Beauty Phase's ears perked up at the keywords, immediately searching her mind for related superpowers.
"Papercut Wife? A fictional character from human fantasy works. Does erasing me mean I'll only exist in fantasies?"
"Or a hardcore papercut, flattening me like paper."
"It's probably not that simple. Insight eyes, paper people, and radiance – what connects these three?"
Unable to make the connection, but faced with the human's unwavering confidence bordering on arrogance, Beauty Phase felt it could extract more information.
With an innocent expression, quite different from its previous bloodthirsty image, it asked in a soft, melodious voice, "How can I become the Papercut Wife?"
Encountering creatures fueled by imagination until now, Qi Yuan found it somewhat unusual to have a monster that dislikes such fantasies.
Spider monsters could imagine a hundred and eighty ways just by looking at eyes, but when it came to the creature in front of them, even with the provided clues, they couldn't figure it out.
This batch of monsters was no good!
One-star review!
"Of course..."
Qi Yuan elongated his tone, not because he wanted to, but having indulged in banter, he couldn't come up with specific content after being questioned.
Moreover, with his limitless superpower potential, restricting it to a certain category would be a huge loss.
So, he offered an ambiguous understanding of papercut people.
"No self-awareness, only those existing in two-dimensional space can be called papercut people."
"What a foolish and arrogant male human. He exposed information with just a flick of his finger," Beauty Phase greedily licked her lips, coveting the human's body – it must be delicious since it's so powerful.
It already knew what the human's superpower was.
Eyes that discern everything, capable of creating paper people.
No mistake, the superpower is reconstruction!
The eyes discern the structure of everything, and radiance is the process of disassembling and reconstructing.
So, he could make her the Papercut Wife.
Wait...
Beauty Phase furrowed her eyebrows, realizing things weren't that simple. While the analysis was done, how could she kill him?
No matter how she thought about it, this superpower seemed insurmountable at the same level, especially since she was just an illusion-based monster without potent attack capabilities.
More importantly, he completely countered her; could eyes that see through everything withstand illusions?
Sigh! If it had such immense power, it would swagger around.
"Did you misunderstand something?"
Hearing Beauty Phase's thoughts, Qi Yuan's eyes had changed to a golden color at some point, fingertips gathering a cluster of starlight cold as a sword's edge. "I never said I'm a mere A-level superhuman."
Qi Yuan didn't know how strong A-level monsters were, but stronger was always better. If fighting could be done in seconds, why engage in prolonged battles?
The legendary S-level!
Why would an S-level superhuman be lurking in such a small city?!!
Beauty Phase didn't doubt the truth of Qi Yuan's words because, no matter how she thought about it, Qi Yuan could easily suppress her; there was no need to lie.
"No wonder this human said things would become boring if he joined.
Despite towering over the human, Beauty Phase felt like facing a cliff, unable to muster any fighting spirit.
"Escape! We must escape!"
Qi Yuan watched the glow on Shizong's fingertip with caution and spoke with embarrassment, "I don't want to bore you."
"So?" Shizong replied.
"I was mostly ready to go. Was it too rude to interrupt your spellcasting?"
Shizong was reluctant, not wanting to pause when he was so close to achieving a breakthrough.
"Just pretend you didn't hear me..."
He mustered more power, intending to strike Beauty Phase with thunderous force.
"I want to fight that human who lacks any presence."
Before Qi Yuan could respond, Shizong made his biggest reaction so far.
Shizong lifted his eyelids, struggling to widen his lifeless eyes.
"Fine, let's fight. But how dare you defame my innocence out of thin air?"
What do you mean by a human who lacks any presence?
I'm just being polite and not wanting to disturb others. It doesn't mean I lack presence!
Xue Shiyun saw this scene on the street's television and couldn't help but laugh.
Her brother hated it most when others said he lacked presence.
Everyone who said that was lucky if her brother didn't actively deceive them, let alone fulfill their wishes.
Even when the siblings had friction between them, she didn't dare step on this landmine.
Shizong did indeed speak with almost no inflection, even an AI had more emotions than him.
"I don't want to fight."
He, looking like a dead fish with no expression, rejected Beauty Phase's proposal.
Qi Yuan raised the small ball of light again, preparing for his spell.
He had been itching to do this for a long time.
"Wait! I'll fight someone else."
In desperation, Beauty Phase extended its left hand, a tone of sorrow appearing on its face.
Some B-tier superhumans who were indulging in vice felt pity. They stood up one after another, wanting to be heroes and save the beauty.
However, Qi Yuan had no intention of wasting time with it. Holding his hand up for so long was making it sore, and interrupting his spellcasting would be impolite.
The inorganic metal radiated a gleam...
The scene wasn't grand, but it was devastating.
Beauty Phase was engulfed by the glow. Its sturdy shell had withstood attacks from dozens of B-tier superhumans without a scratch, but it dissipated into the air upon contact with the light.
During the process of vanishing, Beauty Phase didn't even realize which part of itself had disappeared.
It lowered its head in confusion, trying to identify where it was injured.
The glow illuminated its head, and the last remaining part was also enveloped by the light.
Moments later, the glow gradually diminished, and a piece of paper floated down from the air.
The paper landed at Qi Yuan's feet, and he stepped on it, causing the paper to disintegrate beneath his foot.
His paper wife had many beautiful forms, but he decided to give up on this one.
Turning around, he searched the crowd, but couldn't find familiar faces like Xue Shiyun and Zhuang Heng. He had no choice but to settle for Cheng Yizhou instead.
As Qi Yuan made his way toward Cheng Yizhou, the silent scene suddenly erupted into cheers.
This shout ignited the desires of everyone present. They raised their arms and cheered, releasing all the worry, fear, and the exhilaration of being saved.
The television station recorded this scene and broadcasted it to all the citizens of Qipan City.
And just like the superhumans, the citizens of Qipan City, they emerged from their shelters, either shouting or embracing each other with tears in their eyes.
This catastrophe made them remember the patrol teams that sacrificed themselves to protect them, as well as one person in particular.
A young S-tier superhuman with golden eyes.
—Qi Yuan.
...
Inside the Qi Family's residence,
Due to Qi Ao's tendency to oversleep, his mind was in a half-dreaming, half-waking state, causing him to dawdle and miss their departure time.
The television once again broadcasted a notice prohibiting outdoor activities, so Qi's mother and Qi Ao had no choice but to lock up their doors and windows and stay at home watching TV.
Qi Ao and Qi Yuan were still in a one-sided cold war phase. When Qi Ao saw Qi Yuan's achievements, his initial reaction was that his brother had deceived him again.
Pointing angrily at the television, he exclaimed, "Mom, you and brother lied to me again! You said he was out there fighting monsters, but it's all fake!"
Qi's mother innocently looked at him and said, "I didn't lie to you. He wasn't fighting monsters before, but now he is."
"Then why didn't I know about it?"
Although Qi Ao had once relied on his brother to rescue him, it was merely an instinctive dependence, and he had no clear understanding of the gap between superhumans and ordinary people.
"Yeah, why didn't you know?" Qi's mother was equally puzzled. She didn't understand what her youngest son was thinking. "Otherwise, why would we go to Shen City? Isn't it for your brother to study Combat Major at Shen City University?"
For someone of Qi Ao's age, Combat Major was equivalent to being a superhero.
Qi Ao quickly deduced that Combat Major meant fighting monsters.
Choked with words, he couldn't speak and, unwilling to admit his own lack of intelligence, silently crouched in the corner, feeling withdrawn.