There was no helping it now. Leon knew that this would happen, the last three panthers having done the same thing. He had already begun to move his Qi the second he spotted the two of them. The little cub was different to the other panthers, and that made him a target for some reason. They were almost magnetically attracted to eating him.
He would have to look into the little cub’s secrets at some point, but that was a question for later.
Taking a deep breath, Qi flowed into Leon’s flesh and down the sword in his right hand. Strengthen allowed him to kick off the ground only a notch slower than the panthers themselves. He charged straight at the beast on his right, the other one breaking away and avoiding him altogether. There was nothing he could do to help the girls besides try to end his fight as quickly as possible.
When he was less than five metres away, the claws of the panther began to extend. They turned a rich, crimson red that gleamed in the sun, each of them sharp enough to rend steel. Stalks of grass and fallen branches were sliced apart as the beast galloped through the brush, and whatever it didn’t shred was flattened by the wind of its passing.
Leon called on his skills. Strengthen was already providing his body with the necessary strength, but without anything to reinforce his sword, it was doomed to be snapped in half by the panther’s claws.
Splitting his mind into two, Fortify clicked into place as it hardened the Qi that was already in his sword. There was no protective coating over the blade, but the solidified energy inside of it would keep the weapon from being snapped in half. Since the skill toughened the entire blade, it also reduced the odds that it would get scratched or nicked.
It was very useful for a common skill.
The panther didn’t slow down as it reared up on its hind legs, its paws raised to slam Leon into the ground. Its momentum combined with its weight, which was likely triple his own, was more than enough to flatten him. And that wasn’t even mentioning its razor-sharp claws.
There was only one option to not get killed, so Leon took it without hesitation. He dived to his left and rolled into the brush. The beast landed a second later, its paws erupting with some kind of slashing technique. The red blades of Qi flew out of its claws the second before it landed, shredding everything in its immediate vicinity. They only flew about two metres before crashing into the ground, but the blades were powerful and sharp, even splitting an arm-thick root that was half buried in the earth.
By the time the slashing technique ended, Leon came out of his roll and crouched down at the beast’s side. His mind instantly split into three. Courtesy of his second mental evolution, he could now use three techniques at once with minimal effort. Being able to Strengthen himself, Fortify his sword, and use an attacking skill was a game-changer.
Before, he would’ve had to drop Strengthen or Fortify in order to attack, but now he could compound the benefits of each one to further enhance his striking power. As Sharpen formed on the edge of Leon’s blade, he demonstrated the enhancement to great effect.
Sharpen did exactly what the name implied. Although it was only a common skill from his sword crystal, the description claimed that it increased the blade’s cutting power by almost fifty percent. Combined with Strengthen, which also increased his speed by just a notch, Leon managed to swing his sword before the panther could even turn its head to face him.
His sword came up off the ground and sliced through the surrounding grass like a scythe. Its speed didn’t slow down at all, the invisible edge keeping the blade from touching any of the greenery. Of course, that only worked because they were thinner than the layer of Qi used to form Sharpen.
As his sword rose up and cut into the panther’s side, it met a great deal of resistance. Much less than what his sword normally would have encountered, but the blade still did nothing to the bones in the panther’s ribs or shoulder, merely sliding past them as the razor-sharp edge worked to split skin and sever muscles.
A gout of blood poured out of the wound. Leon stood up and jumped back, the panther limping forward to chase him with unnatural ferocity. It was almost in a rage from being injured. He didn’t sever the entire muscle, allowing it to stand on its injured leg, but the wound was too bad for it to attack with that claw again.
Leon danced back as it clawed at him. The beast missed every attack, its nails only lightly scratching his thigh and arm whenever he was a hair too slow. His wounds shouldn’t have been deep enough to draw blood, and yet fifteen seconds of dodging later, his right sock was drenched in blood while rivulets streamed down his arm and fell off his fingertips into the grass.
Each tiny scratch was practically gushing blood, its Qi-infused claws obviously doing something to make him bleed more.
