I am a female swordsman.

'As expected of a martial artist who can sit down and drink with his master! Truly dazzling!'

Thinking about it this way, Iaian's anger actually subsided a lot. Who would hold a grudge against a juggling clown?

"I'll finish you in ten seconds." Stepping onto the cleaned and tidied arena, Iaian coldly pronounced the result before his opponent could even speak. At full power, this guy in front of him would be done in ten seconds at most.

Sword drawn!

A crisp sound, like a dragon's roar! Like an angry dragon breaking free of its shackles! Iai-an's silver armor and sword blade shimmered wildly in the sunlight, radiating a blinding silver light! Like a materialized sword light carrying boundless killing intent, the Iai-an stance unfolded for ten seconds, and the sword light on the entire arena danced wildly, releasing the swordsman's rage at being humiliated!

Chapter Seventy-Seven Exchange

The first day of the martial arts tournament wasn't particularly exciting; it was more of a warm-up than a proper event.

Aside from a few dark horses, such as Sakura Yomi, who came to the tournament without prior information, whose past performance and true strength were unknown, most martial artists were placed in the strong-versus-weak arena matches. In other words, the first round of elimination matches was basically a battle between the strong and the weak, with very few evenly matched and exciting fights.

The 【Scattered Cherry Blossom Sword Style】is also a strong-against-weak style.

The only difference is that Sakura Yomi is stronger.

"Hmm~~Hmm~~!" Hmmming a melodious tune happily, a tune that the Arad dark elves often played during festivals, Sakura Yomi happily embarked on her journey back to Ghost City after the first round of the competition ended.

The sun is setting, and night is approaching.

The girl with black hair and red eyes had a captivating smile that was like a gentle breeze, making one feel her genuine joy simply by looking at her. Suddenly, Sakura Yomi, who was in the midst of her happiness, froze, as if stopped by an invisible force. Her nimble movements began to feel like she was sinking into mud.

Did you have fun?

From the depths of consciousness, an endless crimson suddenly spread out, within which seemed to be countless densely packed white blades, singing and surrounding the queen on the throne of blades, welcoming her return to the temple!

I'm quite happy.

Knowing she was about to be suppressed back into the depths of her consciousness, Sakura Yomi smiled nonchalantly. There would be plenty of opportunities; as long as she could keep appearing, she could continuously improve her struggle against the main personality. Although she believed the main personality had probably also found something deep within her consciousness, Sakura Yomi didn't care.

"You've had your fun, go back and rest."

The boundless crimson gripped Sakura Yomi, as if countless demons were pulling her back to that inescapable hell.

In terms of control over the body, Huang Quan still holds an absolute advantage, maintaining a suppressive force against the other personality born from information contamination. Both sides are currently adhering to that fragile agreement, and Sakura Huang Quan, temporarily satisfied, naturally wouldn't want to embarrass Huang Quan by continuing to fight for control of the body and weaken Huang Quan's power, so she obediently allowed herself to be suppressed into the depths of her consciousness.

'Hey, don't forget to let me out at the start of the next match.'

"Overdrafting time is no problem."

'Well, you really aren't willing to suffer even the slightest loss. Fine, since I need your help, I'll just have to go overdraw my funds... Yellow Springs...'

That carefree spirit was gradually squeezed back into the depths of consciousness, no longer filled with resistance as before, but unexpectedly compliant. In this way, she was well-behaved without needing to expend energy to suppress her, thus avoiding the needless loss of Huang Quan's energy.

"No wonder you came up with that idea."

Having regained control of his body, the first thing Huang Quan did was take a deep breath. He felt the slightly cold, murky air being inhaled into his lungs and then exhaled. By doing so, he could truly feel that he was alive, rather than some wandering, vengeful ghost.

That empty, hollow feeling is really eroding one's reason little by little.

I felt nothing; my consciousness drifted aimlessly. How terrifying...

"I've finally found you! You despicable bastard!!"

Just as Huang Quan lowered her body slightly, a rough voice suddenly rang out, accompanied by a whistling sound in the air. Without turning her head, Huang Quan tilted her head to the side, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dark, thick fist brush past her hair!

what happened?

Having missed his first strike, the attacker was clearly not in a good mood. He continued to throw punches as if he were filled with rage, determined to beat Huang Quan to death right there.

