Blood smiled like a snake noticing a delicious mouse in front of it. “Every fifth realm cultivator on the planet decided to come out to challenge me? I’m honored.” He mockingly took a bow. “So, do you want to go one at a time or all at once? I don’t think you’ll win either way, but I’ll leave it up to you.”
Just as he finished talking a large fist connected with his face, sending him flying one hundred meters into a half-collapsed building. “You talk to much.” said the two meter tall shirtless Russian. He looked at the others. “Do you mind if I take the first round? I haven’t had a good fight in years.”
Admiral Lindstrom shrugged. “Be my guest.”
The Russian man smiled and flew off the ground and over to the robed man. “General Boris Tsiolkovsky, head protector of Russia.” He said. “And you?”
“Blood Red Scorpion. Rogue Cultivator.” He smirked. “So, you’ve decided to try and challenge me?”
“Yes, Mr. Scorpion. I’ve decided to defeat you.”
“Blood, if you must abbreviate it, and you’ve decided to try.” Blood flew up one hundred meters and Boris followed him. They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Boris flew forward, closing the distance in a hundred milliseconds and throwing a punch at Blood’s head. When hit fist landed, however, Blood had his arm in the way. A loud sound was formed from the impact, and everyone that was still alive should have heard it.
Boris threw several more punches, but every time he did so Blood blocked him, floating back slightly. Then Blood shifted to the side and brought a knee up, landing a blow on Boris’s stomach. With Boris bending over from the pain, Blood launched a series of kicks onto him, ending in a downward kick that sent Boris flying into the ground.
Though he had taken a bit of damage from the blows, Boris quickly stood up, flew straight towards the man and attacked again. This time, however, he used a boost technique to increase his speed, and was able to land an occasional blow, but for every blow of his that landed, Blood landed two or three.
After five minutes Boris managed to land a proper blow and Blood was sent flying. Three of the others, Admiral Lindstrom, as well as the two from the UK and Egypt, charged at him instead. Their combined attacks managed to push him backwards for a few minutes, and they landed a few minor blows, but eventually they slowed enough that Blood was able to counter attack. When he landed a blow on Lindstrom, though, it hit something just off the surface of the man’s skin.
“Barrier?” he questioned, them smirked. “Very well, I shall use one as well.” A shimmering effect appeared around him, and he attacked again.
This time neither side was able to damage the other, their shields taking the damage. With each blow that landed, however, the barrier of the one that was hit weakened considerably. When the one that was hit was from Earth, the barrier was weakened more than usual. Apparently, whatever formation Blood was using was superior to the one the heroes of Earth had. Boris activated his barrier belt and rejoined the fight, which let them buy time, but after five minutes the defenders of Earth were once again on the defense.
“Are you ready yet?” called out Admiral Lindstrom, and the Chinese monk nodded.
“I’m ready.” he responded and the four other fighters flew backward to put some distance between themselves and Blood. Five items flew out of the monk’s robes to surround and orbit the man. “Penance Cage.” the monk said, and the five items each sent out a beam of light which formed a ring to surround the man. A barrier formed between the streams of light and their energy flew into Blood, whose eyes rolled back. He immediately appeared to be in excruciating pain, though he didn’t scream.
“What the hell is that?” asked the confused Scottish man. “Why does he look like he’s being tortured?”
“Because he is.” said the Monk. “The Penance Cage Formation forces the target to relive every time he’s harmed another person from the victim’s perspective. Of course, it uses the target’s mind to create the illusion, so it only makes you experience the pain you know you’ve caused, but for someone whose heart is as black as his, even that may be enough to wear down his mind to the point that it kills him.”
“Is it like the Five Hells Formation you showed us a year ago?” asked Lindstrom, and the monk nodded.
“Similar, but that one uses the elemental qi to trap you within a hell of each element, guided by the target’s imagination. It works on anyone, no matter how good they are, while this formation causes more damage to a person the more evil they have committed against others.”
The monk landed beside Adams and placed a hand on the man’s chest. A second later a golden light surrounded him and the sounds of bones snapping back into place could be heard. While his combat power was considerably lower than the others, the old Buddhist was skilled in relieving the suffering of others and affecting the mind and soul, what others would call healing and mind effects. He was also a master of Formations and Talismans, which the others rarely used, focusing instead on their combat skills and techniques, and using items for the formations they thought were useful.
“How long will he stay trapped?” asked Boris, landing beside him. “The fight was just getting good.”
“Well, for someone as evil as him it should be at least a few days.” the monk replied, then noticed that something was wrong with the Formation. One of the five elemental items, a Jade statue of the Buddha, was starting to vibrate violently. “This shouldn’t be happening.” he said worriedly.
“What shouldn’t be happening?” asked the Egyptian man, not noticing the change in the formation.
“He’s breaking out. Everyone, prepare yourselves.” The monk called out and a few second later the Jade statue started glowing and exploded. Less than a second later, the other items, one each for metal, water, wood, and fire, each exploded in order. A few seconds more, and Blood opened his eyes.
