A tall and thin man wearing black robes and black shins.
One of the ten members of the Shadow Legion, numbered #8 out of the ten.
Even though he might have looked like a man, he had four arms and an extra eye in the middle of his forehead.
He had no weapon but was a being to be feared solely because of his hand to hand combat skills...
And powerful punches capable of breaking past a whole army with a single blow of his powerful fist!
Codename: Fist.
His skill in hand to hand combat was mostly unmatched within the Legion and he had so far only met less than ten opponents who could beat him without using any weapons.
At the first place was Long Yin Hei, the Shadow Dragon, who could rely on his superior cultivation. Second was Chu Sai, Yin Hei's right hand man and on the same level as the Legion's strongest. Last was Greatsword, the Shadow Legion's ranked number #1: even if he used a greatsword, he was proficient with all kind of weapons and also a great martial artist when it came to hand to hand combat.
Nobody, nobody, nobody could leave him with the impression of being so unreachable or unbeatable beside from these three: he still remembered himself lying face down on the cold ground as his body hurt from the blows of his opponents. Nobody else could, and it had been that way for quite a few years.
Still, this had changed not more than five seconds ago. At the moment he was wide-eyedly flying through the air, his mouth spitting out blood and his features were contorted in shock, incredulity and... Fear.
"Aargh!"
With a loud cry of pain, the four-armed man crashed heavily into the ground, cracks spread outwards and blood splattered once more from the man's mouth.
"Cough! Cough!" Fist coughed out two more mouthfuls of blood before being able to recover. He stood up on wobbly legs and stared in front of him, searching for the attacker.
Still, something was not right. Fist blinked, not daring to believe what he was seeing: around him, hundreds of cultivator had stepped back in fear, but they were not wearing Sect Robes... They were the mercenaries engaged by Chu Sai!
Up until a short while ago, he was in the very middle of the enemy's army, slaughtering as he pleased, yet now... Now he was almost in the rear of the mercenary army! He only remembered a blur pass by him and whisper something in his ear... What was it again?
He frowned and wiped away the blood from the sides of his mouth 'What did that blur say? It was... It was...'
Suddenly, his pupils shrunk and his eyes widened as he muttered "That guy said... 'You... are... first...'!"
Following that, all of a sudden, he had found himself flying through the air and had been heavily injured... And he still did not know the attacker's face!
"Now, now... You are lighter than I expected!" The voice of a child reached his ears. Fist's eyes widened and his appearance grew fearful as he turned: in front of him was a boy, not more than ten years old. He wore black robes with two white stripes going from the right shoulder to the left ankle.
His innocent golden eyes and carefree smile were not something that you would expect to see in the middle of a war, his thin lips were arranged into a bright smile that made people's hearts tense up even though it was clearly a kind smile. He was really beautiful, his looks were comparable to what people would imagine how Angels to look like.
Still, that same handsome child was no Angel to them as much as he was a Demon. After all, he had suddenly appeared beside them, carrying a heavily wounded Fist! And he did that with the same little hands that looked like they would have trouble holding a knife from how delicate they seemed!
Fist entered into a combat stance as he brought his four hands in front of him, each of them clenched tight and as big as an adult's head. He stomped on the ground and groaned as he felt the injuries in his body worsening, but he still didn't hold back.
A black flaming figure appeared behind him: it was a demon with three faces, forty arms and forty legs. Each of his limbs were chained with black chains and he was gagged as well as blindfolded, and even still, those who looked at it couldn't help but tremble in fear!
Fist grabbed one of the chains and pulled them, following that, all the chains began to emit creaking noises and break apart. The scary being behind him screamed in excitement as the chains binding his body shattered. Fist's red glowing eyes began to glow even brighter as the gag and blindfold were stripped off the thing's face, revealing three bright, red eyes that had white pupils as well as three fanged mouths.
