Chapter 288: Kicking the Tiger
Gorath Tremblin flew proudly over a marsh, flanked by two sharken deacons of lower status. They made him feel accomplished. Despite their noble standing, they answered to him, a feshkur.
I hope Jack Rust shows up, he thought broodily. I would beat him up.
Suddenly, space split open ahead of them. The two sharkens came to an instant stop, while he had to fly another hundred feet in annoyance before he managed. The late D-Grades almost fell on the sharkens.
Goraths eyes lit up. Jack Rust! he shouted, eyeing the tear in space, only for three people to step out of it. One was Jack Rust, as advertised. The second was a cyclops dressed in prisoner attire and wielding a steel greatclub, while the third was a human in strange orange robes.
Gorath instantly crushed his projection stone. He ground his teeth together as he stared down the new arrivals. Suddenly, a light went on inside his head, and he recognized the monk-looking human. He was Shol Pesna. The second deacon of the Exploding Sun.
Shit, he said, and then they charged him.
***
Jack felt the breeze on his back. Nine immortals stood before himnine inner disciples of the Animal Kingdom.
Nine enemies.
Three were deacons, and the other six at the late D-Grade. Ill get the grunts, he said. Higher level gain.
Naturally, Dordok replied, hefting his greatclub. Shol and I will delay the deacons.
Thanks, captain.
All three of them shot out at once. Air split and boomed in their passage. The leader of the opponents, a feshkur deacon, crushed his projection stone and met their charge. They collided like comets. Shockwaves flew everywhere, violent winds and ripples. The marsh below was leveled.
The feshkur was thrown back, but the two sharken deacons arrived right then, flanked by their six subordinates. Shol and Dordok kept pushing, intercepting all three deacons, while Jack stepped through space to appear between the late D-Grades.
He caught the terror in their eyes. Though they were six, and all were higher-leveled than him, they knew what he was capable of. They were the ones at risk.
Focus! one of them, a twenty-foot-tall man who looked to be half-whale, shouted out. His voice was deep and very slow, like he was slurring every word. Attack!
All six fell on him. They didnt dare hold back. Each was stronger than the leonine hed fought back in the low-level hunting zone, and three months ago, Jack would have been completely unable to fight back.
But this wasnt three months ago. The Dao was now an extension of his limbs and soulnowhere near the clumsy, all-too-heavy tool it used to be after his successive level-ups. He laughed. Bring it on!
Suddenly, a brutal aura billowed out. It caught the immortals by surprise, seeping into their souls and infecting them with fear. Given their already existing terror, the effect was instant. Their reactions slowed. Two displayed signs of hesitation. In their eyes, Jack had just turned into a natural disaster about to chew them up and spit them out, and there was nothing they could do about it.
Still, they were too experienced to falter. Their attacks carried on. Jack was beset by a set of Dao Domains and iridescent strikes, but he only grinned. His own domain burst out, shattering theirs.
Now free of their influence, he stepped through space and teleported behind one of the weakest opponents, a lycan.
Normally, he would have gone for the strong-looking whaler, but the point here wasnt just to win, it was to prevent their escape. If they tried to scatter, this might take too long.
Before the lycan could respond, Jack clenched his fist and smashed it down. A shield of wind appeared behind his opponents nape, shattered instantly. The lycans neck broke, and his body flew down like a rock.
One down, five to go, Jack thought grimly.
More attacks fell on him. His opponents, realizing they could not stop his teleportation, assembled into a formation that helped them guard each others backthey must have been trained for exactly such an occasion.
Jack still tried. He appeared above them all and shot down a Meteor Punch, eclipsing the midday sun with his power. The whaler puffed his cheeks as he blew a torrent of water upward. The remaining four immortals joined in with attacks of their own.
All strikes met in a massive collision that revealed no clear victor.
He can match five of us!? a turtler woman shouted. He isnt even Level 200! Its impossible!
It was your Kingdom that forced me to become this strong! Jack shouted back. Regret it in the afterlife!
He teleported three times in a row, controlling each spatial movement precisely to avoid spending any excess energy. Wherever he appeared, his opponents coordinated to catch him. Wild strikes flew everywhere. The sky was rent apart. The marsh below was further flattened, all trees breaking and sinking into the muddy soil.
Size Difference! the whaler called out, his body suddenly enlarging to ten times its previous size, becoming even larger than an actual whale. His colossal fist, wider than Jack was tall, slammed down. Flatten!
Meteor Punch! Jack called out. The world exploded. An ant battled a giant. The whalers fist was thrown back, broken at the wrist, and his mouth opened to unleash a piercing scream. Jack did not follow throughinstead, he teleported into the midst of the other four enemies, engaging them in melee combat.
They were unprepared but experienced. Their Daos burst out with only a moments delay. A sword sliced Jacks ribs while a mallet tried to break his spine. The other two immortals moved to block his avenues of escape, but he never planned on escaping to begin with. He took the hits like a champ. Grunting, he ignored the turtlers paltry attempts and grabbed her by the throat, smashing her shell-first into a goatee. He then Meteor Punched them both.
The explosion was staggering. His hair and robes fluttered backward, but he was unhurt. His opponents werent. They were both dead.
Two late immortals remained, along with the injured whaler, who was now retreating at top speed. Thankfully, he wasnt very fast.