“Interesting formation.” he said, panting slightly from the mental strain he just went through. “You hoped to make me suffer through the pain I’ve caused others in order to force repentance. There is a weakness to such a formation, though. If one feels no remorse for their actions, it has little power over them. All it did was help me find a few places where I still pitied the worms I stepped on. And once I had found them, I was able to kill such sympathies for good.” He giggled, and the monk looked horrified by the way he defeated the formation. “So, do you have any more illusions you wish to trap me in, or are you actually going to fight?”
Storm clouds quickly darkened the sky, and anger filled the monk’s eyes as a golden glow formed around him. He rushed at Blood and launched a series of complex martial arts moves. While the others had studied martial arts meant for combat, his own studies were meant for self reflection and discipline. While they couldn’t do the damage that the other styles could, they were able to find and exploit weaknesses in Blood’s combat style far more easily, thus allowing the monk to land more blows than the others despite fighting alone.
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His blows did little damage, though, only managing to cause minor injuries after the repeated blows managed to break Blood’s barrier. Eventually the golden glow around him started to flicker as the temporary boost from Righteous Anger wore off and he flew backwards before throwing a stack of talismans at Blood. Blood threw his hands up to block them, but they all adhered to the surface of his skin. “Detonate” the monk said coldly, and all twenty of them went off with the force of an initial Nascent attack, forming a large fireball in the sky.
When the smoke cleared Blood floated there, several wounds covering his body. While none were life threatening, several would slow his movements or otherwise impair his fighting ability.
Blood laugh maniacally for the next ten seconds. “To think, a mere Buddhist would be the best fighter among you. That was certainly unexpected.” He chuckled a few more times.
“I’m not finished yet,” the Monk said sternly, “Heaven’s Wrath.” Throughout the beating he was giving Blood, the clouds had continued to gather and grow darker, and now the Monk had managed to send all of his qi into them. This created a single bolt of lightning which lanced out at Blood, a peak Nascent attack that forced him into the ground and dug into him for several seconds before subsiding.
Blood coughed, the skin on his face, arms, and upper body charred. “Not. Bad.” he said in pain. He was about to leave the crater and attack the depleted monk when he noticed that four others were surrounding him.
For the next several minutes he did his best to hold them off, but it was only near the end of the time that he managed to deplete the first barrier and land a blow on the lower leg of the RAF officer, breaking it before grabbing the broken leg and throwing him, sending him flying. After breaking the barrier of Lindstrom and the Egyptian man and giving them a similar minor injury, he flew backwards to buy some time.
Boris stopped fighting him to try and gather more qi and give his barrier a chance to recover, as it was below 5% in strength and wouldn’t recharge if broken. Nascent level items were quite expensive and difficult to make, especially if they were made on the scale of wearable objects, so the ability to restore themselves after breaking had to be removed from this model, despite being present in the Core level one Adams and other protectors wore.
“I can’t believe beings from such a pathetic, backwards world that hasn’t even finished the Awakening can push me to this point, but you have forced my hand.” Blood said venomously, then a bottle appeared in his hand. He poured a pill from it into his other hand and swallowed it and a green aura surrounded him. The burnt skin quickly returned to a healthy state and the broken bones and other injuries soon started to reverse themselves as well.
“Wait, he can regenerate to such a degree?” a bruised Boris asked in shock. Even the best healing from the Monk took minutes to repair just that much damage to the skin, and the best healing devices took hours. That pill, whatever it was, had almost fully healed his injuries in seconds.
“Obviously.” replied Lindstrom before grabbing his limp arm and pulling on it. Their was a loud pop as it went back into it’s socket.
“Then how are we going to defeat him?” asked the Egyptian man, similarly resetting his forearm. He wouldn’t be able to punch with his arm broken, but he should still be able to use techniques with it.
The RAF General smiled and laughed slightly before pointing at the sky. “Maybe our friend up there can help.”
The monk quickly set his leg and joined the others in looking where the man pointed. There in the sky was a full sized battleship, almost a kilometer long. In the last decade several nations, including the USA, had been adding Foundation level anti-gravity based flight to their battleships.
“The USS Hephaestus.” said Lindstrom. This specific naval vessel was a prototype of a new ship, meant to land in the sea but also be capable of functioning in space. While the density of qi greatly decreased in space, this vessel was equipped with a Core Generator formation which could form a Core while on a planet, the use that stored energy to function in space. This let it bypass the previous limitations of battleships and operate past Low Earth Orbit.
Blood laughed loudly, like he thought it was the most hilarious thing ever. “A flying ship?” he asked incredulously. “Do you really think a flying ship, no matter how many crew it has on it, can defeat me with shear numbers?” He started laughing again, ignoring the others. Then a flash of blue light lanced out at him, barely missing him, but vaporizing one of his arms before hitting the center of the park and setting off an explosion comparable to a tactical nuclear weapon.
Blood stared at what was left of his shoulder in disbelief. “You managed to mount a Nascent level weapon artifact on it?” he asked in horror.
This time it was the four Earth fighter’s turn to laugh. “I’ll tell you what,” said Lindstrom. “Surrender, and I will let you live.”
