Master of the Stars

Black Beetle could be considered a mentally enhanced ability user. Even if he didn’t really have a gift for sensory observation, he possessed basic common knowledge regarding it.

Naturally, Black Beetle would find reaching the level of a penetrating bright light, something unblockable and unstoppable, with his sensory observation to be an excellent thing. The problem lay in the fact that he had become a target of observation via mental senses. The observation of his entire body could be compared to wind leaking through and rain seeping in. Every detail of his body and mind, from the inside to the outside, could be seen.... This was enough to drive him crazy!

This was what Black Beetle was feeling right now.

Looking at the situation from a realistic and understandable level, Luo Nan’s face was within the grasp of his palm. Black Beetle just needed to reach out ever so slightly, and he would be able to tear the skin off the kid’s face. But as soon as that unblockable and unstoppable feeling emerged, he truly felt that winds were penetrating his body from all directions. He couldn’t suppress the feeling of weakness that instantly swept across his entire body.

What the heck was going on?

Black Beetle found it difficult to figure out this sudden change within a short period of time. He looked through the slits between his fingers, and the only thing he saw was Luo Nan’s eyes oozing with blood. Those pupils had slightly dilated. They were unfocused. They didn’t move at all. They appeared a bit lifeless.

He had just reached this conclusion when Luo Nan’s eyes moved. The messy rays of light converged a bit, and a faint gleam of light locked with his gaze.

The glimmer was akin to needles; penetrating with a force like threads.

The subtle piercing force prickled Black Beetle’s thick skin. At most there was an instant of pain, but the force felt like it pierced into his eyeballs, into his heart, and into his brain. There were certainly other consequences.

This was what Black Beetle felt.

Black Beetle couldn’t form any protection against being riddled with holes. And the force of the piercing needles moved unimpeded, unhindered. The force exploited his weakest and most fatal locations, messing with them!

In an instant, Black Beetle felt a thunderous pain. The pain exploded within the skull of his brain, and it rapidly spread out. It was impossible to control once it had started.

Black Beetle howled in pain, his eyeballs nearly bulging out of his eye sockets. The colors of black and red interlaced, turning his vision into a sheet of chaos. His mind instinctively flooded with fear, but his many years of life-threatening combat experience continued to spur him. He seized all the courage he could muster, and he did his best to probe with his hand. His intent was to grab the mischievous kid in a single move.

He was just a fist away... but his fingernails, coated with poison, grasped only air.

A fruitless attack, and Black Beetle’s body continued to rush forward. Only then did he realize all the things going on in his body while he was doing his high-speed assault. Pain exploded. His senses were confused. There were changing stimulations to his nervous system. All this made the equilibrium of his body a complete mess.

"F***!"

His extended fingers swiped across the hard wall. Then his wrist bent to the corner of the wall. Next, his head and body collided into the wall.

In the end, Black Beetle’s entire body had smacked into the wall of the elevator area. His body failed to react completely due to the assault of intense pain. He had smashed into the wall hard without even an ounce of cushioning. He then slid to the ground. The sunglasses that covered his face had snapped.

Only at this point did the pain somewhat alleviate in his brain. However, the feeling of the impact to his fingers, wrist, head, and body came next. This wave of pain was nothing much when compared to the last, but the feeling of disgrace of smacking into the wall and falling to the ground was like having sulfuric acid splashed to his chest and sprayed all over his head and face.

"I’LL KILL YOU!" A burning and corroding heat proliferated outward with Black Beetle’s howl. At the same time, he threw down his deformed sunglasses, which he had crushed with his hand.

He ignored his vision, which was still chaotic, as well as his terrible sense of balance. He used the wall as support while he struggled to stand up. He waved his arms, venting, and controlled the beetles to fly in all directions. However, everything he did was useless. He was unable to touch even a hair of Luo Nan’s.

No. I need to calm down. I need to calm down!

