Kai had met the Kings several times over the past few months and already had a rough understanding of their abilities, and what to expect from each of them. Aside from the fact that they were all quite strong in terms of fighting ability, but he had also picked out their conditional characteristics.
The King of Lust was a dangerous opponent in terms of illusions, when fighting her you were constantly hallucinating, and sometimes it was difficult to understand where exactly she was. Since she had a female figure Kai unknowingly started calling her Queen.
Sometimes Kai felt like he was drowning in dozens of women's bodies as an adult, sometimes even reproducing women he had seen before, like Taemi from the Lord's banquet. It was hard enough to overcome this feeling, for as with pain, the other sensations in Asura's Hell were just as real. If you didn't realize in time that you were falling into an illusion, in a few seconds your neck could be slit by the Queen.
One of the most dangerous situations was the false feeling of love! It was amazing that the Invisible King Torture Technique could even make a fake of your feelings. During a battle with the Lust Queen, you could see an illusion where it was as if you were with your lover, and your feelings for each other were just kicking in. At times like this, Kai began to repeat the laws he had heard from the orb and remember what his goal was. Namely, to reach the peak of martial arts! At the same moment, he would shatter the illusion, taking control of his feelings! Every battle with the Queen and inflicting wounds on her, allowed him to harden his heart and control his emotions Kai. It seemed that in illusions, he was able to experience things that others needed to gain a lot of life experience and live through different life situations, such as love and separation.
The Pain King, on the other hand, was like a ferocious beast that would dash out to attack! He attacked with his bare hands, his strikes were crushing and tyrannical. Even if Kai managed to dodge, he was injured by the residual energies and even the airflow around his fist.
It seemed that it was the easiest to wound the King of Pain in such a situation. But his distinguishing feature besides his crushing power was his incredible defense! The first time Kai fought him, he was even pleased with this frontal style of attack, but when he tried to plunge his dagger into the King's flesh, he realized that he couldn't even scratch him.
After a while, Kai began to try infusing his energy into his blades and sharpening it to make the penetrating power of his daggers stronger. He had picked up such a method while observing the Wind Energy Essence. But he could only wound the King of Pain when he caught the moment to attack weak points that were not protected by muscles, such as the eyes, groin areas, and other points.
After each wounding of the King of Pain, Kai could feel his muscles, tendons, and skin seem to grow stronger, as if he was increasing his pure physical strength!
Next was the King of Envy. He was the first of their five that Kai could wound, and understand the rough cultivation strategy of the second level of the Invisible King Torture Technique.
The main danger came from his ability to control his bones and manipulate them. It seemed like he could grow a spike or a weapon at any of the points on his body. One had to plan very carefully how to injure him, for it was very easy to run into an unexpected attack. He was also constantly using different weapons.
It seemed that the Envy King was skilled in every kind of weapon. This was very useful for Kai, besides the fact that when fighting him he could strengthen his skeleton by receiving the King's energy, but he could also gain experience in a battle actually with a master of any kind of weapon. As time went on, he began to understand the strokes and possible manipulations that existed in the spear technique. He began to understand the differences between a master who wielded a sword and a master who wielded a saber. They seemed to be similar, but were built on completely different principles, the sword on control and precision, and the saber on strong blows and overwhelming power. The more often Kai faced the King of Envy, the more experience he gained in fighting and facing different weapons!
One of the most difficult opponents for Kai was the Fury King.
He was incredibly fast and yet completely silent, and he tended to strike at times when Kai was fighting different opponents in Asura's Hell. Because of this, Kai constantly had to be alert and in full concentration, waiting for the Fury King's stealthy strike. When one of the other Kings appeared, Kai even relaxed a bit, for he realized that now at least he could focus on a specific fighting style and not watch his surroundings.
Even when Kai wasn't fighting the Fury King, he was training him, for he had gotten into the habit of keeping a constant eye on the battlefield. He seemed to have the concept imprinted on his subconscious: No matter how fierce the battle is or how the scenario unfolds, constantly keep an eye out for possible danger from the outside, and don't give anyone a chance for a sneak attack!