Having been attacked without warning, Huang Quan, adjusting his black-rimmed glasses, nimbly dodged out of the reach of the fist. A male martial artist in a martial arts arena uniform was panting heavily, glaring angrily at Huang Quan.

"Don't try to escape! Face me squarely like a martial artist! What a despicable guy, who used some underhanded trick to knock me unconscious in the arena!"

"...Who are you?"

Huang Quan couldn't immediately recall who the person in front of him was, so he asked sincerely. Even if he was going to beat up this rude attacker, he should at least let him finish what he had to say.

The attacker was stunned, perhaps not expecting Huang Quan to ask such a question.

After a moment of stunned silence, his face flushed red! It was as if he had suffered an extremely serious humiliation! This is understandable. Not long ago, someone had defeated your opponent in one move on the ring, and now they've forgotten your name and even what you look like. Any martial artist with a modicum of pride would feel severely humiliated!

Enraged, his chest heaved violently as Ghost Fighter Fist pounded his own chest with his fists. Like an enraged gorilla, he furiously and haphazardly punched towards Huang Quan!

"Damn it!!"

"It's noisy."

Faced with another barrage of brute force punches, Huang Quan's patience finally ran out.

She waved her hand dismissively, as if swatting a fly, without even glancing at the other person. The instant Gui Dou was struck by that resounding whip, he felt his arm suddenly lose all feeling, and then his entire body felt like it had been pulled up by a steamroller!

An irresistible force!!

Gui Dou soared into the air and saw the woman's scarlet eyes hidden behind her glasses. More vibrant than ever, her indifferent gaze showed she had never considered him important. Like a small pebble on her path, she had casually kicked it aside.

Just before he was about to crash into the wall, Kito vaguely heard Yomi Mado's complaints.

"What a waste of time..."

Time is life itself. For Yomi, the problems that accumulated at Shinra during the time she entrusted her body to Sakura Yomi were enough to keep her working overtime day and night. Meanwhile, Mado Yomi, as the successor of the [Scattered Sakura Sword Style], had to skip work to participate in the martial arts tournament, thus standing up the pro hero [One-Winged Angel] Sephiroth, which seemed to be a minor inconvenience as well.

Bathed in the dazzling sunset, with a certain unfortunate martial artist embedded in the wall as a backdrop, Huang Quan pushed up his black-rimmed glasses and headed towards his destination.

Z City, a ghost town.

In her private laboratory, some of the items cultivated using demon flesh and blood as a substrate seem to be yielding results recently. From [Demon Contractor] to [Sword Demon], Huang Quan has gone to great lengths to take this safe step.

Chapter Seventy-Eight Exploration

That night, a young woman leaning against a motorcycle had a slender cigarette between her fingers.

In the pitch-black silence, the faint red star stood out starkly. The atmosphere of Z City at night was completely different from that during the day. Because of the loss of light, some strange people who dared not show their faces during the day began to stir. The entire ghost town seemed to come alive, with countless shadowy figures crawling and writhing in the depths of darkness.

But the young woman leaned against the motorcycle without a care in the world.

They're fearless!

Although the mystery surrounding the ghost city has not yet been unveiled, and the so-called truth remains unknown, she has still managed to discover some patterns in the ghost city thanks to her exceptional skills and analytical abilities.

The eccentric people here all follow certain rules when they are active.

For example, they will never attack humans during the day, only come out at night, and absolutely refuse to approach certain areas, and the noise they create is also very suppressed.

Sisne wasn't entirely clear on what these patterns meant, but she believed that the reason the oddballs in Z-City followed the rules was because there must be a terrifying force capable of overwhelming the entire city. In popular parlance, it meant that at least a [Dragon]-level being lurked within the dark, silent city!

"Cisner, I'm sorry! I'm late."

Zack, who had arrived travel-worn, saw the young woman scratching her head and apologizing with her hands clasped in embarrassment.

How did the assessment go?

Cisne, who had been waiting for a long time, wasn't angry. She was a shrewd and capable woman, and she knew that Zack had been extremely busy lately, almost to the point of exhaustion, taking the time to help explore the ghost town and follow the map to the industrial laboratory left behind by Shinra.

"Hehe, all of them were excellent!" Zack proudly raised his head when he mentioned the assessment.

