Chapter 196: Blood-traced Ant
Translator: Cynthia Editor: Lis
The red figure was astonishingly fast, but so was Ai Hui’s reaction. He swiftly sidestepped and slashed with his Dragonspine Inferno, which was emitting a faint light as it collided impactfully with the red blur.
Clank!
Ai Hui jolted, as if struck by a thunderbolt. A heavy force swept through the sword, and he felt as if he held in his hand a hot soldering iron.
Ai Hui gave a stifled groan and gripped the sword hilt tightly as his body flew backward uncontrollably.
Ai Hui’s slash had slowed the red figure down considerably, allowing him to see it clearly for the first time.
It was as large as a dog, which was heftier than most ordinary blood ants were, and the red carapace was marked with messy but mysterious black stripes.
When he spotted the stripes, Ai Hui’s first impression was of danger. He didn’t dare to look at it any longer, or else risk having his mind and spirit drawn into it!
The supervising elementalist reacted with a furious roar, and with the string of his longbow as a blade, he slashed at the blood-traced ant. The string trembled slightly and transformed into a light blade with a dazzling illumination. A sharp and piercing aura was released on the entire area as if a peerless saber had been unsheathed.
Someone received Ai Hui from behind—it was Shi Xueman.
As soon as they landed on the ground, Ai Hui shouted anxiously, "Everyone step back!"
Ordinary students were of no help in a battle of this scale; instead, it was more likely that the ant would take advantage of them. The frightened students’ faces were pallid. Even Ai Hui was knocked back by one strike from the ant. How terrifying was this monster?
Just as the light blade was about to land, the markings on the ant brightened without warning. Boom! A dazzling, bloody light pierced the air.
The supervising elementalist was shocked to see the light blade in his hand sink into the midst of a muddy blood sea, its power sharply collapsing.
The bloody light went straight for his eyebrows. It was like a violent, surging wave of a blood sea that would soon devour him.
With a slight shift in his expression, the elementalist’s rich combat experience saved his life. He loosened his grip on the bow and slapped it. By using the elastic momentum, he ricocheted backwards.
With irritation, he realized that the blood-traced ant was far tougher to deal with than he originally thought. He wouldn’t let himself get into such a disadvantageous position again.
He had underestimated the enemy!
In that moment, he noticed a pair of cruel and ruthless eyes that was fixated on him with a bloody light.
Whoosh!
His expression changed upon seeing the ant become a bloody blur.
From behind him, a snow-white spear shot out silently.
Clank!
Cirrus accurately struck the ant. Shi Xueman stifled a groan, but she was well-prepared and dispersed most of the force with the spinning spear. Without retreating, she advanced and stabbed the blood-traced ant with the swiftly rotating spear as the tip of the spear howled viciously.
After receiving Ai Hui, she realized the ant’s astonishing strength that belied its small size. It shocked her to know that Ai Hui was disadvantaged in a confrontation of strength.
The blood-traced ant parried, and suddenly three reflections appeared from the sky. The sudden change left no time for Shi Xueman to think, and her Cirrus stabbed into one of them.
Feeling the emptiness at the end of the spear, Shi Xueman knew she’d been fooled.
With arrow-like precision, a crimson figure emitting a bloody gleam arrived in front of Shi Xueman with its red-and-black mandibles like blood-stained scissors.
Shi Xueman felt her blood freeze. She was certain those scissor-like mandibles would easily shear off her thin neck.
At that moment, a glare like a shooting star darted past her neck and precisely hit the mandibles.
[Misty Strike]!
With a thunderous crash akin to the sounds produced by collision of saber and spear, the blood-traced ant trembled and rebounded backwards.
Ai Hui then retrieved the longbow and threw it to the supervising elementalist.
Shi Xueman landed on the ground, her heart still fluttering with fear. She felt at that moment just how close to death she had been. Her hand which held the spear trembled non-stop.
"Stop dreaming!" Ai Hui’s reproach brought Shi Xueman back to reality.
Her face turned red.
Suddenly, the twangs of bows sounded from behind, one after another.
They came from Jiang Wei’s heavy bow, Sang Zhijun’s [Arrow Fusion Technique], and most powerful of all, from the supervising elementalist’s longbow. He had a brush with death just now, and this was his furious revenge. He released his bowstring with a slight delay behind the other two’s, right as the ant lost control of its body.
The string rang with a thunderous noise as his elemental energy fluctuated powerfully and burst out.
The entirety of Soundwave Street was bathed in the silvery light.
This there, there was no howling to be heard. The Sky Edge Arrow, despite its delayed release, reached the target first.
The ant’s bloody light burst out once more.
The Sky Edge Arrow faltered slightly, but the bloody light was split open, no longer able to withstand the sharp, silvery light. Just as the ant was about to be pierced by the arrow, a shocking event unfolded.
The blood-traced ant rolling in the air suddenly ejected several red streams from its expansive abdomen.
