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I am the Main Character? No Thanks!: Chapter 24 (Volume 2)
🕑 Added 2025-01-24 06:37:05 +0000 UTCDeep within the ruins, the noise of steel clashing with fists echoed across the structure. The strength behind each blow shakes the surroundings a little with each clash.
Da Wei maneuvered to the side, allowing the sudden burst of light that took the form of a beam to pass by the space where his torso was just a second ago.
However, just as he avoided the hit, a rush of scorching fire engulfed him completely, singing his clothes and nearly overwhelming the defensive inscriptions on his clothes and artifacts.
The combined assault pushed Da Wei back a little before he rushed forward with a burst of Primal Qi, delivering a devastating hit to the center of the enemy’s body, only for the being created from flames to break down and reform into a new body without any injuries.
The second enemy took advantage of his momentary distraction and shot another burst of light at his head while turning the surrounding with bright light, hoping to overwhelm Da Wei’s senses.
Thanks to his enhanced senses, Da Wei sensed the sudden spike in Qi from his opponents, allowing him to dodge and retreat for a distance to catch his breath.
‘Damn it!! None of this is working!’
‘We have to either destroy the core, thereby destroying the treasures or refine them into our body. I don’t see any other way to defeat them.’
‘But the Flame is very useful for Da Ling, and I can’t destroy the Water since it is enveloping Yin Lingxi and might use her as a sacrifice to save itself, not to mention that we don’t even know where the Flame’s core is since it has not exposed itself just like how the water has not shown its core yet.’
‘Worse yet, I can’t use my Primal Qi to try and overwhelm these avatars since there is a high chance that we will have a repeat performance of that damned tree and make things even more difficult for ourselves’
‘Then, we have no choice but to wait until Yin Lingxi refines the water or wakes up and escapes its confinements’
Da Wei smiled bitterly at those words.
‘So, we will have to leave things to fate!?’
‘Basically, yeah. Fate and Luck are the only things that can save her.’
‘….This is so unfair. Why did we have to run into the most dangerous Natural Treasures pair in such remote ruins?’
‘….I have no answer to that aside from blaming our luck.’
‘…Makes sense, I guess. Since we had not faced many issues since we isolated ourselves, I had forgotten just how ridiculous and life-threatening our luck usually is’
Before Da Wei could continue talking with Xiang, the flames from one of the two Natural Treasures that were at the heart of the ruins, The Nine Suns Soul Fire, one of the nine heavenly flames, sent another bout of flames toward him which immediately took a humanoid form and started to engage in a duel with Da Wei again.
While the flame distracted the human, the other Natural Treasure, the Starlight Essence Dew, one of the nine heavenly waters, condensed the element of Light and shot beams of the element at Da Wei, targeting his major organs and limbs.
After Da Wei had escaped the illusions placed on him, it did not take him long before he arrived at the center of the ruins and found Yin Lingxi.
The only problem was that she was held within a cocoon of golden glowing orb of liquid, the main body of the Starlight Essence Dew, while the Nine Suns Soul Fire guarded the orb of liquid as it continued to refine Yin Lingxi into nutrients and Qi for its own nourishment.
The panic that Da Wei felt when he realized what was going on was beyond his ability to describe, as he used his full might to try to break her out of whatever illusion the Starlight Essence Dew put her under.
However, no matter how he tried or how much he called out, she would not respond to his voice, and the damned treasures did not allow him to approach her.
Worse yet, because the flame and the essence dew were using avatar bodies made of their elemental Qi while hiding their real bodies, it made it difficult for Da Wei to cause any meaningful damage to them.
For the first time in many years, Da Wei felt truly powerless as he watched the woman that he cared for, the woman that he loved, was in a life-threatening situation and he could do nothing about it.
Gritting his teeth, Da Wei suppressed the scream of pain and frustration that was about to erupt from his mouth as a beam of Light Qi passed through the side of his body, carving out a large chunk of his flesh as his Primal Qi worked overtime to fix the damage.
“Yin Lingxi!! You are trapped in an illusion!! Wake up!”
His words rang across the massive hall, but just like before, they fell on deaf ears as Yin Lingxi’s body didn’t even twitch in response to his shout.
Once again, anger consumed Da Wei’s mind as he shot forward, destroying the avatar of the flame and heading straight for the water, only for another flaming avatar to form in front of him, blocking him off as multiple beams of Light Qi burst out of the water, targeting his vital organs once again.
This forced him to retreat once again in frustration and he could not help but curse in his mind.
‘Why the hell are these two things so good at coordinating anyway!? I don’t remember the Nine Suns Soul Fire and the Starlight Essence Dew being symbiotic by any means!!’
‘My best guess is that they were left here by the creator of this ruin and were left on their own for such a long time that they developed a symbiotic relationship through sheer chance.’
‘….Just our luck that such a situation would happen.’
‘Indeed. Now, the best path I can thin-WATCH OUT!!’
Da Wei instinctively jumped to the side in response to Xiang’s shout, barely escaping a flaming blade that was aimed at his heart, but he could not dodge it completely as the blade skewered his right arm, flooding his body and spirit roots with scorching Yang Qi.
He winced in pain but easily suppressed the feeling thanks to his experience with enduring such injuries and focused back on the fight.
‘How long do we have?’
‘From the rate at which the girl’s life force is depleting along with her Light Qi, I would say two hours, three at most, before she is completely refined by the water.’
Da Wei contemplated on what to do as he kept an eye on the flaming avatar and escaped its assault.
While he could try to use another artifact to try and make a run for it towards Yin Lingxi, he knew that it would be a futile effort since these things were strong enough to overwhelm his Hard-Light shielding artifacts and were not fooled by his illusion artifact thanks to their lack of a biological body, the very reason why Da Wei was struggling so much to fight them.
Ever since awakening his memories of Earth, Da Wei had given up on the path of the sword and worked to refine his martial arts because of how the sword felt wrong in his hands.
However, his fighting style was primarily based on targeting the biological weaknesses of his opponents and crippling them with quick and efficient strikes, maximizing the impact while minimizing the strain on his own body.
While this method worked most of the time, there were times when it would not work on his opponents, especially when his opponents were incorporeal in nature.
In such situations, Da Wei utilized the bizarre nature of his Primal Qi to destroy his enemies by overwhelming them with his Qi, making it so that he never had to face much trouble no matter the opponent he faced.
Yet, this heavy reliance on his Qi and his scientific approach to fighting had come back to haunt him at this moment as he was left with no way to fight these damned things.
They lacked a physical body, rendering his martial arts useless, and they could potentially become even more powerful if he used his Pure Qi as displayed by the Primordial Yin Wood during their confrontation in that cave all those weeks ago. This meant that he could not use his usual tactics to deal with the incorporeal foe.
Truly, Da Wei felt stuck and powerless facing these enemies.
Yet, he could not back down, not when his lover one’s life was in danger.
In such a way, one human fought against the two Natural Treasures while his loved one was trapped in a dream that she refused to leave behind.