'UHOOOOOO!" the thing screamed and shouted as it felt itself being freed from its restraints. Fist's robes fluttered and his whole appearance grew fierce, red lightning crackling on top of his body and the black clothing he wore slowly began to catch fire.
Fist clenched his four fists and the being behind himself copied his movements. The red-eyed warrior stepped forward and threw a single punch out, then another and another, each of them accompanied by ten more frightening blows by the flaming demon hovering behind the man's back.
Hundreds of fist images sped towards Cheng Hao's body and he simply stood there, not even defending himself, as if he was too scared to move.
Fist grinned showing off two perfect rows of fine white teeth, his long, wild, white hair fluttered behind him as his hood got blown away by the immense power of his own attack: he was sure that there was no way a child could possibly survive this blow!
The thousands fists finally reached the boy's body and passed right through it, blowing huge holes on the child's figure. When the torrent of blows had passed though, the boy still stood there, looking in front of him carelessly...
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Fist looked at the situation astonishedly, as shock filled his face 'W-what the hell?'
The man felt a light breeze on his back and the boy's afterimage a few meters in front of him, the same figure he had just attacked, disappeared.
"And you still do not learn... I guess you are so light because you are missing your brain!" The child's voice sounded out again and the man widened in terror.
Fist's face distorted into a mask of pain as he got blown forward from a punch by the same angelic child that was now standing behind him. The flaming demon wailed in pain and then disappeared into smoke.
"Ahaha" the child's cheerful laughter chilled the bones of those who heard it "Well, that could be it! Then how about we find out whether you really are missing your brain?" The previous carefree expression on the boy's face turned into a fierce one as he licked his lips.
He stepped forward once more and disappeared again. He reappeared in mid air, above the terrified Fist. The boy clenched his own fist and yelled as he smiled excitedly "One punch will be enough for you!"
The fist seemed to stop in midair as if it had met with a barrier. It seemed to struggle a bit but with a loud "Boom", the sound barrier was broken through! A streak of light appeared as Cheng Hao punched with all the might of his Fleshly Body... Straight through the man's head.
Sounds of bones creaking and flesh being torn apart reached the ears of the surrounding mercenaries as the fist left behind a gaping hole on Fist's head. Unfortunately, they were numb to what had just happened as they had long since reached the maximum amount of fear a person could feel.
Cheng Hao stood up and looked at the bloody object in his hand. He looked at the body in front of him somewhat disappointedly and shook his head sighing "So he had a brain after all... I guess that this is all you guys can do, even if you do have one, you are still just as useless... Still, I never thought it would be this easy to get an high level Sung stage cultivator's brain..."
He examined the grey matter in his hands and then tilted his head "Could it be... That this guy had only gotten to this stage by Qi Absorption and not Enlightening?
[Note:
Qi Absorption - when you break through because you have accumulated enough Qi, without any form of enlightenment. It requires more time and a lot more effort than enlightening and it results into the cultivator being much weaker than those in the same level who have broken through because of an enlightening. Most cultivators break through thanks to Absorbition but it is rare to find powerful human experts beyond the Sung stage for it requires just too much time and they would die before they could make too much progress.
Enlightening - when you break through after gaining insights about particular aspects of your Qi. It is much faster but requires great thinking ability, sharp wits and a great share of luck. Breaking through by Enlightening will make one much more powerful because it enables a person to explore and use deeper aspects of the Qi, thus enabling them to gain more powerful attacks, cultivate more profound techniques, etc, etc. Basically, if this was a game it would be like gaining one point to enhance your attributes when you level up by Absorption while gaining two or more points (depending on the quality of your insights) when you level up by Enlightening.]
"So disappointing..." Cheng Hao clenched his fist and bloody pieces of grey matter flew all over the place.
The crowd was astonished: a high level Sung stage cultivator, a dragon amongst men, had been killed just like that! They looked at the boy whose clothes were now dark red from the blood and they couldn't help but tremble, praying in their heads that they would be able to at least die with a complete corpse.
