A Helping Hand
The pack appeared to be led by two wolves, the strongest of them all, the pack advanced and retreated in an orderly fashion, pinning the five fighters close together. The wolves were backing each other up, making it difficult for the five humans to kill any of them.
The wolf pack hadn’t sustained any serious injuries, whereas the state of the five men was becoming frailer by every pa.s.sing minute. Even though the five of them were very stubborn and were standing strong, Bi Fan was afraid that they wouldn’t be able to last a very long time at this rate.
They were inside the devil’s territory, surrounded by a pack of wolves; even attempting to escape wouldn’t be of much use.
These five youngsters needed something of a miracle to get out of their present predicament.
The five of them were also cooperating with a decent understanding, their attacks were seamlessly coordinated, and every now and then, they were able to kill an ordinary wolf or two.
There were at least a hundred wolves in this pack, so a few dead ones wouldn’t exactly make any difference. Especially considering that the two chiefs and the other ten strongest ones were unharmed so far, and they posed the maximum threat.
The two chief wolves along with the other ten strongest ones were mostly staying away from the fight now, protecting themselves from incurring any injuries, while allowing the others to finish the fight.
“Poof!” one of the youngster’s arms’ was. .h.i.t by a wolf and the wound started dripping blood.
The five humans were very commendably united, the other four quickly circled around their comrade, keeping him in between them, allowing him to bandage his wound.
Unfortunately for them, the five had grown rather tired now, having used up most of their strengths, and on top of that, they had sustained quite a few injuries in quick succession. Plus, the sheer number of their opposition wasn’t allowing them any room to rest.
Seeing the wounded state of the humans, Bi Fan decided that it’s now or never, if he doesn’t rush to their help now, they will soon be dead meat.
Seeing his opportunity, Bi Fan leaped off the tree he was hiding in.
In his right hand, wielding his sword, he employed ‘fufeng double-edged sword’, whereas with his left hand, he cast out the ‘immortal finger’, targeting two of the stronger wolves.
Bi Fan’s attacks landed before he did; a glorious mid-air display.
“AOOWWW!!” The two wolves’ uttered blood curling shrieks, unaware of Bi Fan’s presence, they were engrossed in attacking the five other humans. Caught off guard, they succ.u.mbed to Bi Fan’s surprise attack, and fell to the ground.
Bi Fan had barely landed on ground, he turned beautifully, accounting to his excellent footwork, and began attacking another wolf.
The other wolves spotted his intrusion, as he killed another wolf.
With the help of his exceptional footwork, which appeared to hitting its pinnacle, Bi Fan quickly struck down another four wolves.
“WOOOOOO!!!” The two head wolves simultaneously wailed furiously, as the charged in Bi Fan’s direction.
“It looks like we are being a.s.sisted by an expert. Brothers, lets quickly seize this opportunity and kill these wolves.” The five of them weren’t stupid or cowardly; they launched a fierce full-scale attack, realizing that they had just been presented with an excellent opportunity to kill the wolf pack.
A good number of the ordinary wolves had been slayed, but they didn’t pose much of a threat anyway. It was the strongest ones that were the main cause of worry.
Bi Fan used his agility, somersaulted through mid-air as he slashed his way through another pair of wolves, and then quickly retreated, as he realized that the chiefs of the pack were charging at him.
Accounting to Bi Fan’s present strength and skill, killing ordinary wolves, who were only at ‘martial strength’ layer, was a piece of cake, not to forget, that some of the wolves were even weaker than that level.
The two furious head wolves were trying to close-in on Bi Fan, but Bi Fan’s floating fast and nimble footwork, had them chasing him continuously, as they failed to catch up to him.
In a very short span of time, Bi Fan had already killed ten wolves, but it was the two strongest ones that posed the maximum threat, and they were still alive.
Bi Fan had now stopped in his footsteps, as he was now confronted with the two chiefs of the pack, one on his either side.
The two wolves were quite strong, and they weren’t going to be easy to deal with.
“AAAOOOOO!!!” The two wolves howled on his either side, as they charged at Bi Fan.
The howls of the two wolves left Bi Fan’s ear drums buzzing.
Bi Fan calmed his head down, as he dodged to one side, avoiding the incoming attacks.
‘Fufeng double-edged sword’, ‘the immortal finger’….
Bi Fan attacked with full force, as he wanted to finish this business as soon as possible.
His top grade light-ray sword befell one of the wolves. The skin of the wolf was as hard as iron, even though Bi Fan’s sword cut his skin open, his sword didn’t slice through the wolf’s body.
Bi Fan was slightly surprised by this, but as the other wolf pounced at him, Bi Fan retreated, avoiding the attack, and was forced to abandon a good opportunity to finish the other wolf off.
The attacks of the two chief wolves weren’t exactly top quality in their merit, and now that one of the wolves’ was injured, the two of them now seemed a little cautious.
