Zhao Yao raised his fist and stared at it admirably.
He had put the entire force of his body into delivering that punch, but it did not hurt his hands or fingers at all. The deflective field protected him against it all.
He could not help but laugh, "Damn, I've become undefeatable and untouchable. Guess I can do whatever I want from now."
The deflective field was not impenetrable. There was a limit to the amount of energy it could repel. However, as long as the assault sent his way did not exceed this limit, it will keep him perfectly safe.
By combining its defensive capabilities with physical combat, Zhao Yao has become immensely powerful. Not a hair on him would be harmed, while his opponent would be in for a horrible battering.
The water droplets and vapor in the air regrouped into a dragon again. It circled the sky, close to the ground. This time, it was not growling or snarling at Zhao Yao. It looked at him solemnly.
"Kid, what's this power you have?"
"Little worm," Zhao Yao responded, using the same term the dragon had previously referred to him as, "My body is indestructible. Even a nuclear missile can't touch this."
The dragon struck again.
This time, it did not charge straight at Zhao Yao. Instead, it continued to glide in a circle, rapidly firing high-pressure jets of water from every surface.
The jets pierced through the air like giant arrows. The ones that hit the ground wrecked the asphalt of the road with a sickening crack.
The dragon rained a barrage of them in Zhao Yao's way, gradually losing its massive size in the process.
Even a truck would be shattered into pieces with an assault of this magnitude. Nessie believed that there was no way that Zhao Yao could bear such an attack.
However, there he stood, still completely unharmed.
He had managed to repel the water jets, which now rocketed straight for the dragon, blasting him apart yet again.
Nessie was in a shock, "How can this be? He doesn't have weaknesses at all. What is his power? Is he some kind of tank?"
With a simple point of his finger, ripples warped the air before Zhao Yao's fingertip, destructing the next onslaught of water jets.
Nessie felt his left eyelid twitch.
"Who is this kid? He can teleport, vanish, cast illusions, and now, it turns out he's a f**cking fantastic fighter," he glared.
Zhao Yao grinned at the dragon.
"You are really bad at this, dude. You've had your turn, now watch me!" Zhao Yao said, beginning to crouch, "Iron Palm Wave!"
With that command, he launched himself towards the dragon with a loud boom. The impact of his take-off created a large crater to appear on the asphalt he had stood on.
Zhao Yao raised his right fist, then swung it downwards with all his might. A deafening crack filled the air as he sent a bolt of energy hurtling towards the dragon.
Once impact was made, its gigantic head exploded into liquid smithereens again.
The spectacle looked lethal, but it only damaged Nessie's morale, not his body. The dragon was not him. It was how he shaped large volumes of water.
After Zhao Yao destroyed its head, its shape shifted into a spectacular wall of water.
"If I can't touch you, I'll drown you."
The roar of the surf could be heard as the massive wave rushed towards Zhao Yao, swallowing him whole.
"Drowning, huh? That's cute," he chuckled, "Watch me unleash my Heaven Wrecking Thunder!
He raised both fists, then struck them outwards to cast force fields. The two orbs exploded when they collided with the tall wave of water, causing an eruption of droplets to spray onto the ground like a mega fountain.
Zhao Yao ambled through the explosion, unperturbed. Nessie aimed another water jet right at his head, but it was repelled and sent right back when it got close to him.
"Hammer of steel!" Zhao Yao yelled.
He then threw a punch at the new form that the water was morphing into.
Nessie could feel his head start to hurt.
"Stop screaming out random names for your powers, you idiot!" he yelled.
"What do you know about my powers?" Zhao Yao shouted back, "I'm the undefeated. I can do whatever I want. Every name comes to me naturally as I use the power. It's a very authentic and personal process!"
"Watch my Super Dimensional Breaker Phoenix Fist!" he shrieked with every last ounce of breath from his lungs.
"What the f**k is that?!"
"None of your business, weakling! I'm the champion, I do what I want."
With a loud boom, the dragon's body was shattered into water drops once again.
In the relative safety near the cafe, Ah Wei was watching the fight with his mouth wide open. He had battled Nessie before. On a good day, he might be able to ward off his assaults. Just now, back at base, he was only able to escape because of Yue Shan's intervention. Now, with Nessie's dramatically expanded size, he would be done for if he had to face him.
