Chapter 256: Preparations complete
Huff! Huff!
Kai panted, his right eye completely shut and swollen, its color purple. His upper body was naked, and hundreds of wounds had claimed his chest and back, bleeding and stabbing now and then. Just above his waist, there was an arrow running through and through his abdomen.
Two Easy graded sabers hovered over his shoulders, their blade covered in green and red viscous liquids.
Kai pressed his toes into the grass and mud under his naked feet, and grinned, his laugh low and demonic.
"Come on, girls," he spat. "You can do better than this." With one jerk, and gritting his teeth, Kai pulled out the arrow, blood splattering on the dew-covered hilly ground.
In front of him, dozens of meters away, was Item-S, her long, red cloak billowing, and her four iron chains flailing menacingly. Her body was covered in cuts even more hideous than Kai's, and green juices were oozing out from them. But in the next instant, they closed up with a rate that defied even the monstrous healing abilities of the Contestants. Her green eyes blazed as they narrowed at him.
Up in the air, with huge paper wings on her back, was Item-M, nocking another arrow on Jet Wing. The ground around Kai was covered with her Origamis that kept ambushing him, testing his senses.
Hisss!
Kai looked over his shoulder and saw Selene slithering, coiling around herself, her tongue flicking out to taste the air.
She dashed, becoming a white blur. From his front, a blurrier red figure came for him. Three paper Item-M jumped out of the ground, each holding a sword, an ax, and a kunai.
Two arrows targeted his chest and his legs.
Kai let out a breath and took a step.
With this step, everything changed, and the Blood Demon's maniacal laugh sent his attackers' spines in an icy shiver.
With this step, his Elementary Slither Steps didn't remain Elementary anymore.
Selene was slower than Item-S, but she was closer too. She reached him first, her entire length lunging for Kai's neck, baring her venom-infused fangs.
Kai slithered. An afterimage appeared where he was standing, and Selene's head went right through it. Kai grabbed her from the back of her head before she could become intangible and slammed her into the earth. A heart-gripping crunch racked the ears.
-Stay down, my precious- he hissed.
The iron chains came for him, together with the arrows. Kai slithered again, as the sabers hovering above him blurred, and parried the arrows. The iron chains split the air apart as they came for him, but only found an afterimage in his place. With the barest touch, Kai was moving like a bleeding shadow, his long white hair swaying and taunting the Hellspawn.
The paper Item-M threw their weapons at him, but before they could come close, invisible hands grabbed them, throwing them back. The origamis exploded, but now four more rose in their place, rushing for him.
Item-S grunted in anger meanwhile. She was faster than Kai, but her chains failed to even scratch him now.
Kai laughed at her attempts.
Suddenly, something grabbed his ankle. Kai's head snapped downward and saw a red cloth bursting out of rock, and coiling itself around his leg in a steel-like grip.
'Oh, shit!' When Kai looked up, she was already in her stance.
"Eight Trigram Sixteen Palms," she breathed out.
The fastest Contestant in Kai's group didn't even give him time to think of an escape.
"Two Palms!" Her hands blurred, hitting Kai's shoulders. "Four Palms!" Now, all the iron chains hit his chest. "Eight Palms!" Her two hands split, becoming four, and together with iron chains, they kissed Kai's body at eight points.
And now, eight more scythe-shaped arms jutted out of her black-red costume.
"16 Palms…"
Kai was already coughing up blood, but at this point, he got a moment to think. One thought was enough to bridge the gap between his actual and restricted Stats.
His eyes glowed red and the sabers hovering mid-air disappeared. The two sabers' hilts connected, and they started to rotate between him and the incoming 16 strikes, reaching a speed unable to be perceived by the naked eye. Steel clanked against iron, and dense green blood showered everywhere. The red cloak gripping his ankle loosened.
100 sabers rotation version 2 - Saber Chakram!
It was the dual offensive and defensive maneuver that had finally pushed his Elementary Twin-Saber Style to the next realm.
More arrows came like bullets for him from above. The Saber Chakram tilted, becoming horizontal, and a blurry outline of a tornado appeared around it. With one gaze, Kai sent it flying towards Item-M. Even after it had left the 10-meter limit, it didn't stop, and the momentum carried it forward with almost the same menacing rotations.
