Chapter 144 - Centaur
144 – Centaur
In the blink of an eye, the white dragon had flown to a height of 100 zhang and hovered in the air.
Xue Qilin lifted Discerning Eyes, and her vision that has been narrowed to a great extent immediately widened. Standing on the dragon head, she has a panoramic view of the scenery underneath.
Despite the high altitude, the dense sound of hoofs still enveloped Xue Qilin.
There are four torrents of tsunami-like clouds of dust approaching from the four directions of east, south, west, north, and they are unsurprisingly on a direct collision with the tract of woods below Xue Qilin.
In between the particles of dust and sand dancing in the air, you can catch a glimpse of dull light gray carapaces and sharp horns with cold light winding around them. Hundreds of Iron Armored Oxen are galloping in the woods. They are displaying a flexibility that is hard to associate with the clumsy and heavy bodies by avoiding all obstacles and rushing to the place where Merak Temple’s people are located at full speed.
They cannot be allowed to get close! Xue Qilin is aware that even though the disciples have all moved to the trees, it is still unknown if they can stay away from harms way.
Who can guarantee that the Iron Armored Oxen won’t hit the trees where the disciples are staying, and who knows whether those trees can withstand the full strength charge of the Iron Armored Oxen without breaking.
Who knows what will happen after the Iron Armored Oxen and Merak Temple’s disciples make contact. There are too many factors that are difficult to estimate.
Since the outcome is unpredictable, then there is no choice but to…
“Erase the cause and sever karma!”
The light of true qi hurriedly circulating through qi passageways penetrated through Xue Qilin’s skin and formed a tattoo-like pattern on the skin. At this moment, her existence itself is like an invisible large hand stirring the surrounding spiritual qi and raising a gale.
The air is roaring.
At the same time, blue-white light suddenly appeared – Lightning Domain appeared in front of everyone.
Like spirit snakes, the are countless lightning roaming around Xue Qilin and making crackling sounds.
Then the lass raised her right hand.
The domain of lightning containing a blue-white glow quickly gathered in the palm of her hand. Like tree roots winding together, countless lightning entangled each other, then extended, and finally turned into the power of heaven.
It is an amazingly large lightning spear.
Holding the lightning spear tightly, the lass closed her eyes. A long breath escaped the lush lips, and electric arcs flashed in the white breath.
“Grit your teeth and bear the pain! If any of you dies, don’t blame me!”
The corners of Xue Qilin’s mouth curved, and her expression unconsciously became fierce. This is a sign that she doesn’t intend to be lenient.
At the next moment, a sound similar to that of a crossbow going off reverberated.
… a booming sound descended.
Xue Qilin threw the lightning spear violently. As soon as it left her hand, the lightning spear erupted with explosive speed, burst out with shock waves, and turned into a stream of light that pierced through the air. A sudden flash of light that overshadowed the blazing sun in the sky emerged. The lightning spear left a dazzling trail of blue-white in its wake.
However, the scene of lightning blasting into the ground didn’t occur.
In an instant, chaotic lightning filled the field of vision. Like a meteor smashed to pieces, blue-white lightning suddenly spread out.
The rain of lightning shot in all directions and flew towards the stampede of Iron Armored Oxen.
The sound of lightning crackling rose as lightning arcs as numerous as the stars in the sky danced between the trees.
Green leaves scattered and sand and small stones splashed.
As if beasts uttering calls, the sounds of lightning crackling and striking the ground rose and echoed in the lass’s ears. Xue Qilin can also hear violent collisions and see a large number of trees collapse.
They should have been knocked down by the Iron Armored Oxen who panicked due to the sudden attack.
The sound of hoofs gradually weakened and finally disappeared in the air.
Was it a success? Xue Qilin thinks that she has successfully stopped the charge of the Iron Armored Oxen, but she can’t confirm it visually. She can only hold her breath and wait for the cloud of dust that blurred her vision to disperse.
“Qilin, be careful!”
Qi Qiqi’s shout suddenly came from below.
“I know!”
Xue Qilin turned around. Even without Qi Qiqi’s warning, she has already perceived the fluctuations of spiritual qi in the distance.
Behind her, a sphere of light pierced through the cloud of dust and shot at the white dragon floating in midair. It’s a spiritual qi projectile composed of high-purity true qi. Judging by the the true qi, this seems to be an all out attack of an Earth Realm expert.
“Little Phecda, dodge it!”
Avoiding it saves more true qi than meeting it head on.