...
Greatsword suddenly flinched and his expression darkened "What!" He yelled astonished. He immediately distanced himself from his current opponent, a Core Elder with the cultivation of the high level Sung stage, and removed nine items from his Dimensional Pouch.
They were a total of nine crystals, each had different shapes and color, but they all shone with purple light. Or they should have. At that moment, one of the crystals suddenly lost all of his shine and with a loud CRACK it broke into countless shards.
Greatsword trembled and his expression grew furious "Brother Fist!" He grabbed his weapon with both of his hands and looked to the south, where he saw a child wearing bloody, black robes standing beside a body whose head had been punched through.
The child had fiery golden eyes and long black hair, his appearence was really beautiful, stunning even.
He seemed to notice the man's gaze, as he looked back at Greatsword with a mocking smile and stuck out his tongue, as if he had just pulled a prank on him.
Those two golden eyes seemed to swallow him whole, Greatsword trembled from fright and almost lost consciousness on the spot. His whole thought processes were in a mess and his mind was blanking out.
"Die!!!"
He regained his lucidity just in time to dodge a sword strike aiming to catch him unprepared. He parried the blow at the last moment and counterattacked with a diagonal slash which sliced the man into two.
"Huff... Huff..." Greatsword panted and then gritted his teeth in fury.
He turned and saw the boy was still staring at him. He felt great anger just by looking at the child but he did not grow careless: if he could defeat Fist so easily, he was probably not an easy opponent.
"Legion! Regroup!" He yelled and then jumped into the air, floating a hundred feet of the ground. A few people were unlucky enough to chase after him but immediately got acquainted with the man's blade.
A total of eight black blurs dashed towards the sky, following after Greatsword and gathered in a circle around him. It looked just like it did when they had first appeared, demons wearing black cloaks, their eyes glowing red under their masks and helmets.
The difference this time, was that there were only nine such demons and an evident gap could be seen in their formation.
Dagger stepped forward, his previous carefree manner was now replaced by fury and incredulity. He had removed his mask showing everybody his appearance: he had pale white skin, a large mouth decorated with thin red lips and incredibly sharp white teeth.
He had a pair of green eyes with a reddish hue which were trembling and fighting back to hold in the tears. Long, green hair also fell down his back. His appearance was that of a young boy and he looked like a little clown.
His shoulders jerked once and the hand holding his pair of weapons trembled. His other hand opened and crystal shards were revealed for everyone to see. The shards were blown away by the wind and a single tear fell on the ground.
"Eight brother... He..." His voice also couldn't stay firm "Did this truly happen? How could he die in such a place? What bastard did this?"
A fat man completely covered in battle armor stepped forward and patted Dagger's shoulder "There is no meaning in grieving the dead, once you avenge them they will smile in the underworld, for their revenge will be complete! When all is done, they will be able to pass on peacefully!"
Greatsword nodded "Flail is right. We cannot change what has happened... What we can do though is kill the bastard who dared hurt our brother!" He gritted his teeth and glared hatefully at Cheng Hao "He won't be an easy target. We will have to move really carefully from now on and attack him all at once!"
"RAAAAARGH!" Mace stepped forward and yelled "YOU HUMAN CHILD, YOU BETTER NOT THINK THAT YOU ARE GOING TO SURVIVE THE NIGHT!"
Greatsword inhaled once and then nodded "Let's all stay close, otherwise we might get picked off one by one! Separated we are weak but standing together we are strong!" He tightened the grip on his blade's handle and his eyes burned with fiery determination "Let's go!"
Dagger wiped away the tears and put the mask back on "I will skin you alive, you bastard!" He clenched the two daggers "Eight brother always gave me an extra portion of every meal, saying that I needed to grow! I will now never enjoy such a thing anymore! I will make sure now you, bastard, get your extra portion... Not one but two daggers stabbed in your face!"