Chapter 231-3: Breaking Records, Special Opportunity (3) |
When his vision cleared, he was already on the Storm Ring. The howling wind roared in his ears.
He looked ahead.
A figure manifested in front of him.
Analysis swept out, and the opponent’s information surfaced in his mind.
[Tie Manzi (Thunderstorm race)]
Hunt Level: 69.
Target Analysis: An elite warrior of the Thunderstorm race from the Azure Star Sea Region. He roamed for years amongst the storms and waves, making a living by hunting powerful sea beasts.
—
What appeared in Phase Kill’s eyes was an existence so massive it was oppressive. It stood close to four meters tall, burly as a mountain, its whole body covered in heavy dark red scales. Its limbs were thick as pillars, muscles knotted, brimming with explosive power.
A curved giant horn grew from its forehead, etched with spiral patterns.
A pair of enormous bone wings sprouted from its back, draped with sparse black membranes. Their edges were blade-sharp, and a faint flutter whipped up gusts. Behind it swayed a thick, powerful tail tipped with a sharp bone spike that sliced the air with a shrill whistle whenever it moved.
In its hand it gripped a colossal battle axe. The blade was as wide as a door, the haft engraved with ancient runes between which dark red energy faintly flowed. Heavy chains wound the axe’s handle, the other end fastened to its wrist. As it moved, the chains rattled with clashing metal.
Its gaze locked onto Phase Kill at that moment.
Their eyes met. Neither spoke, and killing intent rose in both.
Phase Kill narrowed his eyes slightly, the corners of his mouth lifting, his smile tinged with arrogance and confidence.
He could feel the surging vitality radiating from the opponent. That oppressive aura made his own battle blood boil.
His fists slowly clenched. The silver-white fingerless knuckle gauntlets he had yet to use appeared, and his knuckles clicked.
This would be the showdown he had long awaited. He could not wait.
The voice of the Barbarian Thrall sounded then.
Roar!
Tie Manzi let out a low roar and suddenly raised the giant axe. The runes on the blade flashed at once, dark red energy coursing along the axe like flowing flame.
In the next second, his figure lunged forward like a charging mountain.
With destructive power, the giant axe cleaved down at his head.
Phase Kill’s eyes tightened. His body shifted aside in an instant. With Extreme Speed augmenting him, he moved so fast he almost left an afterimage.
The giant axe hewed into the ring with a deafening crash, gouging a deep pit in an instant and sending shards flying.
Before Phase Kill, who had dodged, could fully steady himself, Tie Manzi’s tail snapped across like a spirit serpent, the bone spike at its tip flashing cold light as it stabbed for his neck.
It was too late to dodge left or right. Phase Kill dropped into a sudden squat, narrowly evading the tail strike.
His fists clenched, the silver-white knuckles gleaming. Using the crouch to gather force, he blasted an uppercut straight at Tie Manzi’s onrushing jaw.
But Tie Manzi was faster. With a slight tilt of the head, the punch scraped along his scales, throwing a trail of sparks.
Tie Manzi’s bone wings slammed, whipping up a gale. Borrowing the wind, his body rose. The giant axe lifted again, energy on the blade condensing into a dark red lightning that hacked down at Phase Kill.
Phase Kill’s eyes went cold as he retreated rapidly.
The axe fell, grazing past him.
Boom!
The axe smashed into the ring, and the flying gravel struck Phase Kill’s face.
From that single exchange, Phase Kill realized he was weaker than Tie Manzi in raw strength.
But the smile at the corner of his mouth only grew more arrogant.
He liked this sense of pressure and the feeling of skirting the edge of life and death.
Tie Manzi gave him no chance to breathe. The attacks came in an unending torrent like a storm.
As the giant axe swung, dark red energy lightning burst again and again, tearing the ring into cratered ruin that then swiftly healed.
Compared to the previous opponent, Tie Manzi’s offensive rhythm was far harder to read.
