[43] I, the Pure Love Warrior

"Wow! Bishou-sama really knows how to have fun!"

As soon as Bishou finished speaking, vulgar laughter and teasing remarks erupted from all directions. The soldiers were all excited, their eyes glued to the scene.

In contrast, Stella bit her lip tightly, her eyes filled with struggle.

Just as Bishou had said earlier, battles between Blazers overwhelmingly depend on compatibility. As a Reflector, Bishou could absorb and reflect all attacks, rendering Stella's proud strength useless in an instant.

What should she do? Should she really strip?

Behind her was Nene-sensei. If the teacher stepped in, they could probably buy more time. Theoretically, she didn't need to yield.

But she didn't know how much longer it would take for Shizuku to set up her water barrier. She should try to buy as much time as possible—

Bang!

A gunshot suddenly rang out.

The bullet exploded out of the assault rifle, cutting through the air with a sharp whistle, grazing past Bishou's cheek in an instant.

The smile on Bishou's face froze.

At the same time, the vulgar laughter from all around also died down as if a duck had been strangled.

Then, everyone turned their heads to look at a tall, thin soldier.

"Rune, have you gone mad? How dare you shoot at Bishou-sama!?"

His comrades also cast incredulous glances at him, though their expressions were hidden behind masks.

"That shot just now was intentionally off-target."

But from behind the mask of the man named Rune came a surprisingly young voice, inexplicably aloof.

"That voice... you're not Rune! Damn it, when did you switch places?"

The comrade beside him gasped, aiming it at him.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Just a passing Blazer. Remember that."

The man removed his gas mask, revealing a face so handsome it stunned everyone present.

Wow, that line was so cool!

"Eiji?"

Stella, trembling, stood up from the ground, looking over in surprise.

So, when Nene-sensei said "other plans," she meant infiltrating the terrorists?

"...Another student knight, huh? You guys really are one after another in your foolishness."

The smile on Bishou's face completely vanished, replaced by a gloomy expression. The tattoo on his left cheek twisted like a squirming green worm.

"If you had kept hiding, you might have been able to force a stalemate by taking me hostage. But to expose yourself in this situation... what are you thinking?"

He had almost been shot just now!

If the bullet had been slightly off, it might have hit him, ending his life. This brush with death left him in a very foul mood.

"I'm the Pure Love Warrior, cutting down cuckolds with a single strike."

Eiji seemed to completely ignore the gun barrels pointed at him, sneering coldly at Bishou.

"Don't try to comprehend my thoughts with your limited brain capacity. It's your fault if you drag me down to your level—how do you know I can't take you hostage right now?"

"What?"

Bishou was momentarily stunned.

"Let me kindly inform you, my Blazer ability is Absolute GodSpeed, meaning I'm absolutely faster than my opponent."

Eiji held the assault rifle in his hands, its barrel pointed directly at Bishou.

"In other words, the speed at which I pull the trigger and the speed at which the bullet leaves the barrel are absolutely faster than you, and faster than those pointing guns at me... In short, if you rashly give the order, whether I die or not is uncertain, but you will definitely die."

This was a lie.

Eiji could only set one target at a time.

Meaning, if he set himself to be faster than Bishou, he couldn't be faster than the surrounding soldiers.

Of course, if Bishou himself was faster than the soldiers, then Eiji, being faster than Bishou, would naturally be faster than the soldiers.

"If you don't believe me, you can search online. I just defeated the former world number three ten days ago. There should be videos online, and they seem to have spread quite widely."

To prove his words true, Eiji even brought up his recent achievements.

Bishou immediately signaled a subordinate, who promptly took out a phone. Soon, his expression changed, his voice trembling.

"This... it's actually true?!"

He found the video Kurono Shinguuji had uploaded online. Though the quality wasn't high, from the angle of the handsome face, it matched the young man before him perfectly.

There were websites dedicated to collecting information on Blazers. By visiting these sites, one could usually find the information they were looking for.

In that instant, everyone present was intimidated by him.

Stella glanced around.

Everyone's attention was focused on Eiji, no one paying attention to the hostages.

Nene seemed to subtly give a thumbs-up, signaling that her junior was awesome.

Stella also quietly stepped back, not alerting anyone, leaving the situation to Eiji to handle. But she remained on standby, ready to support him if needed.

"Ha... so what if you defeated the former world number three? I have the ability to reflect—"

"I've read books. With your elementary school level, you obviously can't fool me."

As Bishou's expression gradually stiffened, Eiji spoke again.

"Reflection isn't a technique that can be activated passively. It's an active ability; you have to consciously activate it to work—"

Most Blazer abilities are active in nature.

Reflection, as an ability, can't be used like Accelerator from a certain series, who can set up a reflection layer on himself to passively reflect any attack. It doesn't work that way; you have to consciously activate it for it to work.

Eiji, while lying in bed, spent his time reading books, familiarizing himself with the characteristics of Blazer abilities. Bishou obviously couldn't fool him.

"And how do you know my speed isn't faster than your ability activation speed?"

Eiji's final words caused Bishou to gradually lose his composure.

Faster than the speed of activating an ability?

Is that even possible?

If it were that powerful, wouldn't it already make him invincible?

Ninety percent of Blazers have to actively activate their abilities before they can attack. If the enemy's attacks are always faster than their ability activation speed, wouldn't all attacks be stillborn?

If he could really do that... if he could fire a bullet at an absolute speed before his ability activated—then he would be dead!

In reality, Eiji's claim was valid—

But not entirely.

The speed of activating an ability—this speed indeed exists, but its quickness depends on the speed of one's neural reactions.

Neural reaction speed varies from person to person.

For an average person, it's about 0.3 seconds. For a trained sprinter, it can be as fast as 0.15 seconds. But humans have limits; no matter how much you train, you can't go below 0.1 seconds.

In other words, if Eiji could make an unavoidable attack within 0.1 seconds, he could likely deliver a one-hit kill to anyone—in fact, the move "Lightning Flash" was created based on this principle.

But the concept of speed isn't standalone; it's always tied to distance. Any discussion of speed without considering distance is just nonsense.

For example, if the enemy is over a thousand meters away, even if Eiji boosts his speed to supersonic, it would still take at least two or three seconds to hit the enemy. By then, the enemy would have already reacted.

Usually, Eiji relies on his intuition to determine the optimal distance to use Lightning Flash. For instance, in his fight with Kurono Shinguuji, he used it at a distance of less than five meters, surpassing her neural reaction speed.

So, some might ask, why not increase the speed further, to five times, ten times the speed of sound, or even reach the speed of light?

Wouldn't that make him truly invincible, with no enemy able to escape his blade?

To that, Eiji could only say—

It's possible, but not entirely.

His Absolute GodSpeed is about being absolutely faster than the "opponent." This "opponent" is a concept that must be something tangible around him. Therefore, he can't set something far away as the target to surpass.

However, the target isn't limited to people; it can also be sound, light, etc.

Driven by curiosity, Eiji once tried to set "light" as the target to surpass.

But that time, his intuition gave him the most intense death warning he had ever felt, making him instinctively cancel the setting. He never tried it again.

This proved that Eiji's Absolute GodSpeed could indeed target light.

But to achieve the corresponding godly speed, he would have to bear the corresponding consequences.

If nothing went wrong, once his speed surpassed light, he would instantly be vaporized into plasma, leaving not a single drop of blood or cell behind.

***

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