Xiong Ba still stood on the same place with his axe down. He felt terrified about the prospect of cutting his opponent’s limb, but he didn’t expect that his weapon couldn’t even deeply wound his enemy. After overcoming his shock, Xiong Ba observed the young man in front of him. Did his hands have some kind of protection or something? Xiong Ba couldn’t help but take some guesses because his axe had been reinforced once, seeing Tethra taking it barehanded was very shocking. With more serious expression, Xiong Ba took a more cautious stance to fight Tethra.
After standing up, Tethra felt his that his internal organs were damaged a little from the exchange before, other than that and his hand, everything seemed fine. Preparing a more appropriate stance to battle, Tethra stepped his left leg to the front a little. He also prepared Qi Attraction Finger in both of his forefingers. His fingers shined a bit but it couldn’t avoid Xiong Ba’s attentive eyes.
Xiong Ba knew that it was Qi Attraction Finger, the skill to draw Runic Works. Now, Tethra’s position in Xiong Ba’s eyes went up a notch. At the first time he met Tethra, he guessed that he shouldn’t be a bad person from the way he’s talking, but now, he could finally conclude that Tethra wasn’t a bad person. Maybe that disciple lied to him, he must beat that disciple later. People who loved to research the thing that developed society’s technology couldn’t be a bad person. But, he still needed to continue this fight, not as a Punishment Squad member now, rather as a good senior brother.
The situation felt tense. Abruptly, like they had planned it before together, they both ran from their perspective position. Tethra’s speed was at a disadvantage because he couldn’t use ‘Icarus’. He didn’t know the consequence of using 2 enhancement, and he for sure wouldn’t bet his body to something like that. Moreover, Xiong Ba was an 8th Revolving Qi stage practitioner (fourth cultivation stage), his overall physique would, of course, be better than Tethra. In fact, after a practitioner passed the Strength to Qi stage (third cultivation stage), they would get their bodies tempered once again so their bodies physique stats would increase by leaps.
By the time they reached each other, Xiong Ba cleaved down with his monstrous axe. Fearing another wound because his resilience couldn’t hold the sharpness of the axe, Tethra slid sideway to the right. Surprisingly, the trajectory of the axe changed, following Tethra. Once again Tethra was forced to avoid it. Because he just moved, he couldn’t move anymore because his agility wasn’t that good, so he used Three Cloud Form Step : One, Cloudy Hazy Step. Tethra whole body blurred and he managed to evade that axe by using that amazing footwork. Just as his body came back, the axe once again reverted direction, it cleaved sideway again, but now to the left toward Tethra again.
Tethra got no choice but to jump back to further the distance between them. He found Xiong Ba’s axe skill very odd. Usually, axe users depend on their strength to deal more damage to the enemy, but Xiong Ba’s axe skill was unusually agile! For something odd like this, it’s a good choice to further the distance. Just as Tethra jumped back, Xiong Ba launched the axe to Tethra with his hand position looked like the hand stance after throwing a boomerang. The axe followed Tethra with speed faster than him.
“Not only you can alter your trajectory, but you can throw it too?!”
“Hey, I once forget how to throw it like a boomerang! But, it eventually came back to me.”
Throwing Xiong Ba an incredulous look, Tethra became increasingly worried about this fight. What the hell was this strange axe skill?! Nothing could be used for footing as he was in the middle of jumping. If he got hit by that, he would crash into a tree again for sure and his internal organs wouldn’t be damaged so little if he got a second collision. Frantically, Tethra thought of a method to avoid this flying axe. He couldn’t stay calm as this was only his second time he battled. He ran frequently because of his archeological work, but he never battled. He was only able to battle because the martial arts experience from when he was a child he just unsealed. That too were only able to make him fight at least better than normal people, not expertly. His mind was constantly thinking of a strategy, that’s why he could at least contend against the monster and a practitioner this time. If he wanted to tread the path of practitioners, he would have to face this kind of things frequently. He needed to train! Tethra once again reaffirmed his determination to train.