Leon prepared to counterattack once he gained a bit of distance, but the panther had the same idea. It raised its leg and threw out four arcs of bloody Qi from its claws. They were like crescent moons flying at his face, each one taller than he was.
Leon gathered his Qi for a new technique, but because he couldn’t use four skills at once yet, he had to drop Sharpen before the other technique began to form. With his mind freed up, he moved his Qi to use the new skill. It was designed to attack at range. It was partially based on Palm Strike and Sharpen, but it just so happened to closely resemble the claw attack of the crimson panthers.
Sundering Strike formed as an edge on his weapon, and as the four blades arrived, Leon slashed out with his sword. A similar arc of Qi flew out of his blade. It was thicker than the four that were flying towards him, but as they clashed, both techniques cancelled each other out as they shattered into a haze of red and white mist.
The panther closed the distance once more, slashing at him with just its empowered claw. Leon used the last of the three common skills in the sword crystal: Celerity. This was a localised skill designed to be used in a single limb. Strengthen didn’t so much as combine with Celerity as it, more accurately, overlapped, both of them using different methods to empower his abilities. And while the former increased his strength, the latter worked to speed him up by hastening his muscle contractions.
Strength and speed combined to create raw power. Leon’s arm flew up much faster than before, his sword smacking the claw away with great effort. A jolt of pain ran up his arm as his sword bounced away from the impact. He recoiled and jumped back, the panther copying him since its paw was sliced open. It held the leg up for a moment as it examined the damage to the soft padding on the bottom of its foot, the cut dripping blood.
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Leon took stock of himself as he reached for his storage ring. Nothing was broken or torn, his arm only a bit sore from the vibrations. His wrist hurt the most from the direct impact, but it would be fine with an hour of rest. His arm also ached from the strain of using two body-focused Qi techniques at once.
The results of the clash appeared lacklustre on the surface. One would hope that after all that Devouring, Leon could juggle three panthers like he was a clown in a circus. It was only when you thought about it that the deed became impressive. Against a wild animal that was both heavier and far stronger than him, he managed to completely repel its brute force attack without sustaining a permanent injury. Despite it being a glancing blow, the beast was strong enough to slam Leon into the ground should it have landed.
In fact, if he didn’t have Devour, the panther’s claw wouldn’t have been knocked away at all.
Leon would have most likely been thrown off his feet instead.
Pulling out a bottle of Bloodroot Extract from his ring, Leon took a small sip before the panther came at him again. He had no time to drink more even though he was using Celerity to speed up the movement of his arm. Unlike the previous three fights, he was both fighting alone and getting injured, neither of which had happened besides the first battle where he almost melted. Sophia usually got an arrow or two into the panther and Claire always got a solid poke in, giving him an easy time of finishing the beast off.
Now, however, there was no one to create an opening for him.
Leon had to make his own. Dropping the bottle and cutting off Celerity before the strain tore his arm apart, Leon used the other technique he’d been working on. Qi Bullet was useful for what it was, but now that he had a sword, it was far better to reapply the concepts to a tool with greater reach and flexibility than his arm.
That was why Leon stepped back as the panther attempted to pounce on him. He was taking a massive risk here. It didn’t manage to grab onto him, of course, but it landed so close that it immediately opened its mouth to try and bite him. Little did it know, Leon was counting on that.
With the tip of his sword full of Qi, he thrust it straight into the panther’s eye. It cried out in pain and immediately moved to twist its head free. His sword never would’ve gone through its skull, the blade too wide to pierce through its eye socket and do any lethal damage. But now that there was a tiny orb of Qi on the tip of his blade, he didn’t need it to, his new skill bridging the gap.
Reactive Strike triggered the moment his sword pierced into the panther’s eye. It was stable enough to last a few seconds, but a highly compressed ball of Qi simply couldn’t remain solid once it was thrown against something solid.
In this case, the panther’s eye.
An eruption of force went off inside the panther’s skull, turning its brain to mush. It died so quickly that the second he stabbed it, the body went limp and collapsed into the grass, the beast instantly dead.
Leon spun around to find Claire battling against their own enemy. She was covered in blood, dancing around the beast with great effort. Even though she was trying hard, her movements were too slow to keep up. The golden field was speckled with her blood from the mess of wounds covering her skin.
