The battle was decided.
At the crucial moment, Zhang Shou had pulled his strike. Apollo lay like a corpse in the void, yet still clung to a single breath.
However, both were gravely injured. Chi Feihong instantly appeared beside Zhang Shou, drew out a bottle, and poured its liquid over him. Zhang Shou, who had been reduced to a charred husk, rapidly recovered.
Robos also materialized beside Apollo. A bright moon manifested behind his back, casting moonlight over Apollo. The wounded combatant, who had nearly been cleaved in two, swiftly revived under the glow.
Naturally, both remained severely injured. But to Mighty Ones, anything that did not kill them was merely a light flesh wound; dragging a half-dead body around, they could still leap about as lively as ever.
Apollo opened his eyes and asked, "Did I lose?"
"Brother, you lost," Robos sighed, speaking with certainty.
Clashes between Mighty Ones required no referee. Apollo knew deep down that he had lost, and the onlooking Mighty Ones saw it even more clearly—the outcome was beyond dispute.
After all, Zhang Shou had genuinely had the opportunity to execute Apollo just now, yet he had chosen not to.
Both sides returned near the Aska. Zhang Shou and Chi Feihong boarded the deck, while Apollo and Robos landed atop a meteorite.
"We lost the first round," Robos stated.
Seeing right through Robos's thoughts, Nora smiled faintly and said, "In the first round, Zhang Shou took the initiative to challenge you, leaving you no choice. This time, we'll let you pick your opponent."
"Any one of you is fine?" Robos asked, his brow furrowing slightly as he looked at Nora.
Nora nodded. "Any one of us. After all, we've already secured one victory. In the worst-case scenario, it will only end in a draw."
"..."
Robos silently swept his gaze across everyone on the Aska's deck, growing somewhat less confident in his choice.
Could every single person on this deck possess strength on par with Zhang Shou? If so, no matter whom he picked, it would likely be a grueling fight. In the end, his gaze slowly settled on Little Nora, and his fists clenched slightly.
"Quack quack, you gonna pick me?"
Meeting Robos's gaze, Little Nora blinked, swallowed a strawberry chocolate cake in one gulp, and pointed at itself.
"What kind of verbal tic is that 'quack quack'? Trying to play duckling now?" Zhang Shou laughed at Little Nora's quacking, which promptly aggravated his injuries, leaving him aching and amused all at once.
Chi Feihong found it equally funny and called out, "Brother on the other side, take some advice from an elder brother. Don't pick Little Nora—you won't be able to handle it."
*Are they deliberately putting on a front? Or is it genuinely powerful?* Robos found himself caught in a dilemma.
They were opponents, after all; Robos could not simply take Zhang Shou and Chi Feihong at their word. What if they had realized he had spotted their weakest link, and were merely trying to confuse him with a smokescreen?
Meanwhile, Little Nora continued wolfing down cakes—a mango cake in one bite, a Black Forest cake in the next, followed by a blueberry cake, a drumstick cake, and an eyeball cake.
In truth, it had already noticed Robos eyeing it when he had been secretly observing everyone earlier.
Little Nora might usually appear cheerful, gluttonous, devoid of worldly ambitions, and carefree, but in reality, it deferred to no one except its Big Bro and Big Sis.
If Yu Xian was number one under heaven and Nora was number two, then it was number three.
Since Robos actually dared to look down on it, it naturally wanted to teach him a lesson. That was the only reason it had quacked just now—to play weak.
In the end, Robos followed his initial instinct. Pointing at Little Nora, he said, "Then I choose it as my opponent. Is that acceptable?"
"..."
On the deck of the Aska, everyone stared at Robos in silence, their eyes filled with faint pity.
"Well, then there's zero suspense left," Zhang Shou grumbled.
Nora smiled faintly. "Acceptable. Little Nora will represent our side."
"..."
Unnerved by their reactions, Robos instinctively swallowed hard. *Did I really mess up?*
He felt an urge to back out, but a Mighty One was a Mighty One after all; he could not bring himself to lose face by demanding to pick again.
***
Two days later, Zhang Shou's and Apollo's injuries had both thoroughly stabilized.
While complete recovery would still take time, both could eat and drink normally again, at least without wincing in pain over dramatic or violent movements.
And so, the duel between Robos and Little Nora commenced.
The two tacitly made their way to the open space previously cleared by Zhang Shou and Apollo. One wore a solemn expression, while the other was... eating ice cream.
Robos hurled a sphere into the distance, then condensed an energy blast at his fingertip and fired it toward the ball.
"When the blast strikes the sphere, we begin. Any objections?" Robos asked, looking at Little Nora.
Little Nora shook its head. "None at all! Actually, you don't need to make it so complicated. We can start whenever you say so."
"..."
Robos's heart began to drum again.
Over the past two days, he had repeatedly regretted choosing Little Nora. No one aboard the Aska had shown the slightest hint of worry, and even Little Nora had eaten and drank with complete nonchalance, not treating this duel as a big deal in the slightest.
Robos understood full well that this meant Little Nora had absolute certainty of victory. In all likelihood, it possessed strength even greater than Zhang Shou's.
*Pop!*
At that moment, the blast struck the sphere, causing it to detonate instantly.
Without a word, Robos immediately summoned an enormous, radiant moon and bellowed, "Cold Moon Frost Tide!"
A flood of moonlight capable of freezing all creation washed over the surroundings, bearing down on Little Nora first. After all, this stretch of void had been stripped bare by Zhang Shou and Apollo's earlier clash, leaving not even a scrap of cover.
Yet in the very next instant, right before the moonlight could touch Little Nora, vast quantities of ice cream, popsicles, and shaved ice materialized around it. In a flash, Little Nora was thoroughly shielded behind a colorful barricade of frozen delicacies.
When Robos's moonlight struck the food, it merely made the treats slightly colder.
"Gourmet Festival!"
Little Nora's voice rang out from within the mountain of food.
Instantly, countless dishes materialized out of thin air in a frenzied torrent: roasted fish colossal enough to blot out the sky, slabs of roast meat larger than planets, broths resembling golden oceans, fragrant fruits, and vegetable salads stretching beyond the horizon.
Robos felt as though he had barely blinked before he was utterly submerged in a sea of food.
"Are you kidding me? What kind of attack is this?"
Robos had been intensely wary of Little Nora, but witnessing this spectacle, he felt like a complete clown for having feared he might lose to such an opponent.
In the next moment, he raised his hand and clenched his fist. The moon above his head abruptly burst apart, transforming into countless ice crystals that launched toward the surrounding food.
Yet when the attack landed, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
An ice crystal struck an enormous slab of braised pork belly. Instantly, both the crystal and the pork vanished, and a profound sensation of fullness washed over him, as though he had just devoured the massive cut of meat himself.
As more and more food was struck, he finally confirmed that it was no illusion.
Every piece of food hit by his attack was treated as if he had eaten it! Furthermore, the food was extraordinarily easy to digest. Before he could even try to spit it out, his body had already broken it down and absorbed it.
He could not even stop his own body from digesting and assimilating the feast.
At last, the barrage ended.
A tremendous amount of food had been struck by the ice crystals, and all of it had become Robos's meal.
And Robos—once a tall, burly, muscular, and handsome youth—had turned into an immense super-giant, over two meters tall and so monstrously bloated that he could no longer see his own legs. Even taking a single step had become an arduous chore.
Chapter 713