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Fortunately this time, he already prepared a Runic Work with his left hand. Actually, he was preparing this for a footing to counter attack Xiong Ba. His original plan was that after he jumped back, he would use this as a footing to shoot towards Xiong Ba. By attacking unexpectedly, Xiong Ba would be caught off guard and he would get the first clean hit. The first clean hit usually determined the outcome of a fight. By striking a clean hit first, the enemy would get damaged first, and that one damage would decrease the enemy’s ability, even for a little bit. That little bit could even let him win the fight.
Tethra released the delayed Runic Work he prepared. A small boulder came out of nowhere below Tethra. This was the Runic Work he used when he fought the monster earlier, he just tinkered the rune a bit to decrease its size, it wasn’t hard. Well for him, but for the people of Rune Faculty, tinkering a Runic Work was the same as blasphemy against its creator. Even though their technology was advanced, they still had outdated thinking. They only knew that changing a Runic Work as one pleases was blasphemy, but they never considered the chance of tinkering it could upgrade the Runic Work. That was why their technology advanced at low speed.
Stepping on the boulder, Tethra jumped upward and avoided the flying axe that passed below his feet. “Phew, that was close” Tethra still hadn’t calmed his erratically beating heart. That was very close. If he got another one of those tyrannical hits, he couldn’t guess what would happen. Suddenly the axe turned direction and started flying backward, towards Tethra’s back. Xiong Ba was still standing at the same place, seemingly concentrating on something. Even though human’s vision is wide, it still couldn’t cover one’s back. So Tethra couldn’t see the thing cleaving toward his back because he was concentrating at the enemy in front of him. Unaware of the danger behind, Tethra raised his right hand that had written a Runic Work too. He pointed it at Xiong Ba. The drawing could be read like this.
‘Wind, contract and compact, solidify, explode, Wind Bomb!’
Because of the momentum of the shooting wind was too big, Tethra got pushed further back-diagonally upward. Just as he stopped getting pushed and was about to fall, a big axe passed by exactly below his crotch. He got chills on his back, if he hadn’t chosen that Wind Bomb Runic Work and had chosen another that didn’t have a counter-force this strong, he was sure he would get hit again, and this time completely off guard. Luckily he chose the Wind Bomb. Actually, he was planning to use Lightning Pierce, but he wasn’t sure and was scared he would kill this person, so he used the most harmless one but released the most force, Wind Bomb. He felt relieved that he didn’t intend to kill this person, else it would be double kill.
Xiong Ba got thrown by the wind explosion of the wind bomb. Because he was concentrating on dragging the trajectory of the axe, he didn’t notice the Wind Bomb until it was too late. He tried to jump backward but still got pushed by the wind force generated by the Wind Bomb. He managed to backflip once and stabilized himself by standing on the ground. Shocked by the display of skill, he once more raised his opponent position once more in his mind. This was an opponent he couldn’t underestimate, he had to fight seriously from now on. Xiong Ba caught his flying axe back and watched his opponent land with a grave expression.
Tethra landed lightly on the ground. He was sure this was the strongest enemy he ever met. From the way his enemy attacked, to his enemy’s reflex, and now his enemy’s defense, all were at least higher than his. His expression turned solemn, he could beat his enemy’s speed but it was by using ‘Icarus’, but he still needed ‘Archilles’ for countering the axe in case it flew near him. He wanted to use 2 of them but he feared the consequences. If he tried it before, when he was alone, he might not be scared, but now he was in front of an enemy, if he fainted here, who know what would happen. If he didn’t use it, he wouldn’t get a chance of victory, and he might be killed too. Because both cases ended up in him being killed, may as well try it, if he fainted, then the enemy might pity him and wouldn’t kill him.
“Well, it’s a do or die! Icarus!”
His whole body didn’t get another power but his legs felt stronger than before. Tethra could feel the strength of 30 meters jump filled his legs. Tethra was perplexed.
“I could actually use 2?! Why didn’t anyone told me so earlier?! I was battling hard for nothing!!”