Kekeke that's right! My failsafe was my latest and greatest chi attack!
I had discovered about halfway through my month of training that it was much easier for me to channel energy through my mouth than it was to convert it into the edges of my blades or to use as armour!
So, I decided to find out how much chi I could push out my mouth at once, it felt kind of like a mix of sneezing and puking but damn was it affective! I mean sure It did blow up in my face a few times…literally
Ouch
But by the time I had eaten the few spiritual cores I had gained while hunting for food through the month I had found the preparation of Chi that allowed for a substantial hit but didn't blow my jaw off
And as seen/heard by the roar of clear frustration from the hellhound it clearly hurt him more than me!
As the smoke from the explosion of energy and fire cleared, I admit I was surprised by the extent of damage I could see, the hellhound was mainly fine aside from the fact that his entrails were leaking out from his stomach like noodles poking out of a strainer
However, he clearly took it in his stride like a champ due to the body not being able to feel pain and was already running at me again so that was less fun
One thing to note about that "Chi beam" as I call it (ill think of something better when I don't have to worry about a zombie rank 3) was that it drained half of the chi I had! While I would love to just fly above him and rained down orbital lasers, I simply couldn't
Following the plan, I had made, I began to do what could be considered the greatest manoeuvre ever created by mankind in existence… Tactical retreat!
Turning around and using my wings to increase y speed and manoeuvre ability I began to make my way towards the cave entrance, thankfully most beasts aren't that smart until they reach class 5 and gain intelligence at a human level, so a giant murder puppy was bounding after me the entire time
Making it out of the cave and turning around to watch the markedly slower beast chase after me I waited until he had reached exactly 7 meters away from me before firing off my final Chi beam. However, this time as I fired it towards my pursuer are moved my head in an arc so that it cut into both the hellhound and the rock ceiling above it causing the rocky arch to collapse on its lower half as it was in the middle of exiting the cave
It was now stuck!
As much as it flailed and tried to drag itself its lower body was completely collapsed on top of the back legs of the beast, crushing them to a near pancake. It doesn't matter if you are class 2 or 3 if that much rock falls on you, you're not getting out unscathed
Sadly, I couldn't risk just dropping the rubble on the whole thing because I was worried it might crush the core and I am not interested in snorting any type of crystal!
Looking at the hellhound continuously flail and pull on the ground I was worried the Parasite might simply choose to tear the beast in half but looking at it I realized their was no was it could
The only reason I was able to do any damage to this ex-class four was because its body had been rotting for around a month, meaning its skin was already weakened due to decay, which is what allowed me to pierce its flesh with my blades
Its bones however where pretty much in the same condition as they were the day it died meaning that they where at Class 4 strength, so what the Corpse Parasite was trying to do was dislodge and tear off (admittedly crushed) bones of a higher durability than its body could output strength
So, all it could do was tear off the skin and stay stuck
Making my way towards it ever so slowly I began to think about how the hell I was supposed to kill this thing if I can't just crush its skull?
"oh, I know!"
I made my way gingerly past the wildly swinging arms of the clearly pissed off step-hound (too much?) and began to look over its midsection to identify where its core sat
Seeing that it sat in the lower spine I couldn't help but smile what was likely a bug like snarl and make my way over. See even if I can't cut through the bone in one hit if I keep whittling away at one spot it in the spine I should be able to both kill it and reach the core.
Raising my right arm, I got in a good stance and brought down my arm on its spine, it cut straight through the skin and about a centimetre into the spine
"This is gonna take a while" I couldn't help but release a sigh as I raised my other hand and brought it down in the same spot where the other had hit
Over the course of the next hour, I set on the grisly task of basically cutting this massive hellhound in half, I could tell over the course of time when I was getting closer and closer as at first the roars of rage echoes across the area, then the roars seemed to fill with fear as a drew closer and closer to both the core and it Parasitical attachment and finally those roars where cut off as I finally severed the spinal cord and killed off the body that the Corpse Parasite had taken over completely and now as I was digging into the flesh under what used to be the 7th & 8th vertebrae but is now mere fragments I could hear what appear to be small screeches coming form the core
I was completely drenched in blood and spinal fluid at the point, more of a Red Mantis than a Black one
As I made the final cut, saw exactly what I was looking for, what appeared to be a crossbreed of a cockroach and a centipede and what it was curled around
A shiny purple core the size of a basketball