Chapter 388: Without Death Rewind, You Have Nowhere to Run

"A minute is too long. I need to get there in five seconds," Qi Suian said.

At the same time, he tore the upper floors clean off the building.

Su Huayun's expression changed, and he immediately tried to use his talent and the power of his ghost.

But the gap in their power was too vast. Before he could even speak, Qi Suian smashed his teeth in.

His cheek swelled up instantly, and he was unable to speak.

"I know you need your voice to use your powers," Qi Suian said, raising his fist to punch Su Huayun again.

"Spatial Dodge."

A voice suddenly rang out. It wasn't Su Huayun who had spoken, but an ordinary person standing nearby.

The speed of his speech was something no ordinary person could achieve.

Qi Suian's punch passed right through Su Huayun's body, confirming the successful dodge.

"Restore—"

The man didn't get to finish before Qi Suian blew his head apart.

But it was too late. The moment the word "restore" was spoken, Su Huayun's injuries vanished.

'Home-field advantage is truly something else.' Qi Suian knew the man's protagonist halo was firing on all cylinders. Even without any buffs, it had the highest priority.

Without enough power to compensate and his own protagonist halo as a safety net, Qi Suian couldn't hope to kill Su Huayun. He needed both.

[Enemy converts Yang Qi with the properties of truth and lies into a power source. As long as this special Yang Qi is not depleted, the enemy can use a word-of-power ability without limit.]

'He uses truth to weave lies, deceiving the world itself.'

"If you had obtained another language- or text-based ability—like controlling a language ghost to supplement your power—I truly might not have been your opponent."

"Unfortunately, the second ghost you tamed is just a Delusion Ghost."

Qi Suian realized he was being too chatty, but he needed an outlet.

How could he not know that his opponent's protagonist halo was affecting him? But with the home-field advantage and his own power running at full tilt, he was finding it hard to control himself.

Fortunately, talking didn't stop him from acting.

Floating Cannons, polymorphic energy, and more all attacked in unison, forcing Su Huayun into a steady retreat. He was completely unable to resist.

However, thanks to his ability to make his words reality, he took no damage despite being unable to fight back.

He wasn't fighting back not because he couldn't speak fast enough, but because he was gathering power.

The Tai Sui God was simply too powerful. He couldn't even breach its defenses. With its many modules for shields, armor, and materials, the Tai Sui God's Defense, while still lagging behind its other functions, meant it was no longer a glass cannon.

With his level of power, Su Huayun couldn't harm the Tai Sui God in the slightest.

"Power, gather unto me," Su Huayun declared.

The next moment, a meteorological torrent formed from the special Yang Qi in the sky squeezed into Su Huayun's body.

"I will be able to withstand this power."

"I will suffer no negative consequences."

"I will defeat—" Su Huayun paused, realizing he couldn't fulfill that command.

Since he couldn't directly will the outcome, he had to switch to another method of enhancement.

"The man before me will be beset by a hundred illnesses!"

'If I can't strengthen myself, I might as well weaken my enemy.'

When Qi Suian heard this, an expression of 'what the fuck' crossed his face.

As his words fell, Su Huayun's strength soared. And Qi Suian's strength skyrocketed.

It was practically overflowing.

'This is the first time someone's ever thrown a buff on me.'

'It's probably the effect of my own protagonist halo.'

'Su Huayun has one, but so do I.'

'I might not have the home-field advantage, but it can still provide plenty of help.'

"Screw you!" Qi Suian threw out a simple Great Hand Seal made from a Dark Energy Beam.

The Dark Energy Beam shattered his spatial defenses, and the Great Hand Seal formed of polymorphic energy slammed right into Su Huayun.

A series of passive modules activated—armor penetration, true damage, and more—and he was instantly crushed into a paste.

"I am immortal and indestructible." Su Huayun didn't realize why his opponent had suddenly grown even stronger. Fortunately, his own increased power came with enhanced life force.

Even as a pile of gore, he was still alive, and he immediately used his power to grant himself even greater strength.

The pile of gore instantly reformed back into a human shape.

'Qi Suian's heart settled. It seemed his opponent really couldn't perform a death-rewind on this Exhausted Planet.'

He wasn't afraid of his opponent being hard to kill; he was afraid of him being able to rewind death. That would be the truly tricky part.

Su Huayun's expression was grim. He was still no match for Qi Suian.

Thanks to his buffs, all of his basic attributes had reached 9 points—the absolute limit for his body.

Yet Qi Suian still handled him with ease.

More importantly, this time he had no escape.

Back in the Netherworld Survival Area, he could use death-rewinds to accumulate advantages whenever he couldn't beat Qi Suian. Once he left, his opponent was powerless against him.

But now was different. His opponent had chased him down specifically to kill him.

"Meteorites will strike you, heat will burn you, cold will freeze you."

"Hurricanes will hunt you, tsunamis will drown you, earthquakes will swallow you."

