One, two then three, after three steps Tanya barely rebalanced herself on her trembling legs, she looked down at her thighs then at her elbows, clean bleeding cuts were present at her tendons near the joints. Kale purposely targeted the places where dealing damage could sustainably decrease her mobility when hit, with those injuries it was a given that she won't be able to make full use of her enhanced physical abilities.
She glanced at the archer who was lying motionlessly far away due to an attack from Kale, this time she clearly knew the difference in strength 'Having a higher level won't do anything, this boy is not normal, it's likely an expert using some kind of advanced disguise magic or curse that lowered his level and age. I need to only focus on buying time rather than fighting,'
Thinking of this, she looked down at the dead body of the man Kale killed earlier, her eyes focused on his armour and the sabre lying beside him.
A little far away Ajin had his expression turned dark, except Elza and Fynn who focused on sword and blades too, having some fair knowledge, he could tell a lot more about Kale's attack than other normal adventurers.
Ajin kicked the puppet in front, did a backflip in mid-air then landed in front of the puppet on the right, engaging in a series of quick dagger strikes.
"You saw that, didn't you?" The voice of the old man suddenly rang in his head, Ajin kept silent, the old man continued {From your response earlier, it seems like you are not that close to that boy, he can use Weapon Intent, moreover he looked very proficient, even someone like us is not able to comprehend it all our lives most of the time but he did, you know what it means…}
Ajin tightened his grip on his dagger and gave a round kick to the puppet approaching from behind. The puppet was pushed back a few steps then attacked again.
{Haha, your change in strength behind the attacks tells you are thinking, it's our once in a lifetime chance, now I know why the boy had such a high price on his head, he had most likely obtained the secrets to a big inheritance, he may even be a very old person who has access to «Pseudo Life Potions»,}
Life potions are potions that could prolong someone's life to an extent without any side effects, but because the ingredients for life potions are like treasures of heaven and earth, they are very hard to get, because of that many people in the past researched them to derive new formulas. Most failed, but some achieve little success, obtaining new ways to prolong life, but with side effects, one of those was ‹Pseudo Life Potions›.
The most successful «Pseudo Life Potions» known can have side effects such as reversing age and levels instead of normally prolonging life.
Ajin started to think, Weapon Intent had great importance to any type of Martial Artist, it could increase their strength several times, and as their cultivation grows their advantage will grow too.
{Make a decision quickly, if we combine forces, it would be very easy to catch the boy alive,}
On the side, with a 'boom' sound Ryenne's shield broke and she was thrown at the wall, she fell on her knees, traces of blood appeared on the corner of her lips.
Ryenne groaned in pain, she then raised her head and saw Elza dashing at her, anger filled her head, suddenly Ryenne's eyes glowed in a shade of red "You fukking bittch, I have had enough of you,"
Ryenne raised her hand to the right, an adventurer wielding a sword was standing there, he had a small wound on his hand due to the ‹Stone Blast› used by Kale earlier. When he saw her raising her hand towards him, he got anxious, but in the next moment, that anxiousness turned into pain and dizziness, he was feeling like all the blood in his body stopped then started flowing in reverse.
…Spllsshhhh…
A stream of blood flowed out of his arm ripping the wound, the bloodstream flowed like a snake shooting toward Ryenne, to intercept Elza.
Elza sensed the danger and quickly retreated to Fynn, who was covering her back while fighting the other two Tier 3 assassins alone, rather than fighting, he was just delaying the time and because the assassins weren't best at the frontal fights, he was doing fine.
Elza's retreat didn't just catch Fynn's attention but the two Tier 3 assassins also glanced at Ryenne.
The adventurer who became the victim of her spell was horrified by the scene, he wanted to shout but before he could, another stream of blood came out of his mouth, the adventurers around him backed off in fear, but soon after him, another wounded adventurer had blood coming out from the bandaged wound on his abdomen and mixing with the previous two streams.
All the bloodstreams then combined to form a blood sphere floating above Ryenne, she then reached out her hand to touch it, a few trails of blood from the sphere disappeared into her hand on touch, at the same time, the scratches and injuries on her body healed at a visible rate.
"It- Its Blood Magic!" The mage at the backside of the spearman leader shouted, with eyes filled with horror and hatred.
His words caught the attention of everyone, the adventurer around Ryenne quickly retreated in fear.
'This idiot…' Tanya gritted her teeth as she got on her knees with a jolt, she placed one of her hands on the armour of the dead adventure and the other on his sabre.
The region of metal on her amour increased, her arm turned into silvery greenish metal, her other shoulder became dark brown, just like that, her neck, belly all started to turn into metal, it was like she was transforming her body into a different kind of metals.
When the injured tendons of her body turned into metal, Tanya managed to close her wound to an extent, retaining some of her fighting ability.
Kale had his eyes on her, but didn't move in hastiness, he checked his Origin Chasm, the Mana was almost empty because of him using ‹Stone Blast› at full power, the highest in quantity was Psychonic Energy, it was still 75% there because the only thing he used it for was quietly repairing the injured bones on his hand, the injury that he had received earlier due to that assassin penetrating his palm with the dagger.
The last was Battle Qi, although Kale tried saving it as much as he could, by only using pure physical abilities he got from the Snake King Body Toning Technique but he still had to make use of it when using martial techniques to gain the best results. So, he only had about 50% of it left.
'I don't have time, the sound of dagger clash of Ajin's attacks on the puppets has decreased, he is thinking… I can't wait until the Venom Blood I sprayed on Tanya's wounds works, I need to put it all in one strike, if it fails, I can only sacrifice my Ghost Spirits and harm these preciously earned slaves to make my escape, which doesn't even have a high probability of me escaping once the news goes out,' Kale reorganized his plans, with a thought, all the potent Battle Qi inside his Origin Chasm headed out of and flowed in his body.