The white dragon swayed its tail, turned its body, and easily evaded the attack coming from below. At the same time, Xue Qilin’s gaze stabbed into the source of the attack.
The lass saw a weird figure with white smoke winding around it emerge from the cloud of dust.
… the figure has a half human, half horse form.
It is really hard to imagine that such a thing would appear here.
The upper body with rippling muscles is bare, the horns on the head are bent forward, and a bulky arm is holding a huge fangtian ji [1].
Continuing to look down, it can be seen that the male torso is not connected to human legs, but to a gallant horse body.
At first, Xue Qilin thought that she’s seeing a Centaur from Greek mythology and showed a surprised expression.
However, she knows that she is wrong. Because a real Centaur doesn’t have horns on the head.
That must be a martial demon.
After they cultivate human form, martial demons will have two forms. One is the human form that retains the characteristic of the original form. The other is know as the “true form”, which is the original form of martial demons, the demon form.
The half-human, half-horse martial demon running fast before Xue Qilin’s eyes has displayed the two forms at the same time in order to obtain the advantages of both. The flexible upper body and the lower body that can explode with a high speed – this mixed form allows the Centaur-looking martial demon to obtain cavalry-like charge and multi-directional attack.
Touching the ground alternately, the four hoofs give rise to a melody, a monotone movement with a cycle every four sounds. The Centaur is rushing towards Qi Qiqi and them while ignoring the threat from above.
Xue Qilin naturally doesn’t plant to let it be. She stepped lightly on Phecda, and the latter suddenly fell sharply.
“You dare ignore me, how bold!”
With just a wave of a sleeve, countless fire arrows immediately formed in the air, and then shot out.
Facing the torrential rain of fire falling from the sky, the muscles of the Centaur stretched taut instantly, and it brandished the fangtian ji in its hand. The Centaur has clearly comprehended martial arts, as every swing of the fangtian ji contains the concept of martial arts. It accurately knocked the fire arrows away one by one.
That’s an irregular martial demon?! Xue Qilin is secretly stunned.
“Stop!”
Xue Qilin used her hand to chop out several rays of sword qi successively.
At this moment, the Centaur suddenly jumped up high with great momentum. The unexpected action made the rays of sword qi miss and slash the ground.
“Get down!”
The Centaur roared loudly and approached the falling white sragon at high speed. If nothing unexpected happens, they will soon clash in the air.
“I’m being underestimated.”
Xue Qilin sneered, then contemplated rapidly.
Judging by the physical makeup of the Centaur, it doesn’t seem to have the ability to fly. In other words, it shouldn’t be able to change its trajectory in the air. Therefore, Xue Qilin took aim according to the trajectory of the Centaur and fired Flying Flames.
However, the result exceeded her expectation.
Flying Flames came to nothing. It’s not that the fire arrows were blocked, they just didn’t hit the target.
Just now, the Centaur actually trod on air as if it was level ground and avoided the fire arrows along a complicated trajectory.
An innate ability?! Xue Qilin gasped unhappily.
Martial demons possesses innate abilities.
They are abilities similar to spells that can cause supernatural phenomena. And this Centaur seems to be able to congeal the spiritual qi scattered in the vicinity below its hooves and create a temporary foothold.
While treading on air, the Centaur continues to run. It gradually accelerated and eventually reached a speed faster than that of an arrow flying, leaving one afterimage after another in Xue Qilin’s field of vision. In order to cope with this astonishing speed, Xue Qilin once again launched Discerning Eyes.
Martial practitioners are most apprehensive of martial demons’ innate abilities.
Because they are purely innate abilities, they can be wielded as if they are an extension of the body. They don’t require constructing spell models like spells, nor to pay particular attention to moves like martial arts. But they have hard to imagine effects and power.
Jumping left and right, the Centaur approached Xue Qilin along a winding path.
“Go to hell!”
The Centaur made a brisk turn, wound to behind Xue Qilin, and raised the fangtian ji in its hand high.
Perhaps for others, the speed of the Centaur is impressive, but for the Heaven Realm Xue Qilin, it is still nothing.
At least, it is much slower than Jia Lan.
“Too slow!”
Xue Qilin whirled around and whipped out a kick, ignoring the fangtian ji slashing at her.
“Eat my loli kick!”
The fangtian ji was ricocheted by the Lightning Domain. At the same time, Xue Qilin’s slender leg sunk into the Centaur’s waist with the force of a clap of thunder.
“Ugh…!”
The Centaur grunted. It was sent flying by the kick.
[1] – fangtian ji