The new mission that was presented concerned a new religion called the Path of Peace that had emerged over the past ten years.
As the number of followers of this religion increased, they would soon begin arming themselves and launch a coup, which the Revolutionary Army would exploit. Through an alliance with tribes in the west, a three-pronged attack on the Empire was planned. After forming alliances with a number of forts, this would open the way for the army to enter.
At that point, General Budo and the Imperial Army would move, causing the protection of the palace to weaken and allowing the Night Raid to assassinate the Minister.
This was the main plan, but there was one problem. There had been a spy from the Empire within the Path of Peace, who was also the assistant to the religion's leader.
Because of his relationship with the Minister, it was natural that he would protect him, and it was likely that he would send the Jaegers to guard him.
And there was Najenda's plan: the Jaegers had to be drawn out, lured away, and engaged. Even reducing their numbers would be beneficial.
But for Zhang Yong, there were different measures. Certainly, Arthur would not allow this. He was an outsider with authority in this world, and it would be expected that he would change the event. Therefore, Zhang Yong was devising his own scheme.
---
Aboard a giant rock above a lake, an eagle flew towards her and landed on Najenda's arm. "So then, seven people have left. That means there is one extra person with the Jaegers. They will arrive here tomorrow at noon, exactly as you predicted, Zhang Yong."
Zhang Yong nodded his head. "As I told you, Boss, they might not actually separate. So I will go alone to stop them."
"'Stop them,' huh." Najenda pulled quietly on her cigar. "I assume you can do that. You're not the type to throw yourself into hell. But if you can't resist Esdeath, you must retreat immediately."
Zhang Yong nodded confidently. "Don't worry, I have a plan." Then he smiled, looking at his hand.
(Array Path Progress: 80%)
(Talisman Path Progress: 81%)
'Good, my main source of power is the Array Path,' Zhang Yong smiled secretly.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind them. He turned to find Akame and Mine approaching, both wearing swimsuits.
"I still don't really approve of your plan," Mine said with displeasure. "But when it comes to the ability to escape, you're the fastest here, even without Tigu."
"It's rare to hear praise from you," Zhang Yong smiled as he closed his eyes. "Should I assume I should feel flattered?"
Akame smiled, waving her arm in the air. "We just don't want you to die because you miscalculated your own strength."
Mine crossed her arms angrily. "Exactly. Don't act recklessly. If you run into any trouble, run away immediately."
Zhang Yong nodded slowly. He had no intention of throwing his life away in any case. "I won't die that easily. But thank you for your... concern, I suppose."
Najenda extinguished her cigar with a press of her finger. "Alright, since everyone agrees on the plan, let's execute it tomorrow. Zhang Yong, remember, your goal is to delay them, not fight to the death."
Zhang Yong nodded. "Understood."
"By the way, Zhang Yong, why do you have your eyes closed?" Akame noticed.
"Oh... that..." Zhang Yong said with a slight tremor, then turned around. "Nothing important." But secretly, Zhang Yong's face was slightly red.
But Akame wasn't about to let it go that easily. "Oh?" She approached him curiously. "Are you embarrassed?"
Zhang Yong sighed. Although he had indeed seen such things in his lives, seeing it directly – not even in one life, but over two lifetimes – was different.
Then immediately, he slapped himself. 'Damn this body and its teenage hormones!'
Instantly, he shook his head vigorously. "No, it's not embarrassment... I'm just thinking about the plan." He tried to keep his voice calm, but the heat on his face didn't completely disappear.
Mine laughed out loud. "Wait, are you embarrassed because we're in swimsuits?"
Zhang Yong froze for a moment before shaking his head. "That's ridiculous! I was just... training myself to use my senses without relying on sight!"
Najenda laughed lightly as she took out a new cigar. "Well, anyway, don't forget that your mission tomorrow is dangerous. Unlike the others, there's no known information about Arthur, and that's also the reason I sent you, even though I've already prepared a countermeasure for Esdeath."
Zhang Yong nodded his head. "I understand."
---
The next day, Zhang Yong had already arrived at the road where Esdeath's group was supposed to cross that day. He had been watching beforehand to ensure the entire group was present and that there were no additional surprises.
Upon hearing the sound of horses, Zhang Yong knew they were coming.
