The enemies flipped over on the ceiling and caught their breath.
At first, Seol-Hwi thought that these were common bats. However, after dealing with them a couple of times, he changed his mind.
Those bats were the blood sucking ones. In addition, they held poison within and had this odd ability to move without giving up their location.
It was not difficult for Seol-Hwi to deal with such things in groups.
“Is this our fourth time?”
Seol-Hwi smiled at the ones on the ceiling.
The first one ran after taking a little damage. They numbered in the dozens and attacked from the side, and he was unaware about them having such an abnormal moving ability.
The second one, he fought for a while, but nothing came. Rather, it bit Seol-Hwi’s forearm and he suffered a week to remove the poison.
The third time he met one, he was in the middle of a fierce battle with a bear the size of a house. When he was struggling with the force which could collapse the cave, these guys suddenly appeared.
But, maybe because of his cultivation that day, because of their ability to not discriminate against enemies, he could defeat the bear with their help.
“If we meet this much, we need to bring some form of end to it.”
Seol-Hwi restrained his movements as much as he could as he saw them preparing to attack.
Having experienced it so far, it was better to refrain from blindly rushing into them. They have a strong poison, so if he was bitten in the middle of a fight then he would have cut the body part off to avoid dying.
Traaak
Their screams were terrifying. Seol-Hwi knew that the sound was a way to communicate with each other.
“You seem to be worried… I will give you a gift from now on.”
Kiiik
Energy began to get condensed at the tip of his sword.
And the bats who seemed to notice it, began to shudder.
They noticed my energy.
Among those, he could not tell that well if they chose to fight or avoid him, but within them was a bat which was calm.
Seol-Hwi remembered him, the leader.
It was this one who showed that movement.
Kiiik!
They made this strange sound.
To be precise, Seol-Hwi did not see the movement but perceived that they had disappeared for a moment.
Wheik
Even in such an absurd situation, Seol-Hwi had already responded.
Unlike before, it was a motion like the so-called Flower Dance where one moved in a round motion continuously.
Jjkkkkj!
As the sword was swung, the dozens of bats approaching in front of him moved.
Seol-Hwi immediately moved the sword up and down. It was a simple swing, but in reality it held the movements he learned after coming to a realization.
As the energy created as a result of making the sword move through the flow, the simple swing ended up moving with air flow.
The force caused the bats to be pushed to the side.
…It works.
Seol-Hwi’s eyes shone.
There was no way to know the psychology of the bats, but for now, it looked like they were shocked.
The ability they held was to move in a certain space without revealing their presence.
Softness to control the rigidity, strength can sometimes be captured by softness.
At first, he wondered how to deal with these bats. It was as if they were using the time bond like he did in the past.
But after a couple of run-ins with them, Seol-Hwi asked a question to himself.
Why bother looking for the invisible one?
Just because you did not see them, did not mean you could not kill them.
At some point, he began to think it was possible.
If it could not be seen, just fight it. Predict where it moved to and catch it.
So the question arose—
How to predict where they would go?
The answer was surprisingly simple.
“Their target is me.”
Kkiik!
Once again, they were adjusting to the ceiling. One attack was blocked, so this time they will attack in a wave.
And it was not just an assumption, because they were all centering around him on the ceiling.
Kiiik!
—came the cry of a bat.
When the one with a body larger than the other bats sent the signal, the bats flew off the ceiling at once.
“Haaaa.”
Seol-Hwi raised the tip of his sword ahead and swung it. However, this time they rushed in a bit late—
Like they read his mind.
Shhhhh! Shhh!
As soon as the sword of Seol-Hwi stopped being swung, the place shifted, and dozens of them were coming at him with their teeth wide open.
“Maybe I don’t need to prepare this much.”
Even before, Seol-Hwi was confused.
Shhhhh!
The rushing coldness froze him at once. It was because the energy of the ice crystal was contained in the Air Flow which was still in the sword. It was like ice arts, but a bit like White Light Body Demonic Martial Arts, so it did not take that long to take the demonic energy.
Pure negative energy!
And when Seol-Hwi’s sword moved again, the half frozen bats got swept away.
And the head of the bats, the leader, was about to be cut.
Jjkkk!
Due to the small body they held, all the bats that survived began to run away. Seol-Hwi did not bother pursuing them.
“Now they should know who the leader of this place is.”
And he lowered the gaze to see the dead bodies littered on the ground. Some of them had their bodies frozen and smashed, while the others died with just their wings frozen.
Pak! Pak!
Among them, the body of the one who seemed to be the leader continued to move.
He was curious to see them and tried to touch it, but then this phrase came.
<Would you like to eat the Blood Sucking Bats? Accept/Reject.>
…?
Seeing that, he hesitated.