Jack turned to his two opponents and started blasting. Their strikes came in tandemthey were used to working as a pair. The sword and mallet filled each others paths, aiming at vulnerable spots that Jack had no choice but to defend. He dodged under a strike, slapped away another, then leaned into a third. His movements were so fast and precise that, if he didnt know better, he would have thought himself choreographed.
The mallet found his thigh, but hed leaned into the strike, weakening it. He used the moment of respite to punch its wielder twiceone fist broke his face, the other shattered his ribcage. A third punch penetrated his abdomen, and a pulse of violent Dao destroyed his internal organs. The immortal toppled to the ground, dead without a doubt.
Only one opponent remainedanother lycanbut he was already trying to run.
Is this all the Animal Kingdom has to offer? Jack shouted, laughing in the air like a baleful god. Stop me if you dare!
He teleported above the retreating lycan, smashing a Meteor Punch into his head. Facing someone who couldnt teleport felt like a cheat. The lycan tried to defend, but only managed to have his arms broken alongside his skull.
Jack then looked into the distance, where the whaler had almost become a dot in the horizon.
Shit! he realized. That guy tricked me!
When the whaler first started running, hed been pretty slow, so Jack didnt prioritize him. But it had been a trick! Hed been holding back! His current speed was at least double his initial one.
Damn, Jack thought, charging forward at full speed. The air erupted into sonic booms around him. He dived into spatial tears and emerged nine miles away without losing momentum, sliding through space like a dolphin jumping over waves. It took him some time, but he finally caught up. The whaler looked back in horror.
Mercy! he pleaded, but Jack only shook his head.
Mercy is a luxury of the strong, he replied. You die here.
Faced with the despair of death, the whaler roared. It was a high-pitched sound that made Jacks head hurt. At the same time, he grew gigantic again and slammed his tail down on Jack, who Meteor Punched it.
When the explosion settled down, all that remained was a massive whale-man body with a broken tail and a snapped spine.
Jack was already dashing back. They were on the clock. Already, there had to be at least one C-Grade rushing over at top speed.
When he arrived at the battle scene, Shol and Dordok were still facing the three deacons. Dordok himself was holding back the feshkur, taking a solid beating but surviving, while Shol was going to town on the two sharkens.
Jack prioritized the sharkens, as their Dao of Momentum made them fast. He approached from their blind spot and teleported directly beside them, smashing down a point-blank Meteor Punch. Of course, an immortals Dao perception rendered all blind spots null, but there was a limit to ones reaction speed when an opponent teleported behind them from nine miles away.
Jacks strike penetrated the sharkens fin and back, digging into his skin and exploding. His body went flying in multiple directions. As this happened, the remaining sharken immediately turned to flee, but Shol grabbed his leg and catapulted him down to the ground, throwing an entire miniature sun in his face. A hundred-foot-deep scorched crater later, nothing remained of the sharken.
Finally, all three turned to the only remaining enemy. The feshkur immediately crossed space and tried to escapehe could also teleport, though with less proficiency than Jack or Shol. Both chased him. When they caught up, the feshkur did not beg for mercy. He suddenly turned around and swung, forgoing all defense to take Jack with him. Shols palm crushed his skull as the feshkurs curved sword slashed deep into Jacks arm, reaching the bone and stopping there.
Careful, Shol said. That could have taken your arm off.
It would have regrown.
Hey! Get over here, fast! Dordok shouted, holding one of his arms. It was broken at the wrist, and one of his legs was bleeding profusely. We need to run!
A terrifying aura fell on them. In the distance, the sky turned dark as a furious figure approached at tremendous speed, its rage so intense they could sense it from afar.
Jack and Shol rushed to reach Dordok with everything they had. The approaching figure was much faster than them, but they were far closer. They teleported beside Dordok at the same time that the Sage did, appearing from his hiding place in the marsh below. He took out the black sphere.
Stop right there! the distant figure commanded. His mere shout was enough to constrict the Dao around them, making teleportation impossible, but at this distance, his influence was weak. Jack stretched out his Dao Domain and broke the C-Grades control.
Like hell well stop! he shouted back. Drag your old ass over here and make me!
The distant figure had approached enough that they could make out its features. A mane around his neck, gray tufts on his fur. This was the Wardenand he came with the full might of an enraged late C-Grade. His Dao Domain erupted, flying at them like the aura of God.
Stop! the Warden shouted again.
Kiss my ass! Jack retorted. The Sage activated the sphere in his hands and space sucked them in, leaving no trace behind. Less than a second later, a dark beam passed through that location, eviscerating the very air itself.
Damn you! the Warden roared, steaming from the ears. Ill make you regret what you said, kid!
It was only then that he realized the projection stone was still active. After the feshkur had crushed it at the start of the fight, nobody had stopped it, so everything that transpired was projected across the entire planetincluding Jacks mockery.
The Warden felt so humiliated he wanted to puke. He was unable to form words. With a swipe of his paw, he destroyed the hundred-million-credits worth projection stone, then screamed at the sky in frustration. Nobody was watching now, and no junior had ever spoken to him like that, so he needed to vent.
Unbeknownst to the Warden, however, Jack had a second projection stone, stolen from the sharken deacon he killed. Just before teleporting, hed activated that projection stone and tossed it away, and the Warden, blinded by rage, had missed it. His outraged scream had also been projected across the planet, humiliating him further.
When he finally spotted the second projection stone, his eyes went so wide they almost popped out of his head. He didnt just destroy ithe obliterated it with his full might, along with dozens of square miles of marshland.
He then screamed again, I will destroy you, Jack Rust! I swear revenge on your entire family!
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