'Good. With my abilities, I can handle four at once. And I've already contacted Zank beforehand. It seems Budo hasn't moved from his position. As expected, it's not easy to mobilize one of the Generals so easily,' Zhang Yong smiled secretly.
He released his spiritual sense and noticed four people. 'Hmm, no change. But knowing Arthur, even for a short while, would he really leave things like this?' He expected either that all the Jaegers would come to eliminate him, or that Arthur would pretend to attack Zhang Yong while leading the others to wipe out the Night Raid.
As he entered the narrow pass, Zhang Yong jumped down and stood before them. "No more games, Arthur."
The horses stopped suddenly, and from the dust emerged Arthur's tall figure, wearing a black cloak with a cold smile playing on his lips.
"Oh, Zhang Yong. No, rather I should call you the Heavenly Demon. I haven't seen you since you were last at the palace," Arthur said in a soft voice.
"If you know who I am, then you should know that even with four Jaegers here, I can eliminate them. Your plan is meaningless. I thought you were smarter," Zhang Yong said with a hint of mockery.
"Oh, really? I'm the one who thought you were smarter. We both know we don't belong to this world. While I try to complete my mission, you appear. While we both know what is happening in this world, I feel anger seeing a fellow outsider intrude upon the story we are supposed to destroy!" Arthur said as he jumped down from his horse.
Zhang Yong didn't move, but his golden sword energy began to flow around him like tongues of flame. "Your mission? You're messing with the fates of this world as if it were a game! But I'm not here to discuss your philosophy. I'm here to end your threat."
Arthur sighed mockingly and snapped his fingers. In an instant, the ground shook beneath Zhang Yong's feet, and an army of over a hundred people began to gather around them.
"This is it? I thought you knew me better," Zhang Yong smiled as he stepped forward.
Memory of Eternal Ice – Frozen Ground
Ice surged around the place, encircling the group, isolating the inside from the outside.
Arthur smiled, completely unperturbed. "Oh? Do you really think this will be enough to stop us?"
Suddenly, the ice began to crack all around them. The people seemed to have grown to a size of three meters, with purple skin and long, whip-like arms.
"What the?!" Zhang Yong was shocked, looking at the transformed monsters. "How could you do this to humans?!"
Arthur rolled his eyes. "Please. As if you're any better. We're all madmen. Do you think 'they' would choose people in their right minds?!"
"'Choose, choose, choose. Everything is a choice to you. Destroying a story? Getting rid of me? Nonsense, one more absurd than the next,'" Zhang Yong said through gritted teeth.
The monsters charged towards Zhang Yong with terrifying speed, their long arms writhing like venomous snakes. But Zhang Yong did not retreat. His blue eyes flashed with killing intent.
Heaven-smashing Sword – Autumn Wind
Zhang Yong lunged forward, his sword gleaming with golden light as he cut the first two monsters in half with a single strike. Black blood sprayed into the air, but the other monsters did not hesitate, surrounding him from all sides.
Heaven-smashing Sword – Twilight Flash
"Is this all you've got?" Zhang Yong mocked as he spun rapidly, waves of sword energy cutting down the monsters one after another.
Arthur laughed from behind the ranks. "Don't underestimate my abilities, my friend. These monsters are not like the ones you've faced before."
Seven-Colored Hellfire – Kalasutra Hell
White flames appeared around Zhang Yong's body and spread, covering everything and devouring everyone.
The white flames consumed the monsters in moments, leaving behind only ashes flying in the air. But Zhang Yong was not at ease. He looked towards the group, but the situation was strange. If they were waiting for him to be distracted, they would have attacked him while he was fighting, but they hadn't moved.
'Wait!' Zhang Yong's eyes widened, and he launched ice spears at the Jaegers.
The spears passed right through them easily. They were illusions. 'It's a trick! He sent them to attack the others while distracting me!'
"Oh, from your expression, it seems you've just realized. Haha," Arthur smiled slyly, looking at Zhang Yong's face.
Zhang Yong turned to leave immediately, but he heard Arthur's voice: "You'd better not leave. You know they're nothing more than characters. Why do you care if they live or die?"
Zhang Yong stopped suddenly upon hearing Arthur's words, his blue eyes flashing with sparks of anger. "'Characters'?" He slowly shook his head, his voice dripping with bitter mockery. "You really don't understand anything, do you?"
'How could this world be mere ink on paper? They are living people, just like us. Since I was born into one of the stories, does that make me mere ink? For someone to read, just as I in turn read the characters?'
