Chapter 127: Too Late

In the brief moment when all of the swords were flashing red, Sila only had two seconds to think. Luckily for him, two seconds in a moment of crisis felt like an entire minute in his mind.

The only defensive art that Sila possessed was Six Moon-Grabbing-Claws. Nevertheless, Sila didn"t think it would work in the midst of the minefield.

The common weak point of the three profound arts he inherited from the Elders of the Wulin Masters a.s.sociation was the fact that they were real-life arts designed to work on human opponents.

Twelve Celestial-Traveling-Steps was a footwork art so it was still effective even in the game. The main techniques of Six Moon-Grabbing-Claws could be adapted as a concept of movement so it was somehow beneficial. As for Nine Sun-Melting-Fists, it was the art that mostly only useful against humans.

He suspected that even Mora, his teacher, wouldn"t have considered a situation like this when he imparted the art to Sila.

"It"s an in-game skill, so I will have to counter it with my in-game skills!"

His Tiger Dragon Qi could resist two or three exploding swords at most, not a hundred.

As for Moon Reflecting Mirror, he wasn"t confident in it enough that it could reflect this level of damage.

Well, in the end, Sila"s last choice was still his qi.

The ultimate art of defense was none other than Six Moon-Grabbing-Claws. If only he could apply its techniques correctly and combine them with his qi-type skills, he was positive that he could easily defend against this attack.

Sila quickly circulated the softness attribute of Tiger Dragon Qi and strengthened it with the full power of Shapeless Qi.

The perfect shape for defense is the circle, so, instead of maintaining qi to surround his body, Sila chose to spin his qi with Unblemished Cool Breeze. With this qi technique, not only could he defend, Sila could even heal himself in one go.

His qi was rotating with Sila as its center. This usage of qi was enlightened thanks to the Parry, Migrate, Spin, and Combine techniques of Six Moon-Grabbing-Claws.

In addition, he activated Universe Reversal to hasten the speed of the spin.

Finally, the sound of the explosion went off and the ground heavily shook. The blast and the debris of the swords flew around the area.

Sila maintained the radius of the storm to be around two meters. The blasts of the explosions and the sc.r.a.ps of the weapons rode with the wind current and rotated around Sila"s tornado made of qi. Some of the blasts even collided with each other.

Still, the blast and the debris flew past Sila"s face, almost cutting him. Sila didn"t even dare to feel elated that he didn"t die on the spot as the air pressure acc.u.mulated and pressed on him. It was like his body was being squeezed by invisible walls.

Some of the swords" shards continuously slashed his body as time pa.s.sed. Even though he was protecting his body using Formless Soldier to prevent them from giving him deep wounds, he still suffered as the number of his wounds kept increasing no matter how many times his qi tended to them.

Qi type skills heavily relied on the user"s quick wit. It was exactly like Wu Ming said: if your thinking is flexible enough, there are no situations that you won"t survive.

Cross watched his skill at work with great pride. His Rhythm of the Imperial Graveyard was about to come to an end. Based on his experiment using Sila, he was confident that he could defeat Revin or Kawin the next time they met. Then, he would kill his last prey, Montra.

He was too immersed in his victory to not notice why the system had yet to inform him about Sila being defeated.

Once his psychic power relaxed slightly, Sila, who was in the midst of the smoke, detected that and seized that tiny chance to attack.

Hundreds of different kinds of hidden weapons flew out from the smoke. Their target was none other than Cross. who was about to land on the ground.

The hidden weapons stabbed Cross and turned him into a giant hedgehog. Even though he didn"t die yet, the pain from having his flesh stabbed by numerous weapons was too much for him to bear.

Cross was no longer able to move his body even slightly, but his mind was currently surpa.s.sing his body. Sometimes, the dying, cornered dog is more terrifying than a tiger. He depended on his psychic power alone to pull out all the hidden weapons stabbed into his body and sent them back at Sila.

Cross was more than certain that, with this amount, there would be no way for Sila to fire all of them back at him. At most, Sila would be able to return two, which Cross was confident wouldn"t kill him.

Sila"s clothing was in a tattered state and his body had wounds all over. Even with that, he focused his recovery on his arms and legs rather than his torso. He stood firmly without planning to evade the incoming hidden weapons.

The hidden weapons came closer and turned red. It was the moment that Sila had been waiting for. He lifted his hand up and activated Universe Reversal strengthened by Shapeless Qi to pull Cross toward him sharply.

Cross had spent a lot of power and his body was heavily wounded so he couldn"t resist the pulling power. The speed of his body being pulled to Sila was far greater than the speed of the hidden weapons flying.

