NOVEL NEXT Chapter 45: Power Disparity
Slade skidded to a stop, kicking up a storm of dust in his wake…
"Who are you, and what do you want?" he questioned as the dust cleared, revealing his figure unarmed, his eyes glinting fiercely.
Spark remained silent, but beneath the smooth visor, a frown could be seen on his face. That punch he threw—a fully powered punch boosted by his output to the current limit—hadn't even fazed the enemy.
His hands clenched as he burst into a blur. He refused to believe he couldn't deal damage.
"Tch." Slade just scoffed as a ring on his finger flickered unnaturally, fluctuating the space around it. From thin air, a giant mace fell into his arms.
He swung without wasting any more time, as Spark was already before him, arms arced and ready to deliver a blow.
But unfortunately, even though Slade acted slower, he still moved faster. His mace swerved, colliding with Spark while still in the air…
Boom!
Spark's figure was flung out of sight, a carriage exploding in the distance signaling his landing spot.
Resting his weapon on his shoulder, Slade spat disdainfully, "I'll ask once more—who the hell are you?"
In the debris of wood and dust, Spark stood back up with great difficulty. You've gotta be kidding me!
Now he understood how stupid his earlier confidence—and insecurity—was…
The attack he received from Slade just now—if it was the Spark of before—he could have sworn it wouldn't be a problem. After all, it was a blunt weapon carrying plenty of kinetic energy. But now…
He gazed at his bronze-coated hands as they trembled—not out of fear, not out of anger.
But out of pain. Right at the moment Slade struck, Spark understood immediately that if he dared use his input to absorb the force behind the attack, he would die!
His instincts screamed at him—the force behind that attack wasn't something he could take, even at his peak.
After all, just because he could absorb energy didn't mean there wasn't a limit to his intake. It was like trying to shove a whole chicken down someone's throat at once just because they said they could eat the whole thing.
Had he dared absorb that force, his innards would have been decimated. The only thing he did was redirect the force—and even that alone strained his energy nodes.
Glancing back at Slade's relaxed figure in the distance, he clenched his fists. He couldn't back down now—his recovery depended on this battle!
In truth, Spark didn't understand the kind of expert he was facing…
Though it is said that Qi cultivators would always trump martial artists nine out of ten times, that saying was directed at inner disciples and core disciples of immortal sects.
Outer sect disciples, like the ones Spark faced on entering this world, didn't count. They neither had enough experience nor were their mystic techniques flexible enough to face martial artists.
That was the whole point of the disciple clash Spark witnessed on his initial arrival to this world—the sect masters were trying to give the disciples enough experience and, at the same time, weed out the weak.
But compared to them, all martial artists—even the lowest of the low—were bred in blood and sweat. In fact, among all cultivators of the mortal lands, it was impossible to find greenhouse flowers among them.
They had all been weathered in the storm of struggle, endless grind, and training to gain their current status. So compared to the Qi cultivators Spark faced, it was best to say Slade was on another level—and using them as a reference point was a mistake.
Slade frowned at Spark's silence and lack of reply. His mace burst into motion again as he spoke, "When spoken to…"
Spark's eyes went wide as he bent backwards quickly. Slade, who seemed to have moved so fast it bordered on teleportation, had appeared right before him, his mace ramming through the wind—missing Spark's head by a hair.
"…you reply," Slade continued his statement unfazed, as his weapon, still in motion, swerved unnaturally, now aiming to slam down into Spark.
Boooom!
The ground trembled violently. The sheer strength behind the impact was horrifying—it kicked up a brief but violent sandstorm, causing the guards and his gang who were fighting to halt in their tracks and brace themselves from the shockwave.
Spark was nowhere to be seen by the time the debris cleared out—only an almost bottomless and enormous crater remained, making others assume he was dead.
Slade's figure straightened as he rested his mace on his shoulder once more, his pose relaxed.
Everyone else gazed at him in terror. That was a Bone Forging Realm expert for you—the herculean strength they could command was out of this world.
The bandits cheered, their morale rising, and the guards retreated. Who were they kidding? Sending themselves before such a figure—they wouldn't even know how they died!
Slade remained unresponsive to their reactions. Instead, his gaze moved towards the rest of the carriages. His control of force was as frightening as his power—even with how cataclysmic his attack had been, he still avoided destroying the carriages holding goods nearby.
Gazing at a figure standing on one of them, he said coldly, "So who are you?"
Indeed, it was Spark. It was thanks to his footwork technique, The Greed of Force and the Deception of Path, that he was still alive.
"Why do you want to know? You'll be dead very soon." Though Spark sounded cocky, his back was matted with sweat, his heart pounding as his fear factor drove 80% of his blood flow to his muscles.
Right now, he was clear on the fact that by his power alone, beating Slade was impossible—so he had to improvise.
The armour around his arms turned liquid as it receded. He then took out a pair of gauntlets he had with him.
Yes—this was precisely the pair gifted to him by Prince Jian. He had been keeping it with plans of experimenting more on it later, but now he didn't care.
Because what was the use of them if he ended up dead?
His arms clenched tightly as he absorbed voraciously without reserve—he would be needing as much energy as he could get. Cai'er had once told him that this artifact was of the Earth level.
And Spark had to agree. A few seconds in, and a star had been fully formed. Just as the gauntlets began to lose their lustre, Spark felt something else flow through his input.
His eyes blazed a fiery hue as the Will Burn took root in his existence