Joachim wisely chose not to press the issue, habitually pushing up his glasses as he refocused his attention on the battlefield.
Down in the arena, Kiana was completely oblivious to the psychic damage her trash talk had inflicted upon the spectators.
She was laser-focused on the "liquefying" construct, feet planted firmly on the ground, arms wrapped securely around Theresa's waist, ready to hoist her aunt onto her shoulders and bolt at a moment's notice.
Ten thousand threads... five thousand... three thousand...
One by one, the golden threads were slipping through the construct's body, and its range of motion was steadily increasing.
Almost there.
Theresa and Kiana kept their eyes glued to the construct, mentally counting down to the breaking point. Behind them, Bianka and the rest of the squad were poised to provide support.
"Here it comes!" The moment arrived abruptly. The last few dozen threads didn't slip away; they were snapped by sheer force.
Just as Theresa had predicted, the instant the construct broke free, she lost her counter-balance and momentarily stumbled, losing control of her body.
The simulated Shu lunged forward, its semi-liquefied body arcing through the air like a silver blur. It shot toward Theresa, aiming to capitalize on this fleeting opportunity to eliminate its target.
But Kiana was faster.
At the exact same moment Theresa lost her footing, Kiana yanked her to the side, revealing Bianka, who had been charging forward in perfect sync with the construct's lunge.
He's trying to bypass my guard?!
Without a shred of hesitation, both the construct and Bianka unleashed a full-power punch.
The two fists collided. It wasn't an even match. Bianka's blow completely obliterated the simulated Shu.
"Hiss..." Joachim sucked in a sharp breath, adjusting his glasses to get a better look at the semi-liquid construct being blasted into a cloud of scattered nanomachine units.
He couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he, clad in his Arahato armor, took a punch like that. He'd probably be shattered into a hundred scattered pieces, just like Arahato's residential district.
Without a doubt, if it had been him, he would have been forced to blood-escape, much to Bianka's frustration. But the construct wasn't going to be defeated that easily.
Bianka's punch had atomized most of its torso, turning it into a silver mist, but the scattered nanomachines didn't fall to the ground.
They hovered in mid-air for a split second, then, as if pulled by invisible strings, they bypassed Bianka's body from all sides.
Avoid the main force, break down into smaller units.
Bypass the strongest shield, and strike the most vulnerable target behind it.
The construct's objective was brutally clear—reduce their numbers.
It must have gathered data from the fight against the five Emperor-class Honkai Beasts. It knew there was a massive disparity in individual power levels, so its top priority was to start picking them off.
Its body reconverged in the air, forming dozens of slender, silver streams. They slithered through the air like a nest of vipers, swarming past Bianka from both sides and overhead, all rushing toward Bronya's position at incredible speed.
A blast of cold air erupted from Bianka, freezing most of the silver streams attempting to slip past her. But one of the streams was stronger than she'd anticipated and managed to break through her defensive line.
"Bronya!" Theresa, having just regained her balance, immediately hurled Judah at Bronya, hoping to use it as a shield.
Too slow... If the silver stream could be stopped by such a simple method, it never would have broken through Bianka's defense in the first place.
In the blink of an eye, the silver stream reached Bronya and effortlessly passed through her... illusion.
The stream rapidly reconsolidated into the construct's humanoid form, skidding to a halt as it stared in confusion at the completely unharmed Bronya.
Its attention then shifted to Sirin, who was standing with Frélle. The previous Honkai Beasts hadn't gathered much data on these two, and now, it had just wasted a rare opportunity because of it.
And...
The construct looked down at its own right arm, which was now completely gone. The cut was smooth as a mirror, reflecting a metallic gleam. Even though it hadn't fully formed a solid shape when passing through the formation, the sword strike had still managed to inflict substantial damage.
Perhaps, more so than Bianka, the sword wielded by that child is the greater threat.
The construct attempted to draw nanomachines from the floor to repair the damage, but failed. In that instant, both the sword and its wielder, Li Sushang, were elevated to an extremely high priority in its behavioral logic.
"It's learning?" Shu, watching from the stands, noticed the construct's newfound caution with a hint of surprise.
Shouldn't the built-in AI for something like this have pre-loaded data and a relatively fixed set of behaviors? Did it really need to gather data on the fly?
"The construct's AI core uses a self-adaptive learning algorithm," Joachim explained, pushing up his glasses without taking his eyes off the battlefield, his speech unconsciously quickening. "We did pre-load it with thousands of combat data templates, but its true core is the algorithm it uses when faced with situations that can't be handled by existing data.
"It samples the battlefield in real-time after every reset, analyzes the data instantly, and re-prioritizes threat levels. This more closely resembles real combat and helps cultivate the trainees' battlefield awareness..."
"Surprise attack," Shu said, his gaze shifting to Li Sushang, who had held back until this very moment to deliver that decisive blow.
It was an effective strategy. Just like in their last fight against him, Bronya had immediately designated Li Sushang's role—a hidden trump card.
The Edge of Taixuan was incredibly powerful, possessing a "true damage" mechanic that bypassed external defenses to strike at the spirit itself. By comparison, Li Sushang's conventional combat ability with the Xuanyuan Sword wasn't particularly high.
Instead of chipping away at the enemy's health, it was far more effective to save her strength for a single, massive burst finisher.
That way, she could, as she had just done, land a devastating blow when the enemy was at its most complacent, completely changing the tide of the battle.
Just like now.
After losing its right arm to Li Sushang's blade, the simulated Shu's behavior had undergone a noticeable shift.
Its threat assessment model was recalculating in real-time, weighing Bianka's absolute frontal dominance, Theresa's crowd control, and the irreparable damage from Li Sushang's Xuanyuan Sword...
Three variables warred within its decision tree. Finally, it made a choice that caused Bronya's eyes to narrow.