Unlike his claws when he was in his dragon form, the black orb of superdense qi actually reached me.
"Whoa!"
I was forced to dive to the side, watching as the orb exploded furiously with enough force to tear apart the time-space fabric we were occupying. That was dangerous. If that had hit, I would have ceased to exist.
Just what kind of technique was that?
As I rolled back to my feet, though there was no ground for me to orientate myself to, I righted myself so that I was in the same plane as the Deep Sea King. At least the plane I believed him to be occupying, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, he suddenly appeared in front of me, his fist punching through the space where my head had occupied. I ducked and responded with a kick, but he parried the blow with his elbow and countered with a kick of his own. Flipping my body about, I managed to spin above his sweeping leg and land a few paces away.
Then I blocked his punch, only to be hurled several meters back.
The Deep Sea King lowered his hand, flexing his fingers a couple of times before curling them back to form a fist. He tilted his head and studied me.
"Honestly, it's been a long time since I've fought in this form. I'm not used to fighting with human combat techniques."
"You seem pretty skilled, nonetheless."
The Deep Sea King chuckled before throwing a haymaker and following up with a hook. I dodged, weaving in and out to prevent myself from being obliterated by his strikes. Even though there wasn't supposed to be any air in this void, I could literally hear the sonic boom as his punches exceeded the sound barrier.
What sort of monster was he? He was only using basic punches, yet they were already so powerful. Fortunately, I had been trained by my dad, and I was making use of everything I had learned to evade my assailant's attacks.
Ducking under another punch and rolling away from a kick, I lashed out with a kick of my own to his face, but he blocked it with his forearm and countered with an elbow strike to my knee. Pulling my leg back, I spun in midair to throw another kick that he barely managed to catch with his hand. Bending my knee, I rammed my other foot into his chest just when he began to squeeze my foot in an attempt to crush it, sending him staggering and freeing myself.
Propelling myself away, I landed on my feet – though without any real ground, I wasn't sure if that was the correct term. Still, I could feel an invisible floor under my feet, so I crunched the soles of my shoes against the unseen layer and launched myself at my opponent again.
He calmly threw a punch, but I whirled around and ducked under it before tackling him. Instinctively, I pulled away when he rammed his elbow into the place where my back would be, and I responded with a kick.
Grunting, he retaliated with a kick of his own, and I swore I saw the empty space actually ripple from the force behind it. Dropping to the invisible ground to duck under his next kick, I swept my foot out to hook it around his ankle and trip him.
The Deep Sea King threw out his hand in reflex and bounced back to his feet. As he cartwheeled, his foot almost connected with my jaw, but I hurled myself back, scrambling away to avoid the worst of the damage. As both of us rose to our feet, we regarded each other grimly.
"I really shouldn't be fighting like this when I'm not used to it." The Deep Sea King waved his hand impatiently, studying his fingers. With a sigh, he generated a second black orb and hurled it at me. I swiftly evaded it, diving to the side, but when I came back up, I saw several black orbs floating all around the Deep Sea King.
"Oh, fuck."
The orbs bombarded my position, exploding violently and battering me with shockwaves. I reeled, but refused to let myself stop, moving and rushing away from the detonating orbs that assailed my location. I had no choice. Even though I felt bruises welling up from the secondary impacts, I was aware that a single direct hit would be enough to annihilate me from existence.
"Why can't I summon anyone?"
I had been reaching into my summoning space and trying to call out Xiao Huo, Da Hai, Xiao Ke or any of my aquatic armada of Little Anglers and Lantern Fishes, but none of them responded. It was as if I was cut off from my own summoning space, isolated in this separate void in a totally different universe.
"How am I supposed to fight without my summoned spirit beasts? And where the hell is the system? It's not replying to my questions either!"
I continued to run desperately, flinching as another orb exploded dangerously close. How was this fair?! The Deep Sea King could use supernatural abilities while I couldn't summon anything!
"This is getting boring."
The Deep Sea King stopped hurling those black orbs at me. Instead, he raised his hand and reshaped his black qi into ethereal serpents. The energy serpents hissed silently and snaked about, pursuing me relentlessly with near formless jaws that snapped at my heels. I continued to sprint, staying one step ahead of them, jumping above one of them when it darted forward to chew my legs off.
Tucking my legs into my chest, I spun about and whirled away from a second energy serpent that snapped its jaws around empty space. Landing on the ground, I slammed my palms against the invisible layer to launch myself away just in time to avoid getting seized by a third serpent. Cartwheeling in the air, I landed on my feet and hopped a few paces back just as a fourth energy serpent rammed into my location, its jaws crunching the void and leaving chilling static shimmering about.
These serpents were made of the same esoteric energy as the orbs from earlier, each of them equally destructive.
"Stop running about," the Deep Sea King said with a chuckle. "Your demise is inevitable. Why fight it? All your efforts are futile. It's a complete waste of time and energy."
I glared at him. Bloody bastard…if only I could summon my spirit beasts as well. I would be able to level the playing ground. Not only that, I never understood the logic of enemies who insisted that I surrender. What did they expect me to do, lie down on the ground and allow them to kill me without resisting? All living organisms wanted to live. I was no different, my survival instinct kicking in no matter what my conscious will intended.
