The giant stood amidst the ruin of the battlefield, clutching the spear lodged in his shoulder. With a guttural, wet groan, he yanked the shaft free, fresh crimson blood pouring from the hole in his trapezius.
But the injury didn't remain open for long.
Through Blood Sucker, Jiu Hao's wound began to knit together, the stolen life force he had leached from Luotian fueling a rapid, thumping regeneration. While it wasn't the instantaneous evaporation of wounds seen with Mao Quanzhou's Evil Cyclones, it was far faster than any average cultivator's natural healing.
The sight of Jiu Hao's slow but steady recovery served as a grim reminder: the shadow of the vulture still hung over the village, and the battle was far from over.
Feng Luotian watched blood run from the wound in Jiu Hao's shoulder. His black eyes narrowed as the torn flesh began to close.
Meanwhile, Wu Ya moved with urgent care, helping Tu Lingxi retreat back into the safety of the village. Her steps were hurried but steady, providing a firm shoulder for the trembling girl. At the same time, Wu Neng approached Luotian, his weathered face etched with deep concern.
"Are you okay, my lord?"
"My lord?" Luotian turned to the elder, a flicker of surprise cutting through the menacing aura of his demonic transformation.
"I'll explain later, my lord. But are you alright?" Wu Neng pressed, his voice taut with the weight of the ongoing carnage.
Luotian nodded, though his ribs and spine still ached from the slams. Jiu Hao was a formidable opponent. With Stone Hide protecting him, even a clean hit had failed to break his skin.
"Village Head, how did you manage to pierce his stone skin with that throw earlier?" Luotian asked, his curiosity piqued despite the ticking clock of the Last Dance Curse. "Did you use a skill?"
Wu Neng shook his head slowly. "No, it was just a normal throw. I didn't have time to activate any skills in the heat of the moment."
Luotian furrowed his brow. If it wasn't a skill, how did a simple wooden projectile breach an Eight Fangs Fighter's defense?
Then, the answer clicked.
"Stone Hide requires Theríon to maintain," Luotian realized aloud, his voice low and gravelly. "When he thought the immediate danger had passed after seizing Lingxi, he must've deactivated it to conserve energy, leaving himself vulnerable for that split second."
His mind raced with tactical possibilities. If he could force Jiu Hao into a war of attrition, making him burn through his Theríon reserves to keep his skin hardened, the Stone Hide would eventually weaken, creating a microscopic window to strike.
Luotian made a mental note to test this theory in their next exchange. For now, internal recovery was his priority.
Looking back on the exchange, Luotian knew why he hadn't tried to counterattack while being slammed. He couldn't get through Stone Hide. Speed was useless if his blows did no damage.
Instead, he had used his remaining Theríon to protect his body from the impacts. Without that reinforcement, Jiu Hao's growing strength would have left him near death.
As Luotian began formulating his next move, his sharp gaze remained fixed on the bandit leader, monitoring every muscle twitch with caution.
"Village Head, what are our chances of defeating him?" Luotian asked, keeping his black eyes on Jiu Hao.
Wu Neng sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging slightly under the weight of his age and the mounting casualties. "Let's be frank. Less than five percent."
Luotian smiled faintly, the expression eerie amidst the crimson veins pulsing around his pitch-black sclerae. "Then, how likely is it that we can hold him down and prevent him from taking any rest for five minutes?"
Wu Neng paused, the specific nature of the question catching him off guard. After a moment of grim calculation, he answered, "That's doable."
"Do you trust me, Village Head?" Luotian asked, his gaze steady and unflinching, the black gaseous flames around him swaying in a phantom breeze.
Wu Neng blinked in surprise at the sudden intensity behind the question but quickly responded with earnest gravity, "Of course, my lord. You've led us this far, and there's only one enemy left. We'd jump through fire if it were your command."
"Let's do this, then!" Luotian said with cold resolve.
