“Boomerang Art, Body Swapping Attack of the Henotic Hedgehog!” Xing Li threw out her boomerang. This allowed her to swap places on the fly, causing the Lancer Savant to miss his attack. The weapon continued to fly towards the back of the Assassin Savant providing Xing Li with the perfect opportunity to attack, when she appeared behind him. She grabbed the boomerang mid flight and immediately used it to hopefully take out the assassin.
With the Lancer Savant attacking nothing but air, Bu Dong was able to crash into it. However, the Lancer Savant was quick enough to block partially, so that Bu Dong’s attack was only somewhat effective, mostly making the Lancer Savant flinch.
The Assassin Savant got successfully hit… only to transform into a decoy log. Instantly the real one appeared at the back of Xing Li. As she had paid attention to his attacks from the last round, the high schooler was prepared for such a thing to happen and did not hesitate to do a back roundhouse kick with her gymnastic skills while throwing her boomerang upwards. She initiated her Body Swapping Attack, thereby evading the daggers which the Assassin Savant was aiming at her vitals.
The fight between Assassin Savant and Xing Li had gotten so intense to the point that the Magic Eye Camera provided many angles showing off the stylish blocks and evasive maneuvers and counterattacks between the two. Unfortunately, the lack of experience on Xing Li’s revealed an opening which the Assassin didn’t hesitate take advantage of. A poisoned dagger flew and struck her foot, causing the poison to spread out in Xing Li, slowing her down significantly. Furthermore he followed it up by initiating the ‘Culling Strike’ skill to bring her down mercilessly, but then a shadow appeared in between them.
*Clang~!*
Sparks flew crazily when the edge of the Assassin Savant’s dagger struck onto steel. Yue Han was able to block the attack with his shadow form before he grabbed Xing Li by the torso. Suddenly the shadow form turned into a gigantic shadow Bat which flew past the Assassin Savant and Lancer Savant who was still battling against Bu Dong aggressively. Coach Hui looked at his stopwatch and noticed that thirty Seconds had passed since the start of the fight against the Assassin. Yue Han’s timing was perfect, and allowed him to grab Xing Li to take her away.
He managed to bring her to the edge of the battlefield as he tore open the first button of her shirt. Xing Li could not help but stifle a scream when Yue Han covered her mouth with his left hand while pushing her head to the side.
“I am sorry, you can scold or beat me later for this.” Yue Han whispered under his breath as he went ahead to bite her neck. Suddenly, the four bats screeched loudly above Yue Han, indicating that a technique was being used. It was none other than one of the signature skills of the Bat’s style, the Blood Drain of the Blind Bat. While the technique had the ability to reduce the health and vitality of his enemies and provide Yue Han with a bonus, there was an alternate use of the Blood Drain of the Blind Bat.
It was to fuse the Blind Bat’s cultivator blood with another cultivator. In this case, Yue Han was using it to lighten the poison that Xing Li was afflicted by. However, as he was doing it, Xing Li could not help but blush as her heart beat became extremely fast because of Yue Han’s close proximity to her. Not to mention, the accidental physical touch as Yue Han grabbed her tightly to remove the poisoned blood from her body.
The Assassin Savant was unwilling to let them get away without finishing them off. Rushing over towards the defenceless couple he suddenly encountered a new enemy, because Kong Xian had used his taunting skills, courtesy of the Towering Tortoise Style. This changed the mindset of the Assassin Savant who felt compelled to drop everything and kill Kong Xian. “Don’t you f.u.c.k.i.n.g dare to go near that couple!” Kong Xian shouted at the Assassin Savant only encouraging the latter to hurry over.
However, the Assassin Savant also noticed that the high schooler was already panting. In actuality the Towering Tortoise was already at a disadvantage against the Otherworld Minion alone. A wicked smile appeared on the Assassin’s face as he understood what would happen once he joined in on the fight. It would spell the end of the annoying Tank of Team Pandaz.
Yet before the Assassin Savant could do anything about it, another meddlesome thing happened. Once again the boomerang came flying towards him. The Assassin Savant deflected it with ease into the air but what he did not expect were two bodies suddenly appearing right beside the boomerang.
“RIDER KICKKKKK!!!” Xing Li and Yue Han shouted at the same time to pay tribute to the masked riders they watched together when they were young. The Assassin Savant was caught off guard and not only got bashed by the two cultivators kicking it to the ground he also dropped the energy ball.