Evading the swarm of energy serpents, I drew my bow and gathered my qi. Even though I couldn't summon my spirit beasts, my archery skills remained undiminished. Twisting around, I shot down a few of the serpents, and even managed to split a few arrows off to snipe the stationary Deep Sea King from afar.
My opponent was so arrogant that he never expected me to mount a comeback. His eyes widened and he swatted away the arrows at the last second, only for the azure projectiles to detonate upon impact, causing him to stagger.
"You…!"
"Did you really think I was going to let you kill me so easily? Of course I'm going to do my best to fight back, you moron."
"Such arrogance! How dare you call this liege a fool?"
His ire stirred, the Deep Sea King lunged at me, no longer toying me with his weird, esoteric orbs or serpents. Seemed like he wanted to get up close and personal to deal with me. But this time, he didn't bother with regular punches and kicks.
My eyes widened when his hand sort of transformed. It remained a mostly human hand, with healthy beige flesh and all that, but silver claws were extending out of his fingers, forming a gauntlet. Fortunately, I snapped out of my stupor just in time to avoid a slash that would have eviscerated me. I blocked the next slash with my bow, noting that the claws would have ripped my chest to shreds if they had landed.
"Ugh!"
I jumped back as far as I could, unleashing a volley of arrows that the Deep Sea King swatted away with his claws. As I landed, I eyed him warily. The Deep Sea King noticed my astonishment and grinned, raising his hand to study the silver gauntlet that now encased his fingers.
"Ah, this? Once you've reached a high enough cultivation realm, you will be able to materialize your qi into actual weapons. I wonder what you humans call it…that's right, spirit weapons. The very embodiment of the cultivation of qi. Once you've attained a certain level of cultivation, you can condense that internal energy into a formidable force…and it will manifest in the form of a weapon that suits your personality and cultivation the most. We call that the spirit weapon."
"Um…okay?" Was the Deep Sea King was ripping off a Singaporean manhua from over twenty years ago? Actually, why was he teaching me all of this? Wouldn't it be better to keep me in the dark?
"And with spirit weapons, you can even perform feats of strength…like this!"
Whirlpools raged about the Deep Sea King and he cackled before slashing with his claws. Initially, it seemed weird that he was striking with that silvery gauntlet from range, but the spinning vortexes of water obeyed his gesture and washed toward me like living predators. They reminded me of the energy serpents from before, but they were much larger.
"Ugh!"
I attempted to dive to the side, weaving through the crisscrossing whirlpools to avoid getting caught up by their irresistible pull. However, they were far too large for me to escape and I found myself swirling helplessly in their depths and crushed by the tremendous pressures. Fortunately, my defensive qi aura held, but it was only a matter of time before my strength ran out.
"Like hell I'll get caught by this!"
Taking a deep breath, I unleashed the internal qi in my body to destroy one of the whirlpools. Though much larger and harder to evade, they were less destructive than the black orbs and energy serpents that the Deep Sea King conjured earlier. That didn't mean I could risk staying inside such violent hydro forces for long.
Landing on the ground, I blasted the other whirlpools apart with a rain of azure arrows, but I realized I needed to infuse each projectile with more qi in order to obliterate the now misting vortexes. If this turned into a battle of attrition, there was no way I could defeat a millennia old Deep Sea King, even if our cultivation realms had been equalized in this space.
"This is unfair…why can't I summon any spirit beasts to help me?! What's the point of having a summoning system if I can't summon spirit beasts when I need them the most?"
-In order for the Divine level spirit contract to be successful, the user must defeat the target in a clash of wills. If the user were to use other spirit beasts to prevail, the target will not submit. After all, the target will consider his loss to be inflicted by the summoned spirit beasts as opposed to the user himself, and dismiss your own strength. –
"What the?! You're finally replying!" I didn't expect the super summoning system to answer after such an extended period of silence. I grimaced at that. What kind of logic was that? A summoner not being recognized for his summoning skills because he supposedly relied on "others" to fight for him? Wasn't that the whole point of summoning? If the Deep Sea King refused to acknowledge my victory just because I depended on other summoned spirit beasts to subjugate him, then wasn't he just a sore loser? It was almost the same as saying that a sniper had no skill because he chose to camp and shoot the opponent from afar instead of honorably fighting in the open. But obviously that was how snipers fought? Why would they give up their advantage and get themselves killed by fighting "honorably" in the open?
Then again, the system had a point. if I lost to a person's subordinates instead of the person himself, I might be bitter and think resentfully to myself that the person's subordinates were the ones stronger than me, and if it was a one-on-one fight, I wouldn't necessarily lose.
However, that didn't make my current crisis any less solvable. How was I going to prevail against such a formidable foe if I wasn't allowed to use the one skill I specialized in?
-But the user still has a chance of victory. After the previous battles against the undersea tribe and the completion of the last mission, the user has reached peak Yellow Rank. –
"Thanks, I guess?" I wondered how that would be useful in my current situation, but as always, the system had a reason behind everything it did or said.
-The user may attempt to condense your internal qi into a spirit weapon. –