Chapter 115: Confronting the Perfect Form of the Growth Stage

“What the hell are you trying to do, you idiot?” By the time Feng Xue arrived, Impmon was surrounded by police cars for wrecking a sedan. Yet the fool had actually thrown a volley of Impmon Darts at the armed officers.

Left with no choice, Feng Xue summoned a whirlwind and swept Impmon away. He had to admit, it did look rather like a monster carrying off its master.

“None of your business! I’m the great Impmon! I could flatten those humans with a flick of my finger!” Impmon flapped his wings, looking just like a child playing pranks to attract his parents’ attention.

“Idiot!” Feng Xue was nowhere near as gentle as Renamon. He gave Impmon’s behavior a blunt and accurate definition.

“What did you say?” Impmon’s eyes immediately widened, and three syringe-like darts appeared from somewhere.

“I said you’re an idiot!” Feng Xue grabbed Impmon by the scruff—or at least, that had been his intention. Impmon had no collar to seize; he was basically a ball. Feng Xue simply caught the entire round creature in one hand. “You’re only at the Rookie level. It’s far too early for you to think you can take on bullets. Besides, roaming openly through the streets like this—are you trying to get captured and dissected?”

“Don’t lump me together with you weaklings who can’t evolve without partners! Bullets are—”

“You make it sound as though you can evolve without a partner.” Feng Xue kneaded the Impmon in his hand into a ball, rolling him back and forth across his palm.

“Stop it! What are you doing? Let go, damn you!” Impmon suddenly spread his wings and broke free. “What do you know? Even without a partner, I can become stronger!”

“Oh? Now that you mention it, I do remember there being two children back then. They used to be your partners—”

Before he could finish, a syringe-shaped dart shot toward Feng Xue’s face. Feng Xue merely tilted his head and dodged it by a hair’s breadth.

“What the hell do you know!” Impmon looked utterly unhinged, kicking the wall repeatedly with his stubby legs. “I want to become stronger too! I want to evolve too!”

“Then—” Feng Xue had barely begun to speak when a chill seized his heart.

The Demon Emperor had appeared again!

He had no time to concern himself with Impmon. Feng Xue darted toward the direction from which the thick fog had emerged. Impmon, however, followed close behind.

“Perfect timing!” Seeing Impmon charge forward recklessly, eager to fight, Feng Xue’s face twitched. That was a Perfect-level Digimon. What did a Rookie think he was doing, throwing his life away?

Yet when Feng Xue saw the determination in Impmon’s eyes, he hesitated. This had nothing to do with the plot or with his plans. At that moment, Impmon possessed a resolve all his own—the eyes of a seeker of the Way, the eyes of one who would defy Heaven itself even if it meant being shattered to pieces.

“Don’t interfere… please! This is my battle!” Impmon turned around. His round body flapped its wings, and though his silhouette should have been comical, it now carried a desolate air.

Although it was still rather comical…

“Even if all of you attack together, it won’t matter!” Indaramon’s eyes were hidden beneath his white mane—or perhaps it was a mane of hair—but his gaze still felt deeply unsettling, as though he were looking upon an ant foolish enough to challenge an elephant.

“Enough talk! You’re my prey!” Impmon pulled out a gigantic syringe. Unlike the finger-thick syringes he normally used, this one was at least as thick as two arms.

“Impmon Dart!”

The syringe-shaped projectile shot straight toward Indaramon’s chest, only to strike his armor and ricochet away without leaving so much as a mark. He was a Perfect-level Digimon, after all. Even if the armor was not made of Chrome Digizoid, its defensive power still far surpassed that of most Champions.

“Such a pathetic trick!” Indaramon was arrogant by nature. In other words, he thought himself extraordinary. For a Rookie, however, he truly was extraordinary.

Yet it was precisely that warped arrogance and pride that allowed Impmon to survive. His conceit would not permit him to use his full strength against a mere Rookie.

Bang!

His hoof did not even kick up dust. With a forward sweep as casual as a human taking a step, Indaramon sent Impmon flying. But the round little demon displayed a trait shared by every Digimon—the heart of battle. Once a fight began, no matter how powerful the opponent, he would still throw himself forward with everything he had.

“Terriermon, evolve!” Jianliang had appeared at some point, but Feng Xue stopped him.

“This is Impmon’s battle,” Feng Xue said quietly.

The scene nevertheless made Feng Xue want to shout a line from some melodramatic play:

“A woman’s restraint is the shield that guards a man’s dignity!”

“But I’m not a woman, damn it! (╯`皿′)╯︵┻━┻”

Naturally, no one knew that Feng Xue was internally flipping tables and going completely berserk. But watching Impmon repeatedly get knocked into the air, they could not help feeling uneasy.

“Impmon Dart!”

At that moment, the battle suddenly shifted. Impmon fired a syringe at a marvelous angle.

The proud and arrogant Indaramon could not even be bothered to dodge.

The syringe buried itself in Indaramon’s shoulder.

Impmon’s signature attack was fundamentally different from those of ordinary Rookies. Its power did not lie in the syringe’s ability to pierce, but in the virus contained within it.

Once injected with that virus, even a Vaccine-type Mega would be left feeling miserable for several days. Indaramon, however, was a Virus-type Digimon. At this dosage, the virus would do little more than give him something akin to a common cold.

Indaramon was enraged.

Indaramon was taking a deep breath!

This was not merely Feng Xue’s sarcastic commentary. It was a genuine live report.

Apparently unable to bear the humiliation of having been wounded by a Rookie, Indaramon flew into a rage. He reached behind himself and removed his shofar, placing it to his lips as he prepared to blow.

“No! If he takes that attack head-on, he’s finished!” Feng Xue’s expression changed abruptly. He was ready to intervene.

Although he could no longer remember exactly how Impmon had escaped disaster in the original story, Feng Xue had no intention of placing all his hopes in the plot. Impmon clearly could not inflict meaningful damage on Indaramon the way Impmon had.

A golden sphere of energy shot forward. The tremendous force produced by its sonic vibrations made Feng Xue’s blood run cold.

“That’s far enough! Connection Terminated!”

The absolute defense constructed from streams of data displayed, at that moment, the superiority rooted in the laws of the Digital World. Even Indaramon’s attack, launched in a fit of fury, shattered against the fragmented defense resembling an AT Field and rapidly dissipated.

“Card Slash! Hyper Evolution Component!”

Seeing Feng Xue intervene, the protagonists no longer held back. Their cards swept across the Arc Light, and the two Digimon evolved into Champions.

“Meaningless!”

The Digimon’s attacks were absorbed by the shofar made of Chrome Digizoid, then returned as an even more powerful shockwave. Because the reflected attack carried the allies’ identification signal, Feng Xue’s Connection Terminated could not defend against it.

“Damn it!”

Realizing the danger, Feng Xue could only evade. But in doing so, he exposed Impmon behind him to Indaramon.

“Die!”

Indaramon raised his iron hoof and kicked Impmon clean off his feet. Just as he moved in to deliver the final blow, an abnormal stream of data suddenly appeared—

“Hmph!”

Indaramon seemed to sense the danger posed by that power. With an irritated snort, he transformed into a cloud of data and vanished into the sky.