Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 643 - 582 Eye

The rain was still falling.

BANG!

Li Ang’s heart, exposed to the air, caused the sand and stones on the ground to tremble with each beat. This trembling spread to the surrounding high-rises, causing the entire city area to slowly vibrate.

"Damn, what’s happening?!"

The anxious, angry call of a military leader came through the earpiece that had fallen into a puddle. The surface of the water rippled with the sound waves. Due to the tremors, the battlefield cameras placed on the rubble shook and fell. The action cameras worn by the soldiers, similar to GoPros, also failed to capture Li Ang’s figure due to the angles at which the soldiers had fallen. This caused the screens in the military command tents to lose their video feed.

The disturbance below alarmed the aircraft in the sky. Low-flying drones and high-altitude helicopters descended, trying to ascertain what was happening on the ground.

Of those firmly suppressed by Telekinesis and unable to move, some had already fainted from the pain of their fractures. Others’ muscles trembled violently as they tried to fight against the invisible force.

"URGH... URGH..."

The Martial Artist lay prone on the ground, half his face submerged in the murky rainwater. His jaw trembled as his throat strained to emit some sound to alert the reinforcements.

However, accompanied by a series of CRACKING sounds, all the descending drones were easily crushed by the invisible force. Two armed helicopters, realizing something was amiss, tried to ascend, but their landing gear was firmly grasped by the invisible force. They were slammed heavily onto the ground, erupting into fireballs.

BANG!

The heartbeat quickened. The charred skin, burned by the explosions, flaked off. Legs, abdominal cavity, and chest cavity formed one by one. Elemental Material attached to the shoulder’s cross-section. It first formed the arm bones, then, along the bones, transformed into white fascia, red muscles, blood vessels, skin, and fingernails. The severed right arm completed its regeneration. Fine filaments even emerged from the pores, turning into hair.

This scene was especially horrifying to those who had fallen and couldn’t get up. They watched, wide-eyed, as the charred corpse gradually turned back into a living person, even actively peeling off its carbonized, necrotic skin.

Li Ang ignored their despair, looking down at his reflection in the puddle. His jaw, destroyed by the explosion, was rapidly reconstructing—teeth, tongue, all identical to before.

Was he still truly human?

Li Ang silently raised his arm, reached out, and grasped the arrow piercing his left eye socket. He didn’t snap the arrow but forcefully pulled it out.

POP!

As the arrow left the eye socket—like a stopper pulled from a pool drain—a charred, shrunken orb resembling a moldy orange was impaled on its shaft. The similarly charred optic nerve attached to the eyeball swayed in the wind.

The pain shot straight to his brain, yet Li Ang barely felt it. His brain, its assimilation with Mo Si accelerating, simply received the pain signals as if to say, "Understood." Pain is a defensive mechanism evolved by organisms to seek advantages and avoid harm. When an organism evolved to a transcendent level, where physical damage could be instantly repaired, pain lost its meaning, becoming merely another form of tactile perception.

Li Ang felt an odd sorrow as he looked at the eyeball on the arrow, murmuring, "My body, hair, and skin were given to me by my parents; I dare not damage them." The Mo Si in his palm received the command, transformed into the shape of a flower, enveloped the eyeball, and reabsorbed it.

In the global ranking of gold reserves, the United States held 8,133 tons, Germany 3,359 tons, Italy 2,452 tons, and Japan 846 tons. Due to the Bretton Woods system established in the last century, Japan, like many European countries, chose to store its gold reserves in the United States. The United States stores this gold at locations such as the Fort Knox Vault in Kentucky, the Denver US Mint, West Point, New York, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank. However, this did not mean Japan itself held no gold. In the vaults beneath the Japan Bank, there were over a hundred tons of national gold reserves, as well as privately hoarded gold belonging to the Royal Family, financial tycoons, Gate Valves, and prominent entrepreneurs.

Previously, Li Ang had chosen to head north, directly to the National Congress, instead of fleeing to the western forests or eastern seas. This decision was based on a crucial fact: only by allowing the Elemental Material to absorb gold and evolve further could he escape the encirclement by the United States’ land, sea, and air forces, as well as other Superpower Users.

Moments before, while destroying the city district, Li Ang had allowed the Elemental Material, drawn by the scent of gold, to infiltrate the bank’s underground vaults as fine threads. The vault door, a source of pride for the bank and supposedly impervious even to close-range cannon fire, was like a slightly tough biscuit before the Elemental Material. It effortlessly chewed a gap through it, easily obtaining the gold.

However, even Li Ang himself hadn’t anticipated that Mo Si, after absorbing over a hundred tons of gold, would transform into this current state.

While Li Ang was momentarily distracted, the Martial Artist lying not far away suddenly felt lighter. The injuries caused by the intense pressure of Telekinesis had mysteriously healed to a significant extent. Astonished, the Martial Artist shifted his head to look behind. He saw the doctor, face pale, force a grim smile at him before silently gesturing with his chin towards the other Superpower Users. The group quickly understood the doctor’s intentions. Knowing this was their last chance, they quietly activated their superpowers.

Takagi whispered commands over the mental channel. The high school student strained to raise an invisible barrier, enveloping the Martial Artist and shielding him from the telekinetic suppression. The photographer desperately pulled his hand out from beneath him. He broke his own fingers, which were already mangled with protruding bones, to painfully form hand signs, secretly aiming at Li Ang. The traffic officer, dragging a broken arm and using the rain to muffle his movements, slowly crawled across the ground. He finally reached the Martial Artist’s side and touched his shoe sole with a finger.

Spatial superpower, activate!

The Martial Artist instantly appeared behind Li Ang. He took a deep breath of the cold night air, twisted his body, and stepped forward, channeling all his weight and lifelong power into a single punch. He hurled it unstoppably towards the back of Li Ang’s head. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

This punch, carrying the hopes and strength of the others, easily broke the sound barrier. The compressed air on either side of the fist pushed aside the curtain of rain, crushing raindrops and creating a visible white mist.

BANG!

The fist stopped. An unimaginably immense telekinetic force, like the crushing pressure of the deep sea, omnipresent, clamped down on the Martial Artist’s arm. Bones snapped, and intense pain surged through him. Driven by inertia, the Martial Artist staggered forward uncontrollably. His arm, subjected to an even greater inertial impact, had its sharp, broken bones pierce through the flesh. The skin was pulled back to his elbow as if a sleeve had been roughly stripped off. The intense pain stabbed into his very soul.

But the Martial Artist, carrying everyone’s hope, had no time to register the pain. He immediately pushed off the ground, his left leg lashing out in a kick towards Li Ang’s temple.

BANG!

The kick also stopped abruptly. Li Ang slowly turned, looked at the Martial Artist’s twitching face, and calmly said, "It’s useless."

He lifted his hand and casually flicked his fingers. Invisible telekinetic power surged out, seizing the Martial Artist’s left leg and forcing him back into a standing position.

Humiliation, despair, sorrow.

The rage in the Martial Artist’s eyes threatened to erupt into pillars of fire, yet no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t break free.

"...What do you really want?" After several futile attempts, the Martial Artist’s raging anger dissolved into grief and indignation. He glared at Li Ang through the heavy rain, his eyes piercing, the searing pain in his hand momentarily forgotten. "We invited you, but you refused! Too many people have died tonight! Too much has been lost! What more do you want from us?"