Feelings of anger and fear entwined and undulated with the series of failed attacks. There was a trough in this wave emotions, and Black Beetle seized it. He went all out in calming his mind as he tried to break free from his completely horrible state.

He leaned against the wall while trying to call out to his temporary partner, "Puppeteer! Puppeteer! ...F***!"

Before Puppeteer could respond, the prickling feeling came back again. But this time, pain didn’t come to him. A faint sound, from who knows where, came instead.

No, it was a telepathic thought!

Black Beetle smashed the wall behind him with a hand. His heart was filled with hate but also near-inescapable fear.

Powerful people with formidable soul strength and mastery of techniques could indeed transmit thoughts to others in a unidirectional manner. But most of the time, this could only occur during states of peace. In true battles of life and death, the mind must be stretched taut and the opponent must be highly prepared. This sort of unidirectional imbuing of thought would certainly suffer a great deal of interference. It was practically impossible to realize while maintaining the integrity and accuracy of the transmitted information.

But right now, a sound rang within Black Beetle’s brain. There was a bit of noise at the very beginning, but it grew clearer and clearer.

"...Factor analysis. I’ve learned it before."

Luo Nan expressed his thought telepathically to continue the topic they were ’discussing’ a moment earlier. Namely, the topic of analyzing factors in victory or defeat.

Black Beetle had undoubtedly raised the topic to mock Luo Nan and mess with his emotions. But now, Luo Nan bounced the topic back at Black Beetle, stuffing Black Beetle’s brain bit by bit.

"The advantages I’ve analyzed for victory are different than yours. You see:

"You can’t see what I can see.

"You don’t know what I know.

"You can’t compare to what I command.

"You are unable to reach where I’m at.

"Lastly, I have come to a conclusion. My superiority lies outside of your deficient imagination!"

The broad and uniform sentences of information were done in a somewhat shaky manner, having been pieced together on the fly. But the cruel ridicule came permeated within Luo Nan’s distant telepathic thought, branding into Black Beetle’s mind.

Crack! Black Beetle crushed one of his back molars. Then his mood followed his crushed tooth with a spray of blood.

"I’LL F*** YOU BACK EIGHT GENERATIONS!"

Black Beetle’s crude cursing and his boiling blood was incapable of drowning out the bone-chilling wind in his mind. He understood the situation well. Luo Nan’s projected telepathic thoughts weren’t that powerful; they were like strands of silk. But no matter what defensive and protective means Black Beetle used, they were unable to interfere with Luo Nan’s telepathy at all.

This thread of telepathy could come as it pleased and could stay as it pleased. It wantonly smeared a drawing to be engraved in Black Beetle’s mental plane. Such an ability seemed inhuman. It completely affirmed the ability that was akin to a penetrating bright light, unblockable and unstoppable.

Black Beetle could not suppress his fear and shame. They were like two swords stabbing in and stabbing out. They took turns stabbing him and cutting him, shredding his dignity beyond recognition.

If just a little bit of force was added... just a little...

Ding!

The sound that indicated the arrival of an elevator rang by Black Beetle’s ear. Black Beetle had somewhat recovered from the intense pain and chaotic vision by now. He dimly saw, through the corner of his eye, a faint figure flit past him, and soon the elevator door closed again.

A sound no longer came from Luo Nan.

The changes in details were like a sudden foreshadowing emerging, and it made Black Beetle’s mind jolt. A certain thought spawned in his mind. If that kid can truly get rid of me that easily, there’s no need to push himself until his eyes start flowing with blood. Plus, he spewed a bunch of nonsense.

Though Black Beetle had these doubts, he was unable to think further. He staggered half a step, turned his body, and looked toward the elevator. He merely saw the elevator door close and head downward.

He looked around with his somewhat fuzzy vision. The elevator area was spacious and empty. It was just empty space all around. Luo Nan’s figure wasn’t there at all.

