MTLNOVEL Chapter 32 Qi_2
Stabilizing her form after being flung aside by the fierce battle, Semi looked at the combat scene not far away and couldn't help but widen her cat-like eyes: "I'm not dreaming, am I?"
No wonder she was surprised, for even within Claw Mark, Yuan was famously known as a melee combat maniac, possessing peerless close-quarters fighting skills. In the many years since the establishment of Claw Mark, she had rarely taken action, but once she entered the realm of close combat, hardly anyone could withstand her ferocious attacks.
And Cornflower, once famed as a Magical Girl, was known to Semi to have been active for no more than three years. In other words, a Magical Girl with merely three years of frontline combat experience was evenly matched with Yuan in hand-to-hand combat.
Of course, her thoughts couldn't influence the situation, as the central figures engaged in battle had already reached a fever pitch in a mere two minutes, with punches and kicks creating dull thuds and the flash of weapons stirring the heart.
However, only Emerald Sparrow could truly feel the pressure of battling with Yuan. Enjoy exclusive content from My Virtual Library Empire
In fact, even after regaining control of her scissor-shaped magical gear for close combat, she could only manage not to fall behind, and finding an opening to attack was near impossible.
The trouble didn't just lie in the variability of the close-quarters combat techniques but also in the layer of pale white fog enveloping Yuan.
Emerald Sparrow couldn't tell what it was, but the fog maintained its circulation with each of Yuan's breaths. Within this fog, all magic power attacks were compressed to their limit, her own magic power nearly unable to break free from around her.
"This fog... it's not your magic power, nor your magical gear."
After several attempts to understand it, Emerald Sparrow blocked one of Yuan's slashes during a lull and stated with conviction, "It should also have nothing to do with the power of the Remnant Beasts, it is completely something else."
"Magic power? Of course not, this is my 'qi'."
Seemingly because she found pleasure in the battle, Yuan made no attempt to conceal the truth: "Although I am a Magical Girl, I am first and foremost a martial artist. This power comes from an ancient inheritance in the Donghua Region and naturally is not the same as magic power."
"Qi?" Emerald Sparrow couldn't help but frown, "I'm not here to discuss martial arts novels with you."
"Novels often arise from reality. The 'qi' mentioned in books isn't unfounded."
Yuan's pupils, with the yin-yang fish rotating slowly within, slightly widened: "Of course, it's normal for people not to know about it now. Things that fail to adapt to the times will be eliminated by the times, eventually becoming dust in history. Martial arts are just a speck within that dust, no different from the rest, nothing worthy of remembrance."
"Fail to adapt to the times?" While countering her opponent's strikes, Emerald Sparrow leaned back slightly to dodge a piercing punch, "Why is that?"
"Because the so-called martial arts, the so-called path, as a form of Exotic Technique for self-defense, cannot compete with magical Spell Techniques."
Yuan spoke with rising emotion and a resonant voice: "The cultivation process is slow, the cost is high, and the talent requirement is one in a million. And after all the cultivation, in the end, it's only good for fighting mortals. Against real crises and disasters—like the Remnant Beasts—there's no fighting power at all."
"No matter the talent or quick thinking, or even boundless enthusiasm. Generations of martial artists' explorations on this path have not made it much longer. On the contrary, the deeper one goes into martial arts, the more they realize it's a dead end."
"Martial arts depend on a youthful body, requiring vigorous vitality and life force. However, as martial artists age, their energy wanes, their blood weakens, and no amount of passion can preserve their physical state. They can only watch helplessly as they weaken and ultimately are unable to climb higher."
"That's why the former me chose to join the nation, to gain a longer time with the unchanging body of a Magical Girl, to see if I could go farther with the identity of a Magical Girl."
In the midst of intense combat, as she blocked an incoming strike, Yuan broke into a grin: "And what you see is the result of my cultivation over these lengthy years."
"Then why did you join Claw Mark?"
Gathering the threads back into her hands, Emerald Sparrow slightly adjusted her stance, then, as if tireless, once again launched into attack: "Betraying the nation, colluding with the Remnant Beasts, is this the path you want?"
"Betrayal? Colluding?"
Yuan blinked, then suddenly chuckled: "Sorry, is that what you all think? I've never thought about that."
"The leader found me, told me joining Claw Mark would show me new strength and possibilities, then defeated me, so I followed her."
"To me, the form and shape of strength are just externals. The only thing to pursue is to keep walking the path of becoming stronger. Good and evil, beauty and ugliness, merit and sin, they all have nothing to do with me, and I don't care about these things."
After a fierce exchange, they briefly separated, and Yuan paused, her face bearing a satisfied smile: "What the world thinks isn't important, I am becoming stronger, that's all that matters."
As she said this, Emerald Sparrow knew that trying to persuade the other through conversation was futile.
Though she had only briefly interacted with her opponent, Emerald Sparrow had already sensed that, as a "villain" from Claw Mark, Yuan seemed distinct from the completely reprehensible villains of Black Ash Dawn.
Furthermore, given her opponent's strong fighting ability, it would be difficult to drive her away with combat alone, which led her to momentarily consider persuading her verbally, getting her to give up on her own.