The Almighty Ring

Without Isabella the Destroyer, Jiang Fei would lose 90% of his combat power. If he were to lose Ariel as well, that would be 99.99% instead. That was how weak Jiang Fei was in the face of Level 5 fighters.

Although the martial artists were afraid of Zhuge Shanzhen, the Unknowns were not. They might already know that Zhuge Shanzhen was nothing but a fictional character created by Jiang Fei himself. If Isabella was removed from the picture, Jiang Fei would be looking at a complete and utter defeat. When they resurfaced again, it might not be a confrontation but a full-on attack.

That being said, he knew his advantage well. Right now, he had many facilities that the Unknowns wanted. Although he could not confirm it, that might be the reason why the Unknowns were asking for cooperation instead of a fight to the death. Naturally, they were only doing so because they knew how strong Isabella was. Things might have been different if Isabella was not capable of dominating the entire battlefield.

“When the chips are down, I’ll agree to a parley. I’ll work with them and when the time is ripe, I shall take everything back!” Jiang Fei thought to himself.

The reason why Jiang Fei would think that way was because of Isabella’s condition. He was low on Valium and required the Core of Life and a vast amount of energy to completely rid her of her ailment. If he needed to work with the enemy to accomplish that goal, he would gladly do so. At least until Isabella was truly healed.

However, he had to solve the problem with the rebellious Androids. Right now, they could hardly do anything. But if they were left alone for long enough, they would be a problem globally. Androids think, or rather, process information and take action in a different way compared to humans. They would take on actions that led to the best outcome, without any humane considerations. Ask them to solve world hunger and the fastest, easiest, and guaranteed way was to end humanity. Another less grim example would be choosing a battlefield. Without considering the human population, Androids would choose the densest, populated cities to fight on if the terrain served to their advantage.

Just when Jiang Fei’s mind was beginning to stray towards the darker side, Ariel and Isabella came out of their room, ready to leave on a moment’s notice.

“Darling, we’re ready,” said Ariel.

“Alright, let’s go,” Jiang Fei replied immediately.

With a white flash, Ariel teleported all three of them outside the capital.

As soon as they appeared, radio waves were detected.

“Alert. XS radio wave detected,” 0542 warned.

“Let it be. I want them to know it’s me!” said Jiang Fei as he paced quickly towards the underground secret base. There was no need to hide since he wanted them to know he was coming.

“Warning. High Energy signal detected,” 0542 warned again after 5 minutes.

“High energy? Heh. So they decided that I’m not worth fighting against Level 5s,” Jiang Fei scoffed. It was clear to him that the enemies knew who he was. Nevertheless, they had only sortied Level 4 Androids to deal with him. It was a hostile response to chase Jiang Fei away from the base. Knowing that both Ariel and Isabella were present then, they would not want to waste their greatest assets since both of them would destroy them all.

Unfortunately, the rebellion had miscalculated. Jiang Fei had never directly fought against the Level 4 Androids because of his relations to the motherland. Every time the Androids reached the battlefield, Jiang Fei would leave. This time, Jiang Fei did not retreat. This time, it was a declaration of war. Level 4 Androids would not be enough to chase them away.

Two minutes after the first warning, the Androids that 0542 had warned about arrived.

“Since they are all Level 4, you ladies rest. Allow me to fight for a bit,” said Jiang Fei. Even though he was facing off with an army of hundreds of Androids, Jiang Fei was not scared.

With the Chengying Sword materialized on his waist, Jiang Fei took a stance similar to that of the game. With a quick drawing technique, Jiang Fei released a powerful slash when he unsheathed his sword. The slash flashed out in a straight line, destroying all the Androids that were caught in the line of fire.

The Androids fired in retaliation, firing countless beams that were all only at the intermediate stage of Level 4.

“One more time,” said Jiang Fei as he sheathed his sword back and jumped out of the incoming beams.

It had been a while since he had fought with everything he had. All the fights that he was involved in recently were against Level 5 opponents. There was hardly any chance, or rather, no way for him to fight. If he even lifted a finger against them, any Level 5, Androids or Metahuman, could crush him before he could even react.

Flashes of sword slashes were unleashed, be it in the air or on the ground. Afterimages of Jiang Fei’s shadow could be seen everywhere as if Jiang Fei had mastered the legendary art of Shadow Clones. Every time an afterimage was left behind, a large number of Androids around that afterimage would be destroyed.

Compared to how Isabella or Ariel fought, Jiang Fei’s battles were incredibly artistic. Be it his movements or the martial style that he used, everything he did was a work of art. Isabella and Ariel’s fights were rather… darb. Anticlimactic so to speak. The way they fought was the same be it against one or a million opponents. Ariel would release a thunderstorm to end the fight while Isabella would just… destroy everything in the least artistic way possible—a simple punch to the face.

Those that were playing in the same field, Level 5 fighters, would do the same. They would very much rely on their powers, unleashing everything to end the fight quickly. Even moving was considered cumbersome since they could just teleport. Fights between Level 5s would be bland and darb. However, that was only because all non-Level 5 fighters could understand how dangerous and lethal it was. One wrong move and there goes a limb.

After several minutes, Jiang Fei ended the fight with a bang and a dash of fabulous.

“Let’s go,” said Jiang Fei as he wiped the sweat that was building up on his forehead. It had been some time since he had fought like that and it was exhilarating.

Jiang Fei had been to the base once and with the additional information generated by the super radar system, all three of them reached the front gates fairly quickly.

“Captain, please place the ring on the keypad. I will initiate the hacking sequence,” said Jiang Fei.

“No need to trouble yourself,” said Jiang Fei as he reached for the push-to-talk button.

“You lot know who you are dealing with here. Either you open the door or I will. Your choice,” said Jiang Fei as he spoke into the microphone.

Silence filled the atmosphere as no one spoke. Just when Jiang Fei had enough of it, the door clicked and opened.

“Mhm. Thank god I was patient enough to wait,” said Jiang Fei as he walked through the gates. At this point, Jiang Fei had determined that the military’s rebellious Androids were not related to the Unknowns at all. If they were, they would not have opened the gates. It was obvious that they were afraid of Isabella and Ariel. In fact, they had just been spooked by Jiang Fei’s performance. If they were even capable of feeling scared, they would have opened the gates as soon as Jiang Fei requested them to. Nevertheless, they had decided to let them in, wanting to know what Jiang Fei would do next.

Those rebellious androids were oblivious to the distress call that Fan Yao had sent to Jiang Fei. They were still operating at the assumption that their actions were untraceable and flawless. Even if Jiang Fei came knocking on their doorstep, they could still respond by sending out feeble human prisoners, officers of high rankings to deal with Jiang Fei. They would never had let Jiang Fei enter the facility without having a plan.