The jaws to the scorpion opened wide before a glob of green liquid came splurting out towards Bai Yunfei’s face!
“Fuck, you’re spitting on me now?!”
Disgusted, Bai Yunfei twisted his foot so that he’d be pushed off to the side. The ‘spit’ from the scorpion fell to the ground with a sizzling sound, and an acrid smell came floating up shortly afterwards.
The pupils in Bai Yunfei’s contracted just slightly as he looked at the ground. Then looking back to the scorpion, Bai Yunfei was now giving a more careful evaluation of the beast.
For a while, man stared off against scorpion. Then, there was a loud cry from the scorpion. An orange glow exploded forth from its body towards Bai Yunfei, and with both of its large pincers, it slammed down into the ground so that several large stalagmites shot up to skewer Bai Yunfei.
“Hah! This move again?” Bai Yunfei snorted derisively. Instead of leaping left or right, he instead hopped up into the air and onto roof of the cave. As he flew overhead, Bai Yunfei twisted his body so that his feet landed onto the roof and his head was hung beneath. Pushing off, Bai Yunfei flew off with great speeds towards the scorpion.
As he approached, Bai Yunfei twisted his body so that he’d dodge the incoming stinger. On his descent, he brought back his right fist and slammed it down onto the scorpion.
“Bang!”
Stone and rubble flew everywhere following the crater that came with Bai Yunfei’s fist. Not even before he could even react, a shadow had loomed overhead due to the scorpion’s pincer lashing down on him!
He was shocked. The scorpion’s stinger had been as fast as an arrow–a speed he couldn’t dodge. All that was left for him to do was to bring up both arms to hopefully block it with his right arm.
There was a clanging sound before Bai Yunfei’s waist bent slightly and his feet sunk two inches deeper into the ground. Grunting just ever so lightly, Bai Yunfei slowly managed to push the stinger above his arms upwards. Just as he was about to seize the chance to strike back, an ashen shadow came flying at his side out of nowhere!
“Pa-pow!”
Bai Yunfei was truck flying to the other cave wall with a resounding smash. And just like the scorpion, he had created a hole of his own to be stuck in.
Red from the blood coursing into his face and out from his mouth, Bai Yunfei chuckled before wiping his lips clean of his blood. “Hehe, not bad! You’re hiding your strength! That’s the speed and strength that I expected from a Fifth-tier Soulbeast….”
“Skreee!”
The scorpion let loose two loud cries as if pleased by this ‘tit for tat’ exchange. Not even bothering to continue its assault, the scorpion instead lifted its stinger up to point at Bai Yunfei menacingly.
“Eh?”
Distracted by this motion, Bai Yunfei looked questioningly at it. At the very tip of the stinger, it looked as if the black tip was opening up like an actual beak. From within, a dark green shade of liquid was then jettisoned towards Bai Yunfei with great speed!
“Oh fuck! It had something like that too!”
As Bai Yunfei paled in fright and bent his waist to dodge, another shot came flying at him again.
“You’re fucking with me, rapid fire?!”
Cursing out loud, Bai Yunfei activated the Wave Treading Steps to move left and right to dodge this ‘bullet storm’.
The barrage had continued on for a whole minute before Bai Yunfei felt himself haggard and exhausted. The entire wall behind him was riddled with holes as if it were cheese, and if not for the Wave Treading Steps, Bai Yunfei would have been poisoned to death.
Clearly the scorpion did not think that Bai Yunfei was capable of such a speed either. It had been exceedingly proud in this one venomous barrage, but to see that not a single one of it land on its prey had caused it to pause. When the scorpion stabbed both of its pincers into the ground, Bai Yunfei prepared himself to defend. But! Instead of attacking, the scorpion instead disappeared beneath the ground right in front of his eyes.
“Wha–”
Bai Yunfei had been slightly astonished to see the scorpion escape underground. Yet, when he thought about how the scorpion had initially appeared from the walls to begin with, his eyes narrowed together. Concentrated, Bai Yunfei raised his right hand up to retrieve his Fire-tipped Spear and released his soulsense to survey the surrounding area.
Roughly a minute of unsettling silence passed before something caught Bai Yunfei out of the corner of his eye. With a lash of his spear, he stabbed it straight into the ground a meter in front of him, “Here you are!”
“Pcht!”
The Fire-tipped Spear didn’t sink into the ground, but it didn’t make any reaction either.
A flash of light danced across Bai Yunfei’s eyes as he gripped tightly onto the spear. Taking half a step forward, he brought his spear back up from the ground and then around to stab right behind him at the cave wall.
“Boom!”
This time, the explosive effect of the Fire-tipped Spear had been activated. Because it had conveniently struck near the cave entrance, a great deal of the stone structure that collapsed in on itself. With such a strong blast of elemental fire escaping from the fallout of the blast, even the mist nearby the cave entrance had been evaporated.
Almost simultaneously, there was a frightened ‘skree’ following the explosion. The cave shook once. And in the next second, the scorpion reappeared once more!
“Hehe, you can’t escape now!”
A pleased smile crept onto Bai Yunfei’s face. It was by no means an accident that he missed the scorpion with this spear strike. If he struck the scorpion, then it wouldn’t be as unharmed as it was now–in fact, it stood a good chance at dying from that. But Bai Yunfei wasn’t here to kill the scorpion. He just wanted the treasure and not the life of a soulbeast.
Even as he smiled, Bai Yunfei’s next motions were done with the utmost fluidity and grace. With one shake of his hand, the spear disappeared, and in the next shake, a bright-red brick appeared in its place.
And so Bai Yunfei danced and weaved through the rather frantic globs of poison the scorpion threw out with its stinger. But with a second ground to roof kick action, Bai Yunfei was able to kick off and land right next to the scorpion to deliver a stunning strike onto the scorpion’s head.
The scorpion didn’t know just why this human wasn’t using its terrifying boom stick anymore, but the red stone that the human held in its hand wasn’t something that the scorpion would take any less serious either. Unable to hold back any more, it rose a pincer to block against the brick while bringing out its stinger to sweep Bai Yunfei off his feet.
“Bang!”
The brick made contact with the scorpion’s pincer. While the scorpion itself was unharmed, its entire body was suddenly sent flying by some sort of mysterious power! Because of this power, the tail of the beast had failed to hit Bai Yunfei before following its master out of the cave!
Spinning enough for two revolutions, the scorpion could see that its flight was en-route through the cave entrance. Completely unexpected by Bai Yunfei, the scorpion’s stinger pierced down onto the ground while it’s other half latched onto the very last edge of the outsides to the cave. But even then, the scorpion was in a precarious situation with no room to back up.
“Time for you to go down!”
Before it could even plan its next attack, another one of Bai Yunfei’s foot slammed into its abdomen! During its flight, Bai Yunfei had somehow managed to close the distance and seize a chance to sneak in another attack!
The power within this one kick had not been negligible by any means and had managed to kick away even the scorpion’s stinger. This time, the scorpion was sent flying over the edge of the cave and down towards the valley beneath with wide-open eyes.
But to add insult to injury, Bai Yunfei stamped another foot down onto it so that the scorpion would be sent flying down at an increased speed! But while he prepared himself to jump back up onto the cave, a sudden constricting sensation could be felt around his leg! There was a heavy yank, and in the next second, the scorpion’s tail grabbed onto Bai Yunfei’s leg so that the two of them would fall to the ground together!