Was this something you could eat? And what does it mean to be considering this?
Seol-Hwi thought for a moment and wondered because it was a choice he had not seen in a while.
Didn’t I decide not to use the system in this life?
He set a goal. And he decided to move without the help from the one called the “System.”
So, even if it felt like this would end up being beneficial, he could not take it. Even more so if it was an amazing buff.
Wait, isn’t there a chance of it not being like that?
Right.
He was thinking of this being like a buff, but there was no guarantee that it was. Rather, it might be a poison which can lead to a crisis.
“Poison. Yes, it might be difficult to challenge it.”
Seol-Hwi picked up the body of the leader he was about to throw away, and after thinking about it, he accepted it.
<You have become resistant to poison.> <Seol-Hwi’s body changes into a Ten Thousand Poison Body.>
The system responded with it being a buff.
“Wha…”
And this made Seol-Hwi groan. He had a lot of emotions which were hard to describe. He could not figure out whether to like this or hate this.
Of course, unlike his head, his heart wanted to spit out curses.
“I will check the others…”
He said it.
It was not like he was going to do it, so there should be no problem.
Seol-Hwi was standing in front of a dead end with a wall with numbers on it.
Every time he passed by the place, a day was marked one at a time and in groups of five, but now he was confused if it was right.
“It should be 2 months…”
Since he came in, and since he was in a cave, it is difficult to know the change of day and night.
When there were dark clouds and rainy nights, it was often impossible to even tell there was a change. In particular, when he met a strange monster, he would avoid them and continue with cultivation, so there were times when he could not record it for a day or two.
“Now this is the last one.”
Seol-Hwi wrapped the thick skin around the important parts. He peeled the skin of a big bear, and it was very effective when dealing with bats.
Because the beast’s skin was thick, the teeth of small animals like bats could not harm him.
“Now I wonder if there will be more to catch.”
The cave had a structure where stronger monsters came from further inside. In particular the human faced monster at the end was too violent.
As well as the movement, it would attack anything that even slightly moved, it was like one with no reason.
But, because it was too aggressive, it could not block one attack and it died right away. Since then, no more dangerous enemies appeared.
Come to think of it, unlike the other survivors, he put effort into eradicating monsters. Of course, he knew that when the monsters did not have food they would slowly come to the entrance, so he chose to face them there.
Well, anyway. The fight seemed to end there.
“But… it consumes way too much internal energy to use ice and fire.”
The ice and fire techniques used by Seol-Hwi were not Demonic Sect related ones.
They were from the power of nature.
He was using them, but there was a problem in doing so. Since they were newly made martial arts, they were not strong when he used them, and there was no way to use them separately, so they consumed a lot of internal energy.
Still, that is right.
Seol-Hwi was sure.
And to make a method of using it had many disadvantages, but it had its own advantages too. He could find a way to reduce the internal energy consumption.
Would that not be what the Wudang Sect calls self realization?
“Then do I leave now?”
Seol-Hwi turned. If he handled this much, there could not be anymore enemies here. There were no ones inside, so he had no need to stay for three months.
Seol-Hwi got up from his place and walked towards the entrance.
The monsters in the cave were good for him to lay the foundation. The way he used the sword was informed by the Wudang Sect’s teachings from the past, and his internal energy was something he learned from the Demonic Sect to learn the flame arts of the sect.
“Uh? What is that?”
But then when he came close to the entrance, something caught his eyes.
It was a being that was coiled up.
It looked like a human from a distance, but upon closer inspection it was not.
Two heads, four arms, and four legs.
The skin was looking to be full of blood and wounds. It looked odd to be a human skin, but there was white power covering the body.
At first glance it looked like two people, and it looked like they were sticking their backs together.
“Hey. Do not bother me and come out. I need to leave.”
Seol-Hwi spoke, and that thing turned around.
“Huh…”
Seol-Hwi could feel it.
It was a human. He did not know what happened, but this was a human with two bodies and there was something which made it not feel like a joke.
“This… seems like something is wrong.”
Bet.
The energy around was not normal demonic energy. At this, it could easily surpass warriors.
And his body stiffened at this.
-Human. It is a human
-Human it is. A human.
The one said.
Both of them spoke the same thing.
“What are you?”
-Me? You?
-You? Me?
“This is… you are being too much. To put a warrior here and survive.”
Seol-Hwi picked the sword. He felt an unknown pressure on him.
“Come on, let’s do it fast.”
That moment.
Tututtu
The ground shook and the stones rose from all sides.
Telekinesis?
-Let’s fight.
-Let’s fight.
And the eyes of the one ahead turned bright yellow.
Seol-Hwi could not help but be nervous at this thing he did not know.
“This… I might die?”
Seol-Hwi’s words were speaking about the current situation.