Chapter 31: This Is All for Love! (Part Two)

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“Waaaaaah——”

After Xia Li kicked him hard between the legs with speed too fast for the eye to follow, Quan Chunyou let out an extremely terrifying scream of pain.

Then he clutched his crotch, flew backward, and smashed hard onto the floor.

Unfortunately, Xia Li had not chosen the right angle for that kick, so he stopped less than two feet from the edge of the arena stage.

“Despicable! Scum! Inhuman demon! Damn ‘Fallen Imperial Princess,’ do you even have a conscience?!”

Indignant shouts immediately rang through the entire spectator stands, but Xia Li merely let out a long, satisfied breath and paid those shouts no mind at all.

According to the experience she had accumulated in her previous life as “Xia Li” from watching countless transformation battle anime such as Light X Pretty Girl or Pretty X Girl Warrior, that bastard just now had clearly been carrying out a standard transformation sequence.

Although in anime and tokusatsu the IQ-deficient villains always watched the other side finish transforming before starting to fight, Xia Li, whether in her past life or this one, was a heroine whose IQ was online.

As the heroine, launching a preemptive strike while the other side was transforming was not a problem at all, was it?

Where did “despicable” even come from?

“D-damn it…” Quan Chunyou, still clutching his crotch, let out a pained sound.

Strangely, for some reason his voice had become a good deal thinner and sharper than before.

“I will definitely correct your corrupt soul, ‘Fallen Imperial Princess’!”

Careful. That guy’s transformation is still in progress! Weeping of the Shadow warned.

“Huh? Even if there’s no invincible-during-transformation setting, it still can’t be interrupted directly?” Xia Li was startled.

Before she could launch her next attack, however, the petals and hearts surrounding Quan Chunyou had already all scattered.

The person standing there now… no, it should be “she,” wore a red-and-white helmet with a transparent visor.

The outfit had become a golden one-piece miniskirt that mixed the features of a plastic bodysuit and armor, complete with a lightning emblem, plus a complimentary little leather whip, a pair of high-heeled thigh boots, the longsword already in hand, and a strange little pistol with a spindle-shaped barrel painted in bright red and green.

Of course, the biggest changes were the sudden appearance of waist-length wavy golden hair and the two abrupt extra masses at the waist…

“This… a transformation performed with a UR Servant Card can even directly grant E-plus cups?” Xia Li stared at the two large spheres respectively labeled “E” and “MC2” with an “=” connecting them in the middle and asked in a daze.

Naturally, because remnants of the former “Xia Li” still existed in her consciousness, she at least held back from saying I want that too.

“Uh, because Extra-Rational Power isn’t omnipotent either. The law of conservation of mass still can’t be violated,” Weeping of the Shadow explained.

“The difference between male and female physiques means certain portions of matter have to be filled in elsewhere… otherwise, if they were converted directly into energy, it would pose a serious danger to the human body.

Changing back afterward would also be inconvenient.”

“I get it.

But why this kind of transformation?

My Lunene was clearly just…”

“This UR Servant Card is probably at least three-star.

Its effects are extremely strong… but a transformation like this was most likely cooked up by Golden Age people to please the bloodthirsty spectators who participated in the Death Games, based on their aesthetic preferences,” Weeping of the Shadow also sounded somewhat… awkward.

“In any case, a three-star UR Servant Card, even when used on oneself in the least effective way, will still produce an extremely powerful effect.

You must be extremely careful!”

Unlike the uneasy Xia Li and Weeping of the Shadow, Quan Chunyou’s fans in the stands—especially a portion of the female fans who had not been particularly active just now—burst into an incomparably excited roar.

Hearts were practically leaping out of many of their eyes.

“It’s out! It’s out! This is Big Brother’s… no, Big Sister’s most gorgeous transformation, the scientific hero ‘Power-Up Lady’!” some fanatic fan shouted through a megaphone.

“Come on, Big Sister!

Let the black-hearted, rotten-lunged ‘Fallen Imperial Princess’ witness the true power of a superhero!”

“You… you forced me to do this!” Although a dense citrus scent was rapidly spreading among most of the female spectators, Quan Chunyou clearly was not enjoying the current situation very much.

“But… even after becoming this shameful appearance, I will still thoroughly correct you into Mother’s proper daughter!”

“This… is that even human speech?” Xia Li was completely stunned by the other party’s marvelous logic.

“Burning sea of blood, in the name of justice!” Quan Chunyou raised the little pistol that looked like a toy and fired a scorching energy beam.

“Take this, Omega Gun!”

Although quite a few energy weapons leftover from the Golden Age still existed on the planet Elysia, this “toy gun” still delivered a huge shock to Xia Li.

The instant she leapt aside, that energy beam evaporated a crimson pit the size of a washbasin right where she had been standing!

