Meanwhile, in an unknown location, someone was sitting crossed-legged inside a luxurious cave when someone announced his arrival before entering it with permission.
“Senior Adept Falcon, I heard you’ve summoned me.” A mature man wearing a golden robe walked into the cave and began talking to the brawny old cultivator he called Adept Falcon.
If Virus was currently here, a chilly expression would have covered his face at once while gazing upon the countenance of the so-called Adept Falcon.
That was because, at the time of his departure from the Cultivation Earth last time, it was exactly this man that had attacked him and nearly led to Virus’ demise!
It had been only because of the golden beauty’s sacrifice that he had survived that day. And in fact, the main reason behind his hell-freezing expression would mostly be due to this man harming the golden beauty at that time!
“Hmm, welcome, how does it feel to be the genius of your island kingdom, prince Elijah?” Adept Falcon asked the golden-robed man.
Bowing respectfully, prince Elijah responded, “It’s all thanks to your guidance, senior.”
“Hahaha, you exaggerate, prince Elijah. It was all thanks to your own exemplary talent. All I did was provide you with better techniques and resources. You did the rest yourself.” Shaking his hand, Adept Falcon acted like rejecting the compliment, but Elijah knew that wasn’t the case.
Not wanting to linger on the subject any longer, Elijah inquired, “So why did you summon me, senior? I was occupied before so I could not come immediately, but I rushed as soon as my business was over.”
“Hmm, no worries, prince. All is well.” Pausing shortly, Adept Falcon continued, “The reason why I summoned you was because I have a ‘favor’ to ask of you.”
The moment he said ‘favor’, Elijah’s countenance turned serious as he recalled how at the time Adept Falcon had decided to pass over some of his valuable techniques in the past, the only condition he set down in return for his assistance was some ‘favors’ he might request of him sometime in the future. Thus, Elijah instantly realized that Adept Falcon was asking for payback.
“I’m all ears, senior.” Bowing a bit, Elijah listened carefully, being a man of his words, Elijah wasn’t one to back out of a promise.
“So do you recall how I got seriously injured a few years ago? My wounds were so fatal that even now I’ve barely healed around half of the damage and that’s all thanks to the precious pills I ate over the years.” Adept Falcon muttered in rage, recalling that night when he was nearly crushed to death by ‘that’ bastard’s strange methods.
“How could I forget, senior. Please go ahead.”
“Alright, so, you see, that day, the reason why I was mortally wounded had to do with a young man who slipped past my fingers then. And of course, since experiencing that tragedy, I’ve hired people to look everywhere for that young man, however, until now, no was could find a single trace of him.” Grinding his teeth, Adept Falcon elaborated.
Although initially, Adept Falcon only wanted to rob Virus of his special ring at the time, now that Virus had nearly killed him, Adept Falcon’s hatred had become completely personal, therefore, he desired nothing less than his foe’s gruesome death!
“Which to be quite frank does not surprise me.” Caressing his beard, Adept Falcon admitted that he had anticipated the outcome of no one being able to find Virus.
“Why is that, senior?” Befuddled, Elijah questioned.
“Well, mainly because I had already used an extremely precious and even extinct treasure of mine called the Ten Thousand Tracking Ancient Scroll on him that night prior to our battle, just in case anything went wrong and he ran away using one of his unusual methods.”
“However, after that night, even my Ten Thousand Tracking Ancient Scroll could not track the bastard down! It was like he melted away into the ground itself! So, how could others possibly detect him?” Adept Falcon confessed in a bewildered manner.
“What you’re trying to say is…?” Even though Elijah felt like he understood where Adept Falcon was going with this, he still queried.
“Well, good news! A few days ago, my ancient scroll suddenly started pinpointing a location for me! Which means he’s finally making a move and came out of hiding!” Smiling happily in a twisted manner, Adept Falcon notified.
“Uh… so do you want me to kill him?”
“There you go! Not only do I expect you to slaughter him most horrifically, but I also need you to bring me all his belongings plus his head!” Killing intent suddenly surged and covered the entire interior of the cave, even forcing a shiver down Elijah’s spine who pondered, ‘I’ve never seen him like this.’
