Chapter 197: Pair Battle Against an Upper Grade (1)
The Quadeye Mantipede was a particularly vicious kind of fiend beast of the Rosecloud Domain. It was born with one hundred feet, and the two nearest to the head had mutated into what appeared to be extremely sharp giant mantis legs, which was why it was called a “mantipede”.
As its one hundred feet were no longer of equal size, the mantipede usually moved with its lower body and raised its upper body like a snake.
While this made it look bizarre, anyone who underestimated it was seeking death.
The mantipede was naturally large and normally grew one meter every ten years. This mantipede was three meters long and had a silver line along its back, indicating that it was an upper-grade Spirit Sensing fiend beast. When the line turned from silver to gold, it meant the mantipede had entered Mind Opening.
Cai Junyang hadn’t expected his words to be prophetic, yet an upper-grade fiend beast had appeared the moment he had talked about not needing to run. He was rather dumbfounded and looked at Tang Jie. “What do we do now?”
“You need to ask? Run!”
The two of them shouted and immediately ran off to the side. They still hadn’t given up on the idea of going to Thunderbird Cliff, so they wanted to get around the fiend beast.
The mantipede saw the two of them running, and shrieked as it gave chase.
Its lower feet began to move in unison like countless hooks digging into the earth. They were like mighty oars, stirring up countless motes of dust and producing a magnificent dust storm.
It flew along, instantly catching up to the two and jamming its body in between Tang Jie and Cai Junyang.
The two of them jumped away from each other, and the mantipede slammed into a small tree. Its mandibles opened and closed. Crack! The small tree was cut in half.
The mantipede didn’t just possess blade-like legs. Even its mandibles were extremely powerful.
Having missed its lunge, the Quadeye Mantipede swung one of its forelegs at Cai Junyang.
Cai Junyang leaped, and the bladed leg brushed past his body and slammed into a large stone, which was immediately cut in two. The sliced surface was so smooth that Cai Junyang’s heart trembled in fear.
He struck back quickly, thrusting his sword at the mantipede, upon which he heard a crisp clang.
While the mantipede wasn’t a defensive fiend beast, it was still of upper grade. Even an average defense was comparable to a defensively-minded middle-grade fiend beast.
One strike had been insufficient, so the mantipede turned its body and slashed its second blade leg at Cai Junyang with a terrifying speed, but Cai Junyang raised his sword to block. Since his sword was so big, it could serve as a shield in critical moments. Clang! The blow sent him flying. Fortunately, Tang Jie made a timely thrust to draw the mantipede’s attention. Otherwise, the mantipede could have made a follow-up attack and heavily injured Cai Junyang.
Even so, Cai Junyang looked at the small hole punched through his sword and was both shocked and enraged. The mantipede had damaged the Tsunami Sword with only one strike.
He called out, “Watch out! This guy’s attacks are very vicious!”
“Understood!” Tang Jie called out as he fell back, creating distance between him and the beast. As he used the surrounding trees to evade, he began to estimate this mantipede’s strength.
He had only battled an upper-grade fiend beast once before: Wang Poguan of Tiger Roar Peak. When Wang Poguan had chased him, the strength and ferocity he had displayed had left a deep impression on Tang Jie. Even now, with his golden ball, he still felt like he had no chance of victory against Wang Poguan.
This was precisely why Tang Jie had instinctively placed all upper-grade Spirit Sensing fiend beasts on the same level as Wang Poguan, so he had chosen to run upon seeing the mantipede.
But when they actually got to fighting, he found that while the mantipede truly was vicious and powerful, it was far less than Tang Jie had expected. In terms of speed, technique, or strength, it was a level below Wang Poguan.
This made him somewhat understand that he had probably wrongly estimated the strength of upper-grade Spirit Sensing beasts.
Wang Poguan was a fiend beast with a bloodline legacy. This bloodline hadn’t given Wang Poguan only memories and hatred, but also strength.
Such as the Blood Refining Spirit!
Ordinary upper-grade Spirit Sensing beasts were not likely to be as strong as Wang Poguan.
This was precisely why Tang Jie began to think to himself, Perhaps we can kill this fiend beast.
If he were alone, he didn’t think too highly of his chances, but with Cai Junyang along, their hopes were much better.
Thinking this, Tang Jie shouted, “Junyang, don’t try to hit and run. Fight it directly!”
“Fight it directly?” Cai Junyang was scared out of his wits. “Have you gone crazy? This is an upper-grade fiend beast!”
“That’s exactly why!” Tang Jie shouted. “This mantipede is fast, so hit-and-run won’t be as effective. I can break through its scale armor, but a bug of one hundred feet won’t go down easily. Fiend beasts are extremely tenacious, and while I can wound it, I might not be able to kill it. I need someone else to help me!”
“You’re sure?”
“We’ll know once we start fighting!” Tang Jie roared back as he activated the Formless Golden Body, the Aquagel Shroud, and the Blood Refining Spirit.
He instantly activated all of his defensive abilities, placing his golden thread along the edge of the Heartbreak Saber and slashing out at the mantipede.
The Windcleaver!
The mantipede raised its legs to block, and as the saber touched the leg, there was a shriek as green blood splattered out from the mantipede’s leg.
The saber had left a deep wound on the mantipede’s blade leg, but failed to cut it off. Tang Jie was disappointed and knew that this was a disadvantage of the golden thread’s length.
While the golden beam was sharp, the area it covered was limited, as was its penetrative power. Winding the golden thread around the blade made it easy to use, but it wasn’t as good for damage.