Nessie was extremely powerful in Ah Wei's eyes.
However, he seemed as insignificant as an ant to Zhao Yao, who was effortlessly driving back the endless water jets that came his way.
Nessie's attacks were as useless as Zhao Yao's punches and kicks were mighty. His reflexes were instant and his moves were destructive. His volley of assaults made it impossible for Nessie to reassemble the water drops into a new form.
Xiao Shi Yu was also in a state of shock.
"I thought you said that they were highly dangerous fugitives. Then how…?" she started.
Ah Wei shot her an awkward smile, "I wasn't lying. It's just that Zhao Yao is even more powerful."
"Zhao Yao? Powerful?" Shi Yu's voice trailed off as her attention landed back on the figure in the distance, which now seemed unfamiliar to her.
Ah Wei was no stranger to Shi Yu's identity, so he did not hesitate to tell her more about the fugitives.
"The four of them broke into headquarters and were surrounded by hundreds of the most elite fighters, among them more than 30 apostles. They had firepower. They had stamina. They were seriously dangerous. I ran when I could," he elaborated.
"An apostle's power on the battlefield depends largely on the supercat's abilities. Of a hundred cats, only one or two would boast something truly damaging. But look at Zhao Yao. He instantly KO-ed two of them when he appeared. The remaining two can do him no harm. While that dragon looks powerful, he can't seem to handle him either."
"S**t!" Ah Wei suddenly raised his voice, an anxious expression on his face, "That water-bender is escaping!"
On the other end of the street, Sun Meng was still shielding her face with both hands. She was pale with worry as the battle stretched on. She had to dig her heels into the ground to stop being driven back by the waves of energy around her.
With great difficulty, she opened her eyes to peek through her fingers.
The fighting was not going as expected at all.
"How can Zhao Yao be so powerful?" she thought uneasily.
She had believed that her team was unbeatable. She would never have imagined that this one guy could yield so much destruction.
They had come here ready to crush a helpless little lizard, but it turned out that it was Godzilla after all.
She could see and hear the pedestrians near her yelling in fright. Most of them were confused about what had happened. They could hardly see through all that water spraying everywhere. They assumed that a fire hydrant had been knocked to the ground by a car.
Sun Meng opened God of Death's WeChat group chat with trembling hands, hoping to contact him. All his parasitic hosts were added to that group so that he was able to see new messages, no matter who he was actively controlling.
"Hey, God of Death, where are your hosts?" Sun Meng yelled into her phone, "We need backup! Nessie can't do this much longer."
A middle-aged man was standing the intersection near Sun Meng, staring unblinkingly at the showdown. He was one of the hosts sent here to assist the main host in executing the cat cafe raid. The main host was always supported by a dozen others.
All of them were here to launch an attack on Zhao Yao's cafe, but it was obvious that that was not going to happen.
God of Death sighed deeply when he listened to Sun Meng's urgent message.
"I'm sorry."
That was the message he replied her with. The two words got Sun Meng shaking with rage.
"What do you mean by 'I'm sorry'?! Just dispatch your hosts here! We have a plan. Just stick to it," she shouted.
"I'm sorry," God of Death repeated in his next message, "I am unwilling to make enemies with a monster like that in the foreseeable future. From now, we will be halting all operations in Jiangmen City. From today, all my hosts here will undergo hibernation to avoid detection. Goodbye and good luck."
Sun Meng's eyes glazed over the words again and again and only stopped when the group chat was deleted.
She let out a frustrated scream.
The man who stood at the intersection had barely finished deleting the WeChat group when he raised his head and looked around in confusion.
"What am I doing here?"
In the midst of the battle, Nessie's dragon was growing smaller and smaller in size.
Every time the spray of water regrouped to form a new dragon, it was blasted apart again by Zhao Yao's punches. At one point, however, it stopped reassembling and remained as waterdrops that battered the ground.
This was not a sign of Nessie giving up.
It was just a cover for him to dart into the sewers undetected, where he could head straight to Zhao Yao's cafe.
He was escaping!