New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live-Chapter 1121: Brute Forcing It

The glaive swung at him from nowhere, the man almost teleporting before him in a single step. However, Alex was no slouch either.

Leaning back to avoid the slash at his throat, Alex threw a flash kick as his hands connected to the ground, trying to push himself away from his aggressor.

The kick went wide as Weilong leaned sideways, shifting his weight into a spin kick, hitting Alex square in the middle of the back.

"Hah! Using such sloppy martial arts against a master! Are you mocking me, yang guizi? You are courting death!"

Alex flew back fifty meters, hitting the side of a half-collapsed building, before blowing through the wall and stopping his flight inside the now fully destroyed tourist stall.

He coughed up a little blood, wincing as he got up, a few of his ribs clearly cracked from the impact of the kick and brick wall.

Pulling out of the collapsed building, Alex’s expression had now shifted to full seriousness, as he understood what type of opponent he was up against.

"Fine. If a bit of skill in martial arts isn’t enough to beat you, I guess I’ll overwhelm you with strength then," he spat, wiping the blood from the corner of his lips.

"You are welcome to try!" Cheng Weilong mocked, dashing at him again, spinning his glaive like a supersonic windmill.

The chop came from Alexander’s left side, this time aimed a little above his waist, most likely with the purpose to cleave him in half, but Alex wasn’t about to let that happen. This wasn’t New Eden, after all.

Death would be permanent.

Switching from defence to attack, Alex called upon Bael, merging with him rather than White Death.

He heard the baritone, scrappy voice of the demon king in his head as he felt the surge of power fill his body, and time seemed to slow down for him.

"Have you found a worthy challenge for us, ’Master’?" Bael mocked.

Alex mentally replied to his sass with a snap, "You better hope he isn’t much of a challenge, because if I die, so do you!"

He could feel Bael’s enthusiasm rise through their current intense connection, and he knew that had been enough to rile him up.

He stepped into the attack, clearing the glaive’s blade. He would rather take the haft in the waist than suddenly become two pieces of one person.

The sudden shift in aggression took his attacker, Cheng Weilong, by surprise, and he wasn’t fast enough to react to the fist that slammed into his cheek, covering the entire side of his face.

Barreling away from Alexander, the haft of his glaive still colliding with its target, he crashed into another demolished building’s rubble, cratering it with his body.

The impact blew the wind out of Weilong’s lungs, but he recovered fast enough to see a blitz of red coming his direction, and with a shove of his left elbow, he pushed himself out of the way of another incoming fist.

The punch Alex had launched blew the entire rubble pile into oblivion, the wind from his strike and approach blowing past Cheng Weilong and into the forest behind them.

Weilong flipped sideways, windmilling his glaive around him in case the white wolf tried attacking him midair.

Calling him the white wolf felt weird, now that the man’s skin was shimmering in a shade of blood red, his muscles bulging through his clothes, already ripping the seams away.

Landing back on his feet, his glaive already pointed at his opponent, Cheng Weilong spat a mouthful of blood.

"It seems you had more tricks hidden up your sleeve, American," he growled.

"I’m Canadian, asshole. Don’t lug me in with those patriotic idiots. Also, in what world did you think you had the information that there was to have on me? Do you think people stagnate all around you while you get stronger?" Alex mocked, balling his fists tight, taking a boxing stance.

His bulging muscles tore his shirt up a little as he tensed, threatening to pop the entire thing off his back at any moment.

’Man... I liked this shirt,’ he whined internally.

"Fine, then. I will gladly take up a challenge," Weilong replied, ignoring Alex’s taunt.

Inside Alex’s head, he could still hear Kujaku yelling at him to run away before more backup arrived, and he became outnumbered.

However, Alex had other plans.

Cutting the call short and putting his phone on ’Do Not Disturb’, Alex focused completely on the opponent before him.

From the hit he had delivered to the Chinese man’s face, he knew the man wasn’t all in on attacking stats. His cheek had felt like hitting a brick wall, which was saying a lot, considering his current fortitude was enough to blow up a concrete building with a punch.

’This is going to be an arduous battle,’ he thought, mentally preparing himself.

Both men were glaring at each other, waiting for the other to make a move.

At each twitch of a muscle, the other reacted, if ever so perceptibly, forcing the first one to abort his move.

Seconds seemed to stretch on forever as they waged a mental battle, each of them reacting mentally and instinctively to the other’s movements, forcing them to stay almost entirely still as they contemplated better opportunities.

Mental images of their fight kept flashing within their minds, even though their bodies stayed practically stationary.

But the stalemate could only last for so long, as a fire lance came blazing in from afar, whistling through the air like a ballistic missile, the flames roaring with intensity as their colour shifted from orange to blue.

Weilong reacted immediately, swinging his glaive at the incoming fire lance, an arc of yellowish-white energy sweeping forward from his swing, heading on a collision course with the fire.

Both attacks collided mid-air, blowing up in an explosion of heat and light, blinding anyone who was still near enough to experience the battle of behemoths.

Alex had to cover his eyes with his arm, trying to keep sight of the Chinese man, in vain, as the light swept his face along with a heat wave that would have melted any human being instantly.

Cheng Weilong, accustomed to battle from his years of martial arts training and his thousands of hours spent in combat simulations against other awakened, immediately reacted to the moment of blinding light, as if expecting it, and charged at the white wolf.

Alex felt the surge of energy blitzing toward him and readied himself, even though he couldn’t see with his eyes. He activated his perfect mana senses, and the world took on hues of bright colours as the mana fluctuated violently around him .

’I’m not that easy a target, Cheng Weilong,’ Alex chuckled mentally as he lunged at the man, too.

Both appearing out of a cloud of dust, Cheng Weilong hadn’t expected his target to move as well during a moment of blindness, and had barely enough time to change his glaive from a stabbing position to a blocking one, before Alex’s punch slammed into it, both coming to an abrupt stop.

The clash blew wind in all directions, pushing away the blowback from the fire lance’s explosion long enough for it to end.

"Peekaboo!" Alex snickered, kicking the man in the ribs with a quick snap of his leg.

With a light crack, Cheng Weilong was pushed away a dozen meters, his brain only thinking one thing.

’What the fuck?!’