Chapter 25: Instant Kill
The green hippo rolled itself up like a big wheel. If Yun Xi was still how he was before the star trial, it would undoubtedly be a one-hit KO.
Its huge body, the terrifying explosive force, and its invulnerable tough skin made it a perfect killing machine.
As Ashen casted a secret spell, the hippo’s fighting force grew to at least ten times stronger than the one he met in the trial.
You don’t have a horn on your head and you are not red, so even if you are three times more powerful [1], you are still gonna die!
As a reply in facing the green hippo’s wheel-like rolling attack, Yun Xi inclined his body, taking two steps to the right. By using this seemingly simple but useful method, he made it charge into a giant rock.
As he observed the world via Hua Huo’s sight, even if the beast was twice stronger, it was still a stupid animal.
Boom! It tumbled, flying to the sky.
“Eat him!” Ashen was in extremely high spirits.
In the sky, the hippo curled up its huge body, then one part of its body suddenly grew up.
Here it was! Its ability—Body Bulk-Up!
Yun Xi knew it was the monster’s hidden talent.
However, the hippo only bulked up its head. Now, it opened its bloody mouth so big that it was even able to swallow Yun Xi’s body whole.
The hippo’s bite was a new skill Yun Xi didn’t see during the entire trial. Because at that time, Yun Xi was just a not-delicious-at-all mummy in the eyes of the beast. It had no appetite to eat him.
Green hippos only used this skill to hunt delicious, fresh prey.
Now, Yun Xi was qualified. Even Ashen could feel that his hippo was very interested in Yun Xi.
“My first hit!” Facing the huge creature’s bite, Yun Xi didn’t dodge but took the initiative to attack.
With a flash of the blade, the green hippo’s tongue was cut off. To cut off its softest part, its tongue was the essence of what Yun Xi learned from Hua Huo’s sword skill.
“Noargh!?” At the same moment, his contract beast’s tongue was cut off, Ashen covered his lips as there was blood flowing down.
The green hippo suffered a fatal injury, and as a result, the same wound also appeared on Ashen’s body.
It was the effect of Life Tap; they were sharing damage. This was one of the prices he had to pay in order to control the 3rd Rank green hippo.
“My second hit!” After he successfully injured his opponent, Yun Xi didn’t hesitate for the slightest moment, because Hua Huo’s sword skill had let him find the creature’s weakness.
In fact, there were gaps in the green hippo’s seemingly tough skin.
Because its joints had to stay nimble, there were line-like gaps on the connection parts of its neck, legs, and hands.
These lines were unavoidable crucial points for any creature.
In the trial, Yun Xi didn’t find these weak parts, so he had to cut it twenty-one times in order to make the green hippo die due to blood loss.
If it was Hua Huo, even if she used only 20% of her power, she would only have to brandish her sword once.
As for Yun Xi, he needed to attack twice!
The first attack cut off half of the green hippo’s neck along the gap between its head and body.
And along the line on the green hippo’s right side, the second attack cut off two of its limbs in one breath.
Maybe this was the feeling of dismembering an ox as skillfully as a butcher. Although, after cutting off these weak connection parts the wood chopper was blunted, the spewing blood declared Yun Xi’s victory.
Seeing, listening and feeling Hua Huo’s world, made killing the green hippo much simpler.
“This is my last hit. Ashen, don’t keep going in the wrong way.” Yun Xi turned his body flexibly and threw out the wood chopper with all his strength. It stabbed into somewhere below the green hippo’s ass.
“Noargh!” Yun Xi’s fatal attack made Ashen’s mouth foam as he laid on the ground, holding onto his ass with his hands in a weird way.
Boom! The gigantic body collapsed. An item, which Yun Xi felt a little familiar with, flew out from the corpse.
“This is… a seed?” Yun Xi felt incredible as he watched the seed fly into his palm.
It wasn’t the same as the seed rewarded in the star trial. In the real world, the seed the green hippo left after being killed by Yun Xi was a transparent seed, which emitted a pale white light and was seemingly so fragile that it couldn’t even sustain a pinch.
Inside of the seed, there wasn’t some special instructions such as “Body Bulk-Up”, “Super Strength”, and “Overwhelmingly Power”. It only contained a ball of “The Power of Blood”.
“The seed of blood?” As Yun Xi read the meaning of the seed, he naturally understood what was different between it and the several seeds he got as the last reward in the rookie trial.
This seed simply gathered the dead green hippo’s life energy. It didn’t contain any special talent or ability. Its only effect was to provide Yun Xi the power of blood, to replenish his life energy.
If Yun Xi once again suffered from exhaustion, he could use the seed of blood to restore his physical strength and energy.
The seed would disappear after being used. In other words, it was just a one-time consumable.
“Well, it’s not that bad.” Yun Xi vaguely imagined several methods about how to use the seed, then his face slightly turned red.
“My hippo… no… this can’t be true… ” After he lost his strongest trump card, Ashen felt as if his life had lost its color.
In order to obtain such a strong contract beast, he had paid a lot of terrible and humiliating prices. Even he himself didn’t believe he could endure all those dirty things.
Everything he did was in order to go back to his town with glory and marry his beloved girl!
But now, everything had gone to ruin.
“Ashen, you still don’t realize it.”
“You are not the only one who is worthy of Hua Huo.” Walking to Ashen’s side, Yun Xi sympathetically looked at the son of the mayor, who had just lost his most important thing.
“No, I don’t believe it!”
“I’ll kill you!” Ashen’s eyes turned blood red.
It was not the end. He was a 2nd Rank Daoist Priest. Even without the green hippo’s help, he could also win against this bread shop’s kid, because he was only at the 1st Rank.
He hadn’t lost yet. He would turn the tide. He would strike back!
Burning, my cosmo! [2]
“Oh… do you have to do that…”
After dodging Ashen’s frenzied counterattack, Yun Xi watched this young man, who was once called “The town’s Gemini” with Hua Huo, helplessly grow old, perishing. In the end, he became a mummy-like corpse, heavily dropping down to the ground.
Ashen’s death was inevitable the moment his contracted beast died.
Life Tap—Live and die together. This was the contract between the green hippo and himself.
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[1] It meant Char Aznable’s Zaku II (from GUNDAM 0079)
[2] Cosmo: from “Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary”.