Chapter 212: Danger
Translator: Irene Editor: CakeHermit
Ai Hui sized up the blood-traced cat before his eyes carefully. This was the cleverest blood-traced fiend that he had seen so far. There was a sense of calm within its ice-cold eyes instead of the blood-thirstiness evident in other blood-traced fiends.
Ai Hui had a faint feeling that the cat was also sizing him up.
Under the pressuring silence, they stood opposite each of other.
The blood-traced cat had blood-red hair, but each strand was abnormally hard and thick like needles. Its paws were solid and wrapped up in fine fish scales. This was also the only part of its body that had scales.
According to Ai Hui’s experience, fish scales meant strong defense. Iron hooves? Was this still a cat?
Its sharp claws were like blades that could easily pierce into solid ground.
Ai Hui’s gaze fell upon the cat’s tail, which was as thick as a whip. A "whoosh whoosh" sound filled the air when the cat swept its tail, undoubtedly convincing Ai Hui of its strength.
Life was full of surprises indeed. Ai Hui sighed.
In the Wilderness, every dire beast was like an uncrossable, tall mountain. At that point, he absolutely did not imagine that one day he would casually bump into strange and extraordinarily strong dire beasts.
The good thing was that everyone’s skills had improved tremendously as well.
Ai Hui’s mind was spinning rapidly. When dealing with this blood-traced cat, the most important thing was to restrain its speed. Otherwise, not to mention hunting it, he would get attacked.
"I’ll go first, you guys cover for me."
Shi Xueman said suddenly while holding onto Cirrus, eager to give it a go. As a newly registered elementalist, she wanted to test her own abilities.
The water plant-like fog on her back had now grown into a pair of snow-white azure wings. She took off the broken Central Pine Armor, revealing the blue-white war armor.
Central Pine Armor had very low defensive power. After her battle with the blood worm last time around, it had become utterly dilapidated.
There it was, her snow-white azure wings, jet-black and thick hair, exquisite blue-white war armor, and stainless Cirrus, whose body emitted white mist streamers. Her cold-as-ice appearance was suffocating to look at, and her bright and clear eyes displayed great confidence.
She held onto Cirrus and ambled along as a representative.
Filled with elemental energy, Cirrus hummed, as if responding to her. Cirrus was a top-notch Heaven-grade weapon, hand-casted by her father. She felt full of courage whenever she held it.
The blood-traced cat gradually retreated.
Everyone fell into a daze. Retreated...
They had come across countless blood fiends, but it was their first time seeing one withdraw. Before, all of the blood fiends would directly pounce on their enemies upon finding them.
A premonition arose in Ai Hui’s chest.
Suddenly, the blood-traced cat let out an expected whine. This wasn’t a mournful sound. Then a wisp of incorporeal motion was emitted from its body.
After two seconds, two incorporeal motions exploded simultaneously at two different places.
Ai Hui quivered before shouting, "It’s calling backup!"
Calling backup…
Everyone’s faces changed. No way…
Why were the blood fiends becoming more and more different?
But they quickly got ready to battle any way, as Ai Hui’s judgments were usually never wrong.
Boom boom boom!
The floor trembled. With his right hand, Ai Hui raised up enough dust to hide the sky and cover the earth. The noise of buildings collapsing sounded incessantly, and with loud rumblings, the ground started to close up. Some blood fiends were frantically moving toward that side too.
Boom!
The house to his right exploded suddenly, and the fragmented bricks flew everywhere as if there was a storm. A red, short silhouette emerged amidst the raised dust.
When the dust dispersed, a two-meter-long blood-traced lizard appeared before everyone’s eyes. A dense, blood-like light circled around this lizard’s body, spun non-stop, and was very destructive. The blood-traced lizard’s body was wrapped in red fish scales. Seemingly forged by a mysterious metal, they carried a strong, golden luster.
The blood traces on its body were very peculiar, like an irregular pattern formed by black, warped characters. After counting, Ai Hui located nine blood traces.
The blood-traced lizard had ice-cold, completely emotionless eyes.
Just then, a blood fog arrived quietly from their left. It moved in an observable speed and started fading as a petite, red blood fox appeared in front of everybody. It glared at them with its red, ceramic-like eyes, giving them the cold sweats.
Everybody’s faces turned pale. They wanted to hunt for one blood fiend but never imagined that there would be three appearing together! No, the two that were summoned.
Blood-traced fiends who knew how to fight in groups were bad news to Ai Hui and the gang.
The tremendous pressure brought about by three nine blood-traced fiends was stifling and the air froze up.
It was as if everyone had been doused with a pail of ice water. The joy from the earlier breakthroughs vanished into thin air.
They had been battling for days, and not one was as ruthless as today’s.
Duanmu Huanghun’s eyes flicked with light as he took a stride forward, saying cooly, "I’ll deal with the small fox."
This moment, Ai Hui took a deep breath before speaking. "I’ll get the lizard."
Shi Xueman and Duanmu Huanghun turned over at the same time.
Ai Hui quickly added, "The rest, please provide assistance."
They turned back around. While Ai Hui wasn’t in his best condition, it was manageable if he had everyone’s support.
