Humanoid Form is one of the reasons Bladed Rhino got ranked as a 6th grade monster. A humanoid body may seem weaker than the beast body. But actually, using humanoid form doesn’t reduce that much strength, rather it increases their agility and flexibility. By using it, fighting and dodging would be easier than when one is in the beast form. The disadvantage of humanoid form is actually the cost it needed to operate. Operating it may seem easy, but actually changing your body shape and size took a lot of toll on demonic qi.
Usually, 6th graded monsters can bear the toll it took on demonic qi because they have enormous storage of demonic qi and they will be able to end the enemy before they exhausted their demonic qi. But this time for this Bladed Rhino that had his physique stats reduced, the toll was too hard to bear. That’s why it only used its earlier ability for a while and took it back. It knew that the human in front of it couldn’t be killed with just that and if the human didn’t die, it would be the dying one.
For Tethra, the Rhino transforming was a pure nightmare. His left arm couldn’t be raised anymore and the limited qi in the atmosphere meant that he couldn’t use Runic Works infinitely. His bare handed fighting surely would get him trouble with that Rhino’s horn rapier.
“Well, I don’t really have anything else. Might as well roll with it!” Tethra Insta-Moved to the front of the Rhino. The Rhino brought its right rapier to pierce his left waist while it made the rapier on its left hand levitate and pierce toward his throat. Tethra deflected the levitating rapier back handed while evading the other rapier by sliding to the right. He then counter-attacked the Rhino at its chest with another palm skill he got. This one specialized in attacking the insides. “Quake Palm”. The Rhino trembled but didn’t get hurt that badly. Instead, it suddenly let out another one of its blades from the back and rushed it toward Tethra.
Tethra got grazed on his right cheek because he just moved to the right. Luckily he managed to tilt his head a little, if not it would surely pierce his nose. Did the Rhino want revenge for him striking his nose? Tethra got goosebumps about being pierced in the nose. Maybe he shouldn’t have attacked the Rhino in the nose. Tethra stepped back because he found that his martial arts experience were lacking and the Rhino clearly had better skill than him.
“Well, fine! I will just attack him with my Runic Works!” Tethra Insta-Moved to make a distance between them to prepare. But unfortunately, the Rhino was quite agile now. It ran zig-zagged toward Tethra so that Tethra wouldn’t be able to target it. Tethra didn’t grow worried with that zig zag, rather he continued to write the Runic Work in front of his right hand with greater speed. When the Rhino was about 2 meters in front of Tethra, Tethra finally released his Runic Work to the ground while jumping above with full ‘Icarus’ strength. His jump exceeded the Rhino’s size so he was right above the Rhino.
‘Earth spirit, heed my command, split and trap the one trampling you, let them feel the wrath of earth, Earthen Flytrap!’
When the Runic Work combined and glowed, the ground on the side of the Rhino raised upward like a wall then trapped him in between. This kind of spell obviously couldn’t bind the Rhino for long. It spread its arms to hold the 2 walls of earth trying to crush him. That’s why, Tethra already made another preparation with his left arm. Because he is not an ambidextrous person, drawing Runic Work with his left arm became slow. That’s why he already prepared it from before. He jumped not just because of his Runic Work. It was also to aim his left arm, that couldn’t be raised, so the Runic Work would point at the Rhino even without raising his left hand.
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‘O godly fork, strike down thy enemy with thy sharp blade, let them feel the pain of being stabbed, let that one fork stab deeply, Heaven’s Fork!’
A huge fork came out of the Runic Work on Tethra’s left hand. The Fork is huge, it is a little smaller than the height of the Rhino, but it is as wide as the Rhino. How did Tethra even think of making fork a weapon? Well, making weapon out of nowhere cost more than making utensils out of nowhere, Tethra learnt that from one of the originals Runic Works he made. So he just made utensils bigger and made it a weapon. The things to write become shorter and the cost is lower too, so why not?
With its middle blade being the longest, the fork stabbed toward the struggling Rhino. The Rhino grew desperate so it just used its strong teeth to bite the fork to hold it. The fork stopped moving and still seemed struggling, but it was futile. The mouth part of Bladed Rhino could be said to be their strongest asset because their main horn is on top of their nose, that’s why the Rhino was able to hold the fork. Unfortunately for Rhino, that was still not the last of Tethra’s attack.
Tethra’s raised right hand actually was already drawing Runic Work again. This one Runic Work is so simple that he only made it in a short time. ‘O great huge rock, fall for me!’. The Runic Work glowed and let out a huge round boulder. The boulder is as huge as the head of the Rhino in beast form. This boulder fall straight into the handle of the fork to make it stab more deeply. Tethra himself already Insta-Moved by using the handle of the fork as a footing.
The boulder brought down by the gravity made the momentum from the Fork grew heavier. The Rhino couldn’t hold it anymore because of the sudden addition of the weight and it got stabbed right from its mouth to its feet. Tethra landed on the ground quite far from the Rhino. Preparing in the case of Rhino's sudden recovery or something. The Rhino didn’t make any sound anymore. Tethra finally sighed a sigh of relief. He fell on his butt and panted heavily. That last attack really puts a toll on his mind. He was forced to think really quickly to finish the Rhino.
The corpse of the Bladed Rhino became particles and recovered Tethra’s body. It didn’t add anything to him, just recovering his strength. Tethra felt refreshed and stood up, waiting for the machine’s announcement.
“Congratulation to user for passing the highest level of Special Trial. User will be transported back to his body. The reward will be given after the user reached his body. Please enjoy the reward given” Tethra came back to his body inside the tube. Finally, he was back to his body. Even though those particles refreshed his strength, he was still exhausted on the mind. So he sat just right there and heaved another sigh of relief.
“Luckily I made those originals Runic Works, if not how can I finish this test” Yes, actually this trial should be very hard for people with Tethra’s strength, around the third cultivation stage. But Tethra cheated by using Runic Works. Usually, people with his strength focus on their cultivation and don’t think of Runic Works. And they also don’t have as many Runic Works as Tethra. So Tethra could be considered an exception to pass this trial without much severe injury.
“Now I could get that special reward from before. I wonder what is the special reward? Maybe it’s an inheritance? If it’s that, I will for sure be disappointed because I can’t use qi. I hope it’s a treasure or something” Tethra wondered aloud while waiting for the sliding door of the machine to open. At this time, he suddenly saw the thing he missed last time.
“Oh, what button is this? Maybe it is to open the door? The announcer didn’t say that I need to wait. Yeah, must be to open the door” Tethra murmured while standing up and just pushed the button he saw. The tube he was in suddenly changed to another color, bloody red. The button was also gone, it entered the tube wall soon after he pushed it. The door also changed to become a red wall. It seemed like he got trapped. Now he knew that it was not a button to open the door, but actually, the button meant ‘screw you!’.
“Uhh, I am in a trouble right? I shouldn’t have pushed a random button!”