Beyond the axe, his tail and bone wings were also lethal weapons, making it impossible to precisely predict where the next strike would come from.
Under Tie Manzi’s onslaught, Phase Kill kept dodging, his figure flickering ghostlike across the ring, seeking openings with his speed advantage.
But Tie Manzi’s attack range was too broad and his power too great. The slightest misstep could plunge him into desperate straits.
“This cannot go on…”
Phase Kill’s eyes sharpened. Extreme Speed activated, and his body burst forward toward Tie Manzi’s flank.
The Vital Qi trait flared, scarlet airflow condensing on his fist. Combined with the gauntlet, it turned into a dazzling radiance.
Bang!
Leveraging the explosive acceleration from Extreme Speed, the punch hammered Tie Manzi’s side. The scales dented inward.
Tie Manzi grunted, his body swaying. The giant axe swept across in a vicious horizontal cut.
Phase Kill snapped back, but Tie Manzi’s tail followed like a shadow.
There was no way to dodge, only to take it head-on.
Crack!
The tail strike whipped hard across Phase Kill’s chest, flinging him several meters away. A thread of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
Steadying himself, Phase Kill wiped the blood from his lips, his smile tinged with madness and excitement.
He had found the opening.
This time he no longer dodged. He decided to try a frontal clash, stepping forward into a charge.
Tie Manzi grinned viciously and raised the giant axe high. Dark red energy lightning gathered along the blade and hacked down along Phase Kill’s charge trajectory.
Phase Kill did not dodge. He suddenly accelerated, his body side-sliding at the instant the axe fell, narrowly avoiding the blade. The Vital Qi trait activated. Scarlet airflow whirled madly around his fists, forming a silver radiance.
Bang!
The punch slammed into Tie Manzi’s wrist, the tremendous impact nearly knocking the giant axe from Tie Manzi’s grip.
Tie Manzi roared, his tail sweeping sideways. The bone spike at the tip stabbed straight for Phase Kill’s throat.
Phase Kill had anticipated this. He snapped his body into a sharp lean back, the tail spike skimming past the tip of his nose with an ice-cold gust.
Before Tie Manzi could recover, Phase Kill’s legs burst with power. His body flipped in midair, and a scorpion-tail-like kick smashed at Tie Manzi’s jaw.
The kick snapped Tie Manzi’s head backward and made his body stagger.
Phase Kill seized the chance. Planting one hand, he adjusted his posture as he landed and closed in fast, his fists drumming at Tie Manzi’s flank like raindrops.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The continuous blows dented Tie Manzi’s scales. His bone wings suddenly beat, whipping up a gale as he tried to take to the air.
But Phase Kill’s reaction was just as fast.
With a lift of his hand, blood-colored airflow turned into a chain and lashed out at Tie Manzi, winding around his waist.
A hard yank, and the Blood Chain Pull trait activated.
In the air, Tie Manzi felt a brutal force yank him down. His body dropped, meeting Phase Kill’s fist crashing straight into his face.
After the dull thud, Tie Manzi was blasted backward by a single punch. His wings flailed without steadying him, and he crashed heavily onto the ring.
Phase Kill growled low, burst into a run, and suddenly accelerated to rush Tie Manzi.
His fists clenched tight, Vital Qi spiraling around them.
Tie Manzi folded his wings and pushed himself up from the ground, raising the giant axe to drive back the onrushing Phase Kill.
But with Extreme Speed augmenting him, Phase Kill’s body was slippery as an eel. With a whip of his waist, he traced an elegant arc, skimming past the axe edge to close in on Tie Manzi. Power exploded beneath his feet as he leaped and spun, a roundhouse kick hammering Tie Manzi’s temple.
The kick sent Tie Manzi staggering back, his eyes like an enraged beast’s.
Phase Kill gave him no time to breathe. He pressed in again, fists flying in quick succession, leaving no chance for Tie Manzi to swing the giant axe.
