging in the sky being caught in the blast and detonated!
So, question: Under such an offensive, how many Trailing Shadow Swords set up by Fuli could remain?
The big fox, admiring the battle results, revealed a very human-like sneer at the corner of her mouth.
The answer is total annihilation.
...