Returning to the Mysterious Era-Chapter 490 - I Am Simply Too Strong

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom...

The entire courtyard shook violently as towering waves surged across the artificial lake. Two figures clashed with fists and palms at the center of the lake. Their formidable power caused wild tremors to erupt. One could clearly see a ripple of distortion travel from the air down to the surface of the water with every strike.

Droplets of water sprayed in every direction. Though liquid, they struck the ground like solid pellets, leaving shallow craters wherever they landed.

If one only observed this manor's courtyard, it seemed as though a sudden, furious storm had descended. Green trees crackled under the assault, petals shredded to pieces, and slender saplings quivered on the verge of toppling.

Yet there was a one-meter circle of ground in that maelstrom that remained like the last untouched sanctuary. Cassius was seated cross-legged at its center, his black windbreaker neither stirred by wind nor dampened by water, its hem resting lightly upon the grass.

He held the Book of the Devil in his left hand, and had his right index finger raised in the air. An invisible yet resilient Qi filled every inch of space around him, forming a translucent, spherical enclosure.

No foreign object could enter that Qi field without Cassius's permission. For instance, the bullets of water pelting down like a torrential hail were blocked outside, as though meeting an invisible yet indestructible wall of air.

Confronted with such a sudden twist, Cassius remained calm and composed where he sat. He glanced toward the artificial lake with a trace of curiosity, curious to see if anything could actually pose a threat to him.

Moreover, the calamity brought on by the Book of the Devil had unexpectedly taken the form of two Covert Martial Arts combat artists. This time-travel had kept Cassius mostly in the imperial city of Florence, so he had minimal contact with this era's Covert Martial Arts circles.

He peered through the cascading sheets of water toward the center of the lake. A thunderous rumble rang out from within the artificial lake. Two figures collided and then separated, each rocketing backward like a cannon shot, finally revealing their forms.

The figure on the left was tall and powerfully built, with thick body hair. Standing nearly one meter ninety, he possessed arms like an ape's yet his face was incongruously delicate, fair and boyish.

It appeared more like a refined, youthful countenance. He glared fiercely, which, in its own way, looked almost cute. But combined with his exaggerated musculature, no one would dare tease him for it.

On the other side stood a blond girl, around one meter sixty, her hands wrapped with taut white bandages that covered even the spaces between her fingers.

Her figure was slender, appearing as fragile as a toothpick compared to the hulking man she faced. From the shape of her jaw, she had a classic oval face, but because her features remained swathed in bandages, only her nose, slanted eyes and thick eyebrows remained exposed.

"Anthony, is that all your Water King Art can do?! I thought that you might pose some real threat to me once you reached the third stage. In the end, you're still just a flimsy weakling, shattering at the first touch. Admit it already, our Air Shock Fist is the perfect counter for your Water King Art! Just surrender obediently..." The bandaged girl suddenly spoke, her voice unexpectedly gruff and more like a man's.

It was wildly uninhibited, a boldness seldom heard in a woman's tone.

"Surrender? Don't make me laugh. I ambushed you on your way to the Eastern Martial Arts Exchange Tournament just so I could defeat you once and for all! And that talk of Air Shock Fist perfectly countering Water King Art is nonsense! Once Water King Art reaches the third stage, it doesn't just control the water in one's body, it can also manipulate the massive moisture outside! This is a lakeside...and it's my domain!" The hulking man called Anthony spoke icily, though his timbre was oddly gentle and high-pitched, reminiscent of a child whose voice had yet to deepen.

His threats, however fierce, lacked any real menace. Anthony seemed well aware that words were useless, and that only action mattered. A fierce glint appeared in his eyes as he spread his massive arms, palms shaped like claws. Instantly, two slender waterspouts rose from the lake's surface, spiraling rapidly upward to envelop his hands.

A hazy white mist trembled faintly in the air, seemingly charged with a peculiar frequency. Gaps in the water vapor were instantly sealed with Qi, transmitting the vibration frequency from his body.