When Kai had learned to stay almost constantly in such concentration throughout the entire battlefield, he was finally able to catch the Fury King and counterattack him slightly. As his energy was absorbed, Kai felt all of his reflexes and senses improve. This seemed to be the incredible benefit of the Fury King. Constant concentration and practicing incredible sensory acuity, coupled with developing lightning fast reactions for evasion and counterattacks!
The most unique was the King of Terror, his torture was unlike any of the previous ones. It was as if he had no physical body, it was almost impossible to sense his elusive appearance, but there was no need to fight him. Or rather, the confrontation with him was simply not unlike the standard understanding of the word battle ...
The King of Terror just suddenly appeared near Kai and entered his body, causing incredible visions from which there was no way out. You just automatically came out of them when you ran out of energy and were thrown out of Asura's Hell.
But afterward, you felt a bit of the Terror King's energy being absorbed by your brain and spreading through your nervous system. Kai couldn't explain what he felt at that moment. He felt as if he was becoming more intelligent, his thoughts seemed to be working faster and smoother. And his chains of logic were becoming more complex and coherent. He seemed to be increasing his mental and analytical abilities.
But do not underestimate the torture of the King of Terror, if the master's Will was not strong enough, he could simply go insane. For sometimes you would have visions of being shackled in empty space and tortured for an unknown amount of time, sometimes you could see your acquaintances and then their ruthless murder. Sometimes in the visions Kai himself became the murderer of his loved ones, and sometimes he woke up in the mountains with Master Mo stabbing him in the heart! A person without a strong Will and stable psyche would simply die of despair in illusions. Under the Terror King's torture, it was almost impossible to realize that everything was a fiction. It was as if he merged with your personality and made you believe in the reality of what was happening.
After spending enough time on the second level of the Invisible King Torture Technique, Kai began to get used to the different scenarios in Asura's Hell and developed a strategy of action.
From that moment on, the training went much smoother. He had already fully accepted in his heart that his technique was simply incredible. All he needed to do was to give himself to its cultivation to the maximum. It seemed like she was a perfect match for Kai.
Sitting in his room in the lotus posture, he would constantly fight in Asura's Hell and then restore his energy to peak. It was even easier to do this in the dorm room, as the array collected a lot of energy inside, its density was much higher than outside. As Kai absorbed it, he constantly looked at the array with a studying gaze. To other people it looked like just strange writing, but he saw with his own eyes the essence of the array, and the routes the energy traveled within it.
It seemed that after the Terror King's torture, his mental ability had gradually increased, and now he saw more patterns in the Essence of Energy, he vaguely began to see logic in some points of the array. Examining it, he realized that for example, if he changed the direction of energy flow in a particular dash, the balance of energy flow in the entire array would be disrupted, and it would collapse in the blink of an eye.
- I'm surprised I didn't notice this before! - With bulging eyes, Kai said as he looked at the array.
It seemed that the Invisible Kings Torture Technique was making him a universal killer, improving him in every aspect of martial arts.
He was tempering his control of his emotions and learning to control his desires and temptations. He was also incredibly hardening his flesh, increasing his explosive power, flexibility and defense capabilities along with regeneration and endurance. In parallel, he was learning to fight all sorts of weapons and creatures. But that's not all, in parallel he was improving his reflexes and mental abilities! And the progress of these abilities was not only due to training, but also due to actual changes on a physical level. When Kai absorbed the Kings energy, it literally changed his body on a physical level!
This technique was unlike anything Kai had heard of at all! Even Old Man Mo, while talking about the different techniques and variations of the martial arts path in this world, had not talked about anything like this. Since Master Mo was unable to cultivate the Invisible King Torture Technique, he himself was unaware of its abilities and potential.
- That's a truly amazing technique! I definitely need to keep it a secret... Damn, I'm only 11 years old, but I already have too many secrets, what's next... Hehe... - Kai said self-ironically.
After recovering his energy, he plunged back into Asura's Inferno, it seemed to him that there wasn't much left until the middle of the Cultivator.