Wu Neng nodded heavily, a flicker of determination lighting up his weathered face.
Meanwhile, Jiu Hao's hulking frame was nearly fully restored, the flesh of his shoulder having knitted together into a rough, stone-textured knot. A feral fire burned in his crimson eyes, and with a voice dripping with a thick, viscous fury, he growled, "Are you not finished provoking me, you worthless trash? From now on, there will be nothing but slaughter!"
Thump!
He stomped the scorched earth with enough force to send bone-rattling tremors through the village, then charged toward Luotian and Wu Neng like an unstoppable, blood-red juggernaut.
The two didn't back down, launching themselves toward the monster simultaneously, their figures blurring against the backdrop of the ruined settlement. Jiu Hao unleashed a relentless, chaotic barrage of slashes with his Bone Claw Gauntlets, the ivory blades gleaming as they whistled through the air.
Luotian, having deactivated his Pinnacle Flash Lightning the moment his leg had been seized earlier, refrained from reactivating the costly skill.
Instead, he relied solely on the hyper-perceptive clarity of Momentum Eyes to navigate the whirlwind of strikes. He was hoarding his lightning for the decisive heartbeat of the encounter, banking on Wu Neng to bridge the gap in raw power and create the sliver of space he needed to survive the onslaught.
Wu Neng exceeded his expectations. The village head's Theríon surged as he activated his blinding skill: Illusion of Ravens.
This skill bypassed the physical armor of the target, striking directly at the mind to drastically constrict the field of vision. Under its psychic weight, Jiu Hao's world darkened; he could see only a fraction—barely ten percent—of his normal range, as if looking through the narrow slit of a helmet.
As the mental fog took hold, Jiu Hao's slashes grew frantic and erratic. His strikes missed their marks by wide margins, the ivory claws tearing harmlessly through the air and leaving openings in his defense that Luotian could finally begin to exploit.
"Great!" Luotian exclaimed, darting inside the arc of a wild swing to deliver a stinging hit against a momentary gap in the giant's guard.
However, inwardly, he couldn't help but grumble, It would've been even better if you'd used that before my leg was hammered into the dirt.
With Jiu Hao flailing blindly in a psychic fog, Feng Luotian found the flow of the battle far easier to navigate. While his individual strikes still lacked the raw power to bypass the reinforced density of Stone Hide, each impact served a psychological and tactical purpose.
They added a constant, stinging pressure to the bandit leader, forcing his internal pathways to churn and expend more Theríon just to keep the protective skill active across his massive frame.
The strategy was working, but Jiu Hao's defenses had yet to fail.
The fight ground on for two grueling minutes. It was a stalemate of attrition, a dance of shadows where neither side could draw fresh blood. But then, with a shimmering ripple in the air, the Illusion of Ravens wore off.
As the spell's heavy effect lifted and his vision rushed back in a disorienting surge, the first thing Jiu Hao did was lock his crimson sights on Wu Neng.
The village head was now the primary target.
Jiu Hao was no fool; he knew he couldn't afford the humiliation of being trapped in that mental cage again. If Wu Neng managed to manifest the skill a second time, the bandit leader's dominant position could turn from advantageous to perilous.
Ignoring Luotian entirely—dismissing him as an "annoying brat" whose strikes were little more than mosquito bites—Jiu Hao charged straight for the elder.
But Luotian had no intention of allowing the pursuit to continue.
An idea sparked in Luotian's mind. It was his turn to execute his own version of a "blinding skill".
Seeing Jiu Hao's arrogant disregard for his presence, Luotian reached into his spatial ring and retrieved a thick set of bandages. Activating Pinnacle Flash Lightning, he became a streak of golden lightning that surged across the dirt, scaling the giant's back and mounting his shoulders in a single, fluid heartbeat.
With hands moving in a blur, he whipped the cloth around Jiu Hao's head. He wound the fabric tight, layer upon layer, sealing the bandit's eyes behind a wall of opaque linen.