Close inspection would reveal that the frequency matched exactly the rhythm of Anthony's blood flow. The faster his blood circulated, the quicker, and more alarming, the water vapor's vibrations became. It was similar to a distorted high-pressure waterjet.

"It's pointless," the bandaged girl said frostily. "When that fist master first created these two styles, he established their inherent counterbalance!"

She slowly raised her hands and assumed a boxer-like stance. However, her hands remained open rather than clenched into fists. Suddenly, a hollow roar rang out. A streak of white current plunged sharply downward, slipped between the bandaged girl's fingers, and rapidly wound about her hands, forming a fine white airflow glove.

As soon as the glove solidified, a resonating "hollow" shockwave slowly spread through the airflow, much like rippling layers of compressed air.

Bang! Bang! Swoosh! Whoosh!

A pair of impacts shook the ground, and columns of water erupted from the lake. Two lightning-fast figures sprinted through the air, their fighting spirit surging like flames. One was tall and muscular, arms lowered as he dragged two twisting waterspouts behind him. The other was small and lithe, fists held high with two fleeting streams of air around them.

Boom! Boom, boom, boom, boom!

A terrifying collision erupted as the two blurred silhouettes clashed in rapid succession, attack after attack met by block after block. Flesh collided with flesh, Qi pushed against Qi, and the exchange intensified without pause.

The hulking Anthony slammed a fist into the water, instantly creating a circular void several meters across. His force penetrated all the way to the lakebed, his fist churning into the mud like a drilling tool, carving out a deep hole.

The artificial lake clouded in an instant as dirt and sand swirled everywhere.

Nearby, having avoided Anthony's blow, the bandaged girl lashed out with a punch. A piercing shriek cut through the air, and her fist traced a curved arc mid-flight, leaving a trail of white vibrating airflow behind it, shaped like a long, curved blade.

The wave of lake water Anthony had thrown her way vaporized by her vibrating airflow. Up in midair, a white cloud of steam several meters in diameter suddenly billowed forth.

Her petite figure dropped like a meteor within the steam.

Boom!

The surface of the lake burst once more. Water and steam hung in the air as the two entwined shapes appeared like colliding storm clouds. Their opposing Qi forces swirled and slammed into each other in a near frenzy.

"Yuan Flow!"

"Extreme Shock!"

After a pair of bone-chilling roars, the two formidable combat artists unleashed their finishing strikes. A watery silhouette and an airy blur rammed head-on into each other.

No one knew whether it was intentional or merely fate intervening.

The site of their collision was quite close to where Cassius sat—likely no more than five meters away, perhaps three. For two combat artists at full power, that distance might as well have been point-blank.

Moreover, in the instant Anthony's and the bandaged girl's fists met, the two styles' vibrations triggered a bizarre resonance. One manipulated water; the other harnessed the air; both relied on extending the body's Qi through a unique vibrational frequency.

In fact, both arts had been created by the same fist master! Evidently, the two discovered the secret synergy of these fist styles in this unplanned yet intense and evenly matched fight.

In a single moment, the two opposing forces did not cancel each other upon impact but fused in a horrifying crescendo. The frequencies provoked and magnified each other, and in the blink of an eye, the power escalated to an uncontrollable extreme.

Anthony's Water King Art surged to multiple times, perhaps ten times its original strength, pulling the entire lake into a colossal waterspout. Meanwhile, the bandaged girl's Qi intensified to a fearsome level. Every current of air covering the manor's sky was violently drawn away, creating an enormous vacuum overhead. Even bits of gravel on the ground rose into midair.

Rumble!

As water and air crashed together, they produced a mushroom-cloud expansion of white steam that quickly billowed outward. The dense, milky vapor formed a gargantuan skull shape drifting off to one side of the pair.

At that moment, Anthony and the bandaged girl realized in shock that there was a figure dressed in black calmly seated cross-legged on the grass only three meters away.

"Damn! Watch out!!!"

"Get away!!! We can't stop it!!!"

They shouted in unison, but it appeared far too late. The fearsome, steam-formed skull locked on Cassius's position, crashing down like a mountain.

Boom!!!

