Air Hero

Max vs Iki II

This time, Max didn’t run too fast and allowed Iki to attack him with a fireball. Max immediately tried to enclose it with the wind when the fireball arrived nearby, but he failed. In return, the fire inhaled the wind and used it as another fuel to burn bigger.

To lure Iki to launch more fireballs towards him, Max sends out wind bullets behind him occasionally while moving. Thus, one after another, fireballs become Max’s research target as Iki launch it as retaliation. However, not even once he even comes close to success.

Looking at his failure, Max realizes something crucial. Will he be able to create a vacuum space by using a spinning wind? He feels that he needs to rethink his strategy. The point of creating a vacuum space is to put up the fire. However, is wind the thing that fuels the fire?

If earlier Max thinks, like an elementary student, he is now moving a level higher into middle school science and psychic class. What creates a fire are oxygen, heat and fuel. Earlier, Max thinks of creating a vacuum since the purpose is to eliminate the oxygen in the air. This task, however, is too hard since he didn’t even know if it was possible to create a vacuum space using wind or separate the oxygen.

With that thing in mind, is it really impossible to separate the oxygen from moving wind and isolates it? As he is used to controlling the wind, he should be able to feel the components of things inside the wind he ordered.

Since the fire and fuel come from Iki, the oxygen should come from the air. Therefore, he will need to eliminate the oxygen.

“I didn’t even know if it will succeed, but if I didn’t try this, I know I will lose for sure the moment he managed to get close at me.”

It’s not like Max isn’t confident in his close-range combat capabilities, but the problem is that Iki could use his element while Max couldn’t. So that makes their battle will be like ordinary civilians fighting against a hero, and that is as close as you can get to a suicide.

“I don’t need to create a vacuum space since it is impossible. I just need to take out the oxygen out of the air. Oxygen separates! Oxygen separates!”

Max looked like a mad man, but he didn’t stop trying to put out every fireball that Iki throws at him. The battle has become monotonous and boring as if it was a battle of attrition, but that wasn’t the case in Max’s mind.

Iki also isn’t in a hurry as he can feel that Max is trying to do something, but he keeps failing it. He didn't think much about it since their elements matchup is like a wolf against a sheep.

Now, when Max tried to trap the fireball and fail, he can feel something is changing. His eye could see something different. The colourful world suddenly turned into a grey world with many bright little particles floating around.

Max is stunned for a while but wasn’t it ‘the zone’ where he defeated Bonio and Crawley? Max could also see that Iki’s fireball swallows the white particles that he could control before.

“It seemed that the fireball swallows the white particles along the way on its trajectory. It is also the thing that is causing it to burn bigger. Is that white particle is oxygen? However, I know that white particle is important since I can even sense its presence for a while inside Iki’s fireball. Although it is immediately gone when it was swallowed.”

Max tried to control the white particle, and he actually could do that. He tried to move the white particle out of the fireball’s path, and nothing happened.

“What is that white particle? Since it did nothing when I controlled the one on the fireball’s trajectory, how about I tried to control the white particle inside the fireball?”

One fireball contained several white particles inside of it. Max tried to take one out, but it wasn’t an easy task. He can feel that the energy and concentration he needs exceed the consumption of executing one wind bullet. However, Max didn’t stop there and continued with his experiment.

The moment that the white particle is taken out from the fireball, the fireball wavered slightly and weakened. Iki, however, couldn’t make heads or tails on what Max is doing. That’s because when he finished launching the fireball, he didn’t pay any more attention to it or what was happening with it.

If Iki is paying attention to the fireball that he is launching and saw its white particle taken out by Max, he will be surprised. After all, it is fundamentally impossible to control another person’s skill or ability.

Practice comes perfect. With enough experiment with the fireball, Max is now confident that he could take out the white particle entirely from a fireball. Max did what he practiced and tested for long and amazed at the result with the next fireball. Not only Max, Iki and the audience are shocked too.

The fireball that Iki launches suddenly disintegrates mid-air as if it has run out of juice or burns out prematurely. Earlier on, each one of Iki’s fireballs managed to reach Max, although he still managed to dodge it easily.

“Am I too tired? Did I consume too much energy?”

Iki didn’t even think that the problem wasn’t because of himself but because the fireball has been tampered with by Max.

“What just happened? Did Iki feel tired?”

“No way, he couldn’t possibly lose this match, right? Look, he is of fire elements, and the opponent is from the wind element. The chance of him losing is almost zero.”

Almost zero doesn’t mean that there’s no more hope, just like Max, who think of new ideas to get himself out of his disadvantage. A hero should cling on even if the chance of winning looked abysmal.

Iki didn’t believe that it was because of his depleting energy. He is fully aware that he still has enough power to face Max.