It changed trajectory, narrowly avoiding the Sky Edge Arrow.
Jet streams continued to eject from its pores, allowing it to dodge strangely like a marionette attached to strings.
All of Sang Zhijun’s and Jiang Wei’s arrows missed as well.
Everyone was stunned by the change of events. Only now did they notice the pores on the ant’s abdomen where the red streams had been ejected.
Puff! Puff! Puff!
By ejecting the air currents, the ant regained its balance and steadily landed from the sky.
The emotionless compound eyes stared at the figures in front of it, realizing that they were more difficult to deal with than its previous prey.
Soundwave Street was deadly silent.
They were still stunned at the blood-traced ant’s fighting capability. The killing moves had appeared in an instant, and some students were still unable to comprehend what had come to pass.
Too fast!
The ant faced Ai Hui and others and began to retreat slowly.
The supervising elementalist, still mired in shock, didn’t issue an order to pursue and attack. He’d been determined to win with his final attack, but the ant managed to escape so easily that he still could not believe it. In the midst of his deep-seated fear, he didn’t know how to proceed.
Ai Hui stared at the ant fixedly.
When the blood-traced ant began to retreat, a peculiar light flashed in his eyes. With his fighting experience from the Wilderness with all kinds of beasts and wild creatures, he knew their patterns well. From the ant’s withdrawal, he guessed that it was tired.
He became more certain of his speculation when he saw that the stripes on its carapace had dimmed. Therefore, he was resolved.
"Get ready!" Ai Hui said calmly.
Everyone else was surprised and couldn’t help but look at Ai Hui.
Unmoved by the stares, he said, "I’ll take point with Shi Xueman. Duanmu Huanghun and Lou Lan, follow us from ten steps away. Sang Zhijun and Jiang Wei, keep a distance of fity steps from us. Sang Zhijun, be ready with your Bunny Hair Arrows. Lou Lan, prepare the chili concoction."
Shi Xueman settled at Ai Hui’s side without hesitation before exchanging a glance with him.
"What we need to do is defend and entangle it," Ai Hui said in a low voice.
"No problem." Shi Xueman nodded.
They approached the blood-traced ant slowly but firmly.
The ant didn’t expect that they would dare to close in and immediately became ferocious. It angrily flapped its membranous wings which hummed with a harsh and unpleasant sound.
Ai Hui laughed. "It's tired."
Shi Xueman didn’t know how Ai Hui made that judgment, but there was no doubt in her mind. Her grip on Cirrus was tight and her steps were firm.
Lou Lan immediately transformed into a sandy spraying cart with a long spout that pointed towards the ant.
Lou Lan’s transformation elicited some exclamations.
Transformation was a common and useful skill in sand puppets, but normally, they turned into lions, tigers, or traps at the most. To see Lou Lan changing into a spraying cart….
How eccentric was the earth elementalist who created it?
Walking beside the spraying cart, Duanmu Huanghun was a bit distressed. Why did Ai Hui have such a strange sand puppet?
He narrowed his eyes. Although he didn’t participate in the confrontation with the blood-traced ant, he attempted to find methods to deal with it. On the surface, he seemed to be strolling idly and calmly, but a hidden thin and green twig appeared at his finger, circling flexibly like a small green snake.
The ant became more restless with the addition of Lou Lan and Duanmu Huanghun.
When Jiang Wei and Sang Zhijun began to follow as well, the ant calmed down and continued its retreat.
Seeing this, the supervising elementalist felt ashamed of himself. Even a student yet to graduate from the Induction Ground could do better than he did.
With years of idle living, his courage had eroded.
He breathed deeply, filling his body with elemental energy that exuded into the air around him. The bow in his hand suddenly shined with a bright luminescence, the gleaming, silvery light turning the ordinary longbow into a peerless treasure that was astonishingly imposing.
The blood-traced ant stopped its retreat. It sensed the danger that came with being targeted by its attackers and instinctively realized that if it withdrew any further, it would be jeopardized.
The elementalist’s hair and beard drifted as he slowly pulled back the arrowless bowstring. On it converged a silvery light that gradually took the form of an arrow, and his imposing aura became more apparent.
The blood-traced ant on the ground could sense the dangers it faced. Its black marks shined once again with a bloody red light that encompassed its body so strongly that others couldn’t clearly discern its body anymore—all except for an emotionless and clear pair of eyes that seemed able to pierce into one’s deepest fears and cowardice.
The red light eroded the ground beneath it, making it soon collapse into a pit. The blood-traced ant remained suspended over it.
Shi Xueman could not help but look up, but Ai Hui remained unmoved and stared at the blood-traced ant.
Bang!
The twang of a released bowstring came from the sky.
A silvery arrow streaked down from the sky, leaving behind it a trailing light.
Sky Bow – Light Binding Arrow!
Meanwhile, Ai Hui shouted loudly, "Lou Lan!"
Before he finished calling out, he had already stamped on the ground and bravely advanced with his sword.