The massive skull froze in the air. Though enormous as a villa and plummeting like a colossal avalanche, it was halted mid-descent by a single upraised palm.

Time seemed to pause as only the black-clad figure beneath the colossal skull moved. Cassius braced it with one hand, his expression devoid of emotion.

That skull was not merely a hollow shape. It had the entirety of the artificial lake's weight plus the downward pressure of the air above the manor.

Yet it could not shift Cassius in the slightest, not even forcing him to step back. On the green lawn, a massive, fearsome monster seemed to hazily appear behind Cassius, draped entirely in armor.

That being raised one hand before Cassius to form an impregnable shield. It enveloped and protected its charge like a guardian spirit.

Cassius regarded the imposing steam-skull before him with a hint of disappointment in his gaze. "Combining the total Qi of two combat artists in a final, destructive strike... Sucking in nearly all the lake's water, the majority of the air pressure above the manor, and some terrifying synergy of frequency... is all you can muster?"

He seemed to speak to himself or perhaps to the Book of the Devil in his hand. "I had expected a little thrill. How disappointing..."

The fingers on Cassius's right hand folded one by one until a single index finger remained. He lightly tapped the skull's surface. In that instant, everyone's ears rang with the piercing cry of a bird. A crimson blur darted in like a fighter jet and pecked at the skull.

Ding!!!

All creation stilled, total silence reigning.

Crack, crack, crack...

Horrible fissures spread across the skull's exterior. In the next moment, it erupted in a deafening blast! Terrifying flashes and scalding white steam poured from the cracks as all the pent-up energy was unleashed.

The hulking Anthony and the bandaged girl both felt their eyes widen in shock. Their hearts pounded madly as the hairs on their necks stood on end in the face of lethal danger. They simultaneously struck each other with their palms, using the recoil to fling themselves backward.

Boom!!!

A thunderous crash reverberated with a horrifying secondary explosion. The entire manor shook uncontrollably as if caught in the throes of an unprecedented earthquake. Walls split and collapsed, and rubble rumbled in waves.

"Argh!"

"Cough, cough!"

Two figures slammed hard into the same section of wall, crashing down amid the debris. Anthony and the bandaged girl coughed up blood, feeling as though every organ had been battered to pieces.

Their clothes were in tatters and their skin covered in cracks. Not only that, their vision blurred and ears rang ceaselessly. They had come within a hair's breadth of dying in the steam explosion.

"Holy! There was an even more terrifying second blast! What kind of twisted interaction happened between our finishing moves? The power jumped at least tenfold!' Anthony climbed unsteadily to his feet.

"We practically blew away half this entire manor..." The blond girl also staggered to her feet, murmuring in disbelief.

"And...that person just now..." Anthony recalled the absurd image of Cassius stopping the steam-skull with one hand, the shock still echoing in his mind.

"He must have died, right? That explosion was many times more powerful in the end. A pity we couldn't control it, otherwise...' The blond girl trailed off abruptly, for she had just glimpsed a hazy figure in the distance."

Anthony lifted his gaze as well. A fierce gust tore through, scattering the haze.

At the same time, the hem of a black windbreaker rustled in the wind. Cassius stood on the lawn, wholly unscathed. His surroundings had been reduced to a gray wasteland of churned earth. Only the one-meter circle of lush grass beneath his feet remained intact.

Cassius raised his hand, glancing at the Book of the Devil's dimmed gemstones, and arched his brow slightly.

"Even the second-stage explosion couldn't harm me in the slightest. It seems it isn't that the curse of misfortune is too weak, I am simply far too strong... I'm so powerful that even the Book of the Devil has no means to affect me."

Anthony and the blond girl stared in terror. The man in the windbreaker had received two horrifying strikes without suffering even a scratch. He appeared still at ease, like he was strolling leisurely through a park.

What in the world could possibly threaten him?!

Whoosh!

High above, a fiery streak abruptly split the clear blue sky. It triggered the clouds to part, setting off surging waves of turbulence rolling downward in layers.

Anthony jerked his head up and looked, his expression turning even more alarmed.

"That's...a meteorite!!?"

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