Chapter 28 - Turning the Tides

Mu Lei walked before the Mia squad to face the invaders alone.

Confusion ran through Mia's mind at this moment, as several thoughts exploded out of nowhere in her brain,

"Is she crazy?"...

Should I stop her?

But she said she would take care of it.

Her head almost gave up smoke as she contemplated what to do next.

At least from what Mia had witnessed, the invaders were not to be taken likely. The male invader seemed to have the power to control heat, thereby giving him the ability to generate and control fire in almost limitless amounts...

... and the female invader most likely possessed the abilities of a chimera, a fabled beast capable of having the body parts of other fables along with their abilities. This was a godlike ability, as she could, for example, have the power to transform her head into that of a dragon to be able to breathe fire or change her arms into those of a troll to gain super strength.

Given the fact that there were hundreds of fables available to master, the Celestial Chimera gave her an almost infinite arsenal of abilities to choose from in a fight. The only limit though was that the transformation could never be complete, but it always involved at least one body part.

Keeping all this in mind, going up against such people would mean certain death. Plus, even though the average person had no clue about the world, the several burned corpses lying around the invaders were the obvious testimony to that.

Nobody on the team was willing to move any further; it seemed as if their fears had finally gotten the best of them—almost as if all of their motivation to fight to their certain deaths was dissolved by a glimpse of selfish hope offered by the strangers.

It could be that she was powerful enough to take care of the situation; after all, her companion had just flown straight up without wings, so fast that he got out of sight within seconds of takeoff.

So they had no incentive to either stop or join the lady before them, as they had no idea concerning what she may or may not be capable of.

Suddenly, Mu Lei ran towards the invaders at full speed, heading straight at her first target, the fableman who manipulated fire; she was excited to fight him.

Tobirama noticed this and quickly finished off the foolish soldiers trying to fight him. He noticed the strange woman getting closer to him by the second and quickly breathed fire at her. His breath sent a stream of flames right at her, to which she did not budge but instead ran forward to face him head-on with excitement.

"Let's see what a fabled man is capable of with powers similar to mine!" she thought.

Mu Lei collided with the red flames, and to his and everyone's astonishment, she did not get burnt. But by the movements of her arms, she manipulated the fire's movement to form a whirlwind to increase its momentum, right before sending it back at him.

Tobirama widened his eyes in shock at what he just saw, and this hesitation failed to prepare him for what was coming, as he could not react in time to stop the flames that were coming right back at him.

The flames engulfed him, and the momentum of the heat sent him crashing into the great wall—the one they had breached earlier that night.

The overwhelming pressure from Mu Lei forced him to take back his human form before hitting the wall, and due to his body's fragility, he had lost consciousness on impact.

Urahara took notice of this and acted immediately, lunging after Mu Lei with a roar. She had erroneously thought Mu Lei would not be much of a challenge to Tobirama, and that was why she only took action now.

As Urahara jumped to attack Mu Lei, her head transformed into that of the Tenjin (heavenly eel) as she roared out streams of electricity at her opponent.

Mu Lei immediately set herself on fire, causing the nearly endless streams of electricity to go right through her body without causing any harm, as her body had now become one with the flames, having no density. In return, she generated powerful fireballs and began throwing them at her.

In response, Urahara transformed her head and most of her body into the parts of the Mitsuchi (Water Spirit), giving off a roar from which endless streams of water fell on Mu Lei.

Mu Lei smiled,

"Your mistake—you fell for it," she said as she took a deep breath and shouted as she brought forth her inner power, which turned her flames from red to blue. Immediately she formed a powerful, large ball of fire and sent it to Urahara.

Urahara could have dodged it, but she did not, and that was her mistake. She kept roaring out more water at her enemy and only realized when it was too late that her opponent's flames had gone through the water, vaporizing the liquid as it headed straight for her.

The moment the flames collided with her, it triggered an instant explosion, as the heat had forced all the water coming out of her to vaporize in less than a second. The sudden temperature change caused the air in her body to expand exponentially, infinitely swelling her body into an explosion.

The impact sent multiple parts of her body landing everywhere, and all who witnessed this looked in awe and wonder at the young woman who had just literally destroyed a Chimeric Fableman.

"I have used this technique to slay dragons multiple times, though I never thought a human would also be dumb enough to fall for it as well," she said to herself.

Upon remembering the other enemy, Mu Lei looked at the great wall but could not find Tobirama.

"Imagine the cowardice—he ran away!" she said, disappointed.

Mia and her comrades were speechless from what had just happened before their very eyes. It was like a goddess had just descended at their deepest hour of need.

At that very moment, like everything was a scripted setup, the sky began to clear, causing the scarlet light that engulfed the city to give way to the beautiful moonlight. The strange, large eyes in the sky dimmed out and disappeared in less than a minute.

This brought an end to the meteor shower that had plagued the city for over an hour now, and all the panic that had overtaken the streets now slowly but surely began to subside.

Mu Lei looked up in the sky, enjoying the now-clear view,

"I guess Shin Li did a perfect job," she remarked.

After the night became clear again, all the survivors let out a joyful cheer.

Despite the heavily astronomical odds, the city had survived.