“But… senior, if he was capable enough to mortally injure you like that, he must be a strong cultivator… won’t he cut off my head easily with a mere gesture of his sleeve?” Despite desiring to repay the favors as quickly as possible and be finished with it, Elijah also wasn’t one to foolishly throw away his life.
“Don’t you worry about that, he was just a mortal at the time, so even if we say he started cultivation right afterward, he should be still extremely weak compared to you.” Shaking his head, Adept Falcon assured him.
“Uh, but if he was a mere mortal at the time, how did he wound you, sir?” Now, Elijah was feeling even more puzzled. He felt there was something Adept Falcon wasn’t divulging.
“Good question! You’re a smart one, aren’t you? Well, this bastard has some extremely odd weapons and methods of striking you down. But as long as you are careful enough and do not lower your defenses, I promise you, you don’t need to be worried. His attacks won’t reach you. The only reason why I was wounded that night was that I totally underestimated him and didn’t lookout for any possible retaliation, that’s why I was caught off-guard.” Truly believing that himself, Adept Falcon warned and reassured Elijah at the same time.
Still not finished, patting his back, he also added, “Don’t you sweat it! You’re already at the peak of Sublimity Emergence, so there’s just no way he can come out of this alive.”
“So, would you do me this favor, prince Elijah?” A serious glint was flickering within Adept Falcon’s eyes while waiting for Elijah’s response.
‘Not like I have any other choice, right?’ As this notion bubbled up in Elijah’s mind, he decided. “Yes, I’ll do it, please tell me where I can find him.”
“Hahaha, good, good, good! Honestly, I would’ve personally gone there myself, but as you see, I’m still busy trying to heal and recuperate. That’s why I need you to end this for me. Anyway, his name is Vee, and although the ancient scroll stopped transmitting his location to me a while ago, that’s probably because he’s entered a place that even the ancient scroll cannot detect.”
“Don’t worry though, I already pinned the last spot he was at, so just go there and check the surroundings.” Pointing at a particular spot of the Chao Mundi on the map, Adept Falcon confirmed. “Here, take this map with you and go through these specified paths so you can reach there safely.”
…
“Huh, so you’re Emissary Flesh! Nice to ‘meat’ you!”
ROAAAR!
Suddenly, several muscles extended from the meatball torso of Emissary Flesh before they transformed into the shape of mouths as it roared savagely!
Looking at the gruesome creature, Virus couldn’t sense any type of cultivation whatsoever from it, which was totally weird.
Swish! Swish! Fwish!…
In the meantime, not having any intention of continuing the battle pointlessly, Virus charged at the beast as he quickly slashed it to as many pieces as he could.
Subsequently, several pieces of raw meat fell on the ground while Virus wondered, “Is it dead already? Hmm, well, that was easy…”
However, as if to prove him wrong, all the meat started to tremble and gather as they joined together once more!
“Huh? It can do that too?” Surprised, Virus attacked again and cut it into several pieces.
This time, it joined and healed even faster!
‘Hmm? How should I deal with this problem?’ Just as this notion had flickered inside his brain, suddenly, several tentacle muscles extended from Emissary Flesh as it tried capturing Virus by wrapping all of the tentacles around him much like a rope.
Dodging the attempt, Virus quickly noticed a difference, ‘It’s getting faster and stronger!’
“How about exploding you to kingdom come?” Uttering the question, Virus immediately connected to his ring. He wanted to see if exploding it away and burning it instead of cutting it to several pieces was going to be effective.
‘Divide Initial Configuration – Handgun!’ ‘Explosion mode!’
Promptly, his dark longsword disappeared as a futuristic handgun with bright red lines replaced it.
Bang!
Shooting it with no delay, Virus watched as a large chunk of Emissary Flesh exploded to countless tiny parts. Furthermore, the explosion caused flames as it covered its flesh.
Albeit, the explosion, and the flame didn’t seem to hinder the beast at all as it swiftly restored itself even faster and bombarded him with even more tentacles at once!
‘Alarmingly, it’s getting both faster and stronger by every passing second!’ To be honest, Virus was now astonished by the strange creature in front of him. He could hardly believe something that had no cultivation whatsoever was getting stronger by the second!
Virus could easily predict that if this process continued, Emissary Flesh would soon get as strong as him before leaving him in the dust.