According to the original Xia Li’s experience, firepower of this level was practically on par with the heavy ion cannons the Imperial Army used as company-level support weapons.

“This guy is going too far!” Weeping of the Shadow muttered.

“If that kind of excess firepower lands directly on a person, even if the arena is fitted with the near-death teleport system manufactured in the past, it probably won’t have time to work.

This could actually kill someone!”

“Yeah, this is troublesome now.” Xia Li bit her lip and swung her longsword with all her strength.

“Life and Death Bound!”

A great mass of surging black mist wrapped around Quan Chunyou like a pack of snarling, clawing ghosts.

Anyone else in this situation would have become a withered corpse in a few seconds.

But after the time of two heartbeats, a small whirlwind tinted red, yellow, and green suddenly smashed the black mist apart.

When the whirlwind vanished, a certain extremely shamefully dressed individual still stood there completely unharmed, the belt on the miniskirt flashing continuously like traffic lights.

“Ah, what an evil move!

But it’s useless!

The ‘Scientific Whirlwind’ I unleashed with my aerodynamic belt will disperse your evil!”

“What tasteless idiot came up with that moronic name…” Xia Li was simply speechless.

Compared to that, she would rather the opponent’s move had been something like “Dynamic Sweet Light Wave.”

“Forget it, I’m not done yet!”

As Weeping of the Shadow continued to draw converted Extra-Rational Power through the Nano-Element System inside Xia Li’s body, several maximum-power “Life and Death Bound” attacks were flung at Quan Chunyou in succession.

Unfortunately, those attacks were either smashed apart by the traffic-light-colored small whirlwind or dodged by the opponent’s various flexible, alluring footwork.

Xia Li’s goal, however, had only been to restrict the opponent’s movements and pin them down.

While the other side was forced to defend and evade, a circle of strange golden-yellow runes had already quietly risen around her.

This move, “Netherworld Halo,” was one of the many skills inherent to Weeping of the Shadow.

It was a relatively low-consumption passive skill that was more useful in team battles.

Once activated, the halo circling the user’s body slowly restored stamina to the user and teammates while also providing a temporary speed boost.

Although it was inferior to the speed item Quan Chunyou had used in his opening probe attack and was better suited to group combat, at a time like this even a slight increase in speed could bring a crucial relative advantage.

“Heh—”

While the black mist created by “Life and Death Bound” had not yet fully dispersed, Xia Li had already closed in.

Weeping of the Shadow, its blade covered in a layer of unnatural frost, carved a black arc that slashed straight at the opponent’s face.

And then… there was no “and then.”

In the vast majority of films and television the former “Xia Li” had watched, the basic rule of combat was always “take off the helmet and power doubles, put on the helmet and power drops by a third.”

A helmet’s defense was approximately negative.

Even setting that aside, from a purely technical standpoint Weeping of the Shadow was a high-tech product of the Golden Age.

Once its inherent molecular-unloading field activated, it was enough to drastically weaken the chemical binding energy between the target’s molecules and slice the armor of a heavy armored vehicle like cutting modeling clay, let alone a mere helmet.

Yet after seizing the opening and striking the opponent’s crown, Xia Li’s sensation was closer to hitting cotton with a stick.

Although the set of equipment Quan Chunyou had gained after the on-the-spot gender change looked like little more than decoration, its toughness was in fact astonishingly high.

Even a full-power strike only made him… ah no, it should be “her” now… take a few steps back.

“To be frank, the opponent’s defensive capability exceeds our expectations!” Weeping of the Shadow’s tone was rather dejected as well.

“This armor can forcibly disable my molecular-unloading field the moment it approaches.”

“In other words, against this guy you’re no different from a firewood stick?” Xia Li slashed horizontally at the torso again before the opponent could recover, but only made Quan Chunyou sway a little.

“How rude!

I’m solid, you know!

If you’re going to make an analogy, at least call me a baseball bat!” The black longsword’s attention seemed to have concentrated in a rather delicate direction.

Of course, whether firewood stick or baseball bat, they currently shared one common point: they were not much use.

Although Xia Li’s flurry of moves had been fierce as a tiger, once Quan Chunyou recovered from the shock of the surprise attack, not only had no real damage been taken, the offensive instantly reversed.

The little leather whip was drawn from the waist and wrapped around Xia Li’s sword-holding wrist with a pa.

Then a fiery, scorching pain suddenly spread from Xia Li’s wrist through her entire body!

“What the hell is this?!” Fortunately Xia Li’s reaction was still reasonably fast.

She immediately backhanded a “Life and Death Bound” straight into the opponent’s face and barely forced the other side back—but just like before, this attack still produced basically all smoke and no injury.

“I know what this is now,” Weeping of the Shadow said.

“After comparative analysis, I have just found the data of the UR Servant Card that guy is using inside the database.”