Yue Han quickly picked it up and Xing Li threw her boomerang to teleport the both of them to the Pandajilla Guardian to feed him the magical energy ball. However, afterwards a quick glance at the scoreboard made them realise that Katerine’s portrait was crossed out. At that point, the Lord Knight proceeded to send their energy ball towards the Titan Knight while the Archer Savant began assisting the Lancer Savant.
“Shit! I totally forget about her!” Yue Han wanted to assist his friends, but the poison, despite only absorbing a small and weakened amount, had started to take effect on him. Fortunately his grade was higher than Xing Li’s so the effects were lighter on him. On the other side Xing Li nearly fell to the ground though Yue Han managed to grab her in time.
Internally, she felt conflicted. She was happy that Yue Han was right beside her but also angry that he was so selfish to save her and abandon the team. But ultimately, all she wanted to do was stay in the moment and continue to lie in his embrace. “Stupid. Why did you have to save me? Now the whole team will blame you.” Xing Li whispered as she began to sweat from the poison.
“Well, at least we finally fulfilled our promise and we have done the Rider Kick in a dungeon. Heh.” Yue Han rubbed his nose as if he accomplished something great.
And to him it was.
It was a dumb middle school promise. The two of them had casually declared to be the Hero and Heroine of the town they were protecting. The 8th grade syndrome. A condition where people believe they have superpowers when they were in the Manga school club together. However whereas Yue Han continued to remember that flimsy promise, Xing Li had moved on with her life and even started looking down at Yue Han for being so childish.
Only in High school where Yue Han met up with Bu Dong did he continue to increase his cultivation and managed to become the superhero that Xing Li once envied. Slowly but surely, she fell in love with him even though he was still clumsy and oftentimes a coward. Yet today, she saw a new side of Yue Han being so heroic. Something which she never thought possible in the past.
In the meantime, Bu Dong had no choice but to try and go over his limits in order to keep the Lancer Savant on the defensive, hoping to clear the Lancer Savant before the Archer Savant severely assaulted him with a bombardment of arrows. He was too busy to pay attention to the time they spent fighting, when suddenly felt tentacles which were grabbing his legs. Only then did he notice that Kong Xian had already fallen in battle.
“Ah oh well, at least those two reconciled their feelings in some way or another…” Bu Dong sighed but smiled at the end… as the Lancer pierced his body and the Archer placed an arrow right between his eyebrows. The crowd saw the brutal annihilation and realised that this particular dungeon instance was not easy… not a single bit.
Not just that, The Titan Knight finished absorbing the remaining energy ball from the members of Team Roboz and summoned his gigantic sword. He proceeded to cleanly cleave the Pandajilla who was still charging his energy blast into two. The dungeon instance was over despite Yue Han and Xing Li still surviving.
As they got back to the auditorium, some of the crowd thanked the group for the exciting exchange of blows despite their loss. However, the dungeon instance was not a waste as Mr Patsu, the penguin announcer stated that each ball they gave Pandajilla allowed them to earn five bronze medal each as a consolation prize for playing.
“Ahhh…what a waste, I thought we could manage a tie from that and try to win the last round. Sorry, I was not strong enough. But I gotta admit, this was a gratifying experience. It’s a shame we don’t have such a brilliant Dungeon Supplier…” Katerine sighed at the group and the entire group shook their head.
“Nah, it happens. Don’t worr-ow ow ow ow” Yue Han was trying to console Katerine but got grabbed by Kong Xian and Bu Dong punched Yue Han continuously. “Yea, yea, don’t worry my ass! It’s my money you dumbass! I treated you guys so you could play your best and win!” Bu Dong kept punching Yue Han relentlessly and was not letting up. Xing Li smiled at the guys’ playfulness but told Bu Dong to stop after a while. Yue Han thought Xing Li was there to rescue him.
Oh, how wrong he was…
“I think he needs more endurance training. Besides, I remember a certain someone telling me, that I could beat him up for biting me on the neck without my permission.” Xing Li kicked him in the torso with all her might as they could see the two hedgehogs coming out.
“What is with- Ooofff!” Yue Han did not know whether Xing Li really liked him or was just toying with him. The others laughed as they unleashed the punishment to Yue Han for breaking the planned formation. (Although in the end, Bu Dong did give him a potion from the Panda General Store to recover.)
