Chapter 528: Island of Devil’s Maw (34)
There was a seductive drawl in the woman’s voice, it was meant to invoke some kind of pink bubbly thoughts in men’s mind, but… the gap between reality and imagination was often as wide as heaven and earth. The group triangulated the location from the voice and they soon found the source of the voice. And the thing that entered their line of sight… was a large strange b.u.t.terfly. Her appearance was completely similar to the small b.u.t.terflies that the players encountered in the tunnel earlier but this b.u.t.terfly was as large as a normal person and when the wings beside her body was expanded to its full size, it would reach up to several metres.
“Once the creature is enlarged, they do look quite disgusting…” Feng Bujue mumbled under his breath.
“It does not matter anymore…” Ambitionist answered. “After experiencing ‘the Uncle Worthless incident’, this kind of contrast barely register as a punch to my mind anymore.”
“Hey… what do you mean by ‘the Uncle Worthless Incident’?” Uncle Worthless demanded with a twitching lips. “Can you not add a strange label to what has happened to me on your own?”
“You people sure are courageous…” The Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen had no idea what the players were yapping about. As a quintessential mini boss whose sole purpose was to block the players’ path forward, there was no side quest that could be triggered from her, her responsibility from being created and programmed was to fight. Therefore, her thought and lines were all designed along that plot line, “You dare to comment on my beauty and say such slanderous words within my earshot…” Her tone suddenly turned gruesome before it eventually turned into a howl. “Do you wish to die?!”
As the howl ended, she opened her mouth like a snake extended its jaw and sprayed out a blob of dark green stinky substance at the direction of the five players. The five reacted quickly. In less than a second, they separated and jumped away from the range of this attack. The blob of sticky substance flew through the air quickly before it finally landed on the crystalline floor. It gave off sizzling sound and then it was followed by the rise of a white smoke that carried a strange smell with it…
“Careful not to be splashed by her saliva. That kind of corrosive effect is not to be trifled with.” Uncle Worthless warned loudly.
“He he… that was just a greeting.” The strange b.u.t.terfly smirked coldly before saying, “I have plenty of ways… to kill all of you!” Then, she opened her giant bug mouth again. The familiar puf ta puf ta echoed in the players’ ears again… the strange noise came from inside the b.u.t.terfly queen’s stomach. The next second, a large amount of black shadows rushed out from her mouth.
“So it was you who was behind the wave of b.u.t.terflies earlier?” While Pegasus spoke, one hand already moved to the area around his waist while the other hand was raised up high to a.s.sume the posture of a tiger’s claw. “d.a.m.n villain! In this open s.p.a.ce, I do not need to hold back to deliver justice anymore!” With his pose a.s.sumed, and the appropriate lines announced loudly, I believe dear readers would be able to guess what our Pegasus was about to shout next…
“Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken!” With the shout of his signature move, the punches showered like meteors. They lashed like lightning and the collective force was as strong as a tsunami that could swallow a mountain. Be it in terms of speed or power, the Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken this instant was far more powerful than the one used by Pegasus while they were still inside the tunnel. Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen was not a pushover either. She managed to discern with first glance that the attack by Pegasus was not that weak and it was not something she could take head on. Therefore, she instantly flapped her giant wings and manoeuvred into an evasive movement. Instantly, the giant b.u.t.terfly wings swept out a powerful wind, the queen used the rebound force from this wind to glide backwards and slightly upwards into the air. The shadow b.u.t.terflies that she unleashed earlier had already all become cannon fodder that blocked off some of the damage from Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken.
…
“So you are travellers from another world….” When the Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen saw the skill, the ident.i.ties of the players dawned on her immediately. “This is so boring…” She said as she opened her mouth to unleash her third skill. But this time it was not a liquid or physical attack, it was an invisible sound wave attack.