The tight bandages plunged Jiu Hao back into darkness.
"Argh! You brat! Where are you? I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you!" Jiu Hao roared, his voice a thunderous gale of fury that rattled the nearby village structures.
In his blind rage, the giant swung his Bone Claw Gauntlets in wide, murderous arcs, the ivory blades whistling through the air. But in his frantic desperation, the coordination of the Eight Fangs Fighter faltered. He accidentally grazed his own cheek, the sharp claws leaving deep, weeping furrows as he tried to claw the bandages from his face.
Luotian, having already cut the flow of his Pinnacle Flash Lightning to save his reserves, watched from a safe distance. A faint, cold smile curled on his lips; the success of his improvised tactic had exceeded even his own expectations.
But he knew this was no time for idle admiration.
Before Jiu Hao could regain his composure or lower his output of Theríon, Luotian darted back into the fray. He delivered a series of rapid, stinging strikes to the giant's ribs and thighs, ensuring the brute remained agitated and continued to burn through his energy reserves at a catastrophic rate.
With Momentum Eyes active, Luotian easily drifted through the gaps of Jiu Hao's erratic swipes, his every step calculated and precise. Whenever Jiu Hao attempted to activate Stone Hide on his face to safely use his gauntlets to rip the binds away, Luotian would flash inward. He delivered a snapping kick to the bandit's wrist, jarring the hand away and forcing the bandit leader to miss his mark once again.
Another two minutes ground past, and the velocity of Jiu Hao's wild attacks finally began to flag. His physical stamina waned under the weight of his own massive frame, and his Theríon reserves had been significantly depleted by the constant, high-output drain of maintaining his defenses.
Thank you for being so dumb, Luotian thought wryly, the black flames of his aura flickering with grim amusement. He marveled at how long the brute had spent flailing in the dark before realizing he could simply remove his Bone Claw Gauntlets to peel away the bandages with his bare fingers, thereby avoiding further self-inflicted injury.
But this realization was precisely what Luotian had been baiting.
The exact heartbeat Jiu Hao discarded one of his Bone Claw Gauntlets, Luotian saw his opening. He surged across the blood-stained earth.
"Gotcha!"
Luotian snatched the gauntlet and leapt back. He tightened his grip on the ivory-bladed weapon as he put a safe distance between them.
Jiu Hao tore the remaining bandages from his face with a furious, echoing roar that shook the very foundation of the village. "Brat!! Give me back my weapon!!"
Ignoring the enraged demand, Luotian slipped on the stolen Bone Claw Gauntlet and charged forward to re-engage.
Clang! Clang!
Their weapons clashed again and again. With the stolen gauntlet matching Jiu Hao's reach, Luotian could parry and redirect the blows instead of relying entirely on evasion.
But simple defense was not the end goal.
Luotian's objective remained clear: he had to fully exhaust the Theríon reserves of Jiu Hao. Abandoning his purely defensive posture, he switched to a suffocating, aggressive offensive. He crowded the giant's space, forcing Jiu Hao to expend even more energy to counter the relentless, high-speed pressure.
Fresh blood spattered across the parched soil as Luotian sustained several shallow injuries in the process. Yet, his resolve remained unshaken, his black eyes fixed and cold. Even as crimson streaks painted his skin and the ground beneath him, he continued trading heavy blows with the towering bandit leader, refusing to grant the monster a single second to breathe.
Despite his overwhelming strength and ferocity, Jiu Hao found himself unable to overpower the smaller boy. Luotian's relentless assault left no room for recovery or tactical reassessment. Their brutal exchanges continued without clear dominance, even after dozens of high-intensity moves.
Nearby, Wu Neng watched in shock. He wanted to help, but the exchanges were so fast that stepping in might obstruct Luotian.
Yet, Wu Neng stayed close, his grip tightening on his spear, ready to intervene the moment a true opportunity arose.