In truth, if Sylvia hadn't said those things on the broadcast, Fang Li probably wouldn't have gained nearly as much from the incident, much less shot straight to second place on the Hero Association's popularity rankings.
After all, Sylvia's words were the main reason the people inside the disaster shelter hadn't completely lost hope and scattered in a panic. Without them, the citizens of J-City might have given up entirely and been slaughtered by the Deep Sea King.
Compared to that possibility, the current outcome was obviously much better.
Even so, Fang Li still found the whole situation troublesome.
"A Hero, huh?" He picked up one of the fan letters from the table, muttering almost indifferently, "I'm clearly not that kind of person."
He wasn't being modest. It was simply the truth.
After all, if Fang Li were truly a Hero, he wouldn't have watched the Deep Sea King head toward the disaster shelter while staying behind to settle a personal grudge with Sonic. If he had ignored Sonic back then, he could have killed the Deep Sea King immediately and never given the monster a chance to reach the shelter in the first place.
And Sonic wouldn't have been able to stop him.
The two of them were essentially the same type of fighter. When two combatants specialized in the exact same field, the superior one naturally held an overwhelming advantage, and Fang Li was the one with that advantage. Whether in pure speed or movement techniques, he was far beyond Sonic. If Fang Li had wanted to leave, Sonic wouldn't have had any chance of stopping him.
But Fang Li hadn't left. He had stayed and fought Sonic instead.
As a result, the Deep Sea King reached the shelter and placed all those ordinary civilians in mortal danger. How could someone like that be called a Hero?
In other words, when forced to choose between saving ordinary lives and dealing with a threat to Sylvia, Fang Li would unquestionably prioritize Sylvia. If Sonic had been left alone, he would've caused trouble for Sylvia sooner or later. That was why Fang Li had stayed.
And even if he were given the exact same choice again, he would make the exact same decision.
So Fang Li had never considered himself a Hero.
"These people probably have the wrong idea about me."
With that, Fang Li placed the fan letter back on the table. The atmosphere immediately grew a little heavier, and both Sylvia and Fubuki stopped reading.
"Hmph."
Only Tatsumaki continued looking away, acting as though none of it had anything to do with her.
"Oh, right." Sylvia smoothly changed the subject. "What happened to that Sonic guy in the end?"
After returning home, Fang Li had already filled Sylvia in on everything that had happened on his end. Only then did Sylvia learn that the assassin who had once tried to attack her, only to underestimate her strength, get beaten, and end up in prison, had escaped and resurfaced during the Deep Sea King incident.
"Originally, wasn't he only after me because his employer ordered him to?" Sylvia said. "He gives off this strange vibe where he isn't exactly good or evil. Killing him would've been a bit much."
Or rather, from Sylvia's perspective, killing anyone was something that shouldn't be done unless absolutely necessary. At the very least, she had never killed anyone before. Without that kind of conviction, she couldn't have remained who she was after witnessing so much darkness and corruption in the world of the War-Academy Cities while living as a world-famous Diva.
Fang Li, on the other hand, didn't particularly hate killing people, though he didn't enjoy it either. He certainly hadn't gone easy on Sonic.
However...
"He still managed to escape in the end." Fang Li spread his hands. "That guy's pretty good at running for his life."
During their fight, Sonic had used an escape technique similar to a substitution method. Its effect was somewhat like Connecting Lapel, one of the Nanaya Assassination Arts' Flashing Dash techniques, a move that created an afterimage-like double, allowing the user to slip free from danger like a cicada shedding its shell.
During his final, desperate move, Sonic had used that technique to accept his defeat and flee.
"But that guy definitely isn't going to let this go," Fang Li said with certainty. "Both you and I are on his bad side now. He'll probably come looking for us sooner or later."
Actually, after his battle with Fang Li, Sylvia's matter had likely become secondary in Sonic's eyes. But there was no chance Sonic would leave Fang Li alone. Fang Li had crushed him completely in the very field Sonic took the most pride in, and given Sonic's personality, there was no way he'd simply accept defeat.
Fubuki, who had been listening from the side, couldn't help asking, "Is Speed-o'-Sound Sonic really that strong?"
Fang Li glanced at her. "Strong enough to beat you pretty easily."
That single sentence left Fubuki completely speechless.
"'Woof!'"
Beside them, Tatsumaki immediately growled threateningly at Fang Li.
"What?" Fang Li raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Trying to stand up for your little sister?"
He looked at the tiny dog with amusement.
"Forget it. Maybe that would work against someone else, but your psychic power doesn't work on me. How exactly are you planning to defend her?"
"'Grrr...!'"
Tatsumaki growled angrily. She had never been willing to accept that fact. What kind of joke was this? Her psychic power didn't work on him?
Tatsumaki had never experienced anything like that in her life. No matter how dire the situation, she had always been able to crush everything with her overwhelming power. She had practically never suffered a real setback, if she had, she probably wouldn't have developed such a difficult personality in the first place.
But no one could stay undefeated forever, and now someone who completely countered her had finally appeared.
Sylvia could at most weaken Tatsumaki's power, but she couldn't completely nullify it. There was no helping that, Tatsumaki's power was simply too strong, and with Sylvia's current strength, fully suppressing her psychic abilities was still difficult.
Fang Li was different.
As long as something possessed a Line of Death that he could see and cut, he could ignore its strength, process, and even causality itself, directly erasing the target's existence. Even Saitama, whom Fang Li considered virtually invincible, would suffer the same fate if Fang Li managed to cut one of his Lines of Death.
So Tatsumaki's psychic power truly was completely useless against him. Once an esper lost access to their supernatural ability, they were basically no different from an ordinary person. In other words, Fang Li had Tatsumaki completely hard-countered.
But Tatsumaki refused to admit it. And the more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
"'Gao!'"
With a sharp bark, Tatsumaki suddenly lunged toward Fang Li, baring a mouthful of sharp teeth, clearly planning to bite him.
Then something unexpected happened.
'ZHENG...!'
While still in midair, Tatsumaki's entire body suddenly began to glow.
(End of Chapter)
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