“yin—” A high decibel shrill shot out from the queen’s mouth. Like a cut of invisible blade, it rippled through the air, heading rapidly towards Pegasus. Pegasus was already in battle mode, his focus was trained on the combat. Even though the sound wave travelled very quickly, he was able to avoid it with even and stable response. With a slight move of his shoulder and a gather of force in his knees, he easily teleported more than a zhang away.
However… the sound wave attack was not as simple as it appeared. When the invisible sound wave hit the crystal columns behind Pegasus, it was refracted by it….
“Yin—yin—yin—” At the same time, the Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen hovering in the air unleashed three more sound waves. Before the first sound wave dissipated, three more were added to the layers of attack. This time, the players were caught by surprise. Due to the different sizes of the crystal columns, it meant that the refraction angle of the sound waves against the crystal formation could not be predicted at all. And they could not tell how many times the sound waves would refract before they lost their power.
Under that circ.u.mstance, standing inside that maze-like geographical location, trying to avoid these high moving projectiles that had no trace to their trajectory at all was incredibly difficult. Therefore, Uncle Worthless, Atobe, Ambitionist and Pegasus all made the same instinctual reaction—jump into the air.
On the surface, this appeared to be the most correct choice. After all, there was poisonous fog in this crystallize maze, using the wider open air to conduct the battle was the logical choice. However… what they did not expect was, this reaction was exactly what the Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen wished for them to do. It was a trap that she had laid down for the players…
Tsk la—
“What is going on?” Just as Uncle Worthless leaped slightly higher than the boss’ head, he felt he ram into something… it was material that was invisible and incredible soft but tough, it was like a mosquito net that was hung in the air but it was simply not visible to the naked eye. Once he gained contact with that layer of material, Uncle Worthless found that he was unable to move his whole body at all; he was like a mosquito stuck onto a paper fly trap. One side of his body was stuck firmly to the material and he was unable to pull himself away from it.
“d.a.m.n it! We have fallen for her trap!” Ambitionist found himself in the same situation. His whole body was spread open on the invisible web with his face facing down. “There is an invisible web here!”
“I hate to say it, but your warning comes a little bit too late…” Atobe added rather weakly beside him. Obviously, he too had fallen for the same trick.
“What is this… d.a.m.n it, the more I struggle, the tighter it becomes….” Naturally Pegasus was not that lucky to avoid the same fate. At that moment, he was struggling as best as he could.
“he he he… outsiders are ultimately outsiders…” The Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen laughed. “All the creatures here know that the top of the crystalline maze is ‘her’ territory.” She flapped her wings with some arrogance. “The height that I am at is the maximum height any creature on this island will be able to reach. If you reach even a centimetre higher, you will fall into the ‘web’.” She turned to look at Pegasus and said, “hah… Try to struggle as best as you can. The harder your move, the faster ‘she’ will come.” She paused for a moment, “Even though I wish to personally end all of you but unfortunately… the moment you got stuck to the web, you have become ‘her’ preys. I do not wish to get on her bad side, after all… she prefers her food fresh…”
At this point, the Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen turned her gaze downwards. “You should be quite envious of that fella that did not jump up, at least he will have a quick death, and be spared of the horrible tort…” The queen did not finish her sentence because when she lowered her head… she did not see a dead body much less a splash of blood.
“What happened?” The Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen gasped with obvious panic. “Even if it just brushes past you, my sound waves will be able to shatter someone’s bones into pieces… it is impossible for him to avoid all of them in that limited s.p.a.ce…”
“Indeed, I would not have been able to do something like that.” Feng Bujue’s speaking voice suddenly appeared behind the queen and that interrupted her monologue.
“What?!” The Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen’s heart skipped a beat but her natural battle instinct would not go into shut down because of shock. In that moment, just based on where the voice of Feng Bujue was coming from, the queen swept around and the metallic wings cut like razors. The giant wings slashed like saws, they fluttered up and down, leaving no s.p.a.ce for Feng Bujue to avoid.
“With your speed, it is almost impossible for you to want to hit me with physical attack…” Feng Bujue commented with ease. He had not even activated Body Enhancement Spell-upgraded. He merely used Geppo under normal speed and he easily leaped out of the range of the slashes of the b.u.t.terfly wings.
