Reborn with Steve Stand - Chapter 748: Kartel (2)

“Wait… does your meteor skill have no limitations?”

Looking at the Arden Plateau, now reduced to a massive crater, even the Summon couldn’t hold back: “You can’t just throw it around randomly, right?”

“How weak do you think I am?”

Fang Mo didn’t even lift his head as he studied a map in his hand, freshly drawn by Mobeni. It marked the distribution of the Kartel organization’s forces. “If even summoning a mere meteor had restrictions… what would be the difference between me and a salted fish?”

“Mere meteor?”

The Summon’s eye twitched. “I don’t think Kartel would see it that way…”

“That just means you haven’t seen the big picture.”

Fang Mo said casually, “Once, I accidentally poked a hole in the moon. To fix it, I summoned a meteor shower on it. Oh, by the way, the meteor material that time was… well, poop. Can you imagine how spectacular it was to have hundreds of kilometers covered in poop?”

“…”

The Summon took a deep breath.

“Only the most awesome can pull off such an extraordinary miracle.” Fang Mo suddenly raised his hands and declared, “So I’m naming this move the Zero-style Poop River!”

“Stop it.”

The Summon clutched their stomach, “I’m starting to feel nauseous.”

“Tsk tsk, your sewer-blood isn’t pure.” Fang Mo chuckled, “Can’t handle this? I haven’t even introduced you to Indian honeybee and death porridge yet.”

“Enough with the nonsense.”

The Summon rubbed their temples and changed the subject, “What’s our next move? Continue destroying Kartel’s remaining forces?”

“Oh, looks like we’ve destroyed most of them already.”

Fang Mo fiddled with the map, “Next, we’ll go straight for General…”

With that, Fang Mo patted the dusky evil soul beneath him, which soon turned around and began flying towards a valley marked on the map.

Unlike the island where the capital Ghent was located, the western wastelands were harsh in both environment and terrain.

This area was almost entirely desert, gobi, and rugged mountains, which made it easy to defend and hard to attack, providing natural concealment — a perfect military stronghold.

The evil soul they rode flew for a while.

Finally, before nightfall, they arrived at Kartel’s command post.

This was also a rugged valley, but unlike the misty city of Heis, there was no sea breeze blowing in thick fog, just endless wind and sand.

Fang Mo glanced at the terrain below.

Compared to other areas, there was clearly more military force deployed here.

It was evident that Kartel had been entrenched here for a long time, even hollowing out the cliffs and ground to build what looked like missile silos.

Since they were here to rescue someone, Fang Mo didn’t immediately throw down meteors.

He just picked a convenient spot to land and led everyone to start the ‘dungeon.’

“Come on, let’s clear the map.”

Fang Mo stored away the dusky evil soul and began warming up: “None of you use any skills. I’m soloing General Lan today…”

“Just don’t throw meteors, and we’re good.”

The Summon facepalmed.

“Okay.”

Fang Mo agreed, then looked towards the cliff ahead, “Let’s go, we’ll jump off the cliff…”

“Can I choose another way to die?”

The Summon suddenly spoke up, “I’m not a fan of being smashed to death.”

“?”

Fang Mo glanced at them, “Can’t you learn some good virtues from me? Must you mimic my bad habits?”

“You know I learned from you!?”

The Summon shouted.

“Well, it couldn’t be helped.” Fang Mo shrugged, “Kartel’s command post is at the bottom of the cliff, the evil soul is too big to land, so we have to jump.”

Indeed, that’s the layout of the Kartel command post, just like in the game. Even in the game, players had to make their characters jump off the cliff, dodge a bunch of anti-air missiles, and land on a hidden platform to start the battle. Then they had to defeat several elite monsters before facing the boss after completing a series of mechanics.

The difficulty of this map wasn’t high, but it was incredibly annoying, purely dragging out time with various mechanics.

Because of this, Fang Mo was pretty irritated with this map back in the day, so now he had a justified reason to vent his frustration.