The two of these wolves were as strong as Bi Fan and had entered the ‘inner organs’ layer. But they were naturally gifted with very strong skins, making their defense much stronger than that of an ordinary ‘inner organs’ layer demon. Bi Fan would have to resort to something a little different to kill these two.
“AOOO!!! AOOO!!!” The two wolves attacked again, this time, running parallel to each other, side by side, making it a lot more difficult to find an opening.
The five injured youngsters had consumed most of their energy, so, even though they were doing a pretty good job killing the ordinary wolves, relying on them to kill these stronger ones wasn’t a realistic option.
Bi Fan hadn’t been able to attack the two wolves of late, and had been consistently forced to retreat, as he tried to dodge the attacks of the two wolves.
On top of that, the constant howling of the two wolves was upsetting Bi Fan’s focus.
Suddenly, Bi Fan had an idea, and he deliberately slowed down a bit.
“AOOO!” one of the wolves open his mouth to howl again.
As soon as he did, Bi Fan turned around and cast out the ‘immortal finger’ aimed straight at the wolf’s mouth.
“Boom!” The wolf’s head exploded and blood splashed all around. The wolf’s corpse landed on the ground ahead of him attributing to his forward inertia.
‘The immortal finger’ is an extremely sharp and concentrated attack, it pierced through the wolf’s arteries and windpipe, killing him in an instant.
The other wolf realizing the odds of his survival, turned around and made a dash to save his life.
“Oh, so you want to run away? Well, that won’t be so easy!” Bi Fan chased after the wolf, ‘the dance of mist’ footwork being called into action.
In a flash, almost like a mirage, Bi Fan intercepted the other wolf.
The wolf watched Bi Fan’s movements with an angry expression of his face. He kept his mouth shut, well aware of what the result of howling could prove out to be.
“That smart huh!”, Bi Fan was impressed.
However, faced with just one wolf now, Bi Fan was spoilt for choices.
‘Fufeng Double-edged sword!’
Bi Fan cast out his attack at a very quick pace.
Even though he wasn’t able to kill the wolf in an instant, his attacks were certainly giving the wolf a headache.
Bi Fan’s light-ray sword wasn’t exactly vegetarian in nature, the attacks left the wolf scared and blood stained.
Faced with enormous pain from the wounds, the wolf still wound dare open his mouth to howl, as his bloodshot eyes glared at Bi Fan.
The wolf pounced at Bi Fan, his throat wide open, his jaws directed at Bi Fan’s throat. The wolf’s eyes reflect his fear of Bi Fan’s finger.
“Well, that’s the end of that!” Bi Fan snorted in a cold voice.
His light-ray sword was ready for the beast.
With seamless power, Bi Fan cast out one of his most powerful sword attacks, ‘Rain-fly sword!’
The five youngsters had been dealing with the other wolves, and had been able to manage with them with ease, and were going to be done with their end of the fighting soon.
The way Bi Fan had dealt with those two wolves, especially his skill with the sword, had left the five of them dumbstruck.
Most of them were not very far away from Bi Fan in terms of strength, but his sheer skill placed him in a league of his own.
As the wolf saw Bi Fan’s sword blockade the way in front of him, the color of fear filled his face, but he had launched himself at a pace where it wouldn’t be possible to back off now.
The wolf, in a determined effort, accelerated his pace further, as he desperately needed to snap Bi Fan’s neck into two.
Bi Fan charged back at the wolf, his body bringing a gale along with it, his sword pointed straight at the wolf.
His light-ray sword, pointed straight at the wolf’s throat, pierced straight through it.
“Poof!”
Bi Fan and the wolf had met mid-air, Bi Fan sword went straight through the wolf’s throat and then the rest of his body, as it pa.s.sed cleanly through the insides of the wolf.
With a crash, the wolf landed on the ground, his belly cut open, and blood spilled all over the floor and Bi Fan.
The wolf was dead long before his body hit the ground.
The five humans were astonished to see the skill of Bi Fan, they were both impressed and scared of him.
Bi Fan wiped the blood off his sword and then off his face.
“Many thanks brother, you are our saving grace! May we ask your name?” One of the youngsters asked, he was skinny and had a delicate and humble look on his face.
“Relax, there is no need to thank me.” Bi Fan smiled.
“My name is Li Zi Yun, we all hail from Jiu Yu City.”, the young man who spoken up earlier stated. “You saved us all, we will remember this act of kindness.”
Bi Fan said: “My name is Bi Fan, I’m a disciple of Quinyang, please don’t say thanks, I only hunted these wolves so I could collect the rewards from their bodies. Is it alright with you all if I keep the carca.s.ses?”
“Without a doubt, you deserve this.” Li Zi Yun said with a smile, trying to cover up the disappointment of the financial loss.