His own abilities weren't bad; the main problem was that he needed to catch up on his academic subjects. Shinra has so many learning materials; with the right access, you could access them all, and you probably wouldn't be learning enough. Under Angel's encouragement, Zack finally patiently began his systematic studies.

"Where's Claude? Hasn't he arrived yet?"

As soon as Zack raised his head, he realized that there was one more person who should have been there but hadn't shown up. Lately, all three of them had been exceptionally busy, each with their own tasks, but they hadn't lost contact. Maintaining contact privately without the company's intelligence surveillance was no easy feat; thankfully, they had the advice of Cisner, an investigator, otherwise their unusual frequency of contact would have been detected long ago.

"He's fighting to survive. The researchers are tireless madmen. If he falls behind, he'll likely be abandoned and won't be able to rejoin us until later."

"What a misfortune."

Zack silently prayed for Cloud, hoping he could persevere longer in the psionic organ project and gather more data. Zack hoped this could save Cloud's life; afterwards, he would piece together the events little by little, gathering evidence to try and change Shinra.

It's clear from the incomplete data Claude secretly leaked and his logs that the psionic organ project was exceptionally cruel.

The company's other large-scale projects are even more impressive.

Why go to such lengths? If it's to deal with monsters, Shinra's current power is sufficient, but they can't handle the elusive, mad planet. Before anything else destroys humanity, the things within Shinra might just wipe us out themselves!

Zack wanted to avoid all of this.

The quickest way, of course, is to meet with the Shinra Council Chairman and explain everything in the Shinra Council, hoping that the giant ship that cuts through the wind and waves of Shinra will turn around.

“Don’t just stand there, help me scout out the terrain of this industrial area. I suspect this used to be one of the company’s large laboratories, but without the Mako Reactor as a reference, I’m not entirely sure.” Cisner didn’t care what Zack was thinking at the moment; she opened the electronic map and gestured for Zack to go and explore first.

Although the members of Shinra's Investigation Division possess a certain level of combat ability, they are still no match for the Shinra warriors who are in charge of combat.

Cisner's abilities lean more towards the former, meaning he has a little knowledge in everything, can effectively analyze and investigate, and ultimately draw preliminary conclusions before transferring the relevant information and conclusions to more professional personnel for judgment.

"Leave it to me!"

Zack winked mischievously and accepted the data sharing with a smile.

This was their first exploration of Z City, an area abandoned by Shinra, hoping to find some of the resources and laboratories discarded by Shinra. They also hoped to use this area to somewhat counter the overwhelming power of the company once it was activated.

………………

Z City, a residential area.

As usual, Saitama lay on the floor, looking utterly exhausted, and rolled his eyes from time to time.

He took care of several oddballs today.

He even saved a guy who was almost blinded in one eye, though he nearly got beaten to a pulp himself in the process. But he gradually experienced the joy of being a hero and fighting monsters. As an unemployed person, it's great to have found something so suitable and something I can do.

Thinking about it this way, Saitama felt that the pain in his body had lessened considerably.

"Let's go to bed early tonight."

While watching TV recently, I saw an expert confidently assert that staying up late causes frequent hair loss, and Saitama, who has always been quite attentive to hair care, strongly agrees. His hair loss has been getting increasingly severe lately…

After changing into my pajamas, I first went out onto the balcony to take a deep breath.

Feeling the tranquility of the night, the world seemed so beautiful, and Saitama's lips slowly curved into a relieved smile. He really did like his current life, fighting as a hero. Thinking about it that way, shouting out loud didn't seem so bad. No sooner said than done, Saitama slowly opened his mouth.

Boom!

Suddenly, a towering burst of flames erupted in the direction he was facing. The shockwave, along with the flames, rapidly expanded into the surrounding space. Saitama, who was about to open his mouth to shout, was instantly covered in a mouthful of dust, and his entire face was shrouded in a layer of black ash in the firelight.

Saitama's face twisted slightly as he instantly transformed from an Asian to an African.

"Damn it!!!"

What are you guys doing, still not asleep so late?! Are you all tired of living?! Seeing that the flames not only showed no signs of stopping, but were about to intensify, Saitama suddenly realized that if he let those guys keep making a ruckus, his sleep quality tonight would probably be severely damaged!