Tang Jie drew back the golden thread, but as he was about to change his mode of attack, the mantipede spat out a poisonous gas.
“Watch out!” Cai Junyang shouted as he covered his eyes and fell back.
The poison gas was the Quadeye Mantipede’s other trump card. While it wasn’t as frightening as the poison of poisonous centipedes like the Skytoxin Centipede, it was still a very vicious poison.
As the poison gas spread out through the forest, the plants began to wither. The effect was comparable to that of the mottled snake from before, just covering a larger area.
Tang Jie accidentally breathed in some of it and immediately felt dizzy. Fortunately, he had the Jewel Body and was much more resistant to poison than the ordinary person. One cycle of energy had him feeling much better. On the other end, Cai Junyang took out an antidote pill and swallowed it. He didn’t know what type of poison the Quadeye Mantipede had, so he used the antidote with the widest rage, which was also the one with the most outrageous price.
Suppressing the urge to vomit, Tang Jie turned the golden thread into a knife and threw it at the mantipede.
But surprisingly, after being wounded by Tang Jie, the mantipede knew how formidable Tang Jie’s attacks were, and stopped using its blade legs to block, instead raising another leg to swat at it.
The golden blade flashed and instantly cut the leg in two, but the force it had encountered changed its direction, and it failed to hit the mantipede’s body. The mantipede had one hundred legs and didn’t care about the loss of one. It furiously charged over and swung its two blades at Tang Jie.
The mantipede was incredibly fast, and the two blades only flashed briefly before they were upon him.
Tang Jie barely managed to dodge one, but he had to take the other blade with his defenses.
The blade leg slashed through the Aquagel Shroud and hacked into the Formless Golden Body, burying itself in his flesh.
And this was because it was him. Any ordinary student would have been sliced in two.
“Aaagh!” Tang Jie hollered as he grasped onto the blade leg. The mantipede shrieked and swung its blade leg into the air, carrying Tang Jie up with it.
“Tang Jie!” Cai Junyang shouted in alarm and roared, “Raging Wave Slash!”
He slashed at the mantipede’s back with all his strength.
But to his surprise, the mantipede turned its upper body around and glared with its four eyes, which sent out four rays of light that struck Cai Junyang. As the sword light made impact, Cai Junyang was also sent flying back, his body momentarily paralyzed.
The beams fired by the eyes weren’t strong, but they had a paralyzing effect and had succeeded in rendering Cai Junyang temporarily immobile.
This temporary distraction allowed Tang Jie to call back the golden blade, and he turned it into a gauntlet that he used to punch at the blade leg that was embedded in his body.
With this punch, blood gushed, the five golden spikes smashing into the joints of the blade leg. This blade leg had already been injured, and with this second heavy blow, clack! It snapped off at the joint, leaving behind tendrils of blood.
The mantipede screeched so sharply that it almost broke the ear drums of the pair. Meanwhile, the mantipede’s left blade leg flew at Tang Jie’s throat.
Tang Jie thrust out his hands, catching the blade leg between them. The sharp blade plunged into his chest, burying itself one centimeter in before being unable to go any farther.
There was a sudden exertion of strength, and Tang Jie went flying out, half of the insect’s blade leg still embedded in the left side of his chest.
Rolling on the ground, Tang Jie quickly grabbed some medicinal powder and spread it on the wound. This was a blood-stopping pain disperser. While he had a formidable body, these two blades had inflicted wounds that were too severe, and he really couldn’t wait for his own recovery powers to work.
But this medicine wasn’t cheap. A single little bag cost more than a hundred coins, and so using it made Tang Jie’s heart twist in pain, even if his flesh no longer hurt.
The mantipede went crazy, screeching as its entire body turned red.
The two were stunned, and Cai Junyang shouted, “Fiend pellet! Fiend pellet! Shit, this thing is a fiend beast that’s formed a fiend pellet!”
A fiend beast at Mind Opening was bound to have a fiend pellet, and an upper-grade Spirit Sensing beast had a one-third chance of forming one, the chance being even smaller at middle and lower grades. The exact chances would depend on the type and talent of the beast in question. Some fiend beasts would actually get weaker after forming a fiend pellet, as they had stored a significant part of the power in their physical flesh into the pellet, but not all fiend beasts were like this.
Regardless, any fiend beast with a fiend pellet was extremely difficult to deal with.
This mantipede was very strong, but it had never used any lethal attacks, so it probably belonged to the former kind. It had stored much of its energy in its fiend pellet, resulting in it being weaker.
But now that the power of the fiend pellet had been activated, the situation had changed.
As expected, as it glowed red, the Quadeye Mantipede’s injuries began to stop bleeding. It rushed over to its severed limb, and that blade leg went back to its position and began to heal. Even the minor leg that Tang Jie had chopped off was beginning to grow back.
The fiend pellet’s number one use was to release energy to heal the body.
A fiend beast with a fiend pellet essentially had the power to heal itself.
Of course, this would consume the fiend pellet, and it would take a long period of cultivation to recover.
“We can’t let it recover!” Tang Jie roared.
He had sustained heavy injuries to sever one of its blade legs. If this fiend were allowed to reconnect its leg, the two of them would have no hope.
Tang Jie rushed up and swung the Heartbreak Saber.
Another Windcleaver!
At the same time, having shaken off the paralyzing effect, Cai Junyang charged forward, unleashing the Raging Wave Slash with his giant sword.
The two of them both targeted the mantipede’s severed leg.
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