I’m Not Retreating (Part 1)
Wazi’s lightning bolts from above dismantled the formations that those beneath it formed, preventing them from turning the tides despite their increasing numbers. It shouldn’t have been surprising since the evil beasts had a knack for eliciting disappointment when their enemies felt they were gaining ground. Whenever they felt they were about to gain the upper hand, Wazi would crack Hong Jiu on the arms. When Moyan Changping tried to assist, Wazi smashed into Moyan Changping’s lower back with its mouth, flooring him. They only had to make one blunder for Wazi to annihilate them all.
“Get back!”
Fast reactors managed to escape being zapped, while those who heard Feng Xue but couldn’t react in time were ashes before they could groan. Feng Xue didn’t want to leave his comrades for dead. Sadly, he wasn’t omnipotent.
The legendary symbol of dragons was linked to their special abilities. Given Divine Realm adepts couldn’t withstand lightning blasts without Enlightenment buffing them, one could only imagine the destructive force of a lightning blast that a real dragon fired. As such, Feng Xue couldn’t help worrying about Ming Feizhen, who they hadn’t heard from.
While the imperial court and Luo Clan’s warriors were slaying mutated beasts, the teams from the other battlefields made their way over to support Feng Xue. In their minds, this was meant to be the last boss and the last battle.
Seeing as Feng Xue had the most experience fighting Wazi, everyone naturally let Feng Xue command them. Although his only command, “evade,” sounded simple on paper, they realised how difficult it was in no time. Evasion was only called evasion once you used offence to inhibit, reduce the zone the opponent can move, then predict movements in that small space to select the safest path among those possibilities. The only way to score an “A+” was to demonstrate the ability to get out of the way whilst continuing to deal damage.
Notwithstanding his arm injuries, Hong Jiu was able to absorb the damage whenever Wazi blasted him upward. Moyan Changping used his visual prowess to identify the only means of landing hits on Wazi so that he could land a slash of his own. Sima Huai was deft enough to rescue two stragglers while he was evading. That said, he’d land right where the lightning would strike because he couldn’t read Wazi’s attack patterns. Had he not been Sima Huai, he would’ve been caught already.
Master Ku, standing beside Ming Suwen, who was trying to recover, showed no intention of contributing anything besides watching over her.
Even though Feng Xue could continue his in-and-out strategy, it was concerning for the reason that nothing had changed over the course of his two hour fight with Wazi.
After Wazi’s violent temperament was unshackled, it was roaring at the vanguard if not gobbling the nearest person. If that was the extent of it, then life wouldn’t be so hard. The biggest problem was its upgraded mind. Wazi now monitored the casualties, injuries and activity on the battlefield. Apart from using its lightning to nurse its injuries whilst defending and attacking, it even hinted it’d leave the battlefield.
The only good news for them was that Wazi couldn’t heal the gash wound Ming Suwen inflicted. Nonetheless, Pangu’s sons had plenty of stamina to torture them if they fancied it. With their current numbers, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they’d need ten to fourteen days to take Wazi down. Simply increasing their numbers without care for quality would only be feeding the enemy.
Without Dragon-Slaying Formation’s inhibition, Wazi’s behaviour had also evolved. It was alarming for their casualties to be pretty much the same every time he attacked. Given they were trained warriors, they should’ve been able to glean something from each attack. Furthermore, knowledge attained in a war zone was usually etched in deeply. In turn, those who made it past the first strike should have an easier time avoiding the second strike. Those who made it past the second strike should have an easier time avoiding the third strike and so forth. Since their casualty rate was fairly consistent, it could only mean Wazi was also making adjustments. In other words, Wazi was gradually dictating the outcome.
Ever since it learned of human nature’s existence, Wazi couldn’t study the influx of information, particularly considering the number of people joining, for analysing it would take away from his other processes. Otherwise, Ming Suwen wouldn’t have dealt a heavy blow so easily. Thanks to the dragged-out battle, nevertheless, Wazi had time to make sense of human actions, expressions and emotions. Save for the likes of Hong Jiu, feints and other tactics had become unproductive against Wazi’s intelligence. At this stage of the battle, Wazi had grown bored just as magic tricks lost their shine once their mechanisms were revealed.
Following a lightning bolt, Wazi snatched up a Moyan Clan’s disciple, then masticated sonorously. Wazi had never been this calm before; until now, it hadn’t taken a life so proficiently. Wazi was no longer just a beast but a beast that had suddenly learnt martial arts – or you could say it had understood how humankind’s martial arts worked.
The fear that Wazi could sense permeating the air was pure ecstasy.
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