Chapter 174: Fury
“That was your ultimate move? Nothing special I guess…”
The dull tone of Bai Yunfei scratched at the ears of Tang Ya and Su Xia, prompting Su Xia to let out an incredulous cry, “But—that’s impossible! How did he cut away at our soul technique!?”
“Be careful!”
In the midst of Su Xia’s indignant shout, Tang Ya suddenly pushed him out of the way before shortly kicking himself to the other side.
Not too long after Tang Ya pushed himself away, a brilliant gleam of red light burst from the smoke along with a golden rope.
“Thwock!”
As soon as Tang Ya and Su Xia managed to get away, the Fire-tipped Spear landed right where the two used to be standing. Before they could even let out a sigh of relief, the Fire-tipped Spear let out a crimson light from its spot in the earth!
An explosion rang through the air, spilling elemental fire in a circle.
+10, effect of the Fire-tipped Spear, activate!
Again and again, the surprises from Bai Yunfei never stopped coming. Tang Ya and Su Xia hadn’t realized that Bai Yunfei would be this strong.
Even though they were at the edge of the explosion’s radius, the two of them were still caught in it, enough to cause them to stagger away in pain.
The fact that the Fire-tipped Spear activated an effect was something even Bai Yunfei hadn’t expected, but he wasn’t thrown into disarray like the other two. He immediately moved to capitalize on this chance. Yanking his hand back, the Compliant Rope that was tied around the Fire-tipped Spear contracted in length, forcing the spear to come flying back. With the spear back in his hand, Bai Yunfei flew toward Tang Ya.
……
Su Xia felt shocked really. Never in the world had he ever thought, that even with the advantage of numbers against a weaker Soul Sprite, they’d be on the losing end! The blade in his right hand moved tirelessly to defend himself against Bai Yunfei’s assault. Bit by bit, he was being forced back by Bai Yunfei, and after ten meters or so, he was just about to launch an attack of his own when, all of a sudden, something to his left caused him to turn his head.
Just a few dozen meters away, a shadowy cat-like figure swung down from a tree to take Xiao Fang away when no one was looking—it was Zhu Zi!
While Tang Ya and Su Xia were completely engrossed in battle, Xiao Fang was successfully rescued!
In truth, Xiao Fang as a ‘hostage’ was practically useless for them. Not once did they think that she’d be a useful bargaining chip for Bai Yunfei to obediently hand over his soul items. If anything, she was bait to draw Bai Yunfei out and nothing more, so it didn’t really matter to them whether Xiao Fang was rescued or not.
However, something about this rescue attempt made Su Xia think twice. His beady little eyes swiveled furiously as if he was thinking about something, and then a strange smile greeted his lips. “You trying to be the hero!? Forget about it! A commoner as insignificant as you should just die!”
No sooner did he finish speaking then his hand swung letting his blade fly from his grip. Since Xiao Fang was perched on top of the tree branch, she had nowhere to escape to!
It was intentional that he had spoke out loud, for good reason too. It was all for the sake of drawing Bai Yunfei’s attention away from Tang Ya.
Even if Bai Yunfei wasn’t distracted, Tang Ya could manipulate the blade so that it’d hit Bai Yunfei, or kill the inconsequential ‘commoner’ Xiao Fang. Her death wouldn’t be anything to worry about in any case.
“Bastard!!”
As expected, Bai Yunfei immediately gave up his assault on Tang Ya when he saw that he was attacking Xiao Fang. He wouldn’t be in time to chase down the blade, but Bai Yunfei instead threw his spear to his left hand and shook his right hand to throw the Glacial Pricker, intending to block Tang Ya’s attack. Successfully managing to throw the blade, Bai Yunfei felt an immediate gale of wind blow against the back of his head. Tang Ya had managed to take advantage of the situation to aim the sharp blade of his weapon against his head!
In imminent peril, Bai Yunfei averted his head so that the blade would strike his right shoulder. There was a spark, and then the Goldsilk Armor split apart where the sharp metal cut it. Blood could be seen spilling out from where Bai Yunfei’s flesh had been pierced.