Kale took a deep breath and calmed himself down 'Surrounded by enemies, all odds are against me, lacking time, a fight pushing me between life and death… How long has it been, since I embraced this feeling? Haha… Life is surely the most fun game to play,'
A faint smirk appeared on his lips as Kale slowly placed both his hands before his chest with his fingers touching the tip of each other, his movements made everyone around take a step back, by now, they already knew enough about him to fear his every action regardless of his young appearance.
Tanya also frowned, she was feeling uneasy because Kale didn't even bother to try and stop her when he saw her mutant trait Absorb.
***
In Kazeer, the person who can get and learns martial arts are called Martial Artists, but not everyone can practice them, the ones who can practice top grade martial arts were labelled as Talented Martial Artist, the ones who could modify others martial arts and make their techniques themselves were called Genius Martial Artist, that have the talent and chance to touch Martial Great Grandmaster stage.
Above them were Peerless Talent, which appears as one in thousands, those who could combine and even use several martial techniques of the same type at once after few years of training, like combining two movement techniques to cover each other faults, Martial Artist with such talent had quite some chances to reach Martial Venerable and hope of Martial Ancestor.
Most people only talked about this much, some even saw this all as exaggerated rumours but, above these, there was another category, the Martial Artists whose understanding of their martial arts have reached a level where executing it has become easy as breathing, an instinct to them. They were beyond the scope of common sense of normal people, years of training aside, they were labelled as Evil Doers who could not only combine different type of martial arts when needed, they could even create a completely new martial technique at spot or merge their techniques like doing something trivial, on the slightest inspiration.
Such Evil Doers were the only ones who said to have the hope of ever reaching the legendary stage for all Martial Artist… Martial Sovereign!
***
Kale's breath became slow, everything around seemed very slow to him. He closed his eyes looking very calm but the surge in his Battle Qi attracted everyone's attention.
'He is giving it all in one attack?' Tanya guessed from the amount of Battle Qi coming out from his body. She looked at her body which was now completely turned into metal, then at the sabre on the ground.
Kale was right in front of her, standing there with his eyes closed, Tanya slowly extending her hand and grabbed the sabre on the ground but then a decisive light flashed in her eyes, instead of attacking Kale, she turned and started running in the direction Ryenne was present.
'Too late,' Kale muttered while slowly opening his eyes, with a jolt, he unfolded his arms wide waving them around.
'Arachne Thread Controlling Art - Secret Style - Devil's Web'
Suddenly several black threads came out of Kale's sleeves, collar, and all the opening from the robe.
The threads didn't move in the straight path but swirled like snakes, similar to how Kale executes his ‹Snake King Killing Series›, all the threads coated in Qi targeted the person closest to them, in all directions.
On the way, they twirled around each other in a pattern, interlinking with each other, their sharp needle-like tips behaving like snakeheads.
In a moment, they formed a structure similar to that of a web as they approached their targets.
Tanya saw the barrage of threads approaching her, she quickly swung her dagger to at least block a few of them aimed at her legs.
But the second her dagger was about to make contact with five of those threads, three of them disappeared like smoke while the rest of the two were although cut, didn't stop approaching her with their newly formed edges.
'Illusions?' Tanya was taken by surprise as numerous threads surrounded her, many of which disappeared at touch while the rest swirled around her body at rapid speed, some mixed themselves in her hair, clothes, and some around her wrist and legs, there were those that tried digging into her skin but her metal body successfully resisted them.
Not all threads were real, many of them were just like afterimages that appear similar when using ‹Illusory Phantom Walk›.
Tanya was just the first one to get caught up in the trap, a hunter wielding a lance got caught just after her, followed by a tanker wielding a heavy shield.
"What technique is this?"
"Retreat!"
"Get away from that, it's dangerous!"
"Ahhhh... My hand, remove them-"
"This thing just don't break,"
The place was filled with screams, some of anger while some of the pain.
Elza, Ryenne and all the Tier 3 with a few Tier 2 at the back were fast enough to retreat and got out of the range of the web, the rest were not so lucky.
Kale used up all the «Black Plastic Thread» and Battle Qi he had in that one attack, once it was over, all the people closest to him were stuck in the spiderweb-like trap expended in all direction, connecting them to each other.
Tanya looked down at her body intertwined in the thin yet almost unbreakable black thread, she carefully sensed the threads that covered her body and decided to move carefully 'These threads are not moving on their own anymore, he either lost control or have no more Qi to control them, now as long as I am careful I can loosen them and free myself-'
Tanya was just thinking when she felt the thread on her left arm tightening, she turned to the side and saw the threads on her left arm were connected to an adventurer who was trying to break them by force in panic.
"Stop!" She creamed, but the adventurer completely ignored her as he tried to break free.
The web wasn't that complex at first, but when the robust man acting as the tank moved his body trying to break free, it resulted in the pulling of the people connected to the threads around him.
"Don't move you, idiot!"
"Wait stop there, no don't pull,"
Just like that the others also moved their bodies trying to break them and free themselves, because of that, the thread around their body tightened, Tanya was already injured, under the pulling and stretching of her body due to threads she became completely immovable.
Tanya groaned in pain caused by the stretching of her injured body.
'Damn it all, what to do-' Tanya was still trying to think of a plan, when she heard faint footsteps in the middle of the chaos, she raised her head to look at the approaching silhouette.
She easily recognised the familiar silhouette, It was the same person who gave her too many surprises in a single day, Kale walked closer to her then stopped just in front of her 'You really made me put efforts,'