Chapter Ninety-Four: Ruki's Resolve

Spidermon was incredibly fast. In a forest webbed thick with silk, it could move with a fluidity almost equal to that of a flying Digimon. But that was not what made it most troublesome.

While Feng Xue was locking horns with Spidermon from a distance through the elemental summons granted by Impmon’s innate talent, the sly giant had somehow closed in on Ruki without anyone noticing.

“No good!”

Feng Xue, who had long been fighting alone, failed to sense the danger in time. By the moment he realized something was wrong, Spidermon was already only one pounce away from Ruki.

“Ruki, move!”

Feng Xue shouted and drove his body to its limit. At the same time, he activated the high-speed movement skill recognized by the Digital World. The two effects stacked together, boosting his speed to three times its original rate.

“What? Ah!”

Ruki first froze, then abruptly saw Spidermon lunging straight at her. For an instant, she forgot to dodge and stood there, dumbfounded.

“Hundred-Forge Martial Art: Heaven-Splitting Cannon!”

Feng Xue, pushed by his full-speed charge, finally reached her and unleashed the skill without a second thought.

At this moment, the superiority of Digimon skills became vividly clear. Even the greatest master of traditional martial arts could not, while sprinting at full force, strike with perfect unity of waist and stance. Yet under the influence of the skill, Feng Xue needed no conscious coordination of his power. Guided by the will of the world itself, he could deliver the flawless blow he was capable of.

His fist, wrapped in white light, smashed into Spidermon’s jaw. The colossal creature was sent flying at once. But Feng Xue did not escape unscathed; his entire right arm had already been coated in an unnatural gray, and the intense numbness made it nearly impossible to exert any strength at all.

That was the main reason Feng Xue avoided close combat with Spidermon. As a virus-type born from severe viral corruption, Spidermon’s entire body was covered in a virulent poison that could corrode an enemy on mere contact. Under such conditions, any touch was like stacking another debuff on oneself.

“Ruki, support with a selection card!”

Ignoring the injury to his right arm, Feng Xue charged after Spidermon. Though that last strike had not finished the job, it had at least left the creature dazed. This was the perfect moment to destroy it.

“Ah... r-right!”

Ruki had clearly been shaken by what had just happened, but she still trembled as she drew a card and began supporting Feng Xue.

“Card Slash: Vital Herb Fruit, stamina boost!”

As the card swept across the Arc Device, a green light washed over Feng Xue’s body. The gray virus on his right arm began to fade at a visible rate.

“That’s it!”

Feng Xue seemed to have gained some understanding of Impmon’s innate skills. One fireball after another, then a volley of ice spikes, shot forth in rapid succession, only to be blocked time and again by Spidermon’s tough outer shell.

“No, this still won’t do... I need—”

Before Feng Xue could even signal, Ruki, now fully recovered, had already resumed her duty as a partner. A card flashed quickly across the Arc Device.

“Onuvandil’s Arrow: accuracy boost!”

As the phantom of an arrow dissolved into a stream of data and poured into Feng Xue’s body, a feeling rose from deep within him: a sensation of being able to aim perfectly at anything in the world.

But Feng Xue did not allow himself to be led by that illusion. Instead, he activated the Quincy-like ability to gather spiritual particles, extracting the data before it fully dispersed through his body and condensing it in his hand into an arrow glowing with green light.

“Waah!”

Spidermon had clearly recovered from its daze. It opened its maw and spewed a black gust carrying a mass of virus straight toward Feng Xue.

“This ends it!”

Feng Xue stamped out with his footwork, slipping away from the poisonous mist. Then, taking advantage of the stiffness that followed Spidermon’s skill use, he loosed the green arrow.

“Waaah!”

A crafty glint seemed to flash in Spidermon’s eyes. No longer moving stiffly, it suddenly twisted around and sprayed out a vast net of spider silk, poised to intercept the arrow.

“You’re too naive.”

A strange smile appeared on Feng Xue’s face. The arrow split at once into countless tiny fragments, slipping through the gaps in the web and covering Spidermon from head to toe. The next instant, Spidermon shattered into a rain of fragments and was absorbed by Feng Xue.

“Onuvandil’s Arrow boosts hit rate. How could it be so easily blocked?”

Feng Xue smiled, and the spirit bow on his arm returned once more to its form as a bracer.

Only then did he look back at Ruki, and found the girl already collapsed on the ground, staring blankly ahead with unfocused eyes, as though she had been thoroughly broken.

“Did you feel it?”

Feng Xue’s voice suddenly sounded beside her ear.

Ruki looked as though she had truly been terrified, answering almost entirely on instinct. “Feel... what?”

“The instant before death.”

“Death?” Ruki’s eyes were still empty, but a trace of fear had entered her voice.

“That’s right. All this time, Ruki, you’ve kept yourself in the position of an observer, treating Digimon battles like a game. Though you stand inside the arena, you’ve always thought of yourself as outside it. No matter how the fight ends, to you it’s only a matter of winning or losing.” Feng Xue, having seen through the demon within his own heart, also understood Ruki’s problem. The girl had been treating battle like a card game. In a card game, the tamer is never attacked—but reality is not so kind. What happened today was the perfect lesson for her. At the same time, it was a reminder to Feng Xue: he was not fighting alone.

“This is not just victory or defeat. This is battle. It is a gamble, a gamble with life and death at stake. I am your partner. You cannot stand apart from it. That is the true nature of Digimon battles.”

Feng Xue’s voice was cold and merciless, stripping bare, without any attempt at kindness, the truth behind the girl’s so-called thrilling hobby.

“Gambling... with life and death?”

Ruki’s vacant eyes slowly began to focus, though her voice still trembled.

“Yes. So if you can’t accept that, then our partnership ends here.”

Feng Xue sighed a little helplessly. He no longer remembered how the girl in the original story had escaped from that mindset, or whether she ever had. But in reality, there was no way he could drag an unprepared girl into a battlefield.

That had nothing to do with morality. It was simply against his own code.

“Ends here? How could it!”

Ruki jolted as if struck by lightning, then sprang to her feet. “I’m Impmon’s tamer, and Impmon is my Digimon. That’s something that was decided long ago. How could you just end it on your own? Life and death, so what? Impmon is strong, isn’t he? Strong enough that no one can beat him, right? As long as we keep winning, isn’t that enough? That’s right, I’m the strongest tamer, and Impmon is the strongest Digimon. We can definitely keep winning forever!”

“Keep winning forever, huh? Well, that’s at least one way to break out of a deadlock.”

Feng Xue could only give a wry inward laugh. In the end, he had no choice but to follow after Ruki.

After all, she was only an elementary school student. It was unreasonable to ask too much of her.

Still, as long as they kept winning, wasn’t that enough?

For someone who had come from another world, perhaps winning forever really would not be so difficult... would it?