The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 410: In Sync

The two darts buried into No.10’s eyes were spat out, yanking out two bleeding black eyes.

Soon, the black eyes, attached to the eye sockets by nerves, retracted back into the eye sockets, recovering anew in a few seconds.

Qing Ling’s delicate brows furrowed. The Tang Dao in her hand vibrated. If hitting the vitals didn’t work, then she would cut the man to pieces. That would surely stop him from coming back to life.

Swish.

Just when she was going to make a move, though, No.10 vanished into thin air from ten meters away, leaving only an afterimage.

Qing Ling started. He’s quick!

As quick as the thought flashing through her mind was the giant dark figure coming down on her from above.

Thud.

No.10’s feet stomped on the grassland, splattering chunks of soil and torn grass, leaving a crater that was half a meter deep, igniting a strange black fire.

Ten meters away, Gao Yang put Qing Ling down.

He had teleported Qing Ling away and narrowly escaped No.10 sudden attack.

The two of them turned to the enemy. The strange, flowing black spots on his body seemed to be radiating heat, able to ignite black flames on what was around him.

“The black fire must be dangerous,” Gao Yang warned. “Don’t get caught in it.”

“I know.” Qing Ling’s eyes sharpened as she considered their next move.

“Regular attacks didn’t seem to work that well given his great regenerative power.” Gao Yang had come up with a plan. “Try to keep him busy. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Qing Ling didn’t know what he was planning, but she trusted him. “Okay.”

Manipulating the darts to distract No.10, she rushed at him with her Tang Dao at the same time.

Seeing her approach, No.10 made a heavy swing at her.

Qing Ling quickly dodged to the side and made a backhanded swing, leaving a gash on No.10’s forearm, deep enough to reveal the bones.

Enduring the pain, No.10 swung his other fist at Qing Ling, the black spots on his body shifting to his hand.

Thud.

The punch ended up putting a hole into the ground, sending soil and grass flying, burning with strange black flames.

This time, Qing Ling opted to jump up instead of to the sides, escaping the attack that could’ve been fatal.

While No.10 wasn’t terribly intelligent, he was quite an experienced fighter, and having predicted where she would land, he made a swing toward the air.

Boom!

A torrent of black flames shot out of his fist, but it didn’t hit QIng Ling, who should’ve fallen his way.

No.10’s head jerked up. Qing Ling was hovering half a meter above his fist rather than falling down, her feet propped up by two Black Gold darts.

With her body shifted to the side, she held her Tang Dao with a reverse grip and concentrated her power for a second, the sharp silver blade rippling with waves of blue blade aura.

Swish.

The space seemed to dim around her, and the blue blade aura flashed like a lightning splitting the darkness.

Pzzt.

No.10’s arms fell to the ground, the cut surfaces spurting a large volume of dark black blood.

When Qing Ling made the charged slash, No.10 had reacted with unusual speed that didn’t fit his appearance, raising his thick arms and crossing them to protect his chest and heart, thus avoiding the fate of getting bisected at the torso.

Midair, Qing Ling launched herself from the darts and made a backflip.

At the same time, the two darts shot into No.10’s eyes once more with precision.

“Aghhhh—”

No.10 let out a blood-curdling scream, having lost both his arms and eyes.

Qing Ling landed lightly. Then a gust of wind hit her from behind.

Swish.

Gao Yang teleported Qing Ling forward.

A second later, they appeared behind No.10. Qing Ling dove down and made two swings, cutting No.10’s calves.

With a thud, No.10 collapsed to the ground, temporarily losing his mobility. Now, it would take at least five minutes for him to recover his calves, arms, and blinded eyes.

That was more than enough for Gao Yang.

He teleported above No.10.

He didn’t use Willful Power. While it would allow him to kill No.10 with one hit for certain, it would attract too much attention and risk alerting the wanderers and elite monsters outside the park, thus making it more difficult to clean up the mess; moreover, 3% to 5% loss to his stats was too great a price to pay.

Besides, with Willful Power, his Fire Punch would likely render No.10 to ashes, which meant Vermilion Bird wouldn’t have a body to question.

“Fire Punch!”

Gao Yang made a swing at No.10’s head as he knelt prone on the ground, using only seventy percent of his power lest he destroyed the body completely.

Blinding red flames wrapped around Gao Yang’s right arm, turning into a small dragon of flames and biting at No.10’s head.

Boom!

The fire dragon bit off No.10’s head without mercy. Rather than bursting into a pillar of light shooting heavenward, it triggered a ripple of bright red energy near the ground, burning the grass field around No.10 into a charred wasteland.

Gao Yang pulled back and walked up to No.10’s body.

No.10’s head and neck had melted, leaving a headless body charred by the ripples of flames, becoming melty like a failure of a wax sculpture.

Qing Ling came over with her Tang Dao. She glanced at the charred body and then at Gao Yang, her usual cold voice tinged with a hint of approval. “You’ve gotten stronger.”

“You too.”

Qing Ling had gotten much stronger, both in terms of her Talent and her battle experience.

If Gao Yang’s memory served him right, she was now the 10th-ranking awakener on the power ranking list—the ranking didn’t mean much now, though.

“It’s far from enough.” Qing Ling wasn’t being humble. Her goal was to be the strongest.

Gao Yang nodded. Before he could say something, however, he heard a whistle.

It was smooth and pleasant to the ear, but it didn’t mean to please.

If Ronnie’s Disorientation jumbled the brain like a stick and stopped one from thinking, the whistle tied up one’s nerves gently, making one’s thoughts jump and leap without rhyme or reason.

Yes, he could still think, but his brain refused to stay on one track.

Just when he was wondering where the whistle was coming from, the next second, he found himself thinking that the porridge he had for breakfast was a little too salty.

Noticing his derailed train of thoughts, he forced himself to focus, but in a second, his mind strayed again, wondering how many eyelashes there were on Qing Ling’s left eye.

What the hell?

The same thing was happening to Qing Ling. Her mind made the most random leaps.

Gao Yang tried his best to block out his hearing, slowly beginning to overcome the influence of the whistle.

Qing Ling, similarly, had brought herself back by covering her ears.

By then, the large, charred headless body had already come back to life, its limbs regenerated. It quickly crawled into the woods.

It scrambled fast with twitchy movements, and combined with its charred body, it looked like a giant headless cockroach.

Gao Yang and Qing Ling were going to chase it down, but the whistle became stronger then, forcing them to fight the effect with more effort. No.10 vanished into the woods under their watch.

Then the strange whistle quieted too.

“Do we follow?” Qing Ling turned to Gao Yang, frustrated.

“Don’t.” Gao Yang shook his head cautiously. It was clear that No.10 had a friend—or multiple friends, and there was something unusual about his Talent. With the enemies staying unknown while they were out in the open, it would be too risky to give chase recklessly.

Qing Ling stopped talking. She understood Gao Yang’s concern.

Gao Yang took out his phone, about to report to the Guild on what happened tonight.

Qing Ling pulled out her phone too and made a call.

Surprised, Gao Yang asked with a smile, “You’re reporting back too?”

Qing Ling shook her head with a serious look on her face. “I’m going to ask War Tiger how I should kill an enemy like that in the future.”

Gao Yang facepalmed. As expected of you.