From the earlier exchanges, he had already identified Tie Manzi’s weakness.
The giant axe suited mid to long range. Once it was forced into close quarters, its killing power was very limited and could not be swung wide.
So he had to cling to Tie Manzi and push his own short-range advantage to the limit.
Tie Manzi clearly realized this as well. The bone-spike tail lashed out again, trying to force him back.
But the instant it touched Phase Kill’s body, the Blood Rebound trait flung it away, nullifying the attack.
He still stuck tight to Tie Manzi, his fists pounding the chest and abdomen like rain.
As for the throat and head, his height meant he could only hit them by jumping.
But leaving the ground was too risky and could be countered at any moment, wasting the hard-won advantage.
From then on, every strike carried the Vital Qi trait, forcing Tie Manzi to retreat continually and preventing him from opening distance.
Tie Manzi’s scales boomed dully under the sustained blows, the dents growing deeper and deeper.
A flicker of panic crossed his eyes. He had clearly not expected Phase Kill’s speed and close-quarters grappling to be so overwhelming.
His bone wings flapped as he tried to rise again, but Phase Kill’s blood-soul chain still cinched tight around his waist. With a sudden yank, Tie Manzi was dragged back to the ground once more.
Phase Kill let out a low growl. The Vital Qi on his fists thickened further, and each following strike tore the air with a whistle.
Realizing he could not break free, Tie Manzi suddenly discarded the giant axe and chose to meet Phase Kill in a flesh-on-flesh brawl using close-combat techniques.
The disadvantage in raw strength made every collision churn Phase Kill’s vitality.
But that was exactly what Phase Kill wanted.
Without the threat of a high-damage weapon like the giant axe, he could unleash his close-combat specialty to the fullest.
During the clash, a hidden power inside Phase Kill began quietly accumulating.
It absorbed the recoil from each of Tie Manzi’s heavy punches and compressed that force within his body.
As the energy surged, it was like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
Tie Manzi did not notice. His onslaught grew more frenzied, fists, wings, and bone-spike tail striking in turn, trying to break Phase Kill’s rhythm.
This also put huge pressure on Phase Kill. His body bore many bleeding gashes from the bone spike and wing edges, and in a blink he was covered in blood.
At this moment, the energy within Phase Kill had reached the critical point.
His eyes were scarlet, and his body trembled uncontrollably under the extreme pressure.
Just as Tie Manzi’s expression lit with excitement, certain of victory, Phase Kill, who had recoiled after another traded punch, suddenly lifted his head. A feral smile crawled across his lips.
“End it.”
The Vital Qi on his fist suddenly contracted and condensed to a point.
Extreme Speed was pushed to the limit, making his health bar plunge.
Phase Kill’s body blurred forward like a phantom, his fist driving straight into Tie Manzi’s chest.
This strike contained all of his own power and released all the energy stored in the Accumulation trait.
If it failed, he would die.
Tie Manzi’s pupils shrank. He clearly felt the threat of death.
But it was too late to dodge. The boost from Extreme Speed could not be defended against.
The fist slammed into his chest like a meteor falling to earth, detonating with an ear-splitting blast.
Boom!
Tie Manzi was blasted away by the punch. The scales on his chest shattered at once, and blood gushed out.
His bone wings sagged powerless. His body traced an arc through the air and finally crashed down at the edge of the ring.
Phase Kill stood where he was and slowly drew back his fist.
He lifted his head to look at Tie Manzi, who trembled as he tried to stand. The gaze he fixed on Phase Kill brimmed with endless killing intent.
But Phase Kill only smiled.
Then Tie Manzi suddenly dropped his gaze to his chest, and in horror he discovered a massive bloody hole that pierced clean through.
His vision closed like stage curtains at the end of a play, darkness eating it away bit by bit.
Boom!
Tie Manzi toppled like a felled pillar, his life force quietly extinguished.