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At this point in the swordplay, there was naturally no further communication between the two parties.
Zhang Ge did not hesitate in the slightest; instead of retreating, he pressed forward.
With the head now in front of him, it meant his back was exposed to the main body extending from the front entrance.
His body, propelled by the force of his legs, shot forward from its original position.
Yes, straight forward.
Almost immediately after Zhang Ge's body launched, the threads extending from behind him struck the spot where he had just stood, leaving a dozen slash marks on the ceramic steel floor.
This kind of attack was silent, and even visually, it was nearly impossible to detect in the darkness.
However, its speed was roughly on par with his own, and the opponent was not yet powerful enough to foresee the future. To hit him with this whip-like weapon, it had to rely on prediction.
Predicting the direction of his movement, predicting his actions, and then covering that predicted area with as many attacks as possible.
There were at least twenty to thirty of those fine threads. If Zhang Ge were to engage in conventional combat, falling into the opponent's rhythm would mean certain death.
And this forward charge was precisely Zhang Ge's method of breaking free from that rhythm.
As his body collided without hesitation into one table and chair after another, loud noises erupted, accompanied by the pain of impact and the force of recoil.
In that brief moment, a series of tactical exchanges had taken place. The opponent did not expect the attacks from behind to kill Zhang Ge; those attacks were meant to force his movements.
As previously mentioned, their speeds were roughly equal. Therefore, if Zhang Ge wanted to evade such swift attacks, his only choice was to dodge with all his might.
Dodging to the side was meaningless—the attack range of a dozen or so threads could cover an entire plane. Retreating backward would leave him surrounded on all sides by the threads, a slow death. Thus, the only remaining option was to charge forward with full force.
However, if Zhang Ge chose to move forward, as long as he couldn't defy the laws of physics, he couldn't make inertia disappear out of thin air. Whether he tried to stop for a second dodge or immediately decelerate after the initial burst, it would cause him to lag half a beat.
Moreover, he had already acted before this. Even if he completely disregarded dodging and deceleration, his speed at full burst would still become predictable.
This was precisely its goal—to force Zhang Ge to charge forward with full force using the attacks from behind.
If Zhang Ge didn't charge forward with all his might, he wouldn't escape the range of the attacks from behind. And if he didn't dodge after the full charge, it would directly tear him apart with the second pre-calculated attack. Even if he forced himself to decelerate against the momentum of his charge, it would still leave him half a beat too slow.
In such a confrontation, being half a beat slower was no different from being killed outright.
Yes, and that was precisely why he did not choose to defy the laws of physics.
The tables and chairs, acting as obstacles, provided the counterforce that slowed Zhang Ge's originally fierce forward momentum. It was this slight delay that caused the threads, which had been severed and now retracted for a second attack, to miss their mark.
The red threads, capable of easily tearing through flesh, passed within a hair's breadth of Zhang Ge, nearly grazing the tip of his nose as they slashed downward. Splinters from the shattered tables and chairs pierced his body.
The attack was grand in its ferocity, but this strike, calculated for Zhang Ge's full speed and seemingly inevitable, had missed. And it had missed without him slowing down on his own.
This was a game of strategy, as simple as a straight line drawn on a blank sheet of paper. There was no time for shouting the names of techniques in a burst of burning passion, nor for nostalgic flashbacks of villages or close friends.
Yet, despite its apparent simplicity, both sides had staked their entire focus on this brief moment of strategic play, making countless decisions. A single misstep would turn one into the loser, and the loser was synonymous with the dead.
In the next instant after its attack missed, as Zhang Ge once again erupted with force and leapt upward, the blade of his power sword traced an arc. Without fail, the edge cleaved through the threads that futilely attempted to block him, severing the connection between the entwined pale tendrils and the head.
After losing its sensory organ, the threads immediately became frenzied and began flailing aimlessly, destroying everything around them. The interior of the classroom was shredded as if thrown into a paper shredder.
However, such attacks could no longer pose any threat. After severing a few nearby threads, Zhang Ge raised the plasma pistol in his right hand and fired a brilliant blue orb. It struck the side of the fleshy tendril at the front door frame, causing the impacted area to instantly vaporize under the intense heat.
The tendrils it had left in the classroom were severed, gradually losing their vitality. The head that had been regrowing at the power sword's cut also stopped growing.
This outcome was regrettable, for both sides.
Everything seemed to calm down, but this was merely one of its countless extensions. As for the confrontation with its true self, this was only the beginning.
In the school that had been silent for so long, the clamor grew louder and closer. The sounds of countless things moving at full speed—colliding, scraping, and entangling—filled every corner of every corridor. Countless screams, howling "Save me!" surged forward.
There was no time to linger and admire his victory. Zhang Ge moved to the window, its glass long shattered, and leapt out.
This was the fifth floor. For an ordinary person, jumping from this height would mean death or lifelong disability. But Zhang Ge was no ordinary person. With his physical condition, while he would still be injured upon impact, a shot of combat stimulant/healing agent would allow him to move normally—far better than staying inside to await death. That had been his original plan.
Why "original"? Because as he jumped out the window, he noticed that the boot he had previously dropped had somehow gotten caught by its shoelace on a steel bar protruding from the exterior wall. His arm span and falling speed were just right to grab the boot at that height.
If it had been just the bare steel bar, grabbing it would only have slowed his descent. Trying to use it to inch into another floor would have been too slow.
But the extra boot provided just the additional movable structure he needed.
This forced him to abandon his original plan of trading injury for survival. Instead, after descending, he grabbed the boot's upper and swung himself into the third floor.
After he entered the third floor, the boot outside, under the force, loosened its shoelace and detached from the steel bar, falling to the ground below.
The reason a miracle is called a miracle is because it defies common sense. Even with the alien's cunning, it had never considered that Zhang Ge could escape in such a way.
Not to mention it, even Conan would have to check the surveillance footage to figure out what had happened.
Countless extensions, similar to the tendrils that had previously connected to the head, rushed into the classroom where Zhang Ge had been. Upon finding him gone, they immediately crashed out the window, yet still failed to capture his trail.
In this way, Zhang Ge actually managed to escape its pursuit once again after being discovered.
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