And then it cut Item-M in half, Jet Wing slipping off her hands like dead weight.
Kai's eyes narrowed. 'When did she switch?' He asked himself.
She answered with an attack.
One origami disappeared, showing a burst of speed impossible for its kind. Item-M's feet landed behind Kai, and she thrust the longsword into his back. The sword went in with no effort.
In the next moment, Kai's body blurred out of existence. It was an afterimage.
Kai grabbed her from the back of her head and slammed her on the ground too, before lifting her back and throwing her somewhere far.
Now, he looked at Item-S. She looked back at him.
They lunged at each other, dozens of spikes protruding out of Item-S' costume, pointing at Kai.
He saw her, felt her emotions, and concentrated on his thoughts. The moment she attacked him, Kai fired those thoughts in her mind and snatched her thoughts from her in return involuntarily.
'Kill! Kill! Kill!' She was thinking.
'Ma, please don't kill me.' Kai mimicked little Hao's voice in his thoughts.
Item-S suddenly halted, a spasm running down her body.
Kai was merciless. He made a fist and bashed it into her face. It was like hitting a solid wall of iron. One more punch, and then another. Kai rained down punches and kicks on her like a torrential rain until the flesh over his knuckles split apart, white bones surfacing out, tasting the air.
When she was half buried in the earth, her red cloak lying lifelessly over her, Kai straightened his spine, his eyes bloodshot. "Pathetic!" he scoffed.
Kai walked off, heading for a small hut in the distance. "Today's morning routine was the best," he told them, not caring if they were listening at all. "It's time to go to the World of Harry Potter, I think."
1 month had passed since the events of Kai and Item-S meeting outside the Wall.
Only once Kai had returned to the 4th floor to collect Selene. After that, he spent his entire time on the first floor, working on his two old Elementary Abilities. The restrictions on his Stats had allowed him to push himself harder than he could ever have without them, Kai reflected. It would have taken him months to upgrade them, otherwise. They weren't like Elementary Filth Manipulation, whose proficiency kept increasing just by eating filth and grime. For his initial Abilities, Kai needed to overcome fatal circumstances. Not to mention, he had lost his Snake Instinct Ability which complemented these two Abilities as well.
This extra month allowed Kai to do many things.
Most important among them were Item-S and her capabilities. 'My body is composed completely of Necroplasm (-a will-controlled magical substance found in Hell-), master,' Item-S had told Kai. 'A sentient and constantly evolving hell-born parasite has made me its host, bonding itself to my central nervous system. It takes the form of a symbiotic costume. My shroud (-red cloak-), spikes, and chains are all its parts. HE told me that my body is as strong as my imagination, but I am still figuring it all out. If it weren't for me rejecting HIS proposal of sacrificing my entire soul to HIM, then I would have gotten magical powers as well. Now, with only half of my soul in HIS control, I am only allowed to use the Symbiote within me.'
Kai had also learned that she could use Gentle Fist without Byakugan, as she had been taught the Chakra Network System since she was a child. But Byakugan was absolutely necessary for her to see Chakra Points within a target and sever their Chakra flow. Not to mention, she would need Elementary Ninja Ability along with the Byakugan Skill to achieve that feat.
Now, she could use her Gentle Fist Art to damage vital organs, and by targeting the Chakra Points, she could even break the SP consumption and regeneration rate. It wasn't as Kai had hoped it to be, but somehow, his instincts were screaming to him that this parasite of hers was the best thing that had happened to him after Item-M.
A good portion of his nights, Kai had spent sniffing out the group that had kidnapped little Hao and then had burned Item-S. From the white-skinned man, he already knew that it was an organization directly under the influence of the Temple of Amon-Gorloth. But even after killing hundreds of Contestants, Item-S ripping every single one apart in half, they failed to find the source of the target.
It had been difficult to calm her down after every killing adventure, Kai remembered.
Kai shook his head and entered the hut. Every inch of his body was aching, and he knew what it would take to speed up the healing process.
'A nice, hot bath and sumptuous meal, perhaps,' Kai thought, smiling.
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