Sila tapped his left hand on Cross" body and transmitted the pulling attribute of Universe Reversal into his opponent, turning Cross into a human-sized magnet. All the hidden weapons stabbed Cross once again.

The hidden weapons in Cross" body gave off a bright red sparkle. Sila didn"t hesitate to use his right hand to strike at Cross" chest. His right hand was clad with the dragon attribute of Tiger Dragon Qi to enhance the physical strength of the impact, pushing Cross away.

As for himself, once his right hand struck the target, he instantly kicked the ground and used qinggong to jump in the opposite direction of Cross".

--Boom!!

Cross" body exploded only ten meters away from Sila. The blast affected Sila but he let himself go with the impact and be blown away for another fifty meters.

You have defeated Player Cross, Marquis Rank, Level 850, and received 300,000,000 experience points. The defeated player was a Wanted Player, so you can claim your reward at the Bounty Hunter a.s.sociation later.

You have achieved a certain condition. Your Level has risen to 1,000.

Grea City shook once again with the power of the explosion. Meanwhile, Sila was sprawled on the ground. Blood gushed out of his body and his vision blurred. He had spent all of his power to kill Cross and now his qi was completely depleted.

The flow of qi, magic, and psychic power emitted from all the directions surrounding him.

Sila could see that many groups of players were coming his way.

The distance between the players and him continued to shorten. Their chance to easily obtain the bounty reward and fame from killing Weapon Subduing Fist had come, so who in their right mind would abandon such a chance?

Grea City right now was no different than an outlaw territory. An ownerless city that all kinds of players live in. Some sought an opportunity to gain fame, some sought fortune, while some were bounty hunters trying to hunt down Wanted Players who escaped from various places and came to live in this city.

Sila"s vision gradually blurred even more. If he didn"t do anything, he would surely lose consciousness and die in the ambush.

"Re...lease... Lookhin."

A black flash of light shone from the ring.

Many players surrounding Sila noticed that he was trying to do something so they immediately took action.

Arrows, magic spells, and even spears flew toward the defenseless Sila.

Instantly, Stone Walls were built up surrounding him. They were enough to block against the first wave of attacks that hastily performed.

Then, several Earth Spears appeared around Sila and enclosed him as if they were a fortress. Lookhin didn"t dare to act rashly as it was afraid that Sila would be in danger and chose to stay with him inside the enclosed dome made of the earth element.

The layers of the Stone Walls and Earth Spears were very thick as Lookhin spent a lot of magic power to create them.

Sila opened his system window and took the bottle that contained the Emperor Qi Pellets out. He needed to regenerate his qi as soon as possible.

However, his hand had no strength left. The bottle fell from his hand and hit the ground. Several pellets rolled out of the bottle.

Sila focuses his mind and told Lookhin to bring him the pellet. In the meantime, the dome that enclosed him was shaking non-stop as players kept attacking it. Even though Lookhin had increased its defense with Qi of Little Turtle, it wasn"t that helpful.

With their combined attacks, it was only a matter of time until the dome was destroyed.

Lookhin flew and held the pellet in its beak. It jumped onto Sila"s chest, waiting for Sila to open his mouth, before dropping the Emperor Qi Pellet between his lips.

Once the pellet touched his tongue, Sila felt hot. The pellet was instantly absorbed into Sila"s system and he felt like his body had become a burning furnace, which was a sensation he had never experienced.

Sila suffered and wanted to scream, though no sound could come out of his mouth. His body was twitching in pain. He felt like he was being enveloped by an intense flame.

Shapeless Qi automatically acted up to protect his life. However, as Sila could feel that the temperature of his body began to cool down, he then felt like he was pushed into a freezing h.e.l.l. His body was hurting all over and the temperature rose once again.

This bizarre experience continued to loop, without him knowing why it was happening or when it would end.

Frankly, what was happening to Sila right now was that his entire body, be it organs, bones, or tendons, was being reborn.

Emperor Qi Pellet was a medicine categorised under the hot element. Actually, one shouldn"t consume it when one"s body was at death"s door. This kind of medicinal pellet is best consumed when the consumer is healthy.

The thing was, Sila"s body had a lot of both external and internal wounds, so the Emperor Qi Pellet quickly repaired his bones and muscles for him. Nevertheless, as the repairing speed was too excessive, the temperature of Sila"s body rose like he was being melted in a furnace.

Then, Shapeless Qi considered the Emperor Qi Pellet an irregular object that was trying to harm its owner"s body, so it tried to decrease the temperature in Sila"s body to support his life. However, as it acted on its own without being properly controlled, the coldness that it generated was too much for Sila to bear.