Even though Li Zi Yun wanted a share of the profit, but wouldn’t dare say a word against Bi Fan, as the five of them were pretty seriously injured and had consumed most of their energy. He was well aware that they would be no match for Bi Fan, and hence, didn’t want to upset him.
Bi Fan quickly, and a bit rudely, started incorporating the dead bodies into the Tian Yuan ring.
Witnessing Bi Fan incorporate almost twenty of the dead wolves into the Tian Yuan ring, left Li Zi Yun and his friends completely baffled.
A Yin Yang pouch had a lot s.p.a.ce, but even then could only incorporate a maximum of twelve wolf carca.s.ses, but they realized that Bi Fan evidently had other resources as well.
Even though Bi Fan had said that he was a student of Quinyang, they figured that it may not be true.
Li Zi Yun and his friends were afraid that if they question Bi Fan further, as they far too scared of offending Bi Fan. They were under the impression that Bi Fan was intentionally trying to keep his ident.i.ty a secret.
But they wouldn’t dare to try and get to the bottom of this as they were too afraid to ruffle Bi Fan’s feathers and provoke his anger.
They were scared that if Bi Fan got angry, he could easily kill the five of them, following which he could take their treasures and all the remaining dead wolves, some of which he might leave for them right now.
Wolf fur and meat were capable of fetching a good amount of spars and could turn out to be potential reason for a fight here, and the devil’s territory was a common place for robberies and murders.
Bi Fan incorporated some of bodies of the wolves into the Tian Yuan ring and then quickly disappeared into the forest.
If he wanted to, he could have killed Li Zi Yun and all this friends with ease, but he felt that he could justify robbery, so he didn’t do it.
Watching Bi Fan disappear into the forest gave a sense of relief to the five youngsters.
“Bi Fan is too strong, it’s highly unlikely that he is an ordinary disciple.”
“Yes, he’s probably trained by an elite at Quinyang, otherwise how could he possibly be carrying so many Yin Yang pouches.” Li ZI Yun reasoned, completely unaware of Bi Fan’s real resources.
He paused for a while and then continued, “Let’s quickly peel off the skins of the left over wolves and get out of here.”
Li Zi Yun was well aware that they didn’t have the luxury of storing as many carca.s.ses as Bi Fan could and they would only be able to collect a few of the remaining of the carca.s.ses.
They only collected the most valuable skins; they flayed them and quickly left, as the smell of blood from the ruins of the battle was far too gross to remain there for long.
Once Bi Fan had gone some distance, he started searching for a place to practice and restore his energy.
The fighting had seemed effortless and even though he hadn’t incurred any injuries, he had still consumed majority of his energy in the battle.
But most importantly, Bi Fan had gained a great amount of experience from the fight and knew that he needed to restore his energy.
“I need to restore my strength….” Bi Fan knew that he needed to restore his strength, his body needed the energy back to be able prepare himself for any future fights.
“It seems that the best way enhance strength is to battle.” Bi Fan thought to himself.
Soon the curtains of night would fall, and the night time was the most dangerous inside the devil’s territory, as that was the time that most demons came out to feed.
Bi Fan decided to abandon the idea of venturing further into the devil’s territory and was looking for a tree so he could take a break.
As the night approached, the devil’s territory got even gloomier, the chilly wind blew and leaves rustled.
Bi Fan saddled himself in and started practicing.
The practice of the ‘inner breath’ techniques was the most important, also the most important to succeed at; this process took time and need to be approached step by step. Dan pellets helped, but still needed one to be able to practice purely on the basis of their skill set.
Bi Fan didn’t take any of the ‘inner organs’ layers pellets and decided to take his time practicing the ‘longevity burst’ technique to restore his energy.
As he started practicing, he could slowly feel the energy being stored into his body, he felt very satisfied by the overall output the day had produced.
After he was done restoring his body energy with ‘Longevity burst’, he started practicing the new techniques from the jade book to enhance his strength.
After today’s battle, he could feel the increase in his strength as a benefit.
He felt that if it wasn’t for his current strength level, he would not have been able to kill the two wolves the way he had managed to.
Even though Bi Fan had travelled a fair distance, he was still afraid that five youngsters that he had rescued earlier might try to kill him.
This kind of thing was very frequent in the Tian Yuan world, so it wouldn’t exactly be surprising.
Physical strength was an important thing, and had many benefits, it increased the ability of a martial artist to last in battle, and furthermore, if the person ran out of strength in battle, they would be able to defend themselves, owing to the increased defense strength.
Increase in physical strength was like an insurance policy and was an important thing the he needed to secure for the future.
Bi Fan had been always concentrated on increasing his physical strength and dove straight into his practice.
Bi Fan knew that couples with his skills sets, he was at least strong as the ‘brave’ layer.
Bi Fan was ecstatic with his current state but then was suddenly interrupted by the growls of a tiger.