Does that make my parents and all the suffering I've been through unreal?
Nonsense! This pain is real enough.
Arthur was not just an outsider like him; he was the embodiment of absolute indifference.
While he himself was struggling to save this world – even if it was fictional – Arthur treated it as merely a canvas to be erased.
"I won't waste any more time with you," Zhang Yong whispered as his eyes closed.
A dark, gloomy black energy exploded from his body, turning the surrounding ice into water.
The Millennium Tree of Life bloomed in Zhang Yong's hand, and the red Ring of a Hundred Thousand Years gleamed.
Third Spirit Ring – Ice Domain
Ice energy exploded from Zhang Yong in turbulent waves, turning the air around him into sharp ice crystals. The ground beneath his feet froze instantly, cracking under the intense cold, until even Arthur's breath turned to white clouds in the frozen air.
"Oh?" Arthur said, still smiling, though his eyes narrowed slightly. "That thing looks familiar, oh , is it the world of peerless martial spirit? Or is it Douluo dalu? Or something i am not familiar with? You really don't hesitate to show all your cards, do you?"
Zhang Yong did not reply. Instead, he raised his hand, his fingers sinking into the air as if grasping an invisible thread, and then he pulled.
Crack!
The ice suddenly split in a straight line towards Arthur, as if the earth itself had cracked from an invisible sword strike.
"Since you've shown something from another world, allow me to show you something," Arthur smiled as he brought a crystal near his mouth and whispered, "Awaken, Beatrice."
Suddenly, the strike collided with an invisible wall and dissipated in an instant. At the same time, an entity of light appeared beside Arthur.
"It looks like this warrants my presence, I suppose."
Beside him appeared a beautiful little girl, eleven or twelve years old. Her wide, sky-blue eyes had irises like pink butterflies. Beatrice's pale cream-colored blonde hair was long and styled into two drill-shaped pigtails resembling springs when pulled.
She wore a pink dress decorated with frills and white edges, with an open front revealing her legs, completely covered by long vertically striped pink and purple stockings. A small crown adorned the right side of Beatrice's large head, a stylish accessory completing her look perfectly. Beatrice also wore pink shoes with butterfly straps, a large pink ribbon adorned the left side of her waist, and a pair of similar ribbons were tied at the tips of her pigtails.
'Impossible... This is?!' Zhang Yong was severely shocked at the sight of the girl.
Zhang Yong looked at Arthur with immense anger. "You despicable, cursed scoundrel! Do you not realize what you have done?! You have stolen a world's child's opportunity! The World's Karma will be severely affected by this! That world will be destroyed!"
Zhang Yong could only rage. The moment a main character loses the world's protection, they would fall outside the bounds of their destiny, which would be an act of rebellion against fate itself, ending in the complete destruction of the entire world!
Zhang Yong was not protecting Tatsumi so that he could defeat the main leader from nothing. Of course, Zhang Yong could eliminate the leader himself, but he cannot. Not because he is unable, but because he must not.
That was Tatsumi's destiny. As long as the world's protection continued for him to fulfill his destiny, the world would survive. But if he died before even carrying out his own destiny and lost that protection, the world would end.
Arthur smiled coldly, as if enjoying Zhang Yong's anger. "World Karma? Destiny? It's all just nonsense. I will roam until the very end, even if I have to burn the entire world to ashes!"
"You're insane!" Zhang Yong shouted, the ice energy around him crashing violently. "Beatrice! Do you not realize what he is doing to you? You are a great spirit in your world. How could you allow yourself to become a tool in his hands?!"
Beatrice did not smile, but she turned her face away and snorted coldly. "Why should I care? He is 'that person' to me. As long as I am with him, nothing else matters, in fact."
In an instant, Beatrice unleashed her spell.
"Shamak!"
Thick black smoke exploded around her, swallowing everything within a twenty-meter radius.
Zhang Yong suddenly felt as if he had lost all sense of his surroundings. He could no longer see or hear anything except the ground beneath his feet. Even the ice he had been controlling seemed to wither in this void.
"Murak!"
Then, Zhang Yong felt as if gravity had disappeared. His body rose into the air like a leaf in the wind, unable to control his movement. At the same moment, he heard Arthur's voice laughing from somewhere in the mist:
"I enjoy watching you resist, but it's boring now. Beatrice, finish him."
