Lin Jiu did not answer. She simply pressed her palms together, then slowly parted them. Between her fingers, countless silver threads as fine as hair stretched out.
[Matter Reconstruction]
The concrete floor began to tremble. Dust seeped from tiny cracks in the ceiling, and the pipe fittings on the walls groaned as metal twisted. All the matter on Underground Level 3 was responding to Lin Jiu’s ability.
Artyom’s pupils contracted sharply.
He didn’t have time to think. His body instinctively entered a full defensive state.
[Absolute Rigid Body] activated at full power. A faint metallic gray spread across his skin—the manifestation of his ability penetrating to the cellular level.
The next second.
Countless silver threads shot in from all directions.
Not to attack—to entangle.
The threads wove along precise trajectories through Artyom’s limbs, torso, and neck, forming a three-dimensional web around his massive body. Each end of every thread bored deep into the walls, floor, and ceiling, locking him inside a spherical space three meters in diameter.
“What is this?” Artyom tried to move his arm.
The threads tightened with a piercing creak.
But what truly unsettled him wasn’t the threads themselves. It was the faint black light coating their surface.
[Ability Silence] —Lin Jiu’s second ability.
Any ability that touched this black light would be continuously neutralized, weakened, and eroded. Artyom could clearly feel the [Absolute Rigid Body] covering his skin being sapped at a slow but steady rate.
The weakening was gradual—after all, his ability rank was S-Class, while Lin Jiu’s [Ability Silence] could only reach A-rank for now. But it was working.
Like dripping water wearing through stone.
“Interesting.” The corner of Artyom’s mouth lifted. “Trying to drain my ability this way?”
“No.”
Lin Jiu’s voice came from outside the web.
Artyom looked up.
He saw her eyes.
In those azure irises, the usual gentleness had vanished, replaced by a fervor that sent a chill down his spine.
“I just don’t want you to run away.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Lin Jiu moved.
She didn’t use any ability. Pure physical power exploded as her right foot stomped into the floor, leaving a deep impression. Like a wild beast, she lunged at the prey trapped in the web. The nails on her fingers gleamed coldly under the light—not ordinary nails, but weapons hardened to diamond-level by [Matter Reconstruction] .
She reached Artyom, brought her right hand together like a short sword, and stabbed viciously at his eye.
Artyom instinctively turned his head.
Her nails scraped past his temple, leaving a shallow white scratch on the skin covered by [Absolute Rigid Body] .
He didn’t bleed, but cold sweat broke out on his back.
Because that scratch was deepening at a visible rate.
[Ability Silence] was constantly weakening his head’s defense, and every one of Lin Jiu’s strikes landed precisely on the same spot.
She was chiseling through his defense.
In the most primitive, brutal, and unreasonable way possible.
“You—”
Artyom swung his left fist—the size of a cudgel—at Lin Jiu’s head with a whoosh.
Lin Jiu didn’t dodge. She opened her mouth.
And bit down on Artyom’s fist.
The skin under [Absolute Rigid Body] was harder than military-grade alloy armor. But Lin Jiu’s teeth had been reinforced to diamond hardness by [Matter Reconstruction] , and [Ability Silence] kept weakening his defense.
Her teeth pierced his skin.
The taste of blood spread across Lin Jiu’s mouth.
Artyom’s eyes went wide.
Not from pain. An S-Class ability user’s pain threshold was extremely high; this wound felt like a mosquito bite.
What shocked him was that this quiet-looking girl was actually tearing into his fist with her teeth.
Like a wild beast. Like a demon crawling out of hell.
Lin Jiu let go and leaped back a step.
Artyom’s blood smeared the corner of her mouth. A manic flame blazed in her azure eyes as she licked her lips, as if savoring a delicious meal.
“S-rank blood.” She tilted her head and smiled. “Not bad.”
Artyom stared at the bleeding bite mark on his fist. He felt a long-unfamiliar emotion.
Fear.
On the other side.
Surtr had already dropped her arrogance.
A deep, bone-visible wound ran along her left arm—inflicted by Ling Ling’s fingertips during the third charge.
The muscles around the wound were healing at an S-Class user’s rate, but the blood that had already flowed soaked the left sleeve of her dark red coat.
Ling Ling, too, had burns.
Three burns—on her left shoulder, right forearm, and left waist—had scorched holes through her black combat suit, revealing the injured skin beneath.
The worst was on her left shoulder: the skin had carbonized. Every breath tugged at the wound, bringing sharp pain.
But her expression didn’t change.
Her crimson eyes were calm as stagnant water.
“I’ve adapted to thirty-seven percent of your flames,” Ling Ling said in a flat tone. “At this rate of adaptation, after a few more exchanges, I’ll be completely immune to your [Scorch] .”
“Thirty-seven percent?” Surtr sneered. “You’re bluffing.”
“Not bluffing.” Ling Ling moved her burned left shoulder without any hesitation. “Just stating a fact.”
Surtr’s face darkened further.
She knew Ling Ling wasn’t lying.
Because with every exchange, her flames dealt less damage to Ling Ling.
From the first sword strike—the fire burned through Ling Ling’s defense and left carbonized burns on her shoulder.
To the second—the same flame could only break through the defense without penetrating deeper tissue.
By the third, the flame couldn’t even fully pierce the thin layer of [Ability Silence] coating Ling Ling’s skin.
This white-haired, red-eyed girl was adapting to her ability at an astonishing speed.
And on top of that—
Her hand-to-hand combat was absurdly strong.
As a Knight of the Round Table of the Cradle, Surtr had survived countless life-or-death battles. Her fighting skills were honed in real combat—every move was clean, lethal, with no wasted motion.
But in front of Ling Ling, her techniques seemed like mere child’s play.
Ling Ling’s movements had no discernible pattern. Each attack seemed like a random choice from countless possibilities—elbow, knee, fist, palm, finger, head, shoulder, hip. Every part of her body could become a weapon. And every strike came from an extremely tricky angle, targeting weak spots like joints, acupoints, and tendons.
This wasn’t a “martial art.”
This was a [Killing Instinct] —forcibly implanted into her brain, engraved into her muscle memory, honed through countless real battles.
“Who taught you to fight?” Surtr couldn’t help asking.
Ling Ling glanced at her coldly.
“No one.”
“What?”