“Gold, have you been out of practice that you need help against a puny little farm boy and a pretty boy with a scar on his face?” Lady Boss Meomi, the werecat yawned and stretched her paws.
The golden fur werejackal jumped from the flying praying mantis as he ignored the werecat and landed on a werejackal underling that was about to flee from the battle. He turned the werejackal around to face him and pulled his upper mouth to the side until he ripped it out of its mouth and shoved it into its throat until it died.
“I do not need weaklings in my clan and do not go back on your word when all of you swore that you will fight to the bitter end for the clan.” Gold tore apart the dead werejackal’s chest and gouged his beating heart out of the spastic body. The heart was still throbbing in Gold’s claws as he took a bite of it.
The heart contained the raw were-powers which further powered Gold for his own purpose. Normally, he would not do such a thing and closed an eye to the matter by disciplining the werejackal and giving a stern punishment. However, he was more terrified of the monster right in front of him than the monster he was going to become.
Grey knew that Gold had no choice but to show authority not just to the werejackals that were fighting a hopeless battle but also to his ‘friend’ that came along with him. Meomi was considered as one of the up and coming leading were-humans to take over the were-human community and Gold hoped that he could at least be her right-hand man so that he could bring the prestige of Jacks up.
“Commendable effort to impress me but nevertheless futile.” Meomi gently stepped down from the praying mantis after it landed. “So Gold, which boy do you want to give me?”
“The…farm boy.” Gold actually wanted Meomi to battle against Zeru since he knew his limits but after showing such an act of power, he could not possibly back down.
“I can sense your reluctance. Do not say the werecat Meomi is not a cat of great benevolence.” The werecat took out its whip with a double-bitted axe attached at the end of the whip instead of a cracker. “Besides, I think I want to caress that scar of his. Purrrrr.”
Zeru yet again dodged Jin’s crude attempt at wounding him but this time, he grabbed Jin by his collar and performed a judo throw. With Zeru’s face exceedingly close to Jin’s, he started to whisper. “Take this technique cube. Press on that button and you will learn part one of my ‘Perfectly Normal Parry Slash’ which will be more than useful for most fights right now.”
Jin suddenly felt a gentle nudge on his abdominal area from Zeru. Jin quickly picked up the cube and searched for the button while being grappled from the judo throw. “Found it!” Jin thought to himself and he immediately pressed the button but a large jolt was suddenly discharged from the cube which paralysed him for a while.
However, to the were-humans, it seemed Jin was spasming in the grapple lock and they thought it was the best opportunity they would get to hurt the both of them. At the very least, the farm boy could be taken away from the Z scarred swordsman. Even Grey thought it was the best chance they could have and rushed forward.
“Naive.” Meomi decided to chip in a bit of effort into this ‘perceived’ attack of opportunity by magically extending her axe whip to attack Zeru, hoping she would distract the pretty boy enough to not let this be a one-sided slaughter.
Unsurprisingly, Zeru did what was expected by Meomi. He released Jin and with a swing of his sword, a small spiral cyclone was generated right in front of him. “Perfectly Normal Sword Cyclone,” Zeru spoke under his breath as he saw each and every werejackal that rushed in cut, with multiple sword wounds, by the cyclone attack.
“Hmmm. Now I understand why you needed me against him. Well, this also got me even more interested in him. Go get the seeds back.” Meomi sent her orders and Gold ran the long way to prevent getting hit by the sword cyclone.
While Jin was paralysed for that few seconds, his muscle memory and brain receptors were actively changing within him through the immense jolt that he received from the technique cube. When Jin was finally able to move, he quickly dragged himself away from Zeru and picked up Boo again.
He placed Boo in his living armour which acted as his storage space and stabilised his stance. At that instant, his body felt an imminent presence right beside him and swiftly turned to deflect an incoming attack.
“What?! He can predict my Dark Shadow Claws?” Gold’s black claws, which were as long as a machete and could not be seen especially in the night, were easily countered by Jin. What he did not expect next was that the katana blade slides along his claws and slit one of the tendons at his wrist.
Gold immediately disengaged and felt an overwhelming sense of fear rising from within. “How did that farm boy execute the same attack as that Z scarred monster?!” On the other hand, Jin was overly surprised by that attack he just performed. He was sure that it was definitely part of the Perfectly Normal Parry Slash.
“Because when you are sparring with Zeru, an abrupt mission was created. The criteria of the mission is to defend against Zeru’s strikes at least 150 times. And the moment you achieved it, Zeru’s knowledge turned into a series of readable data that can be easily absorbed by the brain and stored in a technique cube. That was why he abruptly stopped the fight the moment he realised the cube was formed.” Yun explained to Jin in his thoughts.
“However, that parry slash technique will only occur once every five attacks. You have to train every day to get increase the proficiency of that technique. It is the same for your Lazy Panda Swipes and Panda Yawning beams. Hard work still matters.”
“That is still good news,” Jin smirked and started to rush towards Gold. Based on the recent experience, he knew that his normal sword strikes were not strong enough to damage an average werejackal. Jin also needed to utilise the strength from Lazy Panda Swipe for his attacks to injure the werejackal. With that said, the Perfectly Normal Parry Slash technique was formidable enough to wound the boss werejackal, Gold, without using any chi.
“Even though you are capable like that monster swordsman, your thinking is still akin to a simple farm boy.” Gold howled loudly but his howl sounded different from what Jin had heard previously.
True enough, the werejackals, that were initially injured from Zeru’s sword cyclone attack, executed a high jump from their positions and all of them were going to land on Jin with fangs thirsty and hungry for a proper kill.
“Uh ah ah! Right now, I am your opponent, pretty boy. Rejoice!” Meomi pounced on Zeru as he gave a quick glance at Jin but she missed completely when Zeru shuffled to the side. In response, she followed up her pounce with a low kick which Zeru was completely aware of and used his wooden sword to stop her in her tracks. Unfortunately, that was not the end as she was acrobatic enough to shift her weight to her left hand and attempted to strike Zeru once more with her axe whip.
“I do wish to kill you instantly but you are currently not my master’s attention. So I shall entertain you until he cleared some jackal waste.” Zeru raised his sword and blocked the axe whip as he used his left hand to grab Meomi’s leg and threw her to the sakura tree.
Despite that throw, Meomi managed to reposition herself in midair and she intended to use the tree trunk as a springboard for her to propel towards Zeru. Her plan was sound minded in theory but she did not expect one thing as her eyes were not focusing on the tree but Zeru.
Shu opened his mouth the moment Zeru threw her and Meomi’s legs were in Shu’s mouth before she realised it was too late.