With that, however, Virus recalled the words of the archaic sound which said the trial was developed in order to gauge the ‘endurance’ of the trial takers. It did not say to ‘defeat’, but rather ‘endure’, meaning, one wasn’t supposed to be able to kill this gross life form in front of him as it was evidently considered an impossibility!
So the question wasn’t ‘how to defeat’, but rather ‘when to concede’.
Bang! Boom!
Shooting it two more times, Virus watched Emissary Flesh put itself back together while contemplating, ‘But is there really no way of defeating it?’
FSHHHH~
Meanwhile, after restoring itself, Emissary Flesh used even more of its rope-like muscles in order to attempt to catch Virus and squeeze him to death. In fact, it was only a matter of time before that happened!
Darting back, Virus was just about to evade the tentacles, when suddenly, their speed doubled midway!
Watching the incoming tentacle muscles in his slow-motion perception, Virus immediately calculated that his body’s current pace would not be capable of evading it, therefore, he didn’t hesitate to get serious!
‘Unnamed Virus Technique, First Form – Impulse!’
Crackle~
Easily avoiding all of the tentacles, Virus pointed the futuristic handgun at the monster as he took three continuous shots as three explosions were heard.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Deciding to study it to the best of his capabilities before anything else, Virus froze time as he started examining, replaying, and analyzing how it previously exploded into countless segments of flesh in his mindscape!
Virus also inspected and compared each of the detonations to his previous assaults when he had wielded the longsword rather than the handgun.
The scrutinization proceeded for a long period in his hyperactive and super calculative state until finally, Virus noticed something strange!
It was such a small detail that it was impossible to perceive unless one was a super Artificial Intelligence with terrifying processing abilities. The little detail Virus had noticed was that even though Emissary Flesh would regenerate from any type of mutilation, there was a certain period when its regrowing ability seemed to decrease by an almost unnoticeable degree!
Every time he attacked the monster continuously one after another, in the process of his assaults, it looked like the inherent healing skill of Emissary could not keep up and in fact, slowed down by an extremely meager amount!
Virus was aware that had it been anyone else in his place, it would’ve been impossible to notice such a scant deviation. In fact, If Virus had not tapped into his time-freeze perception, he could bet he would not have caught it easily.
‘Shall we do a little experiment to see if continuous and nonstop attacks truly hinder its healing ability?’ The instant this fresh idea was raised, Virus connected to the ring and summoned the best weapon that would aid him in his subsequent goal.
‘Divide Initial Configuration – Machine Gun!’ ‘Normal mode!’
By normal mode, Virus meant that only common futuristic bullets would be employed since ‘explosion’ would detonate the monster into countless pieces which would quickly result in him not having a target to shoot at nonstop. Therefore, he deemed normal futuristic bullets just adequate.
Aiming the machine gun directly at the opponent next, Virus started shooting wearing a grin of anticipation!
Ratatatatatatatat~
Not stopping at all, Virus proceeded the process without slowing down or pausing in between.
In the first twenty seconds, Virus could absolutely not spot any difference in his normal perception as Emissary Flesh continued healing and restoring the little bits of damage he was receiving here and there.
However, when the timer hit around two minutes, Virus began noticing the regenerating capabilities of the monster slowing down even with his bare eyes!
“Yes, that’s it!” Proving and confirming his theory, Virus was now zealously looking forward to the trial more than ever!
Ratatatatatat~
SCREEEECHHHH!
Suddenly, Emissary Flesh started screaming in affliction before starting to jump around trying to dodge outside the range of Virus’ aim and machine gun so it would catch a breather!
“Haha, struggle more! More! More! That only makes this more fun!”
Alas, the poor beast was against a horrifying being called Virus, therefore, it did not take long for the Emissary to realize the futility of his struggles!
Still, it looked like the Emissary still wasn’t done revealing every one of its cards since out of nowhere, steam began to rise from all around its physique.
Soon, so much steam had left its frame that the Emissary’s size shrank to half its original one as its muscles became much more compact and thinner overall!
‘Oh?’
BAM!
Instantaneously, with newfound momentum, Emissary Flesh tightly packed itself into a ball as it started jumping around at lightning speed!
