John sprinted toward the most unusual demon he'd had the displeasure of seeing in the flesh. The flesh of it's original Elk body had been distorted twice over, once when it demonized and again when it... ascended? Descended? into its more humanoid form. It gave John an atavistic nausea. The demon's blood whip struck fast and sharp, twisting unpredictably. John jumped over the first strike but was quickly forced to slide on the ground when the end of the whip struck backwards without warning.
John grit his teeth. The whip was a kind of half-physical half-qi construct, it didn't necessarily need to follow the motions of a normal whip, although it could. John recognized that his own qi could behave similarly but he couldn't generate the same kind of explosive power. His silken tendrils were considerably more delicate, but they were a lot better at entangling. The next time the whip came around John caught it in a dense web while sprinting forward in great bounds, further assisted by tendrils clawing the ground.
The demon's eyes widened briefly when the blood whip collapsed into a mere puddle, John was only a few yards away but it still managed to attack. The orbs of blood floatin around its antlers sharpened into iron tipped spikes and exploded outwards. John caught the blast chest first, poking holes in his flesh and covering him even deeper in blood. John cried out in pain even as he rolled out of the way of the incoming whip attack he was sure was coming. There was only so much adrenaline to go around, and the fight was dragging on. Each wound burned or ached as his body struggled to repair itself. Even with superhuman healing, he would not last. The whip cracked where he had been laying right as John got to his feet.
He felt a powerful drive to abandon the cause once again. Maybe a third of the crowd still waited to pass through the gates. From a quick glance, it looked more orderly, and there were even more Outer disciples helping now, but they would be next to useless against the horde of demons. A few Inner disciples were barely holding them off. Grimly, John realized the Elk demon was prioritizing killing the mortals over him. It must grow stronger with each kill, more liters of blood pumping onto the earth for it to use and absorb. When the mortals were gone--killed or escaped, the horde would turn on John and kill him in mere moments. By then, John would need to escape or kill the demon before him.
In these quick thoughts, the demon had a chance to strike once again with his whip, which John countered with his own qi, devoring the semi-solid construct.
'Thats right...' John thought to himself.
His style of the Butterfly Dream was that of a hunter. Mostly, he used the patient trapping of a spider in a web, but that was not the only way to hunt, not even the only way a spider could hunt. John let out a might roar, pushing down his pain and strengthening his rage and indignation. Sharp claws forged themselves out of qi, extending from his hands and feet. Long pointed tendrils of qi spun into existence from his shoulders and back.
John leaped forward, tearing the ground apart with his clawed feet. He dashed forward on all limbs, not as a gallop but pulling on the ground with every available appendage. The Elk demon retreated, jumping backwards and preparing more blood orbs--but not fast enough. John lanced them with his qi tendrisl and destroyed the construct holding them together, absorbing the remnant energy.
All the major threats from the horde were too far away to intervene, but a few birds yet remained circling in the sky above. They dive bombed toward the duel below, trying to interfere and give the demon enough of a split second to properly defend. John caught them in webs and pulled them into his dantian to be devoured. John reached the demon.
All of his claws pierced its flesh, which almost shocked John out of his beserk state, but he wouldn't give up such an opportunity. John slashed and shredded key muscles while fanged tendrils burrowed deeply, cutting their way to its heart and brain. All of its power must have gone to its antlers and controlling abilities, John realized belatedly. Its flesh was not much more resilient than an ordinary animal.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Suddenly, the corpse seemd to sag. It's more humanoid appearance seemed to evaporate away leaving only a dead beast with unaturally powerful horns. John couldn't tell if it was the blood stench or the flood of qi, but something washed over him and he was driven inwards.
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John was standing on an expanse of nothingness. Behind him he could sense a great twisting hell and something was WATCHING--
He tore away his focus, this was not the hell that housed the great Wheel, though its eye followed him even to this distant place. There were other presences here. A ghost of a great Demon manifested before him. It was in the form of the Elk demon, but more malicious, more fully realized. Massive haunches, a scarred and muscular chest. Huge claws at the end of 4 fingered hands. It's face was equal parts insanity and teeth. Most notable were the thick and twisting horns, like that of ram but grown outwards from the head.
THIS IS WHAT YOU FIGHT.
A booming voice echoed from behind him, which John recognized as the presences from his advancement weeks ago.
DONT LOOK.
John had unconsciously been turning around to inspect the second presence, but forced himself to turn away at another booming command. It seemed to echo off his bones and pluck his nerves.
Looking down at his hands, John found he was still covered in blood. His own white and the demonic black. It suddenly drained from his flesh and stained the nothingness beneath his feet. Slowly, a great Taijitu was painted below him. The yang behind him, painted in his own lifeblood. The yin before him painted with the blood of his trophies. He stood on the line between them. He felt a revelation coming toward him, the pieces fitting together in his mind. The nature of the hunter and the hunted, the line between life and death.
Before it could solidify however, there was a great STOMP behind him, shattering the display. The relevation was usurped suddenly and viciously. The ghost of the demon before him was quickly swallowed up in blackness and the shattered pieces of the taijitu swirled into a grey mess as if to invert and subvert its meaning. John started to sink, and it was only moments before he was swallowed by the ocean of dull grey. For a long moment, John could sense nothing but the cackling laughter of the being above him and the Eye's burning approval watching him.
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John's eyes opened as he fell forward into the corpse of the Elk demon, hands landing among its still-hot guts. Only, he wasn't in front of the sect entrance any more. He was surrounded by an unintterupted forest. The Elk demon's corpse retained it's vile form, and showed none of the wounds John had inflicted. Instead, it laid as if ritually sacrificed, with it's chest sawn open and its organs laid out in neatly made patterns around him.
ITS ALMOST TIME JOHN. Two fangs suddenly pierced John's back and injected him with a liquidating venom. It burned like fire. John suddenly had uncanny awareness that no one should ever need--a detailed understanding and feeling of his internal organs as they melted away. It was so alien that John couldn't even scream. The venom and remains of his internal organs faded away. The still-piercing fangs pushed another liquid inside of him. This time, the oozing grey of the blasphemous enlightenment filled him. Hundreds of thousands of infitesimal qi strands followed. They were like his own, but wielded with god-like control and finesse. Thousands of threads simultaneously bound and wove the grey mash into a set of new organs for John.
Unlike the mere purification and strengthening of an ordinary Organ advancement, these new organs were strange. Unnatural. His heart no longer pumped with blood, instead it smoothly flowed in and out of a symetrical 'heart'. His lungs could inflate beyond the natural limit of his torso somehow, such that John was able to breathe in or out continuously for several minutes each. His stomach burned internally with supernatural fire, vaporizing any mundane materials put inside. The filtering organs like the spleen, intestines, and liver all took on strange new functions that John could not even fathom. They no longer needed to deal with food or blood, taking on entire new roles related to qi. His sensing organs were the most exquisite, massively enhanced. He could taste strong emotions, see qi with a depth and resolution unheard of, John could now smell out demonization through the taint it left on reality.
He could hear the crack in the universe. He could hear the grinding of the Wheel and the howling Entities that laid beyond.