Yes, Luo Nan just needed to add a bit more force and he would be done for.... That f**king kid has a problem with his interference ability. Black Beetle was able to deal with the purely mental attack, but Luo Nan probably couldn’t even muster the force to affect Black Beetle’s body and soul structure.

"F*** ME!"

Black Beetle let out another round of cursing as he smashed into the elevator door. But all he did was cause a dent in the metal plate. The elevator indicator was already showing changes in the floor number.

He stopped hesitating and shook his head fiercely. He locked onto the fire escape that ran on the outer side of the corridor. He rushed over in a few steps, rammed the door to the stairwell open, and jumped down the narrow gap between the flight of stairs.

At the same time, he tried making contact with his companion once more. "Puppeteer? Say something if you’re still alive!"

"Tsk. That kid is too sneaky. I nearly choked to death in the water. I almost lost my puppets." Puppeteer’s voice finally came through in a bout of cursing. “Snake Tongue’s protective spell isn’t worth sh*t...."

"This is his last move," Black Beetle spoke through gritted teeth. "He doesn’t have the energy to follow up, so he fled! He certainly can’t last long. Keep an eye on elevator number fifteen."

“I’m looking... It stopped! On the 133th floor!" In the crystal pillar, the devil ray ran by the high-speed elevator’s side.

Black Beetle didn’t slack as well. He used his elbow to push off the railings. His body flipped, and he accurately stopped at the 133th floor. He charged into the door to the building and went in.

Within the elevator room, in front of elevator number fifteen, stood a white-collared worker. The elevator door opened. It was none other than this person who had caused the elevator to stop.

This white-collared worker was given a scare by Black Beetle charging out from the fire escape. The white-collared worker had just turned his head, and Black Beetle moved like a phantom to seize the worker’s body. Black Beetle extended his hand to the worker’s head and fiercely slammed the worker into the metal door.

Blood immediately flowed from the white-collared worker’s head, and he fainted.

"Thanks for the help."

Black Beetle spat out these words without a trace of sincerity as he curled his lips into a grin. His expression grew all the more malevolent, and the aura around his body practically burned. The tie wrapped around his neck appeared like a living snake as it slipped out of the collar of his suit. Upon the tie, one of the beetle patterns inexplicably squirmed and budged out. It turned into a real beetle and crawled along the tie.

As soon as Black Beetle would see Luo Nan, he would tie Luo Nan up with his tie and shove the poisonous insect down Luo Nan’s throat. Screw whether Luo Nan lived or died!

The elevator, which was automatically controlled by a computer program, was not concerned at all about the situation outside. It arrived at its destination and its door automatically opened.

Black Beetle leaned forward and was about to move.

But the elevator was absolutely empty. Not a trace of a person could be found.

No, there was something.... A paper man.

There was only this piece of work that was the size of a palm. It was of the same make as the two paper men Black Beetle had ground to pieces earlier. It possessed no fear, and it had stood there all this time since the elevator call button was pressed. It stood on the wooden floor of the elevator, holding a fighting stance.

"SCREW YOU ****!"

The string of reason within Black Beetle’s mind snapped just like that. He simply reached out with his palm and let out a tyrannical strength, disregarding how much pain his hand was in. He crushed the paper man into pieces.

"He didn’t go down! He went back to the viewing platform!" Within the crystal pillar behind Black Beetle, the devil ray ascended rapidly. Puppeteer gestured to Black Beetle through the protective glass, indicating that he was going up.

The gesture was extremely normal to do, but it was an absolute mockery from Black Beetle’s perspective. Black Beetle still wasn’t able to understand what exactly happened to him. He just knew that Luo Nan had played him.

It was just as the strand of telepathy Luo Nan had left and imprinted on his mental plane.

You can’t see what I can see.

You don’t know what I know.

You can’t compare to what I command.

You are unable to reach where I’m at!

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHH!"

Black Beetle punched out in madness, and the metal door of the elevator deformed from the smash. It could no longer close and was stuck in place. Harsh alarm lights lit up.