“……”
“……”
No one said a single word as they gaped at Lao Sha. Not even Bai Yunfei could form a single coherent thought…
“Wh…what…what…”
The bearded elder’s face was as white as snow and his eyes as wide as dinner plates. “What kind of monster is this?!”
He thought this dog was nothing more than a halfling! It should have been a halfling! But he couldn’t think this way any longer. This thing was no halfling, it was a never-before-seen monster!
A monster that could devour energy!
A soulbeast being able to take in elemental energy wasn’t anything new. It’d be stranger if a soulbeast wasn’t capable of it.
But…
The elemental energy cast by a soul cultivator wasn’t pure in form. One had to use their own soulforce to shape the energy. This in turn made the resultant mix far more volatile and not capable of being absorbed!
Not even a class seven soulbeast would be able to disperse of an attack like this in the same manner as Lao Sha had done. The explosive power behind the three attacks was far too powerful for anyone or anything to simply ‘absorb’!
No one had ever heard of an ability that allowed for a soulbeast to do that!
“Grr….”
Being called a ‘monster’ annoyed Lao Sha. It growled in spite at the misnomer and charged straight at him!
“Ah!!!”
A swirl of black light surrounded the elder as he prepared to send another gust of black wind at Lao Sha. He wasn’t willing to risk getting close to this monster now that he knew what was coming!
Two black whirlwinds blew towards Lao Sha with the elder’s complete intent to kill the dog. In response, a strange aura started to flow out from Lao Sha’s body. Resonating with the energy around it, the aura quickly came into contact with the black whirlwind and shake it!
Then Lao Sha opened its mouth wide.
The two whirlwinds began to move as if they were being pulled in by something. Shrinking in size as they drew closer to Lao Sha, the whirlwinds then…flew into Lao Sha’s mouth!
This felt almost like a magic trick of some kind. A magic trick no one in the room was expecting to see, and most certainly a trick that was spelling despair for the elder who attacked!
“Im…impossible!!”
It was as though his entire world had been rocked to its very foundation. The elder was in such heavy shock that he couldn’t even be sure if left was left and right was right anymore.
Panicked, he summoned over a dozen blades of wind in an attempt to hopefully kill Lao Sha with one of them!
Tearing up the ground they traveled over, each blade of wind closed in on Lao Sha with devastating force. The closer it got to Lao Sha, however, the smaller they became. Even more distinct was how the blades of wind were curving towards Lao Sha's mouth as if being attracted there.
In the end, the blades of wind had entirely disappeared into its mouth!
Lao Sha seemed to have gotten some experience with how this ‘ability’ worked now. A few usages of it and now it was ready to eat away any attack aimed at it. Unobstructed, the dog leaped forward to strike at the bearded elder’s head!
“Ahhh!!!” The elder screamed out in terror.
A bubble of elemental energy wrapped around his person as he decided to give up the offense in favor of defense. As the energy hardened around him, the elder kicked off against the ground to gain some distance away from the dog.
To his utter shock and dismay, however, he was too slow! Lao Sha’s speed was unexpectedly faster than his own, and it didn’t even take more than a few seconds for the dog to be upon him with its fangs bared. Stretching its mouth wide, Lao Sha snapped down onto the elder’s throat!
In a panicked frenzy to live, the elder took out a shining dagger from his space ring. Hand clasped at the hilt, he reversed the blade and stabbed it as hard as he could into Lao Sha!
“Pcht…”
The dagger he was using was a high-earth tier soul armament, but not even that seemed to be strong enough to strike open the skin of Lao Sha. Horror and despair flooded the elder’s eyes once he saw his last-ditch effort fail. His arm fell helplessly by his side while his dagger collided with the ground with a ‘thud’.
His neck (and head) was bent at an awkward angle with blood leaking from the upper half—Lao Sha’s fangs had perforated the throat!
The elemental armor the elder wore over his skin hadn’t been enough to protect him!
The frenzied light in Lao Sha’s eyes had yet to dissipate. Like a bloodthirsty beast, it snarled and pressed both of its hind paws onto the corpse’s chest. Stepping off of it, Lao Sha catapulted itself upwards to reach the pudgily-short middle-aged man!
“Ahh!! Die!!!”
Seeing their comrade die to the jaws of a ‘monster’ like this was almost traumatizing to the survivors. Practically beside himself, the short middle-aged man pointed a finger at Lao Sha to send a bolt of violet lightning at the dog!
It was a direct hit. The bolt of violet lightning made direct contact with the dog. The short middle-aged man wanted to let out a sigh of relief at that. However…a figure popped out from the explosion when the lightning bolt struck and was flying towards him as if nothing had even hit it in the first place!
Another beam of black light shot out at Lao Sha, but the dog was prepared. Opening its mouth wide open, it swallowed the beam of light without any difficulties!
“Elemental attacks are useless, use your soul armaments!”
A warning was called out from the pointy-chinned elder to the short middle-aged man. Like a wake-up call, this warning was what the man needed to clear his mind and leap up into the air for some distance.
He cleared another dozen meters of height before coming to a small stop. Lao Sha wasn’t chasing after him, so that meant he was safe in the meanwhile. A purple shortsword appeared in his right hand. Grabbing it, the man dove back down to kill this ‘monster’ with his companions.
“Whoosh!!”
A sudden influx of wind then told the man that something else was coming up to attack him. Snapping his head around, he saw an orange beam of light come flying up at him!
He was so focused on trying to attack Lao Sha that he almost didn’t leave any time or space to protect himself. The man snarled, this attack was ruining his plans. Surrounding himself with violet light, the man snapped his weapon up to protect himself from the beam of light.
The man noticed Bai Yunfei recovering from throwing something on the ground below. That attack had to have been from Bai Yunfei then.
He let out a sigh in relief. Not even the full power of a Soul Warrior would be enough to leave a dent in his defenses…
“Clang…crack…pcht!!”
His mind came to a sudden stop a moment afterward. The beam of orange light had struck him clean through and paused just long enough for him to see what it was.
An orange spear. This weapon had somehow managed to pierce through his weapon and still have enough force to penetrate his body afterward…
Fear gripped at his heart. The shortsword he was using was a mid-earth tier soul armament. It wasn’t too powerful of a weapon, but surely it wouldn’t be so weak that it’d snap in half so easily! It didn’t even seem like this orange spear faltered in speed after destroying his weapon or going through his armor to stab deep into his flesh!
Already the light was starting to fade away from his eyes. He could only stare with half-lidded eyes at the spear embedded in his chest.
“How…” He coughed, “could…could this be…a…a heav—a heaven-tier…?”
His words were spoken quietly, almost like a soliloquy. Without any vitality to speak of, his body was shutting down and was rapidly falling back down to the ground.
“Brother!!” His companion cried out. The other man had just equipped a clawed glove when he saw the orange spear go through the airborne man’s chest. All semblance of color drained away from his face as he howled in despair at the death of yet another one of his comrades.
“Aooo!!!”
And in that moment, Lao Sha took the opportunity to unleash another devastating strike!
“Die!!” The pointy-chinned elder snarled vehemently. He disappeared so quickly that only a blur was left behind where he stood. Lao Sha ended up biting nothing but air when the man disappeared.
He appeared to Lao Sha’s left a split-second later with his clawed right hand poised to dig out Lao Sha’s stomach!
With how sharp the claws looked, it felt like this man was aiming to yank out Lao Sha’s heart!
“Pcht!! Ao….”
Blood flew everyone a moment later before Lao Sha’s pained cries echoed through the room!