Chapter 164: Influence of Higher Being
The armored man suddenly turned around.
Nobody’s smile disappeared.
The man’s face had changed. His eyes were glowing faintly. The energy beneath his armor had become unstable.
Nobody stared. "...That’s not good."
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Critical Warning]
External distortion becoming unstable.
Target may lose control.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody looked toward Rian. "Stay back."
Rian nodded.
Blossom moved in front of him. "Atta!"
Nobody looked at the bunny. "Good."
The armored man raised both fists.
The villain suddenly backed away. "Wait..."
Nobody noticed that the villain wasn’t smiling anymore. "You said you could control him."
The armored man’s head slowly turned toward the villain.
The villain froze. "...Why are you looking at me?"
Nobody’s eyes narrowed.
The armored man took one step toward the villain.
The villain immediately stepped backward. "Hey!"
Another step.
"I said Stop!"
The armored man’s breathing became heavier.
Nobody watched carefully. "So..." He slowly lowered his crowbars. "You weren’t controlling him."
The villain looked terrified. "I..."
"You were just using him."
The villain said nothing.
Nobody shook his head. "That’s what I thought."
The armored man suddenly roared. The sound echoed throughout the warehouse.
The villain turned and ran.
"Wait!" Nobody stared. "...Seriously?"
The villain sprinted toward the emergency exit. Nobody looked at the armored man. Then toward the fleeing villain. He had a choice to chase the criminal or stop the enhanced man before he completely lost control.
Nobody sighed. "System."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Decision Required]
Primary Mission:
Protect Rian
Secondary Objective:
Neutralize Threat
Tertiary Objective:
Capture Criminal
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody shook his head. "Yeah." He raised his crowbars again. "I know what I’m choosing."
The armored man charged.
Nobody stepped forward.
The villain escaped through the emergency door. Nobody didn’t follow. Because the armored man was now the immediate threat.
Nobody rushed toward him. The armored fist came swinging.
Nobody jumped. He rotated through the air and landed on the man’s shoulder. The armored man tried grabbing him. Nobody struck the man’s wrist. Ice spread across the joint. The hand stopped.
Nobody immediately kicked off the shoulder. He landed behind the man. Then he slammed both frost crowbars against the back of the armored knees.
The man’s legs buckled. He dropped to one knee.
Nobody took a deep breath. "You’re not the enemy I came here for." He raised his crowbars. "But you’re standing between me and Rian."
The armored man slowly looked back.
Nobody’s eyes narrowed. "So I’m ending this." The frost surrounding his crowbars intensified. Blossom’s petals began swirling around him.
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Combined Effect Detected]
Frost Element
+
Fortune Petal Shift
Attack probability increased.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Finally."
He stepped forward. "Let’s see if luck can break a tank."
The armored man roared.
Nobody charged. And this time...He wasn’t aiming for the armor. He was aiming for the cracks.
......
Nobody’s frost-covered crowbars were raised. The armored man remained on one knee. For a brief moment, neither of them moved. The only sound was the heavy breathing of the enhanced man.
Blossom Bunny hopped beside Nobody. "Atta..."
Nobody glanced down. "Yeah." He tightened his grip. "Let’s finish this."
The armored man suddenly pushed himself upward. The movement was so powerful that the floor beneath his knee cracked.
Nobody immediately stepped back. The man’s enormous fist came forward.
Nobody crossed his crowbars. The punch collided with them. The force shoved him backward. His boots scraped against the floor. He didn’t fly this time. Instead, he leaned into the impact. "Not this time."
Nobody suddenly twisted both crowbars. The frost energy around them intensified.
Ice began spreading across the armored man’s fist. The man tried pulling his hand away.
Nobody didn’t let him. He stepped forward and struck the armored wrist with the second crowbar.
The armored man’s grip weakened. Nobody pulled one crowbar free. Then he swung it directly toward the man’s elbow.
The weapon connected. A thin layer of frost immediately covered the joint. The armored man staggered.
Nobody’s eyes sharpened. "Your armor is tough." He moved around the man’s side. "But the joints aren’t."
The armored man swung his other arm. Nobody ducked. The punch passed over him. Nobody struck the back of the man’s knee. The armored man dropped slightly. Nobody immediately struck the other knee.
This time, the man almost lost his balance.
Blossom bounced excitedly. "Atta ta ta!"
Nobody laughed. "Exactly!" A few pink petals drifted around his helmet.
The armored man’s next step landed awkwardly. His foot slipped.
Nobody instantly moved. He jumped forward and drove both frost crowbars into the armored man’s chest. The impact forced the massive man backward. He crashed into several stacked crates. The crates toppled around him.
Rian stared. "Did you do that?"
Nobody looked at him. "I had some help."
Blossom puffed out her tiny chest proudly. "Atta!"
Nobody pointed at Blossom. "Yep. My partner did."
The armored man emerged from the fallen crates. The metal armor was still intact. But frost had spread across several sections.
Nobody stared. "...Still standing, huh?"