Even the Glacial Piercer that he threw was unable to completely stop the thrown blade. At most, it only managed to slightly deviate its trajectory…
Then came pain. Pain in the abdomen from where Tang Ya managed to land a kick on Bai Yunfei after seeing his blade miss its mark. Even as he was sent flying away with blood coursing down his shoulder, Bai Yunfei didn’t seem to feel the pain. His eyes were instead staring in despair at the blade; if it killed Xiao Fang, he’d never be able to live with that guilt!
The blade seemed as if its rotational arc would slice across Xiao Fang’s throat at any second, penultimately ending her life, but the shadow of someone’s figure moved right in front of her with arms out—it was Zhu Zi!
“Tzk!”
A spray of bloody mist erupted from Zhu Zi’s chest. Under Tang Ya’s control, the culprit was brought flying back toward him. Following a mouthful of blood, Zhu Zi collapsed by the side of the teary-eyed Xiao Fang…
……
Having been kicked back by Tang Ya earlier, Bai Yunfei’s body finally managed to make contact with the ground. Rolling onto his feet with just enough momentum to have his bent knees slide on the ground, Bai Yunfei slammed his right arm down to halt his backwards momentum.
“Fwomph!”
A burst of fire exploded from his right arm and channeled its way through his palm, scorching the ground. With the flames spreading rapidly, the area near Bai Yunfei’s body soon went up in flames. Neither his hair nor clothes were touched in the slightest, but the intense flames fed from his soulforce were so great that the air around him started to haze and twist quite clearly.
Just slowly, Bai Yunfei’s head tilted up to glare at both Tang Ya and Su Xia. With the flames burning up around him, his eyes seemed to have gained a bit of fire to fuel his justified indignation.
“You’ve done it now… you’ve really angered me… damn you two!!”
The sudden change that overcame Bai Yunfei left Tang Ya and Su Xia in a daze for a brief moment, but they considered the facts. Bai Yunfei’s right shoulder was still heavily bleeding, and he wasn’t in a good state. The tides of battle were finally leaning toward them, so being intimidated by Bai Yunfei wasn’t too likely.
“Hmph! So you’d feel angry even over the life of an ant! What a ridiculously silly display of empathy! What is the point of your anger? You’re on a deathbed of your own after all!” Su Xia ridiculed.
Heaving his blade up with a green light surrounding it, he swung it at Bai Yunfei. The light that had been surrounding his blade elevated its speed so that it howled and whistled through the air.
Bai Yunfei circulated his soulforce to staunch the bleeding in his right shoulder while stabbing out with the spear in his left hand. Contesting with the blade of wind, the spear managed to overcome it.
Another gale of wind, this time from the left as Tang Ya lashed out.
Bai Yunfei snorted and withdrew his spear and moved aside so that the blade would pass over his head, and in that moment, Bai Yunfei swung his right arm out so that the golden Compliant Rope wrapped snugly around the hilt of Tang Ya’s blade!
Startled, Su Xia urged more of his own soulforce into his blade so that it’d light up in a show of green light. At the same time, the other blade that was intertwined with the Compliant Rope began to violently shake as if it was being called back to Su Xia. With the rope pulled tight, Bai Yunfei’s right arm started to flex from the exertion of pulling back at the rope. The wound on Bai Yunfei’s shoulder reopened because of this exertion, but Bai Yunfei didn’t possess the slightest idea to let go.
The blade continued to struggle ten meters in between Bai Yunfei and Su Xia. In this constant ‘struggle,’ the blade felt as if it were alive. Bai Yunfei was pulling back at it with his Compliant Rope, and Su Xia was still manipulating it somehow, leaving them in a stalemate.
A brilliant gleam of opportunity entered Tang Ya’s eyes. His right arm shook once to retrieve a giant iron mace from his space ring. While Bai Yunfei was stuck in this game of ‘tug-o’war’ with Su Xia, he hoisted it up high to smash it down on Bai Yunfei!