Ultragene Warlord

Chapter 610: Zhang Lie's Advice

Zhang Lie waved a hand. "Launch your attack!"

"[Shadow and Light]!" Fang Yi's appearance blurred into a hundred clones. The spear thrusts and strikes came toward Zhang Lie from every direction.

"You're even faster than before!" Zhang Lie praised, though he still didn't move.

The spear thrusts pierced Zhang Lie, revealing him to be an illusion, but that illusion continued to talk. "You've made very good progress on the technique you intuited from the twelve stelae."

Fang Yi's forehead beaded with sweat. Sweat drenched his clothing and beaded down his back. He had tried his hardest to maintain the technique for as long as he could, but to no avail. He couldn't even touch the hem of Zhang Lie's clothing.

Fang Yi's spear thrust through space and time, but Zhang Lie's body remained stubbornly immaterial.

"[Born of Lightning, Swallowed by the Wind]!" As Fang Yi shouted, his spear traced a half-moon in the air, surrounded by an aura of time. Light and shadow flashed by its tip, just like the wind and lightning that made up the core of Fang Yi's techniques.

The spear pierced space abruptly, spawning a rift that turned its surroundings gray. All movement was locked in time. The only color in the space, the only movement, came from Fang Yi's spear. Even so, the spear was only able to move inches at a time, no faster than a snail's crawl, as it headed toward Zhang Lie.

Just as the spear was about to touch Zhang Lie's head, Zhang Lie snorted, smashing the dim, gray field of stasis apart.

The spear flew through the air and landed on the ground, just like Fang Yi. By the time he regained his senses, he was lying beside his spear. What had just happened?

Zhang Lie clasped both hands behind his back and asked again, "Did you understand?"

Fang Yi sat upright. "I did! You were ahead of me this entire time, Captain—we weren't in the same timeline! As a result, no matter how fast I was, no matter how rapidly I attacked, all I would be doing damage to was your afterimage."

Zhang Lie turned back. "And what do all of you think?"

Yang Ze clasped both palms over his mouth as he tried to rein in his laughter.

Meanwhile, Zhang Hanxiang replied earnestly, "So that's what happened! If you've passed to another timeline, then you might as well be objects in two different dimensions, unable to intersect or touch each other."

Yang Ze clutched his stomach. "I can't hold it in anymore—no, no, all this nonsense about time is just a red herring!"

"Really? What was wrong?" Zhang Hanxiang asked.

Yang Ze smiled. "All Zhang Lie did was to use his water-attuned genetic energy to create an illusion of himself, and all of Fang Yi's attacks struck at that illusion. They naturally didn't hurt Zhang Lie."

"Really?" Fang Yi and Zhang Hanxiang both seemed astounded.

Zhang Lie nodded as he smiled as well.

Yang Ze had seen through Zhang Lie not because Yang Ze was stronger than Fang Yi or Zhang Hanxiang, but because he likewise had a water attunement. Though Zhang Lie's illusion was deftly crafted, Yang Ze had noticed its signs.

Zhang Lie continued, "What I want to impart upon you is that you need to pay attention to detail, even if you have access to what might seem to be a superior power. You could have noticed that I was using an illusion from almost the very beginning, but you were all caught up in my tempo. As a result, Fang Yi, no matter how quickly you attacked, no matter how strong your attacks were, you could never have hurt me."

"When was this?!" Fang Yi asked in shock.

He simply couldn't believe that he had been fighting an illusion all this time, that he had lost not to temporal power beyond his ken, but rather a small trick.

"From the very start, I said. My illusion was just an inch or two off from the very beginning, and you wouldn't have noticed it in an intense battle. As the fight continued, I increased the distance between myself and my illusion. By the second bout, I was already a meter away."

"Y-You're crazy!" Fang Yi shouted.

They had exchanged a flurry of blows from the very beginning; the fact that Zhang Lie was able to defend himself while simultaneously constructing a detailed illusion beggared belief.

Zhang Lie shrugged. "Sometimes, a little trick can be all you need to secure victory. Make sure you're not being controlled or directed by your opponent. You believed that I would only use superior techniques against you, but small tricks are sometimes all you need."

Fang Yi grumbled, "You call that a small trick?"

No one else would be able to replicate what Zhang Lie had done in such high-intensity combat.

.

Zhang Lie asked, "Would you like me to show you more?"

Fang Yi reared back and shook his head warily. "No, no, Captain, you're too strong for the likes of me!"

"What, you can't keep up? Don't you have any more stamina?"

It was past time for Zhang Lie to check how the members of Team Zenith were doing.

"Don't, don't! Captain, I admit defeat, I surrender! Don't just look at me—how about the others?" Fang Yi scampered behind Yang Ze and the other members of Team Zenith.

Zhang Lie sighed. "Your [Heaven's Judgment] is about as strong as you can get it within this realm, but your attacks are still more rigid than I'd like. I recommend that you try to develop its speed instead—you can try to augment it with the power of time that you intuited, advancing it to another level entirely."

"Thank you, Captain!" Fang Yi bowed earnestly.

Zhang Lie's gaze turned to Yang Ze. "Since you laughed so loudly just now, let's see how you perform next."

"Looks like I won't be able to avoid a thrashing, either," Yang Ze murmured, unwillingly stepping forward. He had grown leaner under Zhang Lie's hellish training, but his eyes were sharper and steelier than ever before, as though he were a deepsea shark hunting for prey...