Apology

From the moment that foul-mouthed woman and the fat guy slammed into the wall, Lou Feng wasn't the least bit surprised. If anything, he had seen it coming. And when Ji Jue swung Zhou Cheng around and hurled him past, skimming right over Lou Feng's head, his eyelids began to twitch wildly. Thank goodness my reflexes are sharp and I stayed clear! Even so, watching Zhou Cheng not far away, he still felt unsafe. Lou Feng's brow furrowed deeper and deeper as he took step after step backward. Putting the others in front of him wasn't enough; he squeezed himself even farther into the corner of the wall. Others might be ignorant, mocking him by treating his past experience as a joke, but as the one who had actually lived through it, how could he not know? When a psychopath like Ji Jue started fighting, he spared no one and couldn't care less whether his opponents lived or died! You lot have never tasted machine-gun strafing or phlogiston bombs. If you want to get yourselves killed, go right ahead, but don't splash your blood on me! This bespoke suit of mine is a pain to clean! Not far away, accusations finally arrived, late to the party. "Despicable!" "A sneak attack!" "Shameless!" Seeing Ji Jue strike first with zero martial ethics, leaving Zhou Cheng half-crippled before anyone could even react, the rest went pale with shock and broke out into furious curses. As for Ji Jue, he didn't care in the slightest. He even felt like picking his ear. Wasn't this completely normal? Isn't that what fighting was? You use whatever you have, whatever works. Even an idiot knows an Embers' biggest weakness is an encounter battle. You're supposed to strike ruthlessly and get the first blow in—kill first, and if you can't kill, cripple them first. How big of a hole would he need in his head to line up neatly against these walking armories for an honorable duel? "Who's next?" Ji Jue kicked aside a shattered table and walked toward the crowd, offering friendly advice: "I suggest you don't go one-on-one. If you want to win, you'd better come at me together." Only, before they could, he had already struck ruthlessly! Quicksilver surged, enveloping his body. Within it, a bead of hardened quicksilver dissolved quietly, and then the outline of heavy armor emerged. Electric motors whirred furiously with a deafening roar as over a hundred kilograms of mass slammed into the crowd like an artillery shell. It was like shattering glass, crushing through some unseen barrier. Before the echo of his voice even faded, Ji Jue's fist drove straight toward the face of the foremost person. Yet in that split second, the opponent reacted with surprising speed, leaning back in an attempt to dodge. In his eyes flickered the very same spiritus light as Ji Jue's. Transcendent Vision! Accelerating the mind's cognition to slow the perceived world—it was the exact same blessing! Dodge in motion, the man couldn't help a sneer—We're all fucking Embers, you think you're the only one who has it? I'll show you what— Bang! A dull crack erupted. In the slowed passage of time, Ji Jue clearly saw that sneering, contemptuous face twist, eyes bulging with veins bursting, nearly popping out of their sockets. A scream dragged out endlessly. Only then did Ji Jue withdraw the foot he had planted squarely into the man's groin. Full of bafflement. Seriously? Your opponent is charging right at you, and you pull an iron bridge back-bend right into a split, offering up your crotch? What on earth was going through your head! I thought you had Golden Bell or Iron Shirt or something! Before the man could hit the floor, a quicksilver mechanical arm shot out from Ji Jue's back, caught his ankle, and swung him like a rag into midair, sweeping him across the room! Dull impacts resounded without pause. In the scramble, the Embers Celestial Chosen behind Ji Jue ducked out of the way first. Electricity then flared over his right hand, brass knuckles suddenly manifesting as he jabbed straight toward Ji Jue's kidney! Dazzling electric arcs carrying terrifying force crashed head-on into the quicksilver armor. A roar exploded! Yet on the crystalline coating of the quicksilver armor's surface, not even a single crack appeared. The momentary impact rapidly dissipated through the liquid before reforming. And another auxiliary arm shot forth like lightning. Aimed at his jaw. An uppercut! Boom! A figure shot off the floor, crashing into the suspended ceiling, leaving only two legs twitching and convulsing in shock. "Kill him! Kill him for me!" Having finally struggled out of the wall's fissures, the woman touched the gash on her face, screaming incoherently, her expression turning ever more hideous. Light flashed from the rings on all ten of her fingers. A hulking figure manifested in midair like a giant spirit, slamming a colossal hand downward! On Ji Jue's body, quicksilver surged and shifted, propping upward. A deafening roar resounded. The floor cracked, the structure shook, and the sudden ferocious strike actually caused a fissure to appear along the pillar of quicksilver! "What is this junk?" Ji Jue waved his hand, and half a chair leg picked up from the floor whistled through the air, darting like an arrow toward her face, only to be stopped by an invisible barrier and clatter uselessly to the ground. Only Ji Jue's hand remained hanging in midair. As though an exercise