"El Minya!"
Forty stakes of purple energy appeared in the air, each radiating a mysterious flame. The stakes shot towards Zhang Yong with terrifying speed, and the moment they struck him, they exploded into hundreds of tiny shards that tore through the air around him.
Arthur smiled and patted Beatrice's head affectionately. "Well done, Beatrice. How about some sweets later?"
Beatrice crossed her arms, frowning and looking away. "It's not like I like sweets, I suppose." But despite her frown, there was a faint red tint on her cheeks.
Nevertheless, suddenly a giant spiritual manifestation rose above Zhang Yong, and a majestic aura radiated around him. "I don't have time to deal with you. I must leave to help the others."
"Oh, really? But let me ask you, what is more important? Saving them, or getting rid of me? I warn you, if you leave here, you will regret leaving me alive. But on the other hand, you are supposed to know that they can survive. And if you go now, you will lose the chance to kill me. But if you don't go... oh, right, you know about Esdeath's trump card, don't you? You have the choice."
Zhang Yong had realized long ago: this person was trying to manipulate his mind. No matter what Zhang Yong thought, one person's life was not equal to eight.
"You think this is a dilemma?" Zhang Yong said in a quiet voice, though it carried a hidden thunder. "Let me show you the difference between us."
In an instant, the light of his Third Spirit Ring exploded around him with unprecedented power.
Memory of Eternal Ice – Frozen Sky
The sky above them turned a deep blue, and a rain of sharp ice needles began to fall heavily, each carrying a fragment of absolute ice.
"Murak!"
Beatrice floated in the air innocently, then shouted again, "Murak!" trying to reduce the gravity around her to stop the rain from hitting Arthur.
Arthur was no longer smiling. "Beatrice, summon the barrier! Now!"
"I'm doing it, in fact!" she replied angrily, but her voice sounded nervous for the first time. A wall of dark magical energy formed around them, but the ice needles pierced through it slowly, like knives passing through thin fabric.
Zhang Yong did not waste time.
Ice Path – Ice Dance
An ice dragon surged towards Arthur. The attack was so fast that Beatrice was caught between the two strikes. Either way, Arthur would be hit.
Arthur shattered a crystal piece and flew backward, not heavily injured despite taking the direct hit. "That's... somewhat despicable."
But Zhang Yong did not care. He turned towards Beatrice, who was trying to regain her balance. "Listen to me carefully. This is the last chance I will give you, Beatrice. You are a great spirit, but you have fallen into this madman's trap. If you stay with him, you will feel nothing but regret."
Beatrice paused for a moment, her pink eyes flickering with internal conflict. "...You don't know anything, in fact!"
But Zhang Yong did not wait for her reply. He knew time was running out. "So be it, then. If i ever go to Subaru's world, I will apologize to him myself."
Zhang Yong began rotating his spiritual energy for the Reincarnation Finger in two opposite directions, just as he looked at Beatrice with deep killing intent.
Path of Cause and Consequence – Sever Causality!
This was an absolute skill, one that concerned the very law of causality. As long as something had a cause, there was a consequence.
The Law of Cause and Consequence was one of the most difficult laws to master in the world, and it also did not affect the physical body, but rather the law itself.
Its strictest condition was that one must perceive all the laws of the person that constitute the 'cause' in order to defeat the person who is the 'consequence'.
In the end, this skill kills that which is not human to begin with. In Beatrice's case, she was nothing more than a great spirit of the elements of darkness and yin, with elements of space and water and wind , and she could not specialize in anything else contrary to her own nature.
Which meant one thing: everything is severable!
A dark blue light exploded from Zhang Yong's eyes, as if the universe itself stopped for a moment.
Beatrice felt a strange vibration in her chest, as if something was being pulled from her forcefully. "W-What is this?!" she cried, trying to touch her chest with trembling hands.
Zhang Yong did not reply. Instead, he gripped his sword with both hands, pressing so hard that blood flowed from his palms.
"Sever."
Shriiiick!
Beatrice's body was cut in two. Her form began to shake violently and waver, as if her very existence was destabilizing.
Arthur screamed, "No! Beatrice!"
But she could no longer hear him. She looked at him, her pink eyes overflowing with tears. "I'm sorry... even though you are 'that person'... but I... left first..."
Then her body turned into specks of white dust that floated towards Arthur and gently touched his face.