Leon frowned at the sight.
Sophia stood deeper in the forest with an arrow nocked on her bow, her shoulder marred by four lines that reached down to her opposite hip. He had seen her get attacked from the corner of his eye. Pete had bitten onto a belt loop on her pants and pulled her off balance. If he hadn’t made her fall over at that moment, she would’ve been split in half.
Instead, she had a few superficial wounds that failed to cut deep enough to do any real damage.
He would have to give Pete a reward later.
Sophia let go of the string, loosing a carefully timed arrow. It had been fitted with a new tip on the fly. Her entire manual relied on her forging arrowheads mid-battle, each one representing a different skill. The current one was shaped like a normal arrowhead, only it was slightly bulbous, almost like it was full and about to explode. And while it wasn’t made with dream Qi, it did have a slight purple tint from the elixir of Tainted Dreams.
The arrow flew straight at the panther’s chest, but as it came closer, the beast reacted with supernatural grace. It leapt more than three metres up into a tree, the arrow ruffling its fur as it flew under its belly. The tip shattered against a tree and erupted just like his Reactive Strike.
Leon attacked as he ran over, an arc of Qi flying up and into the canopy above him. Sundering Strike cut the branch enough to make it snap from the extra weight, the panther falling out of the tree as it lost its footing. Sophia loosed another arrow, but the panther dodged out of the way again, its legs kicking off the trunk of the tree as it fell. The arrow exploded behind it, the wave of force enough to make it lose control and slam into the ground.
The beast practically bounced off the ground as it failed to land on its feet. Luckily, that was all the delay that Sophia needed. An arrow sunk into the beast’s neck as his own Sundering Strike caught up to it. Leon expected it to roar in pain, but its eyes merely went blank a moment before an arc of Sundering Strike cut its throat.
Claire rushed as well, thrusting her spear into the beast’s chest. It was glimmering with Qi since she had used Sharpen. That was also obvious by how easily the weapon pierced its hide, the spearhead disappearing between its ribs.
While Sophia and Leon had basically finished it off, only damage to the brain or heart could fully put one down. As a creature of blood, the panthers had a shockingly high resilience. The first time they encountered one after Bai Wei’s message, the beast had gotten straight back up after Leon had slit its throat.
Trembling as she dropped to the ground, Claire grabbed her bottle of low-grade Bloodroot Extract and drank until her smaller wounds disappeared. Leon and Sophia ran over to make sure she was okay as the healing began. Her arms were covered in claw marks, some of them even exposing bone. There was also a particularly deep cut across her left leg.
“You know, fighting monsters is pretty nerve-wracking,” Claire said, pausing to breathe. She dripped some elixir onto her thigh with shaking hands, the wound slow to disappear because of the lingering bloody Qi. “But I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t thrilling. Does that make me crazy?”
“A little,” Sophia said, sitting down beside her as Pete trundled over. She pulled him onto her lap and wrapped her arms around him. “We’ve almost died several times. One near-death experience can change the course of a person’s entire life, sometimes forcing them down a path of no return. It’s no wonder that we’ve begun to enjoy winning fights since it means we get to live another day.”
“Not to mention we also get food whenever we kill one,” Leon said, drinking his own elixir. It would do nothing for the strain on his channels, but it would repair any minor injuries in his body.
“That helps too,” Claire said, holding out her trembling hands. “You know, I actually threw up the first time I had to fight someone for real. I was nervous the entire day of the competition, but then the match was suddenly over and my opponent was surrendering. I’d won. The thrill was exactly like this, only a hundred times less intense… and bloody. I was only nine, after all. We didn’t hit hard enough to draw blood unless it was an accident. ”
“Well, you did almost die today. That puts you in a weird head space no matter what.”
“You know, a month ago we wouldn’t have lasted five seconds against two of those panthers.”
“And now they’re both dead at our feet.”
It was hard to measure growth through raw numbers and words on a screen. But now that they had put themselves to the test, it was easy to see how much they had really grown.