Chapter 597 Primacy of Rules
Back when Chen Xiaolian was escaping from Zero City, he had picked up a bunch of Electronic Guardian fragments. After returning, he handed those fragments to Roddy, who was proficient in the mechatronic field. After the mecha maniac dismantled and modified the fragments, he patched up and restored a few Electronic Guardians. This was one of them.
Appearance wise, it appeared more or less similar to the real deal. As for its authenticity… …
Chen Xiaolian was not that well informed about the details. However, according to Roddy: It should be enough to scare others.
It was something related to the system’s authority. It was only natural that this ‘replica’ Electronic Guardian was without the functions of the original. According to Roddy: It is unable to display many of the powers that the original Electronic Guardians should have. However, its basic activation and some of its basic movements have been perfectly restored.
At the same time, Roddy, after performing a series of detailed and stringent tests on it in the base, found that this replica Electronic Guardian would naturally, after its activation, emit a special signal.
This signal was likely the equivalent of an ID tag.
At this very moment, the replica Electronic Guardian before Chen Xiaolian, after its activation, after the flash of green light across its compound eyes, had released a signal exclusive to ‘Electronic Guardians’.
At the same time, mechanical tentacles emerged one after another, spreading out in every direction…
The entire colosseum fell into a state of silence. All the monsters appeared as though they had encountered their natural predator. They halted their steps, not moving forward at all. Seeing their somewhat fearful expressions, Chen Xiaolian knew his gamble had paid off.
This was the deterring power of rules.
The rules!
Take a person possessing only an average body and average combat skills. By wearing a police uniform, that person would gain a certain power of deterrence when facing ordinary people or even criminals.
Naturally, that power of deterrence did not come from his own body. Rather, it was the uniform he wore… it was the power behind the police uniform.
It was the rules. It symbolized the might and authority of a nation.
At that moment, this replica Electronic Guardian which could only perform some basic movements – strength wise, even if a genuine Electronic Guardian were to appear here to face off against the horde of monsters within the colosseum, those monsters, with their strength, would be able to casually rip the Electronic Guardian into pieces.
However, the monsters dared not step forward.
The reason for that? Although there was only one Electronic Guardian, it represented the might of the rules.
It represented… … the system!
The colosseum gradually grew congested with monsters. The spawning points behind the monsters worked non-stop to continuously spawn the monsters out and the colosseum grew increasingly packed… …
Their number continued to grow… …
The colosseum was very large. Looking around, he saw that the arena and the stands were already bursting with various types of monsters. A rough count showed that the number of monsters had exceeded 30,000.
The number was still increasing.
A typical stadium could accommodate tens of thousands of people. At that moment, there were tens of thousands of monsters within the colosseum.
Time ticked away……
The expression on Chen Xiaolian’s face was that of one who was facing a great enemy. He knew all too well that the deterring force of the rules was not without limit.
When the two sides reached a certain level, a qualitative difference could emerge.
If what he faced were humans with a conventional sense of wisdom, this power of deterrence may have a greater effect.
However, at this very moment, the ones swarming the colosseum were… … monsters.
These were bloodthirsty and violent monsters. Their level of intellect was somewhat lesser compared to humans. For these creatures, the majority of them were not the type to utilize their heads to mull over whatever issues they face. Rather, they were driven by instincts – unquestionably, ‘killing’ was something that heavily influenced their instincts.
After three minutes had gone by, Chen Xiaolian could gradually sense the increasing emotion of impatience in the air.
The colosseum was already bursting with monsters. There was no more space for them even in the surrounding stands.
The monsters spawned out from the back attempted to moved forward. They had even begun to get into conflicts with the other monsters, swiping and biting at each other in a minor way.
“There are too many… …” Chen Xiaolian sucked in a breath of cool air.
A wolf may not have the courage to challenge a lion.
The same may hold true for two.
What about three?
Four?
If so… … tens of thousands?
At present, there were tens of thousands of violent monsters packed tightly within the colosseum.
Would they dare challenge the lone Electronic Guardian lying in the centre of the colosseum?
The deterring power of the rules was not infinite.
Chen Xiaolian sighed to himself. “Hossein, you’d better hurry up… …”
…
Hossein was engaged in an intense combat.
From the moment he opened the door to the second stage, he had had to engage in an intense combat.
The one comfort Hossein could take in was that the type of combat he had to face within this second stage was not against a human wave tactic.
Rather, it was a certain enemy.
As long as it was against one specific enemy, this knight was confident that he had the chance to emerge victorious.
After opening the door to the second stage, he was greeted with a huge rocky platform.
Beside the platform was a bottomless abyss. On the other side of the platform was a mountain peak piercing its way through the sea of clouds.
