Regardless of the spectators' thoughts, the battle inside the arena was inevitable.
The enemy was Shu—even if it was just a fake, it was still Shu.
The name preceded the man. No one knew how much of Shu's true strength this simulated construct actually possessed. All they knew was that, compared to last time, their current combat strength could charitably be described as "crippled."
"What's there to be afraid of! It's not the real Shu!" Kiana pumped her fists, steeling her nerves, though her voice betrayed a hint of false bravado.
That was the end of the tough talk. Despite their a hundred-and-one reasons to be reluctant, the squad swiftly fell into a defensive formation against the construct.
The construct, for its part, had remained completely silent and motionless since its dramatic reveal. It stood like a perfect gentleman, waiting patiently until the girls were in position before slowly raising its head.
That was the signal to begin.
The next second, Bianka, standing at the very forefront of the formation, felt her pupils contract. An overwhelming sense of crisis erupted from the depths of her soul.
Through the neural network, that same heart-stopping dread exploded in everyone's minds simultaneously!
"Scatter!" Bronya's thoughts commanded them all to make a unified decision. The squad instantly dispersed in all directions, while Bianka spun around, charging back toward the immobile Azhar.
The simulated Shu had practically teleported to Azhar's side. Its objective was crystal clear; its fist was already clenched, aimed directly at Azhar's head.
But in that same instant, Bianka's perfectly timed, almost precognitive kick slammed squarely into the construct's waist.
The two figures shot past Azhar like a violent gale, whipping her long hair into a frenzy.
Bianka carried the construct a significant distance. In the blink of an eye, she slammed violently against the reinforced barrier at the edge of the arena.
But it was only Bianka.
Where did that thing go?
The immense impact didn't faze Bianka in the slightest. She braced herself against the wall, ready to explode into action at a moment's notice. But when she scanned the surrounding area, there wasn't a single afterimage of the simulated Shu to be found.
"Do not engage! Return to the group!"
Receiving Bronya's order, Bianka immediately prepared to use the wall as a springboard to launch herself back to her teammates.
The construct's speed was terrifying. Bianka knew that if she allowed it to create distance, even she wouldn't be able to stop it from picking off the more vulnerable members of the squad.
Besides, its objective was painfully obvious: it knew Azhar was the core of their network and went for her first.
Huh?
Bianka's train of thought abruptly halted. A split second later, she instinctively looked down at her hand.
"Since when?!" At some point, the hard wall had somehow swallowed her hand whole.
Like a person sinking into a non-Newtonian fluid, Bianka desperately tried to pull her hand free, but even with her MANTIS-enhanced strength, she couldn't break its grip.
Without a moment's hesitation, Bianka mercilessly smashed her free fist into the wall.
KRAAANG—!!
After a gut-wrenching shriek of metal-on-metal impact, Bianka stared in shock at the wall. Even dented and deformed, it refused to release its death grip on her hand.
It's hard... The structural integrity of this wall is practically on par with Soulium.
Theoretically, that punch should have blasted a hole straight through the wall, or at least cracked it wide open.
Instead, it had only created a perfectly smooth, circular indentation.
Not only is it incredibly tough, but it's redirecting the force?
Back in the command center, thanks to Judah's link, Bronya had perceived the wall's transformation at the same moment as Bianka. After seeing Bianka's zero-frame wind-up punch have little to no effect, Bronya immediately delivered her verdict.
Bianka was trapped.
The news spread through the network instantly.
"What the hell?!" Sin Mal's eyebrow twitched, her expression twisting into a grimace as she glanced in the direction where Bianka was "sealed."
We're already down one member? The strongest member of our team, at that?! Sin Mal had to physically restrain herself from letting out a string of curses.
She hadn't participated in the original gang-beatdown, so she was still on Shu's "whitelist," so to speak.
Correspondingly, she had no idea what it actually felt like to be on the receiving end of Shu's wrath.
Sin Mal had already set her expectations astronomically high. She had even entertained the possibility of the simulated Shu one-shotting a couple of them right off the bat.
But who could have possibly predicted that their main tank and 99% of their DPS would be sealed away at the very start of the fight?
Do you seriously think this is the Shibuya Incident?!
So what now?
Without Bianka, how were they supposed to fight back against the simulated Shu?
Theresa stepped forward. With a powerful tug on her chains, she yanked the Oath of Judah from its position in the center of the arena, sending it flying toward her.
Simple! I, Theresa Apocalypse, will just tank the pressure!
With that thought, she reached out and snatched the golden cross from mid-air.
Instantaneous Refinement!
"Judah... help me out one more time!"
The seemingly indestructible Divine Key actually began to deconstruct in Theresa's hands! It unraveled into countless golden threads, instantly weaving a web that filled the entire arena.
The dense, overlapping strands crisscrossed the entire space, so tightly packed that even a tiny insect would become hopelessly entangled in the near-invisible filaments.
Upon closer inspection, each thread was actually a minuscule, ethereal chain, vibrating with contained power.
You could pick any single, delicate chain and trace it back to its origin. You would quickly discover that every single one terminated at the same point: the simulated Shu, now bound and utterly immobilized.
Freed from her connection to Judah, Azhar no longer had to keep her eyes closed, straining to maintain the neural link.
The moment she opened them, she saw the simulated Shu, seemingly frozen in time. Its outstretched hand was a mere one or two centimeters away from her face.
Azhar let out a terrified shriek, spun on her heel, and bolted. She found what looked like a relatively safe corner, curled up into a ball, and started trembling uncontrollably.
It was that close... Up in the stands, Joachim let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding as he watched Theresa successfully restrain the construct.
Just two more centimeters... and that thing would have been dismantled by Shu.
Joachim shot a terrified glance at Shu, who was standing right beside him.
At that moment, Shu was utterly silent. One hand rested lightly on the railing in front of him, the other tucked casually into his pocket. At a glance, he seemed completely relaxed.
But he hadn't moved a single muscle for nearly a full minute.
A minute isn't that long, is it?
Don't be fooled. If you were in Joachim's shoes right now, that single minute would feel longer than an entire year.
It was as if the very air had thickened into a viscous, stagnant fluid. As if the entire world were a videotape that the man beside him could pause at any given moment.
That overwhelming, suffocating sense of having absolutely no control over his own reality was making Joachim physically ill.
He genuinely believed, deep in his heart, that if the construct had actually landed a hit on Azhar—or on any one of them—Shu would have utterly annihilated it the instant before impact.