Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Muscular Second Master

The body, together with the clothes on it, was clearly something brought into being by energy materialization, and it might even carry the informational materialization trait of the word-bullet power.

As a sub-personality under the control of the main self, Yan Luo let his consciousness sink into the warrior-general Guan Yu.

"This feeling..."

For a single person to suddenly go from controlling one body to controlling two would naturally feel strange. This was Yan Luo’s first time operating both the main body and the sub-personality’s body at once; everything each saw and felt would be transmitted into the mind. It was almost like schizophrenia, with the two interfering with one another.

"It seems that, at least for now, I can’t fight with two bodies at the same time. Just right, after using the Heroic Spirit Mask, most of my life source and spirit source have been drained, and my main body has become weak to the extreme... I’ll rest and recover here in this little shop."

He shifted his focus primarily to the sub-personality.

At once, Yan Luo felt the power contained within Guan Yu’s Heroic Spirit body.

This small shop had a tall full-length mirror. Yan Luo’s main body had already hidden under the bed in the staff lounge behind it. To keep from affecting the sub-personality’s coming battle, he even closed his eyes, so that what he saw would not interfere with his actions.

Yan Luo, in Guan Yu’s body, stood before the mirror and looked into the glass. This sub-personality body, over two meters tall, broad and massive, had the build of a basketball center. The chest beneath the beard was like a city wall, and when he turned around, the broad back in the mirror stood thick as a mountain.

He raised his right arm and flexed, and at once the biceps beneath the green sleeve rolled like a volleyball.

This shop had surveillance cameras. The three female clerks hiding in the room upstairs stared in astonishment at the monitor, which showed the camera feed: inside the shop now stood a burly man in green robes, over two meters tall.

Though his face was still very youthful, that unmistakable red countenance, long beard, and green cap—was that not Guan Yu, Lord Guan himself?

Their quiet, ordinary lives had suddenly been disrupted by aliens appearing in the neighborhood. And now, why had Lord Guan emerged as well?

Was this going to be a battle of Lord Guan against the aliens?

One of the female clerks could not help but remember an old film in which Guan Gong wielded an enormous Green Dragon Crescent Blade, eighty-two meters long and weighing eighty-two million tons. When swung, the blade was said to possess limitless might, able to spin into an impenetrable barrier and unleash shockwaves of air to kill enemies from afar.

In that film, it was Guan Gong who destroyed the alien invaders and saved the Earth.

Was the Holy Lord Guan here in the real world to save it as well?

But why did this Lord Guan look so young, and why was he standing before the mirror now, striking bodybuilder poses to display his muscles?

The three female clerks, all in their twenties, were utterly baffled.

Their eyes remained fixed on the screen.

"This makes no scientific sense!"

Yan Luo, as Guan Yu, could not understand why Guan Yu’s muscles were so ferocious. The Minotaur had monstrous muscles, but it was a monster; Guan Yu was an ancient man from two thousand years ago—just as the Greeks from twenty-five hundred years ago were, even if they were athletes, merely a little stronger than modern people.

Yan Luo suspected that this sub-personality body might simultaneously possess high-end constitution and high-end strength.

Still, upon reflection, this was after all a personality brought into material form, not the real Guan Yu, but a Heroic Spirit. Besides, Lord Guan had been only one of the finest generals of the Three Kingdoms era. There had been several others at the same level, and above them stood Lu Bu. Yet in later generations he had become a sacred warrior-god.

In the comic Storm and Cloud, Guan Yu’s "Love Through the Ages" could even slash open black holes.

"A Level 3 Modifier’s physical quality may not necessarily be stronger than Guan Yu’s..."

Yan Luo, as Guan Yu, undid the green brocade battle robe and lowered his head to look at the body’s abdomen. Layer upon layer of muscle bulged there, like steak sizzling on an iron griddle... He counted them.

Twelve abs in all.

He actually had four more than the Third Lord’s eight-pack? Truly worthy of being the Second Lord! Even if this Heroic Spirit Mask represented only a general and had not yet reached the level of a sacred warrior-god, it was already enough to shock the world. Those abs could instantly outshine Schwarzenegger and Dwayne Johnson.

Yan Luo, as Guan Yu, simply took off the entire green robe and stood naked before the full-length mirror, examining the body closely.

There he saw muscles rooted like ancient trees, and aside from the twelve abs and those volleyball-sized biceps, there were also trapezoidal bulges of latissimus dorsi, thick and powerful gluteal muscles, and legs where fiber upon fiber carved out furrows, sinews knotted like cords.

He raised a hand and swept his half-meter-long beard aside. At once, the great slabs of chest muscle were laid bare. With a slight exertion, the pectorals tightened, hard as iron.

Yan Luo increased his strength, and the two massive pectorals bounced and trembled, one above the other.

He raised a hand and kneaded them a few times. Creak, creak... The sound of muscle rubbing against muscle rang through the shop.

Lowering his hand and letting the beard fall back into place, Yan Luo, as Guan Yu, posed before the mirror and worked through a few stances, spreading and loosening every muscle in the sub-personality body. This was also a warm-up before battle, to get the body moving.

In the reflection, the young man with narrow phoenix eyes, lying silkworm brows, red face, and long beard stood with a towering frame as layer upon layer of muscle bloomed across him. Each muscle seemed to contain the utmost vitality and passion.

"Good... muscles!"

Yan Luo, as Guan Yu, exclaimed in admiration. It was impossible to say whether it was because the sub-personality was a warrior from ancient times, but when he spoke, he drew out the word for "good" so long that the pitch rose and fell with a cadence like Peking opera. He had uttered only three words, yet they lingered in the ear with endless aftertaste.

"Lord Guan... w-what are you doing..."

Before the monitor behind the camera, the three young female clerks stood with their mouths hanging open, as though petrified into statues, not moving an inch. They watched Guan Gong, stripped to reveal a body of ferocious muscles, striking pose after pose as if entering a bodybuilding contest. Even after seeing aliens earlier, nothing had been more shocking than the sight before them.

This was impossible to look at directly.

A flush of heat had spread through his whole body, the muscles were fully loosened, and he had worked up a little sweat as well. His body now brimmed with strength. Good—he could go out now.

Yan Luo thought this to himself.

He put the green brocade battle robe back on, then slung up the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, which weighed nineteen kilograms. In the hands of the brawny Second Lord, that weight was as light as nothing. The instant he took hold of the weapon, an indescribable familiarity welled up in his heart.

It was as though the great blade, more than two meters long, were simply an extension of his arm.

Guan Yu’s sub-personality absolutely had some combat gene akin to "great-sword mastery."

He lifted a leg and swung himself up onto the cream-and-chocolate steed.

Riding the horse, he and the mount beneath him actually gave rise to a sensation as if flesh and blood were joined as one. Warm currents flowed through his body, and at once the sub-personality’s frame seemed to swell with even greater power.

Was this the enhancement from sword and horse as one, the boost brought by the pairing?

Yan Luo, as Guan Yu, lowered his head and saw that this originally enormous European heavy horse had clearly become even more muscular than before.

The strengthening buff from the pairing was mutual.

"Little Creamy..."

Still in that Peking-opera style of declamation, he said, "You’ve grown stronger too, ah!!!"

"Now let us kill our way to the battlefield and make a grand showing, ahahahahaha..." Yan Luo, as Guan Yu, held the Green Dragon Crescent Blade in one hand and stroked his beard with the other. Riding that tall horse, he crashed the sliding shop door open with a bang and charged out with overwhelming momentum.