The first to move was Duanmu Huanghun. He had long been impatient. Thinking about how he would be able to render Ai Hui speechless fired his whole body up.
Reaching Initial Completion was a major breakthrough for him, and it changed the quality of his [Viridescent Flower].
With a slight flick of his fingers, the viridescent flower coiling branch drilled its way out from the blood fox’s paws, winding around the blood traces.
The blood fox’s paws stomped on the branch, crushing it with a bang.
A strange smile appeared at the corner of Duanmu Huanghun’s lips. Without any movement, the shattered viridescent flower suddenly released an intense, cold air. Caught off guard, the blood fox’s paws were covered with a layer of frost.
The viridescent flower coiling branch trace and the ice trace switched around naturally without any pause. From this, it was obvious that Duanmu Huanhun’s control of [Viridescent Flower] had improved greatly.
Cold entering its body, the blood fox shivered and tons of blood fog surged out of its body. In the blink of an eye, its body was completely concealed within the blood fog.
The blood fog rolled up swiftly and went straight for Duanmu Huanghun like a rapacious beast.
Duanmu Huanghun made a "hmph" sound and a viridescent flower cloud appeared below his feet. Then he made a few jumps in the air to dodge the blood fog. Following closely behind, the blood fog flew up as well and pounced on Duanmu Huanghun.
The battle between Shi Xueman and the blood-traced cat was similarly intense.
The newborn azure wings increased Shi Xueman’s speed exponentially, but even then, she could barely keep up with the blood-traced cat’s speed. The blood-traced cat’s body was soft, as if boneless. It could turn and reverse in any direction like a bolt of strange, red lightning, reflecting and refracting within the building incessantly.
It was Shi Xueman’s first time meeting such an opponent, so she was highly-focused. She had to be. Any negligence, if she were to touch the red lightning even just a little for example, would lead to death or serious injury. The cat’s incomparable speed allowed it to execute each move fatally.
Within just ten seconds, Shi Xueman’s forehead was filled with sweat.
She knew that she couldn’t continue like that. She had to make a change, or once her body strength declined, she would never be able to follow the blood-traced cat’s speed. When that time came, there would be no chance left to launch a comeback.
She spun Cirrus with both palms suddenly, before shouting in a clear voice, "Open!"
The surging cloud of mist spread through the air like a deluge.
The blood-traced cat charged into the cloud of mist and found it amiss immediately. The cloud of mist was not lethal, but it had remarkable buoyancy, which caused the cat to lose control over its body. But with a strange snap, the blood-traced cat stabilized itself by assuming a twisted posture. It dodged Cirrus’ silent hit from within the mist.
But quickly, the blood-traced cat found that the situation was turning for the worse. The cat, trapped deep within this soft, cotton-like cloud gas, was immobilized. More critically, the cloud gas that wrapped around it was rising non-stop.
Having sunk into a dangerous situation, the blood-traced cat’s hair was as straight as steel needles. Its body trembled violently and the needle-like hair shot out from all around like a rainstorm.
Shi Xueman shook Cirrus promptly before drawing out a ring to block the incoming needle rain.
Just then, the red, needle-like hairs exploded simultaneously.
Shi Xueman only felt a strange force breaking into her Cirrus ring. She flew backwards seven, eight meters before regaining stability. She stared at her broken cloud gas as a red silhouette descended.
With this short showdown, both parties knew that their opponent wasn’t to be trifled with.
The blood-traced cat’s tail stood erect and its hair was pencil-straight. It glared unwaveringly at Shi Xueman, who was in midair.
The hair on the cat’s body was badly damaged and looked very ugly, but Shi Xueman dared not to belittle it at all. What she had thought to be a fatal blow had easily been undermined by the blood-traced cat.
Surveying the whole battlefield, no one, be it Shi Xueman or Duanmu Huanghun, had fallen into a disadvantageous position.
Except for Ai Hui.
Ai Hui was almost completely suppressed by the blood lizard. For a few times now, he had nearly knocked against the blood ring around the lizard’s body, causing him to sweat profusely out of fear. He saw with his own eyes how the blood ring had wrung and crushed incoming rain arrows.
The only person who could break through the lizard’s blood ring was Sang Zhijun. But her arrows, upon passing through, no longer had sufficient power to even leave a scar on the fish scales.
Ai Hui, who was experiencing vertigo, could not coordinate his Dragonspine Inferno properly, and his sword moves were crooked.
If not for the fact that the blood lizard had a restraining fear of Dragonspine Inferno, he would have retreated.
Ai Hui was anxious. What was happening to him? It would be difficult to withdraw if this continued, not to mention claim victory.
He gathered all of his energy, trying hard to control the elemental energy within his body.
His sky palace had no elemental energy… no elemental energy…
Ai Hui was hypnotizing himself non-stop, to force himself to ignore the blurriness and dizziness.
He placed all his attention onto the seven palaces, onto operating [Big Dipper], and onto the sword moves.
[Oblique Slash], [Heavenly Thrust], [Uprising Moon]...
Bit by bit, he channelled his attention onto the disobeying Dragonspine Inferno in his hands.