Chapter 376: Indifferent Justice
"Power is one thing – only the strong can truly enforce their justice. But your real reason for failure was not having a clear goal."
"What do you think justice is?" Bai Mo looked around. Seeing that no one seemed intent on seeking death, he continued with Hou Zi's topic.
"Uh... justice is..." Only when asked such a question did Hou Zi realize he didn't have a suitable word to describe this concept, which had always been his guiding belief.
He then tried to use some examples to articulate his understanding of justice, but on second thought, describing a definition with practical examples didn't seem quite right. As a result, he stammered and couldn't utter a word.
"In truth, there is no fundamental definition of justice. What we truly desire is merely a world that feels comfortable to us. What I deem correct, that is justice."
"How can that be?! Do you mean if you think killing is right, then it is just?!" Hou Zi immediately retorted.
Though somewhat confused, he wasn't so easily led astray by Bai Mo's words. Moreover, this statement clearly violated his worldview.
"If you've already judged these two things as unjust in your heart, then naturally there's no question. However, for example, if a soldier kills an enemy on the battlefield to protect their country, is that considered justice?"
"Or if an executioner chops off a death row inmate's head, is that considered justice? Even if you, in the name of justice, personally kill countless people, is that act just?"
"It's like law: there will always be new situations that existing statutes cannot address. At such times, all one can do is make a choice that feels right. Laws, in the end, are just rules that most people find agreeable and reasonable."
"Justice is the same, isn't it?"
...
"So, are you going to stop me?" After speaking these words, Bai Mo rose from the giant rock and floated in mid-air, delivering his ultimatum to the other party.
Hou Zi looked up at Bai Mo, who appeared like a god or demon descending from the heavens. He was silent for two seconds before finally transforming into a cloud of red mist and vanishing from the spot.
"And what about you, Edward Teach? " Bai Mo didn't turn his head. Instead, a new face materialized directly behind his head, while his original face blurred and faded away. His entire structure shifted instantaneously. Without moving a single step, he completed a perfect turn around.
"What do the futures of those wastes have to do with me? However, every cell in my body tells me that if I devour you, I will become stronger!"
Upon hearing the expected reply, Bai Mo said nothing. He simply shifted his gaze eastward, as if something in that direction was more worthy of his attention.
As for dealing with Teach, he merely allowed a layer of eerie darkness to cover his palm, then slowly began to clench his fist.
As his fingers continuously closed, the entire sky within his field of vision visibly darkened. The scorching afternoon heat instantly gave way to cloudy skies, which became as overcast as they would before a torrential downpour.
Yet, looking up, the sun still hung high, with not a cloud in sight—a truly bizarre situation.
Not only that, the air within a few hundred meters around him suddenly plunged below zero, as if it had encountered a super cold wave from Siberia.
With this one clench, it was as if he had seized all nearby thermal and light energy into his palm. The power he had obtained years ago, at the cost of an arm during his first Reincarnation Tribulation, was now but a casual strike.
What a terrifying sight it was for such massive energy to be forcibly compressed into a volume less than one cubic centimeter. Even a wisp of light escaping through his fingers was nearly comparable in intensity to a laser.
As for the center of his palm, the various high-energy reactions were entirely beyond what the naked eye could perceive or endure. It was as if he had conjured a miniature sun.
"A battle of energy, is it? I can do that too." Facing the overwhelming power, the unyielding Teach extended his right hand, drawing forth the surging Spirit Energy within his body. A blazing fireball gradually appeared in his hand, its core emitting a light equally impossible to behold directly.
Bai Mo, in an experimental mood, attempted a combination of his abilities: firing the extremely compressed plasma sphere like an electromagnetic cannon using his psychic power.
Once freed from its violent constraint, the light began to explosively expand in all directions at an astonishing speed, refilling the suddenly darkened space.
The psychic cannonball, like a miniature sun, hurtled towards Edward Teach's position at over twenty times the speed of sound.
If there were a femtosecond camera capable of withstanding the heat and boasting molecular-level precision, one could clearly capture this scene:
A plasma sphere, heated to nearly a hundred thousand degrees Celsius, hurtling outwards at over twenty thousand kilometers per hour. A portion of its immense kinetic and thermal energy was transferred to the ambient air through molecular collisions, while the remainder stayed within the furiously vibrating plasma itself.
But even during its ultra-high-speed movement, after a considerable portion of its energy was dissipated by air friction, this beam of death showed no signs of dimming.
In just one-hundredth of a second, the radius of this continuously expanding light column had grown from its initial pea-size to that of a basketball.
And as the plasma sphere gained energy along its flight path, the rapidly expanding air, laden with kinetic and thermal energy, continuously propagated it outwards in the form of waves, generating an unprecedentedly powerful shockwave.
Because the speed far exceeded the speed of sound, at that very first instant, the world remained silent. No sound reached either of their ears.
Within one-hundredth of a second, Teach was ready. He intended to use his ability to reflect this beam of death and destruction back.
"Flaming Steel Gate!" The ultra-high-temperature fireball in his hand, hot enough to instantly vaporize steel, suddenly indented in the middle. Its outer edges then desperately stretched in all directions, becoming like the fire rings commonly seen at zoos.
Bai Mo's psychic cannonball, calculated by Teach, passed precisely through the Flaming Steel Gate, then suddenly vanished without a trace.
This small anomaly piqued his interest. He had originally thought Teach would be incinerated by this streaking light, as he could tell that the figure before him was merely a clone of the opponent, and a mere clone wasn't even worth a second glance.
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