in futility. The woman sneered, about to say something, when she heard the wall behind her shatter with a crash. The speeding armored vehicle breached the wall and plowed into her with zero restraint. Fracturing sounds rang out relentlessly as who knew how many layers of defensive wards were pulverized in an instant. Amid her shrill shrieks, she was once again sent flying helplessly through the air. Straight toward Ji Jue's outstretched hand. As though delivering her own throat right into his grasping fingers. "You're the biggest pain in the ass!" Those were the last words she heard. A blast of spiritus erupted without reservation, pouring into her body to disrupt her matrix, destabilize her blessing, and wreak havoc! In the blink of an eye, her eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp, fate unknown. "Xiao Lu!" A furious roar rose as the opponent behind Ji Jue snarled, "Bastard, let go of her!" In an instant, the air seemed to congeal like shackles pressing down on Ji Jue, but it fractured immediately under the furious spin of his motors. Ji Jue spun around, swinging the woman and hurling her into the man's chest. "Have each other, then!" The man was shocked, scrambling to catch her as he stumbled backward. But before he could process what was happening, a flash of silver leapt from her chest like a spider, latching onto his face! He collapsed to the ground, forgetting even the person in his arms, his hands frantically clawing at his face, unable to tear it off. On the other side, Ji Jue didn't manage to seize the opening for a follow-up attack, instead stumbling for a moment. He lost his balance. The marble floor beneath his feet had rapidly softened like mud, rising up to coil around his legs. Another ability of the Embers line. Liquefaction? Or shaping? Didn't matter. Seizing this brief window, every opponent who could still climb to their feet threw themselves recklessly at Ji Jue, holding nothing back. Once the crowd control landed, they blew all their skills at once. Do they take me for some final dungeon boss? Ji Jue felt like laughing. And then he actually chuckled. The quicksilver around him surged and shuddered violently. After a flurry of shifts, it contracted swiftly. Aside from the protective layer over his clothes, the knockoff armor's spirit was sealed back into a quicksilver bead. Immediately following that, as eight quicksilver beads shattered in unison, eight extraordinarily nimble quicksilver appendages unfurled violently from Ji Jue's back! In the span of a finger-snap, from liquid quicksilver, joints reconfigured, armatures hardened, and limbs responded to control. Thanks to the "friendship fee" delivered by Captain Yu, and assisted by the blessing of Metallic Quality, eight mechanical arms harder than composite alloys took shape along Ji Jue's spine in an instant. Then—burst! He didn't even need manual controls; with just a single thought and command from Ji Jue, the eight mechanical arms executed his orders flawlessly. Parry, counter, thrust, sweep, defend, attack! While it was nothing worth mentioning before Professor Ye, when it came to crushing noobs, it worked every single time! As long as he didn't run into an outlier, game-breaking bug like the Dissociation Art, Ji Jue—now amplified by Non-Offensive's handling buffs—could boost his output by more than eight times in an instant! Under his central coordination, the liquefied stone clinging to his legs was peeled away with ease, blazing swords piercing through the air were snapped beneath clamping pincers, and the sieges from all directions were dismantled effortlessly. Then came a brutal counterattack! Bang! One of the mechanical arms struck a barrier, bouncing back without effect? "Everyone, get behind me!" Seeing his armor hold, a man's eyes lit up, and he laughed. "I'll take—Fuck, STOP!!" Before he could savor even a second of triumph, the laughter turned into a bloodcurdling scream. Right beneath Ji Jue's raised right hand... I was only planning on using ordinary techniques for a friendly match, but since someone refuses to take the hint... behold Tide Sound Workshop's heritage—the Dissociation Art! Under a single palm strike, amidst agonizing screams, a deep fissure tore through the glowing inner armor, punching a gaping hole. Spiritus circuits unraveled beneath the raging spiritus that sliced like a scalpel through every seam, and the core was instantly devastated, breaking down into wisps of essence that Ji Jue scooped up and absorbed in one grasp. A mechanical arm swept back in and hammered out a fist. Slamming into that twisted face. He fell backward, staring up at the ceiling. It's great being young—out like a light the moment you hit the floor. Amid continuous screams, loud crashes erupted repeatedly. Wails or pleas for mercy—Ji Jue couldn't care less, practically daydreaming as he flattened every single bastard standing in his way. Until a voice of terror suddenly rang out. Bang! A hardened barrier formed by spiritus shaping blocked Ji Jue's fist. "Why the hell are you hitting me?!" Lou Feng, already cowering in the corner, was scared out of his wits. "Are you nuts?! I didn't even mess with you!" "Hitting you was just convenient!" Without a second thought, Ji Jue gave him a ringing slap across the back of the head, sending him staggering, and then turned and walked away. Ji, you