When I stepped down into the Abyssal Cavern, I saw that Long Wang was right. Hei Ba really was not in a good mood.
The Abyssal Hydra raised his nine heads to glare at me, hissing viciously. Though I could sense that his normally tremendous amount of qi was significantly diminished, it appeared that his physical body had healed well. Rather, it was his pride that was wounded the most grievously.
Even so, I decided to try a different tack.
"How are you doing, Hei Ba? Are you all right?"
Not unexpectedly, Hei Ba responded with a chorus of furious hisses, his heads snaking forward almost like he intended to bite me. Or devour me whole.
"This won't do." I sighed. "You're still pretty resentful, eh? Are you angry that I sent you against an enemy who was stronger than you? I apologize. I underestimated her strength. I didn't think her Dainsleif was powerful enough to blow away eight of your heads and half of your body in one blow. I'm very sorry. It was because of my oversight that you were so badly hurt."
That appeared to have the opposite effect. If anything, Hei Ba was angrier because of my apology, and he reared up in an intimidating posture. Sparks of qi flew as he writhed, unable to lash out because of the spirit contract between us.
"Oh? That wasn't the case?" I cocked my head. "Then why are you so angry?"
A series of hisses told me the answer. I then nodded.
"Ah, so that's why. You hate it when I come down to your Abyssal Cavern when you're at your most vulnerable. You abhor revealing your weak side to me, especially since you hold me in contempt. You do not like the fact that someone weaker than you have command over you."
"How dare you?!" Long Wang snarled, stepping forward, but I waved hm back. He turned to me in protest. "But, my lord! Such insolence is unforgivable!"
"I appreciate your sentiment, but such things only have one solution. It appears that as long as I don't demonstrate and prove to him my strength and worth, he'll continue to look down on me forever."
Hei Ba snorted, but it appeared that I had hit the nail on the head. I sighed and shook my head before beckoning him over.
"Fine, we'll have a duel when you're fully healed. If you win, I'll set you free and leave you to the deep sea. Otherwise, I'll beat that defiant and insolent attitude out of you. Deal?"
The Abyssal Hydra sneered condescendingly and hissed. I rolled my eyes.
"What? Now? You're not at full strength…oh?" I paused as he hissed another few words, then rolled my eyes again. "You think I require a handicap? Really? Fine. Don't blame me and use this as an excuse if you lose."
Hei Ba simply laughed in hisses. Even if I didn't possess the ability to understand my spirit beasts through my summoning skills, it was clear that he thought I would never be able to win against him. The sheer arrogance.
"All right then. I'll temporarily rescind the spirit contract's terms and allow you to attack me. Come at me with your full strength…or whatever power you can muster right now."
Azure shackles glowed brightly, manifesting in incorporeal form that had chained Hei Ba – the abstract concepts of the spirit contract's terms that were only now perceived in visible forms – before they shattered into spiritual shards. Hei Ba shook himself free, slithering away from the gradually disappearing broken shackles before lunging at me, his nine heads flailing about and opening their jaws wide.
He really wasted no time attacking, eh? I guess he must have built up quite the grudge against me, which made me feel a little complicated.
Nonetheless, I had no intention of showing any mercy.
I dodged his first head, whirling away from it as the massive jaws and neck hurtled past me. Qi flared brightly in my hands before coalescing into a sword. Swinging Azure Frost, I beheaded one of Hei Ba's heads in a single stroke.
There was a thunderous shriek as the other eight heads screamed in stigmatized pain, blood spurting out of the stump that used to be one of their brethren. Another two of the heads whipped about and struck from the flanks, enacting a pincer maneuver. I kicked off the ground and jumped high up, launching myself past the snapping jaws, and then I flipped about in midair and slashed with Azure Frost.
Another head fell, the disembodied skull landing with a dull thump and leaking blood as it twitched. Its now headless neck reeled back like a suspension cable that had just been severed.
I landed on the third head and plunged my blade through the skull, reaching to the brain. Ice expanded rapidly across the now frozen head before it shattered, but I was already gone, propelling myself off the frozen debris to slice a fourth head apart.
Fog shadowed my blurry silhouette, the condensation an aftereffect of me materializing my spirit sword. The temperatures plummeted, and the exhalations from Hei Ba's remaining huge heads emerged in thick mists.
Landing in the clearing in front of the now sluggish Hei Ba, I craned my head to give his ravaged figure a look.
"Still not convinced? Or do you still want to go for another round?"
Three of the five heads replied, smashing the ground where I stood with violent force. A second later, they realized I was no longer there.
I was standing on top of the head that was the middle one in the trio. The other two twisted around to snarl at me, but they were wary of accidentally attacking the center head, most likely because it was akin to attacking oneself. Even so, they realized that they needed to swat me away, so they ended up lunging anyway, much the same way as I would when slapping my own arm to kill a mosquito.
