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Chapter 153: Pushing Oneself
🕑 Added 2023-04-01 16:36:01 +0000 UTCHappy new month, everyone! As always, thank you for your support, and enjoy the chapter!
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He burst with power. His frustration became a deep roar, echoing through the stone walls of the cavern. Suddenly, the previously spacious battlefield seemed cramped, not leaving him much room to dodge. There were sixty-four enemies. Even if all of them were weaker than him, how was he supposed to handle them!?
But even as the doubts were forming in his mind, Jack lashed out with attacks. A lattice of explosions surrounded him, borne of his own Meteor Punches, filling the air with torn limbs. He was going all-out now, striking with little concern for conserving power. Brutalizing Aura was wreaking havoc through their numbers.
He didn’t stay there long. He ghost-stepped away right as ranged attacks burst through the explosion, piercing the air where he stood. Missing him, the attacks flew to the other side of the encirclement, claiming the lives of their allies.
Jack ghost-stepped once more to appear outside the mass of enemies, who were so spread out they almost reached the walls. Luckily, he appeared behind a group of mages. Brutalizing Aura erupted from his body again, stunning all the creatures as he set to work on the mages, brutalizing them himself.
Nine mages fell. He ghost-stepped twice in rapid succession to reach the other side, where archers lay in wait, and tore into them as well, like a wild beast, like a raging lion. His every punch claimed a life. He was covered in blood and gore by now, some his own, but most blue and rapidly disintegrating.
The creatures snapped out of the aura’s effects, but Jack had dealt with most of the ranged attackers by now. Without Brutalizing Aura, he would have been a goner. Only the melee fighters were left now, a whole crowd of them, with a few Will wielders barraging his mind with attacks.
But those couldn’t hurt him, only disturb him, and his fused Dao Root of Indomitable Will allowed him to brute force his way through. He ducked low and oriented himself on the crowd of melee fighters who were coming at him like a tide, a flood of metal.
His fists clenched tighter, his eyes narrowed dangerously. Brutalizing Aura swept out again, but its effects were greatly reduced the second time. He met the melee head-on.
Weapons flew everywhere. His fists shot out rapidly, not bothering with aiming, just dodging and striking as fast as possible. He was surrounded by metal. He weaved on instinct, letting his experience guide him through the net. Weapons raked weakly against his skin, leaving shallow gashes. His fists struck out with such intensity that the creatures had no time to charge up strong attacks, blown apart the moment they approached.
His arms were heavy now, the Meteor Punches coming with strain. He was running out of stamina. Gritting his teeth, Jack changed tactics. He stopped Meteor Punching. The Dao of Power filled him, fueling his attacks with the domination of superior power.
His knuckles met torsos, sending the creatures flying back into their own. He kept his back to a wall and worked to disrupt their formation, so that only a few of them could attack him at a time. The drawback was that his punches were weaker now. Not all of them maimed the enemy. Some creatures returned, weak and battered, but alive still.
Jack didn’t feel it mattered. They were a never-ending stream of enemies. For every creature he destroyed, another was there to take its place. His injuries were light, but they piled up. Scratches and bruises covered his body. A few, like the hole through his thigh or a persistent pain in his left shoulder, were more serious.
He sank into a red battle haze, equal parts ferocity, exhaustion, and pain.
The enemies kept coming, unending, until they weren’t. The final creature fell, revealing an empty room filled with blue motes of light, all struggling to disappear but taking time. Only the five Will wielders were left, and Jack quickly took care of them, breaking them apart more brutally than strictly necessary.
He was alone again. Some part of him expected more enemies to appear, a hundred and twenty-eight of them. If that happened, he would die. He couldn’t handle them.
But there was a limit to the trial’s cruelty.
How was this adjusted to my level? he wondered, panting hard. Even with Brutalizing Aura and Indomitable Will, which were both perfectly suited for this battle, I only barely made it. Just how high are the standards of this trial? Just how precious the reward?
And then, to Jack’s utter horror, the blue light flashed again. He froze. However, the light was more condensed now. It took more time to manifest the creatures, and it only covered the center of the cavern.
When it faded, four enemies appeared. They weren’t the creatures from before. These ones had skin of metal and smooth, almost mesmerizing curves. Their faces were featureless ovals, their limbs long and lithe, their bodies bare, revealing them to be made of a single piece of metal, like humans of steel.
Their hands held curved swords, so long that they looked more like spears. Jack felt relief that there were only four enemies instead of over a hundred, but that relief was soon overshadowed by worry. These four were far stronger than the previous creatures. Their stance was solid, their movements drawing perfect lines through the air, their bodies exuding a sense of strength.
They weren’t stronger than him, but they weren’t too far off, either.
He instinctively erupted with Brutalizing Aura, but he felt it slide off the robots with minimal effect. It only influenced them for a fraction of a second. If he wanted to use the aura against them, he’d have to time it just right.
The robots kicked against the ground and reached him in a heartbeat, moving in perfect silence and sync, their weapons reflecting the mushroom light as they slashed at his throat. They were arrayed in two rows of two.