motherfucker... Lou Feng gritted his teeth, fists clenching hard. But soon, they softened again. Calm down, calm down, Lou Feng. He's from Tide Sound, he's Ye Xian's apprentice, he's a mad dog! Don't stoop to his level. Don't waste your breath on a psycho. Amid the wailing, Zhou Cheng struggled to his feet. Watching Ji Jue guard the doorway and take down opponent after opponent without sparing a single one, he knew that after today, he would probably be reduced to a laughingstock... His expression shifted, turning ever more venomous. Gritting his teeth, he fished an arrowhead shrouded in a sinister, frigid aura from his robes, aiming it from afar at the center of Ji Jue's back. Just as he was about to channel spiritus into it, he heard a deafening crash. Agony lanced through him; the arrowhead flew from his grip and clattered to the floor. Screaming, Zhou Cheng spun around, only to see that from the armored vehicle that had crashed through the corner of the wall, a heavy machine gun had somehow raised itself. It aimed right at his hand and fired a burst. Zhou Cheng instinctively reached out to pick it up, but a deafening roar tore through the room. A metal storm shrieked forth. In the savage barrage, gale-force winds brushed past his shoulders. Zhou Cheng shrieked, frozen in place, not daring to twitch a muscle. When he finally came to his senses, he realized that through the furious strafing, countless bullet holes had circled him, tracing a precise silhouette of a human body into the wall. Finally, amid the rising wisps of smoke and falling dust, a scarlet targeting beam landed squarely on his face, locked in place. A shoe stepped down onto the fallen arrowhead. "Oho, nice piece of gear!" Ji Jue let out a sigh as though in lingering fright. "If I took a hit from this, I'd probably be dead as a doornail, wouldn't I?" "It—it's all a misunderstanding..." Zhou Cheng's expression twitched. Covered in shadow, he tried to force a smile. "J—just a joke... don't... don't..." Slap! What answered him was a backhand across the face, along with an exasperated scolding: "Out of everything you could learn, you had to learn how to launch sneak attacks!" Zhou Cheng's vision went black as his head snapped to the right. Immediately followed by another bout of blackness as his head swung involuntarily to the left. "And you can't even pull off a sneak attack properly!" Ji Jue followed up with another slap. "Got caught red-handed, too!" "Humiliating!" "Embarrassing!" ... "Scum!" With each successive slap, Ji Jue found his rhythm. He seemed to hear faint footsteps rushing over, but paid them no mind. Come to think of it, his teacher had been at that meeting for quite a while now. They weren't giving her a hard time, were they? Probably not. Chances were she was sitting majestically in the conference room right now, basking in prestige. Unlike him, who had to suffer such brutal bullying and violence. What had happened to the Ring of Taiyi? How could the conduct among apprentices be so utterly degraded! No wonder internal strife was so rampant; they were rotten to the core! Faced with such unhealthy tendencies, one had to strike hard in the name of justice, correcting them ruthlessly! Make the bullies fully recognize their errors, feel remorse, and from now on... His movement suddenly paused as he felt a slight pain in his pinky finger. He finally snapped back to reality. Looking down, he saw Zhou Cheng's face swollen like a pig's head, along with a small scratch on his own pinky, nicked by a broken tooth. "Tsk..." Ji Jue frowned, flicked his hand, and finally looked at the twitching Zhou Cheng. "You can apologize now," he said suddenly. "...Huh?" Zhou Cheng froze. Through the agonizing pain and dizziness, his brain couldn't process it. "A—apologize? Me?!" "Yes, apologize." Ji Jue nodded as if it were only natural. "Say: 'I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry for failing to make you use your full strength, for failing to let you enjoy yourself.'" And here I thought you'd show off some killer trump card after building up my expectations. In the end, you acted all mighty for so long just to turn out to be a truckload of scrubs... Forget Swarm, if even a White Stag had shown up, I wouldn't have been this bored! Ji Jue shook his head and let out a melancholy sigh. Crushing noobs was truly boring. High-tier matches were far more fun. Fortunately, there was still one slightly challenging target left... He looked up toward Young Master Lou. In his daze, Lou Feng instinctively shuffled backward another step. Before he could even feel terror, he saw Ji Jue grin with a sinister chuckle, sending chills down his spine! Don't you fucking come over here! Lou Feng almost screamed out loud when a familiar furious bark echoed. "Enough!" Usually, whenever he heard it, he would tremble as if walking on thin ice. But now, hearing his teacher's voice, he was so touched he nearly wept. Teacher, what took you so long! At that moment, the double doors burst open. Unfortunately, they only swung halfway before the metal hinges groaned and snapped, crashing to the floor. A cloud of dust billowed up, blanketing one of the guys who was still groaning on the ground. In the corridor outside, a row of grim, funeral-dark faces was revealed. After all, if they had arrived even a moment later... Someone really might have ended up dead.