Unable to dodge, unable to unload force, all defensive movements were limited by the current pose and could not be completed.
Guardian Zhi crashed solidly against the crossbeam.
The collision was not just physical.
In that instant, all thoughts running through Guardian Zhi’s brain shattered with the impact.
Guardian Zhi’s higher brain functions crashed for a moment.
He struggled to regain consciousness.
But by that time, Xiang Shan had already freed himself from the lock he had set and was pressing down on his head.
Then, Guardian Zhi’s occiput was forcibly pressed against the second crossbeam by Xiang Shan.
This fearsome Martial Artist utilized Earth’s gravity, the rolling centrifugal force, and the combined weight of both individuals, focusing it all at one point.
Guardian Zhi felt that the external armor on the back of his neck must have deformed. Then he felt a numbness and lost all specific "tactile" perceptions.
Using this collision, Xiang Shan greatly slowed down. He pulled out his Sonicon Blade, made a round on the crossbeam, and then instantly accelerated towards the third crossbeam.
"Boom," and again, it was Guardian Zhi who was injured.
Xiang Shan, holding onto this enemy’s neck, used the back of his enemy’s head—more precisely his occiput—as a shock absorber to brake, and then the Sonicon Blade effortlessly sliced through the building’s load-bearing structures.
He then accelerated again towards the next steel beam.
"Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom..."
After being struck an unknown number of times, Xiang Shan finally stopped. This was also to minimize damage to the equipment.
Guardian Zhi had already lost the ability to resist and was almost brain-dead.
Benchmark Men would not suffer from "brain hemorrhages," the kind of brain injury that worsens over time, but the damage from those few hits was substantial enough.
Xiang Shan hung him on the steel beam, grabbed his head, and forced his prosthetic eye to look directly at him.
In less than half a second, Guardian Zhi’s inner strength defense was broken.
"Indeed, it was the work of the high-level practitioner from the Six Dragons Sect on the Moon," Xiang Shan nodded. The patches obtained from battling those Green Forest Men and the memory of the Eighth Martial God from eighty years ago had informed him how to counter that high-level practitioner’s firewall.
Xiang Shan extracted Guardian Zhi’s storage device and carefully put it away.
Now, Guardian Zhi, even if he could still move, would have lost the ability to resist.
During this process, the steel beams above Xiang Shan almost simultaneously issued a sound that set one’s teeth on edge.
When faced with such large objects made of pure alloy, the advantage of the Sonicon Blade truly came to light.
Although it was just a slight swipe during the crossing, the Sonicon Blade directly cut through the steel beams. At the moment of cutting, the beams might remain in place due to the friction from the exceptionally fine cuts.
But Xiang Shan then kicked off the steel beam and accelerated downwards.
Xiang Shan raised Guardian Zhi’s arm. There were still some rocket projectiles remaining on him.
He aimed at the magnetic field devices on the dome of the launch pad.
A few magnetic field devices were precisely the key nodes that supplemented the strength of the steel structure and held it together securely.
Xiang Shan released his inner strength, igniting the missile.
Then, amidst a rumbling noise, several magnetic field generators were destroyed by the missile.
Immediately after, came an even louder noise.
The dome, as if made of putty, continued to slowly deform.
This wasn’t enough to cause the entire building to collapse. Xiang Shan had not cut into the main load-bearing structure of this superstructure.
This would only cause instability in several floors above. But such instability was fixable.
But this was exactly the effect Xiang Shan wanted.
Now, no one in the nearby floors would dare to use heavy weapons carelessly.
If things went wrong, the affected floors above could collapse like a landslide, peeling away from the main structure of the building.
With heavy weapons banned, his leg malfunction became less fatal.
A locked thigh joint meant he could not dodge bullets or missiles effectively.
"Unable to avoid" was also the reason many cyber fighters crashed and burned.
After the prohibition of heavy artillery, Xiang Shan’s mastery of inner strength could be more effectively displayed.
He had obtained a map of this building from Mr. Isin. He knew that nearby, there was something he needed. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel★fire.net
However, before doing all this, there was one last thing he had to do.
Xiang Shan raised his gun, aiming at Guardian Zhi: "I’ve already asked your colleague the question I have for you once more. Martial Artist, how much do you know about the dirty secrets behind the Six Dragons Sect? Have you ever thought about stepping forward to stop all this?"
"I am utterly uninterested in these matters, mighty one..." Guardian Zhi spoke in a delirious tone, clearly on his last breath. He squeezed out one final question from his nearly extinguished thoughts: "My martial arts, how are they?"
Seeing the guy , Xiang Shan couldn’t even feel angry: "To be honest, not too great."
"I don’t understand whether you wanted to win or just improve your technique," Xiang Shan said, "Your coordination with that other fighter, from the moment you drew your unique weapons to the cut he made on me, was quite good. But the latter part where you employed the Mystic Tortoise True Gang, that was a serious blunder. Mystic Tortoise True Gang is a martial arts style for one against many, meant to divide the battlefield by using the Metal Aerosol to interfere with most detection and communication, thereby disrupting the enemy’s teamwork. During the later part... your performance was too poor. Aside from the ’Dragon Style’ which was impressive, the rest was just so-so."
"Mystic Tortoise True Gang... is my strongest martial arts..."
Xiang Shan shrugged: "If you wanted to win, you shouldn’t have used Mystic Tortoise True Gang under these circumstances, unless it was the only technique you were skilled at. But from your earlier fighting, it was clear that wasn’t the case. It would have been better to use a less powerful but more appropriate technique. And if you didn’t care about winning or losing, just about whether your skills were improving... why didn’t you join the arena battles?"
"Without the element of inner strength, martial arts are incomplete... Whether my inner strength is superior to the enemy’s, or the enemy’s inner strength is superior to mine, it can lead to an infinite variety of tactics..." Guardian Zhi murmured, "Besides, arena fighters..."
"You seem quite disdainful of them. But I know one arena fighter whose skills are far superior to yours in pure technique," Xiang Shan said, "I had a friend a long time ago who was an arena fighter. He was a decent person. Don’t look down on those who fight in the arena."
Xiang Shan listened carefully, then sighed: "But you won’t find the kind of rules you like... ’rules that don’t forbid inner strength’. That’s true. Perhaps in a different environment, you could have been a purely competitive martial artist. Too bad. Anything else you want to say?"
"If I make it out alive, I’ll put them to good use in the right place. What’s your name, by the way?"
"I’ll leave your name in the blockchain."
Guardian Zhi smiled faintly: "Zhili Jiliu."
A team of people was rapidly approaching from the corridor. They had heard the sound of gunfire.