14 The disk in the box. (1/2)
Li Yang glanced back at the faint outline swinging around behind him, the corners of his mouth curved up in a pleased arc. This was the first time since it popped up back in the sparring match that he brought forth this illusory tail, and now that he made it stick around for a bit he could more clearly sense how it increased his strength. He could even move the tail a little if he put his mind to it, but the motions were so slow and stilted that he couldn't see a single use for it at the moment.
Li Yang turned his gaze back onto the three-metre long black mole that had burst out from the earth a few metres ahead of him, a faint smirk on his face as he stretched his arms and started to head for the enemy. Strangely enough, the large mole actually shrunk back somewhat as Li Yang approached, the brown fings tucked away within its fur protruding and vibrating as if the beast wanted to make itself seem larger.
”Come on now, acting scared despite being the one that snuck up on us?”
Li Yang finished stretching his arms as he spoke and then stepped forward, shooting at the beast like an unleashed arrow. The distance between the two was short to begin with so Li Yang reached the face of the mole in practically an instant. He reached it first but wasn't actually the one to throw out the first attack, the mole quickly sweeping out with its left front leg when it noticed that Li Yang didn't launch an attack straight away.
But this was exactly the response Li Yang had tried to coax out from the beast, his right hand clenching into a fist that he smashed upwards at the incoming clawed-paw. His fist crashed into what should be the beast's wrist, the dirty black fur there actually feeling like solid leather, the beast's bones and flesh as solid as stone.
Demonic beasts were often mindless and savage, especially the weaker ones that were stuck at a lower level of strength. But while the heavens hadn't granted them the early intelligence that humans enjoyed, beasts had been blessed with terrifyingly strong bodies and innate abilities. Even beasts that had merely mutated from immense amounts of Qi generally had bodies that were far stronger than cultivators of the same rank, that was what made Demonic beasts so fearful. And there was no need to even mention the even stronger Divine Beasts, which could only be considered unfair beings blessed with the body of a Demonic beast and the mind of a human, they were truly horrifying monsters.
But the toughness of the beast's body didn't matter at this moment, even if he could, Li Yang's intention right now wasn't to merely shatter the beast's paw. He drew upon the energy from his three force runes and his four gravity runes, the Force Qi gathering up the energy that entered his arm from the collision while his Gravity Qi acted upon the beast itself.
Gravity on the beast's left side was reversed drastically for a single second, coupling together with the punch to actually lift the entire beast's side up into the air. The sudden change caught the beast off-guard, Li Yang immediately grasping the opportunity to send a sideways kick at the beast's other front leg, kicking it out from underneath its body. These two attacks coupled together to actually flip the large beast onto its back, the reversed gravity acting upon the left side of its body returning to normal just as the beast finished flipping.
And this was exactly what Li Yang had been aiming for, to push the beast into a defenceless state to quickly finish it. And he didn't waste a single second, his right leg rising as high as he could bring it before he brought it smashing down. As his heel approached the underside of the mole's head, he transferred all the energy his Force Qi had gathered up earlier and sent it into his foot. He then supplemented that energy with more Qi from all three of his runes, which were all currently strengthened thanks to the illusory tail waving around behind him.
And in that state, his heel collided with the underside of the mole's head and unleashed all the power gathered in it. Li Yang felt a somewhat sickening crunch beneath his foot before the head of the beast gave out under his heel and cracked apart, his foot barreling through the beast's head until his sole touched the earth again. With a foot having passed through its skull, the beast inevitably turned limp, Li Yang exhaling a long breath that caused the illusory tail behind him to dissipate.
”No wonder most people prefer to use weapons. Shame that it's not really my style.”
The sickening crunch he felt under his foot as the beast's skull collapsed had practically embedded itself in his mind, a constant reminder of his first kill. And if it was going to be that sickening every time he used his fists or feet to kill something then he could somewhat understand why people would choose to use weapons. But using weapons wasn't quite his style so he spat out another breath and then stepped back, dragging a bit of blood and brain with him as he pulled his foot back.
He looked at the ruined head of the mole with slightly narrowed eyes, unable to deny that he was surprised at just how easy it had been to crush the beast. This monster was on the more mindless and savage side of Demonic beasts, there was no fun to be had in teasing and taunting it while they fought, it would just end up being a boring fight.
As such, he decided that this was an excellent opportunity to test out his force runes, the illusory tail, and the strength of his hands and feet after he strengthened them using the Heavenly Queen's 1st Star. And the result was more than pleasantly surprising, by pushing his strength to its limit he was able to quickly and decisively crush a Demonic beast that was one or two small realms above him.
He wiped away some of the blood staining his foot by using the surrounding grass, chucking the beast's corpse into his interspatial ring before he turned around. And the first thing that greeted him was the narrowed eyes of Mei Kongxu, a somewhat confused and lost expression lingering on her face.
”That tail... What was it? Where did you learn about it?”
She pushed her face uncharacteristically close as she questioned him, her warm breath practically tickling the tip of his nose. Her current expression was more in tune with some of the expressions she had when they first met and engaged in the betting matches to ask each other questions. The questions back then had been strange, and even she seemed to be at a loss, confused even, when it came to some of them.
Some might be slightly caught off-guard, maybe even charmed, by the difference between these expressions and the usually cold one that Mei Kongxu wore. But Li Yang was not one of those people, all he saw in this situation was a good chance to fluster her to see even more expressions. And he did just that, taking advantage of the fact that she had unconsciously stepped so close to softly lift her chin while leaning his own face closer, whispering sensually before she had the chance to react.
”Would you believe me if I told you that I have no idea what it was? And what if I told you that I only heard about it randomly?”
His answer was actually the truth, he didn't have a clue what the tail was, and he had only heard about it randomly from the voices in his head. But whether or not Mei Kongxu actually believed him, that wasn't something he knew. As for Mei Kongxu, an endearing blush ran across her face for a short second when Li Yang's voice tickled her ear.