"Nature will despise you, the planet will loathe you, the universe will reject you!"

With those three sentences, all his special Yang Qi was instantly depleted.

However, the effect wasn't complete; the 'planet will loathe you' and 'universe will reject you' parts failed due to insufficient energy.

The next moment, Qi Suian looked up to see a meteor shower of innumerable stones streaking toward him.

Flames erupted from the ground, hurricanes formed, and the roiling of a great tsunami caused the continental plates to shift, triggering a terrifying earthquake.

All of nature itself was now targeting Qi Suian.

"You are clever indeed, but still one step too late."

"If you had used the world against me from the start, it wouldn't have stopped at planetary hatred," Qi Suian said as his Floating Cannons unleashed a Ghost Energy Storm.

Qi Suian stood at the center of the storm, completely unaffected by the ghost energy.

This was, of course, thanks to his newly acquired module: the Particulate-State Anti-Elemental Protective Layer.

By interfacing with ghost energy, it gave the Tai Sui God a Defense that allowed it to ignore ghost energy.

Why else would Qi Suian have bothered adding an anti-elemental defense? By switching to the corresponding elemental mode, he could gain immunity, resistance, absorption, and other effects.

It could even defend against composite elements.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, meteorites—all were disintegrated by the Ghost Energy Storm.

"True, but so what?"

"Detonate my very being to enhance nature's attacks and hatred for you."

As Su Huayun's words faded, his body began to annihilate. The intensity of the natural attacks instantly surged by more than tenfold.

However, because he had previously declared himself "immortal and indestructible," the residual energy from that command took effect, reviving him.

Unfortunately, because he had transferred all the energy from his body, this "immortality" only worked once.

Under the cover of storms, earthquakes, and fire, Qi Suian lost track of Su Huayun. Even the Tai Sui God couldn't find him.

When everything had settled, Qi Suian surveyed the surrounding devastation.

"He got away."

'But it's all part of the plan. It's impossible to catch him without first exhausting his massive reserves of special Yang Qi.' Qi Suian knew that trying to capture him wasn't a good option.

'But... the rewards.'

"AI, locate him," Qi Suian said coldly.

Without the buff from his special Yang Qi, his opponent had been knocked back to his original state.

So the next time they met, he wouldn't have this kind of power to help him escape.

His opponent certainly had luck on his side, but luck alone wasn't enough without power. Not unless he could rely on luck for everything.

Unfortunately for him, his luck wasn't great enough to turn the tables.

'We'll meet again in half an hour at most. It won't be long.'

[Location acquired. Target is moving rapidly. Locked.]

"Take control of the global arsenal. Give him a good carpet-bombing first."

"Wipe the slate clean in one go!" Qi Suian wasn't in a hurry to act personally. Who knew what trump cards or backup plans his opponent still had.

First, he'd scour the area with the Exhausted Planet's conventional weapons and see if he could force him out.

'Killing him for good is probably impossible. If protagonists were that easy to kill, I wouldn't have survived this long myself.'

'It doesn't matter if he's hard to kill. I'll just weaken him bit by bit.'

'As for using my own missiles? That's out of the question. They can't kill him.'

Only Qi Suian, a fellow protagonist, could kill the protagonist Su Huayun. The Tai Sui God wasn't up to the task.

-----------------

Su Huayun fled frantically. He had been utterly defeated; he was no match for his opponent at all.

"Apocalypse Game, help me! Help me!" At this point, Su Huayun could only pin his hopes on the game. "I am a Law Enforcer! My power is insufficient to kill this rule-breaker!"

The moment he finished speaking, the hair on his arms stood on end. A profound sense of crisis washed over him.

He looked back and saw the sky filled with dense black specks, all hurtling toward him.

Though he'd never seen them before, he was certain they were missiles.

How could he not realize it? The rule-breaker had seized control of the global arsenal and turned it on him.

His Truth Ghost and Delusion Ghost had gone silent from overuse, and his SS-rank special talent, Deceiver, was purely passive. None of them could help him now.

Without the "Exploration" needed to fuel it, his death-rewind ability was useless. This many missiles would surely take his life.

Fortunately, the Apocalypse Game offered him a sliver of hope.

[Mandatory Mission: 100% Exploration]

[Reward: None]

[Failure: Obliteration]

When he saw the mandatory mission appear, a look of wild joy spread across Su Huayun's face.

For any other survivor, this would be an impossible, suicidal mission.

But for Su Huayun, it was the chance he needed to activate his death-rewind.

"Accept!" Su Huayun roared without hesitation as he watched the missiles close in.

The Apocalypse Game instantly teleported him into the Truth Layer of the Ghost World. A moment later, the missiles landed, setting off a chain of massive explosions.

Arriving in the Truth Layer, Su Huayun breathed a sigh of relief. He had escaped death.

But in the next instant, an immense force struck him. Before he could even get his footing, he was shoved hard, tumbling right back out of the Truth Layer.