The platform was about 100 metres wide. Standing on that platform was a figure in an attire resembling that of the warriors from ancient Greek mythology.
Truth be told, the moment his opponent spoke up, Hossein’s heart had begun to sink deep down.
“You ant who dares trespass into the realm of the Gods, you shall face mine wrath, the wrath of Ares!”
Realm of the Gods?
Ares?
Those words, and the legendary appearance of the attire worn by his opponent… … could Hossein not deduce his opponent’s identity?
The Gods of Olympia…
The God of War, Ares?
“Damn it. A game with vampires managed to invite the God of War, Ares, to fight? This is too illogical.”
Raising his sword, Hossein charged.
…
After getting knocked back by Ares’ spear for the sixth time, Hossein fell to the ground. Just one more step and he would have fallen down the endless abyss. At that time, however, Hossein’s heart had already stabilized.
This ‘God of War, Ares’ was not as powerful as he had imagined.
Naturally, this opponent’s strength was not weak. By Hossein’s judgement, this opponent of his was definitely above [A+] class. However, Hossein was unable to accurately determine whether or not he had reached [S] class.
Because this opponent seemed very odd.
Unquestionably, he possessed great strength. However, his proficiency in combat appeared somewhat inferior.
He was just like a new born animal. He had not grasped the intricacies of combat and killing and was fighting through pure instinct.
Even so, his great strength allowed him to, in the beginning, easily suppress Hossein. That was especially true during the early stages of their fight. When Hossein had yet to properly determine his opponent’s level of combat skill, he had mostly chosen to take this opponent’s attacks head on, resulting in quite a number of losses.
However, after more than ten engagements with this foe, Hossein realized something odd.
This God of War, Ares, his level of combat proficiency was, within this battle, rapidly improving. He was rapidly making up for his own shortcomings.
In the beginning, he had depended on only his instincts and strength to forcibly suppress Hossein. Gradually, however, he grew familiar with the usage of skills, dodging, and feints. He grew more accustomed to maximizing the effects of the amount of strength he poured into each attack. In fact, every time he attacked, he grew more skilled in terms of the amount of strength used and the amount of force generated.
It appeared that, within this short battle, this God of War, Ares, was rapidly developing.
However… … his strength was diminishing.
In the beginning, his strength was most certainly above that of [A+] class. Later on, he gradually became more skilled. Yet, his strength fell as a result.
After he was knocked down, Hossein got up and made a silent estimate. He concluded that his opponent’s strength had ‘deteriorated’ to [A] class.
“Interesting… … what is happening here?” Hossein wiped off the blood on his mouth with the back of his hand as he stared at this opponent before him.
Undoubtedly, this was not the real ‘God of War’. Although this opponent before him was brimming with an aura of divinity, he was most certainly not the God of War, Ares.
Although he had grown more skilful, making him harder to engage, it instead made things easier for Hossein.
As a knight skilled in combat, Hossein was not fearful of a skilled opponent. Skills would have no advantage against him. Rather, the rampaging strength of his opponent in the early stages of their battle was what had given him a considerable amount of trouble.
Finally, for the seventh time, the two of them clashed. This time, Hossein was not the only one to be sent tumbling backward. Ares had also tumbled backward.
This time, the clash between the two of them ended with a tie.
…
“It seems this little experiment has failed. Skills and strength. How to balance the two? Your experiment is clearly unsuccessful. Overly pursuing a balance between strength and skill had instead turned this test subject into a mediocre product.”
A voice spoke out from behind a crystal ball. It contained a faint hint of ridicule.
“A small experiment failed, so what? What about you? Getting tricked by a little girl in a game… … I should be the one asking you, you came to my place to ridicule me? What about you? Are you done counting the hairs?”
“… … …”
…
“Enough. Although I do not know why your strength is deteriorating… … all I need to do is to kill you, right?” Hossein got up from the ground, gasping and smiling. He continued, “I guess, if I were to hold on some more, your strength would deteriorate even further. Although that would make it easier for me to kill you, I won’t be waiting any longer. I need to hurry up and save my companions… now that you have deteriorated to this level, it just so happens that I can now kill the you at this level. Now then… … prepare to die!”
Hossein took a deep breath and mumbled, “I never imagined that I would use this attack once more… … however, this is not the outside world. I am not exactly… … breaking my oath.”
After saying that, he suddenly raised his hand forward. At that moment, there was a stern expression on this knight’s face. A look of sacredness and majesty flashed across his eyes.
In an instant, his body seemingly became enveloped within an aura of holiness.
Within the palm of his outstretched hand, something emerged… …
It was a pure, white feather!
…