The wolf lunged at him again. This time he"d learned his lesson from the injury. He"d bent his right knee, sliding to the beast"s left while holding the staff perpendicular to his body. The left claw was parried while it"s right claw couldn"t reach his body.As it pa.s.sed by Zhao Wei wedged the staff under the wolf"s belly throwing it to the ground on his right. It wolf"s body although only medium in size packed more weight than he thought it would, his strength was wasted in lifting it and couldn"t generate enough force hurt it.
He rushed towards it to continue his onslaught while it was down. His staff swung down at it but was caught by it"s hind leg kicking it with a good enough force to throw even Zhao Wei"s arm backwards. Zhao Wei"s stance was broken, with it"s tail it swept at his tail causing him to fall on his side.
The momentum had switched, it tried to get on top of Zhao Wei, and use it"s weight to immobilize his movement. Zhao Wei on the other hand had already bent his legs to his chest. As it stood above him, he kicked both legs upwards catching it in the chin before rolling backwards.
They both stood at a distance, trying to decide their next moves. The wolf shook it"s head a little, obviously being affected by the last kick. Zhao Wei wasn"t any better as his arm was bleeding quite profusely and it wouldn"t close on it"s own if he was constantly using it in this fight.
In the same exact moment, they moved again into a clash. Zhao Wei decided to dive in low while it decided to jump above him. Although it"s forelegs completely missed him it"s hind-legs. .h.i.t him in the shoulder. Using this leverage, it twisted it"s body in the air and used the weight to add force to the kick, sending Zhao Wei flying while spitting up blood.
But just as it landed, three of it"s legs were wrapped by the traps Zhao Wei set while he was moving downwards. Zhao Wei didn"t even give himself a breath as he took out his spear and made a dash towards it to finish the fight. The last kick had evidently knocked the air out of him as he couldn"t go as fast as he thought. The tip of the spear was caught by the wolves jaw which crushed it almost instantly.
Zhao Wei didn"t stop himself, using the broken shaft he stabbed the splintered edge down on the wolfs neck. The wolf moved it"s head causing the sharp broken edge to land just above it"s shoulder blades. It growled in pain but used it"s head to throw Zhao Wei off with a head b.u.t.t.
Zhao Wei staggered as he landed on his feet, taking a few steps backwards to stabilize himself. The wolf turned it"s jaw towards the broken shaft and pulled it out to reveal a deep wound where it had been stuck. Without any notice they both clashed again, adding mutual injury to each other.
Zhao Wei hadn"t really noticed, but he"d changed. Somewhere along the line, through all those successful hunts, he"d changed. Even considering the White Ape village, he"d never have taken this kind of risk before. In all his fights, he"d never chosen to fight head on. Call it confidence or a.s.surance, but to take it on this way, he"d become c.o.c.ky.
There"s a saying that goes, "pride cometh before the fall". There were quite a few aspects to many of Zhao Wei"s victories and most of it fell down to planning, unfortunately for him, with his success his techniques didn"t change and he"d shown negligence in their use.
For his hunts, he"d regularly used the Death Wishes paralyzing toxins as their inhibiting properties brought a beast"s outstanding stats and brought them to his level or lower depending on the dosage. Unless he was against the Death Wishes themselves the toxins would be very versatile as they could be applied through wounds or ingestion. Zhao Wei was too confident in their use.
He"d checked the corpse of Death Wishes before and found that most beasts avoided eating their toxin sacs. What he neglected to notice was that the Clay Eaters were different from those beasts in a single aspect. If he had paid more attention, he"d notice that the Clay Eaters always ate their prey whole, this included Death Wishes as their digestive juices were so strong that any other toxin that entered would be nullified before entering the blood stream.
The first Clay Eater was paralyzed, that was for certain. The three spear strikes had brought the toxin directly to its bloodstream. But Zhao Wei had greatly misjudged the time he"d bought for himself as he"d counted on the toxin it had eaten when it bit into the umbrella as well.
While he was clashing with the wolf once more, it suddenly stopped it"s attack to look behind Zhao Wei. Zhao Wei knew something was wrong as he turned to look back only to see the Clay Eaters eyes right in front of him.
Time seemed to slow down. Zhao Wei could see it"s mouth opening and it"s teeth moving towards him. He"d have no time to dodge as it was already closing in on him and he was caught off guard. This was probably the end, he thought to himself.
But his body shifted to the left and he felt himself being propelled into extreme speeds almost instantaneously. In his mind, he knew what was going on, but he didn"t want to believe it. While he was being propelled his eyes inched to where the force came from only to see a wisp of white fur entering the mouth of the beast.
Suddenly time moved at normal speed and he flew several meters from the force but away from the danger. "No!!", he screamed. But to the Clay Eater these words meant nothing as it swallowed.