“Alright, let’s go.”

With that in mind, Fang Mo didn’t bother arguing with the Summon anymore and walked straight to the edge of the cliff, spreading his arms: “Watch my leap of faith…”

After saying that, Fang Mo leaned back and jumped off.

“You go on ahead.”

However, the Summon, seeing this, didn’t follow but decided to slack off instead: “Since I don’t have to do anything, I’ll just wait here for your…”

But before they could finish, Fang Mo suddenly raised a hand.

“Universal Pull.”

“Hey!”

The Summon had seen this move before and immediately realized what Fang Mo was planning. Almost by reflex, they tried to run in the opposite direction, but the next second, an irresistible force pulled them back to the cliff’s edge, and they fell down.

“Are you insane!!!”

In midair, the Summon lost it.

“Yes.” Fang Mo floated in midair, arms crossed behind his head, relaxing as he replied, “The diagnosis is ‘Ai…'”

“?”

The Summon was stunned.

“A true man dares to stake his life for a prank.”

Fang Mo puffed out his chest proudly, “Even in death, I’ll choose the funniest way to go, like microwaving a small microwave with a big microwave… even God will give me a commendation!”

“Stop it, man.”

The Summon cringed, “Missiles are already incoming.”

“Hmm?”

Fang Mo looked and indeed saw several missiles.

This was a mechanic in the game where players had to control their characters to dodge missiles, but from another perspective, it also proved how well-defended Kartel’s command post was, instantly detecting and counterattacking intruders.

But unlike in the game, Fang Mo wasn’t in the mood for dealing with any mechanics now.

He casually reached behind and drew out a giant sword resembling a torrent.

“Hot Spring Cannon.”

Fang Mo pointed the sword tip at a distant turret and said softly.

The next second, a torrent surged, and a massive water column shot from the sword tip. The atmosphere ahead was instantly pierced, creating ripples like Ghentle waves. From a distance, it looked like a fine line splitting the entire valley in two.

As for that metal turret, it was blown into countless pieces by the water cannon in an instant.

But that wasn’t the end. The high-pressure water cannon continued to blast after shattering the turret, breaking through the base, penetrating the rock layers, and finally erupting from the other side of the mountainside.

Eventually, the high-pressure water cannon drilled deep into the ground.

“Hmm, the power’s decent…”

Fang Mo was quite satisfied with the scene, so he swung the giant sword horizontally.

With his motion, the continuous high-pressure water cannon swept to the right, instantly hitting all the missiles and simultaneously destroying the ground’s anti-aircraft guns.

Even the mountain behind was split open with a massive crack.

The unsteady mountain began to collapse, shaking, and countless boulders tumbled down, smashing many enigmatic metal structures. Explosions and fire mixed with thick steam filled the air, making the once dry surroundings damp and chilly.

As Fang Mo admired the spectacular scene before him, he suddenly felt something grab him. Turning to look, he found it was the Summon.

Probably afraid of falling to their death, the small magic user clung to him like an octopus, not forgetting to ask: “… What’s with that weapon?”

“Oh, that’s the Sea Demon Sword, Taixis.”

Fang Mo replied casually, “You can think of it as Laevatein’s, well, sidekick.”

Indeed, Fang Mo wasn’t lying.

This weapon was one he crafted in a punchy dungeon, originally a giant Ender sword containing the dragon-level monster, Evil Natural Water. After returning to the main world, Fang Mo re-forged it into a broader blade more suited to the creature’s attributes.

During the reforging process, Fang Mo carefully selected materials like deep iron, swirling gold, crystal matrix, or gallium, and even enhanced the sword with hot springs, maximizing its hydrophilic properties.

And in pursuit of strength, Fang Mo replicated Laevatein’s enchantments and reinforcements one-to-one, maxing out everything.

Speaking of enchantments, one must mention the Sea’s Fortune enchantment.