Blood seemed to pause for a few seconds in thought, then started to smile, then chuckle. “It may be a powerful weapon” he said, throwing another of the pills into his mouth. “But it is far too slow. All I need to do is break it before it can attack again.” With that he used several boosting methods to fly at the ship.
The others activated their boosts as well, both formations and techniques, but the closer he got to the ship, the further the four warriors got from him.
About one hundred meters from the front of the ship, however, one robed man grabbed another in a bear hug, forcing the other to stop. “What?” asked Blood in surprise. The monk should have been too low on qi to catch up.
“Consumable Formation.” he said, then smiled. “Heaven’s Wrath.”
A massive burst of lightning came down from the sky and slammed into both of them, though the monk had done his best to lift Blood above him so that it mostly struck him. For several seconds both of them suffered as their skin was seared off by the intense heat of the lightning. When it finished, a charred monk, bones visible through what was left of his flesh, barely held onto a charred invader, though the invader appeared to only be missing most of his skin and a bit of muscle.
“You. Bastard.” Blood managed to get out, though most of his tongue had been burnt off. “Just wait until I take another pill, and...”
“Tribulation.” said the Monk, sending all of his qi, including the small amount that shouldn’t be tapped into, into the storm to trigger a second strike of Heaven’s wrath. As the smaller lightning bolt came down it was joined by a massive influx of qi equivalent to the full capacity of a peak Core cultivator like Adams. This triggered an electrical discharge similar to the lightning bolt in strength.
The two lightning bolts struck the two of them and the monk’s arm separated at the elbow as the cartilage exploded, forcing him to release the man and fall to the ground. Blood’s arm spasmed as well, causing him to drop the miraculous pills before more of his flesh was burned off.
“How DARE you!” Blood screamed when the attack was over. “How dare a maggot like you use their own tribulation to attack me!” Despite the fact that most of his muscles had been burned by the combined attacks, he tensed them in anger. “That’s it. I’m going to flatten this entire city to the ground, then find the home cities of all of the ones who challenged me and flatten them as well. When I’m done with this planet, there won’t be anyone left who dares to…”
There was a flash of blue light and Blood realized what had happened. He looked down to she that everything below his middle Dantian was missing, and as he watched his own Core started to slip out of what was left of his chest. He tried to grab it, to put it back into place, but failed due to only having one arm left, and that one having nothing left below the elbow.
The Core slipped out and, with nothing left to automatically feed qi into his flight technique and lacking the mental focus to do it himself due to the shock, what was left of Blood fell from the sky.
It hit the ground with a sicking squelch, like meat being slapped against a cutting board but juicier. Blood remained conscious for only a few seconds longer as he thought back to what had happened since arriving. Next time he would fix his mistakes and get his revenge. Next time.
Adams, having been healed enough by the monk to move on his own and remain conscious, but not enough to help in the fight, lay on the ground when he noticed a bottle land beside him. After a few seconds, his thoughts clouded by the blood loss he had experienced, he remembered Blood taking something and almost fully healing. Could that be what this bottle was? He picked it up and looked inside to see three pills the size of a small marble. Well, it was worth a try.
He was about to swallow one when he noticed the Monk laying fifty meters away. While Adam’s injuries would eventually heal on their own, the Monk was already in the process of dying, so he limped over and placed the pill in what was left of the monk’s mouth. Upon hitting the small amount of saliva that was still there, the monk started glowing green and his muscles started to regenerate. Once they looked like proper muscles, his skin mostly regenerated, though there were several places where the monk still had second or first degree burns. His right arm was still partially gone, but only his hand was left to be regenerated.
Adams was about to give the Monk a second pill when someone grabbed his arm. Adams looked up to see Lindstrom standing there. “He’s out of the water, soldier.” Lindstrom said. “And that medicine is far too valuable to waste it curing injuries that can be cured by other means.
“Yes, sir.” Adams said, realizing the wisdom of the statement, before putting the pill back into the bottle along with the other one.
Boris flew over, holding a bloody golden crystal the size of a fist. “I think this belongs to the Monk.” he said. “He’s the one to finish him off.”
“I’m not going to take a part of my victim’s corpse as a trophy, like some sort of serial killer.” said the Monk as he sat up.
“Fair enough.” said Boris. “In that case, we should probably figure out who gets it. If nothing else, it could power a battleship all of the way to Jupiter.”
Lindstorm nodded. The USA had the most advanced space craft thanks to their many private space companies, so if they went with that logic he would be the one to receive the core.
As they tried to decide who got the core a white aura formed around it. Boris dropped the core in surprise and the aura separated from it, flowing into a ball above it. Only the monk seemed to know what was happening, as he pulled thirty talismans covered in sutras from his robe, all that were left now that the others had been burnt by the lightning. He threw them at the orb of white light and they formed a multi layered sphere around it.
The talismans started to distort, like something was pushing on it from the inside, and the monk held up a hand in prayer before starting to recite scripture. The sutras glowed with a gold light and the white aura inside of them seemed to calm down. “May you be at peace in your next life.” he said solemnly. “Amitabha.”
With that the white aura and the sutra talismans turned into particles of golden light and dissipated.