In addition, his Dark Psychic Corrosion discovered that there were two powers competing against each other and left it unchecked. Thus, it began to invade Sila"s body.

Sila"s psychic power was semi-sentient and its only objective was to destroy. It didn"t care if what it was destroying happened to be its own body or not. "Destroy" was the only word that it cared about as the word gave it meaning. It was the reason Sila was in immense pain from the corrosion that happened within his body.

As his psychic power corroded his body and caused the damage, the Emperor Qi Pellet flared up and unleashed its full potential to heal that part.

The main feature of this priceless pellet was to return the consumer"s body to a healthy state. So, even if it realized that its medicinal power wasn"t enough to repair Sila"s body, it didn"t give up and instead decided to draw on the hot power of Tortured Soul to support its effectiveness.

As a result, Sila was tortured again from the excessive healing process. And Shapeless Qi once again tried to help him by pulling the cold power of Tortured Soul to enhance its ability.

Due to the fact that both the Emperor Qi Pellet and Shapeless Qi channeled power from the same source, which was Tortured Soul, even though both powers exerted their mightiest power, neither was inferior to the other.

In the end, the decisive factor was Sila"s Dark Psychic Corrosion that didn"t care for its host. Its only objective was to destroy.

As both powers were busy canceling out each other, the gap that it used to unleash its madness grew bigger.

Consequently, instead of getting healed, Sila suffered more as if he fell into the abyss.

Three powers displayed their powers in a rotation manner. The interval between each loop was becoming shorter and shorter. In the end, Sila could no longer tell whether he was feeling hot, cold, or being corroded, as the three sensations almost happened at the same time.

All of the powers gradually canceled each other out as Sila"s body slowly became more accustomed to the corrosive effect of his psychic power.

Both the hot and cold elements within his body also started to become stable. Sila"s entire body was drenched in sweat and blood.

Slowly opening his eyes, Sila felt that his body was almost weightless, his ears picked up on more sounds, and his vision could see things more vividly. It was a phenomenon similar to when he had succeeded in circulating Tiger Dragon Qi for the first time.

The system sound went off.

You have achieved a certain condition. Your status and rank have been promoted to Grey Slime of Marquis Rank, Level 1.

You have achieved a certain condition. The skill Full Body Restructuring Qi has fused and become one with your body.

You have achieved a certain condition. The skill Immortal Qi has fused and become one with your body.

You have achieved a certain condition. The skill Primary Qi has fused and become one with your body.

You have achieved a certain condition. The special skill Tortured Soul has fused and become one with your body.

You have achieved a certain condition. The level of Dark Psychic Corrosion has risen to 100 (Maximum).

Sila pushed himself up and sat down on the ground, rubbing Lookhin"s head while inspecting his body that had greatly changed.

His body felt quite different compared to before. As he tried to move, he could feel that his muscles had become more elastic. He had no issues moving his body.

As he opened his system window to look for information regarding the fact that four of his skills had fused and become one with his body, only to discover that the four mentioned skills were gone.

Sila scratched his head in confusion. Even Primary Qi and Immortal Qi were gone, so how would he alleviate fatigue in the future? Not to mention the absence of his elemental qi, Tortured Soul.

Well, those problems weren"t urgent matters right now.

Sila picked up the bottle containing the last two Emperor Qi Pellets and kept it in his system window while promising to himself that he wouldn"t eat one again if possible. That torturous experience wasn"t something he wished to feel ever again.

He didn"t know how much time had pa.s.sed, but he found that Lookhin"s magic power was about to run out. With Mind Link, Sila could tell that Lookhin was feeling dead tired at the moment.

Thinking back, Sila realized that he was very lucky that Cross found him today. If Cross had found him the first time he came to Grea City, he would"ve been the one to die.

It was Cross" bad luck that he had engaged in the battle against Sila too late.

Sila"s body was warm even without him putting any clothes on. It caused him to not notice that his power had changed from before.

Now, there were many groups of players waiting for him outside.

"Please rest well, Lookhin. I will let you fly around freely when I finish them off." Sila talked to Lookhin, who was clinging to his arm.

Its sharp claws gripped his arm tightly, but he felt no pain even without using Formless Soldier. Yet again, Sila was still unaware of this little detail.

"Seal, Lookhin." The black light shone from the ring and absorbed Lookhin into it.

Lookshin"s Earth Spears crumbled down with the absence of the spell caster.

Outside of the dome, there were a lot of players looking at Sila with the eyes of predators.

If Cross was considered too late, these players were even later.

Sometimes, the roles of predator and prey could be swapped in just the blink of an eye.