In the game world, this enchantment was originally for fishing rods. But like other enchantments, it transformed upon becoming reality, aligning with its literal meaning.

Now, Sea’s Fortune X was already absurdly powerful. Coupled with the materials’ various properties, such as diver, vortex, water affinity, and liquid, plus the hot spring enhancement, these factors together caused a qualitative change, giving the sword an almost cheat-like power.

The more water it encounters, the stronger it becomes.

And this sword specializes in water…

In short, that’s why it became a true Sea Demon Sword.

Not only can it create oceans from nothing, but it can also control or absorb all currents and tides in the world. Theoretically, paired with items like the Archmage’s Ring or the Tidal Talisman, its power wouldn’t be inferior to the Flame Demon Sword, Laevatein.

So Fang Mo simply named it similarly, the Sea

Demon Sword, Taixis.

“… Laevatein’s sidekick?”

The Summon seemed a bit surprised, “I remember Laevatein is that giant sword covered in flames, right? That thing has a bad temper… Is this sword the same?”

“Oh, sorry.”

Fang Mo shrugged, “This sword hasn’t developed sentience yet.”

“What?”

The Summon was clearly stunned by this. But before she could ask anything else, they were already close to the ground. Seeing this, she instinctively curled into a ball, gripping Fang Mo tightly.

Soon, they landed.

With a loud crash, a cloud of dust rose.

“Alert!”

“Enemy attack!”

On the other side, Kartel’s soldiers immediately surrounded the platform. As mentioned before, the command post was heavily guarded, so they were already on high alert.

“Hey, are you glued to me?”

Almost immediately, Fang Mo’s voice came from the dust: “Let go already.”

“It’s your fault!” A frustrated voice replied, “You made me jump off a cliff!”

“Target confirmed! Attack!”

The Kartel soldiers didn’t care about the banter. Someone shouted, and they instantly pulled the trigger, some even throwing grenades. Their efficiency was surprisingly high; countless bullets whizzed through the air, nearly dispersing the dust cloud.

But at that moment, a fine white line of water suddenly shot out from the dust.

This icy, high-pressure water jet swept across the battlefield, instantly slicing through the Kartel soldiers, who collapsed like harvested wheat, unaware of what had happened.

After the enemies fell, the dust was blown away by the water jet’s wind pressure.

“I told you, a leap of faith won’t kill you.”

Fang Mo walked out, shouldering the Sea Demon Sword, and teased the Summon, “Fun fact: in Arad, the chance of dying from a fall is only 0.1248%. Do you know how low that is? Kelly jumped from the Empyrean Realm and fell all the way to Arad, yet she didn’t die. Did you know that in the neighboring Shinobi World, the chance of dying from fire-style jutsu is still 0.2716%?”

“Keep making stuff up.”

The Summon clearly didn’t believe Fang Mo anymore.

“You…”

Hearing this, Fang Mo was about to spout more nonsense, but he suddenly reached out and grabbed something in front of the Summon.

“What now?”

She was puzzled.

But this time, Fang Mo didn’t reply. He just opened his hand, and a golden bullet fell from his palm.

“Huh?”

The Summon was confused.

Just then, a narcissistic laugh echoed from ahead. They looked up to see a flamboyant blond man with an arrogant grin, standing on a rock platform.

He was holding a modified long rifle, clearly the source of the bullet, which had been fired silently yet powerfully. Realizing how dangerous it was, the Summon broke into a cold sweat.

“Hahaha! So you’re the intruders this time?”

The blond man was indeed arrogant, or confident, depending on how you saw it. He stood on the platform, looking down at them, “I am Lance Max…”

“Universal Pull.”

Before he could finish, Fang Mo suddenly raised his hand towards him.

A terrifying gravitational field locked onto the target, yanking the stunned man off the platform and pulling him toward Fang Mo, who promptly skewered him with his sword.

“I said I’m not in the mood for mechanics today.”