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Target Condition]
Armor Integrity:
87%
Mobility:
Reduced
Frost Accumulation:
31%
External Distortion:
Increasing
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody rubbed his chin. "So the more I freeze him, the more unstable that weird energy becomes."
The System didn’t answer immediately.
Then another notification appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Observation Confirmed]
(｡- .•)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody grinned. "Good enough."
The armored man roared again. This time, the sound carried something different. It was the feeling of pain. Not rage.
Nobody’s expression became serious. He lowered his crowbars slightly. "...You’re hurting."
The armored man stared at him. His glowing eyes flickered. For half a second,the monstrous appearance seemed to disappear.
Nobody saw a frightened human beneath the armor. Then the distortion surged again. The man’s body tensed.
Nobody frowned. "Whoever did this to you..." He raised his crowbars. "...really messed you up."
The armored man charged. Nobody didn’t attack immediately. He waited.
Five meters.
Four.
Three.
Two.
The man’s fist came forward. Nobody stepped sideways. The punch missed. He moved behind the armored man. Then he struck the same knee again.
The armor cracked slightly. Not broken but damaged.
The System appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Armor Weak Point]
Left Knee Joint
Structural Integrity:
62%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody’s eyes widened. "Oh." He smiled. "System, you beautiful little cheater."
The System responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[User should not rely entirely
on System assistance.]
Also does the user wanna die?
(ㆆࡇㆆ")
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody shrugged. "Too late." He raised the crowbar. The armored man turned.
Nobody jumped. The massive fist swung upward. Nobody passed over it. While airborne, he rotated his body. Then brought the frost crowbar down directly onto the weakened knee joint.
The impact forced the armored man’s leg downward. The man dropped to one knee.
Nobody landed several meters away. He looked at Blossom. "Again."
Blossom hopped forward. "Atta ta!"
The petals began circling Nobody.
The System displayed another notification.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Fortune Petal Shift]
Probability Manipulation:
Active
Weak-point strike probability:
Increased
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody smiled. "Perfect."
The armored man attempted to stand. His damaged knee trembled.
Nobody rushed forward. He swung the crowbar. The armored man raised his arm to block. Nobody suddenly changed direction. Instead of striking the knee, he attacked the other leg.
The armored man tried moving. His foot caught on a fallen piece of metal. He stumbled.
Nobody’s eyes widened. "Blossom!"
"Atta!"
Nobody immediately redirected his attack. He struck the damaged knee. The frost-covered crowbar hit directly against the weakened armor. A visible crack spread across the protective plating. The armored man stumbled backward.
Nobody didn’t stop. He struck again.
And again.
Not wildly. Every attack was deliberate. Each strike targeted the same weakened area. The armor finally gave way. A section of the plating broke apart.
The armored man dropped heavily onto one knee.
Nobody stepped back. He wasn’t celebrating. Instead, he looked at the man carefully. The strange energy beneath the armor was now moving violently.
The System warned him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Danger]
External distortion reaching critical instability.
Recommended:
Do not continue direct attacks.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody frowned. "...Why?"
The System answered.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Further damage may cause
uncontrolled energy discharge]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody immediately stopped. "Then I can’t just keep hitting him."
Rian looked confused. "What does that mean?"
Nobody looked toward him. "It means this guy could lose control."
Blossom stopped hopping. "Atta..."
Nobody looked at the armored man.
The massive fighter was breathing heavily. His fists were shaking. The energy around him flickered.
Nobody slowly lowered his crowbars. "Hey."
The armored man looked at him.
Nobody spoke calmly. "I’m not here to kill you."
The man remained silent.
"I’m here for the kid." Nobody pointed toward Rian. "He doesn’t have anything to do with this."
The armored man’s glowing eyes flickered again. For a moment, the energy around him weakened.
Nobody noticed. "That’s it." He took one careful step forward. "You don’t have to keep fighting."
The villain was gone. The warehouse had become strangely quiet. Only Nobody, Rian, Blossom and the armored man remained.
Nobody took another step.
The armored man’s breathing slowed. Then suddenly...The strange energy surged. The man’s head snapped upward. His body began trembling.
Nobody’s expression changed. "...System?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Critical Distortion]
External influence attempting to reinforce target.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody gripped his crowbars. "You’re kidding."
The armored man’s entire body began glowing. The floor beneath him cracked.
Rian stepped backward. "Bunny Uncle..."
Nobody raised one hand. "Stay behind me."
Blossom immediately hopped beside Rian. "Atta!"
Nobody stared at the armored man. "Looks like talking didn’t work." He raised both frost crowbars. "Fine."
Cold mist began spreading across the floor.
Nobody lowered his stance. "But I’m not going to let some unknown higher being decide what happens to you."
The armored man roared.
Nobody’s eyes narrowed. "I’ll stop you without destroying you." He looked at Blossom. "And this time..." A small smile appeared beneath his helmet. "...let’s make our luck count." The petals began swirling faster.
The clash was coming to an end.