Unfortunately, I wasn't a mosquito.
Another flash erupted from my spirit sword and I decapitated the center head. Riding the disembodied extension as it crashed to the ground, I avoided the two other heads. Hopping off right before impact, I twisted around and kicked Hei Ba in the midriff, sending the entire Abyssal Hydra hurtling across the Abyssal Cavern and crashing into the wall.
Rocky rubble collapsed and partially buried Hei Ba. Though he could theoretically dig himself out in time, he was momentarily helpless, unable to do anything as his remaining heads watched me approach, even as their long serpentine necks were pinned by debris.
"Had enough?" I asked, raising my sword. For the first time, Hei Ba showed fear when he stared at me through his several pairs of eyes. He had four heads left, and he knew I wouldn't have a problem loping all of them off before he freed himself. To prove the point, I beheaded one of them, leaving three. Then I pointed my blade at one of the surviving ones. "Should we continue?"
The three remaining heads prostrated themselves in surrender. I stared at them until I was satisfied, and then with a flick of my sword, I disintegrated the rubble. Hei Ba crawled out from under the tempest of powder and dust, slowly regenerating his missing heads. I pushed my glasses up my nose as I stared at him.
"You're not going to say that this match doesn't count just because you aren't at full strength, are you?"
Hei Ba shook his three heads nervously. Apparently, he had noticed that I wasn't using my full power either, and he feared what would have happened if I had gone all out from the start.
"It seems that mastering Man and Sword as One has really given you an incredible advantage," Long Wang remarked when I left Hei Ba behind to slowly convalesce. I nodded.
"Thanks to you and the others buying time."
"I only carried out my duty. And if I were to be honest, the stronger my lord becomes, the more of my original power I'll be able to unlock."
"True."
I didn't begrudge Long Wang his motivations, instead being pleased that he was quite candid with me. There was nothing worse than some slimy schemer hiding his true intentions and plotting behind my back while spouting fake platitudes of loyalty. At least I knew where Long Wang stood, and I wasn't some entitled idiot who thought everyone in the world owed me fealty or something. Long Wang only followed me because he respected my strength and potential.
The moment I slipped up or stopped working hard, he would leave me. So I had to maintain my current progress and never stop moving forward.
Raising a hand, I rebound Hei Ba with the tenets of the spirit contract. The azure spirit shackles reformed and coiled around his slowly regenerating figure, clamping down on necks and limbs. Normally, such things were invisible and abstract, but that was how I chose to perceive my spirit contract with Hei Ba. I still didn't fully trust him, and even if he was obedient now, it was only because I had beat compliance into him. He deserved a little punishment for his insolence.
It would be a long time before I loosen those chains. In contrast, the other spirit beasts in my dungeon were free because they had my full trust. The system had done a good job in selecting those who would be loyal to me. They might not be the strongest or most talented or most skilled, but I didn't care about all that. What mattered to me wasn't potential or strength, but loyalty. Their personalities. As long as they got along with each other and didn't cause trouble, that was fine.
Individual talent and strength counted for naught if they couldn't work with anyone else. Together, my spirit beasts formed a near invincible army that would overwhelm any super genius individual no matter how much he claimed to go against the heavens. There was only so much a single individual could do on his own. But when working with dozens or even hundreds of others, an army could achieve feats far in excess of any one person.
There was a reason why heroes were often those champions and leaders who inspired their followers to victory, and not one-man armies who fought entire wars by themselves. This wasn't Dynasty Warrior or some wish fulfilment web novel. The existences beyond the fourth dimension had to stop calling people weak just because they chose to spend time in other people's company and worked together with others to win instead of soloing everything on their own. That was highly unrealistic, absurd and impractical. Stop projecting your fantasies on reality and expecting other people to behave how you want them to behave!
In any event, I was glad that I had settled things with Hei Ba – for now – and ensured the wellbeing of my summoned spirit beasts. Once I checked on them and monitored their progress for a bit, I returned to the condominium complex where my family stayed in.
We spent the next few days resting, though Jun Hai trained under Myria's tutelage and learned magic techniques from Sylvie and Silvia. For my part, I often teleported to my dungeon to train my spirit beasts, as well as hone my own skills. Having only recently attained Earth rank, I had to invest some time in consolidating and stabilizing my own cultivation, as well as maintain my strength so that I could continue to keep Hei Ba in line and earn the respect of Long Wang.
It was one of those days when I had just returned from my dungeon back to my temporary room for a rest when a new development occurred.
"Big bro, are you there?" Jun Hai knocked on my door.
"Yeah. What's up?"
"Oh, you're going to love this." Jun Hai opened the door and burst into my room, grinning excitedly. He raised his smartphone. "We've just received a request for a mission in one of the forests of Scandinavia."