The attacks were fast. Jack couldn’t retreat. If he stepped back, they would beat him through longer reach. Instead, he dove under the criss-crossing attacks and into their guard, where they couldn’t reach him easily.
However, as he’d stepped closer to the first line of robots, he was at the perfect distance for the ones at the back. The front robots stepped aside. Two more swords came at him, each blinding in speed, their blades glinting with sharpness. There would be no tanking these blows, as he’d done for the previous creatures. Every attack that hit would be a grievous wound.
Jack jumped and turned his body sideways. One blade passed above and the other below him, while the two front robots took a step back and raised their blades to crash them down on him. Jumping had been a bad idea, because at the speed they were fighting, gravity would be too slow to bring him back down. He was a sitting duck.
As the two swords rose, he went into overdrive. Only the Iron Fist Style, that had been supporting him throughout the battle, let him survive. He sank into it, becoming a fist-ended force of nature.
He grabbed one blade and held it still. It cut into his palm, the pain stinging, but there was no momentum behind it, as it was moving backward. He then pulled the blade down to lift himself higher, his weight negligible compared to his strength, and pushed against it to turn his body in mid-air, letting the other blade scream past.
He turned around, still airborne, using the momentum to sweep a fist into a robotic head. The metal was hard under his knuckles, shaking his entire arm, but his fist was stronger. The purple glow on its surface pulsed for a moment, sucking in the colors and sounds of the world before exploding in a rupture of light.
Jack flew back, landing on his feet and reorienting on the robots as one of them tumbled to the ground, its head a dented mass of darkened metal. It dispersed into blue motes shortly after.
Three robots were left now. Without any regard for their fallen comrade, they charged Jack again.
Jack gritted his teeth. He estimated each of them to be close to a middle E-Grade cultivator—perhaps level 70? He was lower than that. Moreover, these robots possessed excellent coordination. How exactly was this “adjusting to his level?” Just what did the trial creators take him to be?
The enemies were already upon him. One pale blade glinted in the mushroom light, a razor-sharp edge that could bisect him if it hit head-on.
But there was only one. After he killed a robot, their formation weakened. The two at the back remained as strong as they used to be, but the front one…
Jack ducked and sidestepped, letting the blade sail over his shoulder, then stepped in to deliver a straight Meteor Punch into the robot’s head. Unfortunately, its reach was long, giving it time to respond as Jack approached, and it was fast. It managed to duck in time, dodging his attack and turning the curved sword to smash its butt into Jack’s ribs from below.
He gasped, taking a step back and fighting the urge to double over, as the other two robots swung at him, their sword tips arcing quickly. He took another step back, dodging the attacks, wondering how he could approach.
Brutalizing Aura erupted again, but it was the second time they faced it, so it had no effect. The robots stepped back, creating distance, and the front one swiped its blade at him. Jack charged in to meet it with his chest—
—and ghost-stepped behind them, shooting out a Meteor Punch at one of the back robots. It swung to meet him faster than he thought possible. It blocked his fist with the flat of its blade, the explosion lifting it off its feet and into the front robot.
For a precious second, the two robots were flying, unable to control themselves in the air. Gravity was slow. Jack was alone with one robot, which faced him squarely and backpedaled to approach the safety of its teammates. Their tactical awareness was annoying. These robots were no fodder.
But neither was Jack. He chased after the robot, closing in with Ghost Step. He appeared in front of its chest. Expecting it, the robot raised a leg to meet him, but Jack endured the attack. A spike of pain burned though his calf, which took the blow.
The other two robots were still mid-air, but they didn’t just wait for gravity to do its job. As one, they stuck their swords into the stone, piercing it like cheese, then pushed against the side of the ground with the flat parts of their blades, reversing their momentum and shooting back toward Jack.
It was a maneuver he never even thought possible. He was momentarily awed by the level he had reached, where he fought multiple enemies with such capabilities, but also irritated that these robots were so adept in battle.
Unfortunately, even with mid-air maneuvers, they just weren’t fast enough. Jack had stepped into the guard of the retreating robot and took its hit. He had a fraction of a second to attack.
He smashed out a Meteor Punch, imbuing it with the Dao of Power. It exploded as an uppercut into the robot’s waist, storming into it with such power that its entire body flew off in a straight line, crashing into the cavern ceiling and getting embedded in the stone. Its midsection was broken. Its sword flew away, spinning through the air, to slide into the stone like it was nothing. Both sword and robot burst into blue light.
The other two robots reached him. In an act of unspoken communication, they broke their previous formation and faced him as two individuals instead of a team. They rushed to flank him, but Jack wouldn’t let them. He used Meteor Shower as they approached, enduring the increasing weight of his arms, forcing one of them to stop and defend.
The other screeched to a halt, but Jack was already upon it. He rained blows. The robot’s blade flashed, blocking everything, but Jack persisted, keeping it on the back foot. Even as the second robot joined in, he didn’t stop his attacks, understanding that he couldn’t afford to waste this opportunity.
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