“How is that possible?” The Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen gasped in shock. Her heart was a mixture of disbelief and panic as a series of questions flashed across her mind. [How could this man move so freely and effortlessly through the air? How did he manage to avoid my sound wave attacks? And the most ridiculous part is that… he appears to be able to predict my attack beforehand and counter it with the most extreme and unpredictable moves.]
“I was intending to answer all of your questions… before making my move.” Feng Bujue said as he suddenly appeared right below the queen. This angle… was the blind spot of her defence. “But your attack method is too troublesome so never mind…” As the sentence petered away, Brother Jue swiped a Rankyaku upwards. The arc of slash was glowing with a bright bluish and white light… from bottom to the top, it slashed through the Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen’s soft body and split her right down the middle into two halves… In the snap of a finger, the mini boss had died. Two halves of giant b.u.t.terfly body fell from both sides of Feng Bujue before they landed on the ground. When the queen’s metallic wings landed on the crystalline floor, it even clinked noisily.
“Hmm…” Feng Bujue hovered in the air like this was an ordinary day. He scratched his chin as he lifted his head to study his four teammates who were stuck to the sky. “So… it is time to deal with your problem next.”
“We should be stuck on a very large and incredibly tightly knit spider web.” Ambitionist immediately started to describe the situation. “The entirety of my back… including the back of my head, the neck, the spine, the b.u.t.t and the limbs… are stuck without any gap to this web. I am unable to struggle loose and it is impossible to reach inside the inventory to grab any item either.” He turned his head the best that he could and looked at the rest of his stuck teammates from the corner of his eyes. “I believe it is the same for the rest of them. Therefore… Brother Feng, you are our only hope.”
“Okay… in that case…” Feng Bujue mumbled. “Let me first try a few hits of Rankyaku first…” He immediately put his words into action. Turning his body, he kicked out four consecutive arcs. The four arcs howled through the wind, forming a square, framing Ambitionist inside it. However… after the huffs of the searing winds, the slashes continued to fly past the web and continue upwards into the sky….
“What is the meaning of this?” Feng Bujue’s confusion lasted less than half a second. When he uttered the first half of the sentence, he had already come to the conclusion. Therefore, he finished the latter half of the sentence in an answer to his own question, “The web is impervious to non-physical attacks, is it?”
“Give me a moment, I will try to use my equipment to saw at it.” Brother Jue informed his teammates of his plan and then took out WJQ-308 Military Shovel from his inventory. And then with a careful Geppo, he came to a perfect height and hovered in the air. The reason he chose the military shovel and not the defence-break cleaver was because of the shape of the latter. After all, it was a kitchen cleaver, the blade was too close to the hilt; If during the process of sawing, his hand got accidentally too close to the web and then he got his whole arm and perhaps his whole person entangled into the web… then he would only make the situation worse.
“Please, whatever you do, do not move.” Feng Bujue shouted loudly at his teammates. “If I am accidentally wrapped inside this web, then it will be over for all of us.”
“Understood.” Ambitionist replied.
“Don’t worry about me, even if I want to move, I do not have the energy to do so…” Atobe grumbled.
“Ah… I have struggled too much earlier that the bind around me has gotten so tight and now I do not have any strength left in me…” Pegasus announced in a bland and empty tone. At that point though, Uncle Worthless gave an answer that managed to help boost the morale slightly. “Do not worry, take it slow… if it does not work, I have a method that I can use to save myself, but that method is equal to my ultimate, so if I can not use it… then I would prefer to save it for latter.”
Even if his teammates were not familiar with what he was talking about, I am sure the readers must have known by that what Uncle Worthless was referring to… Indeed, Uncle Worthless’ emergency escape plan was to drop his sungla.s.ses (his actual self) to the ground…
“Very well, then I will save you last.” After Feng Bujue heard the encouragement from Uncle Worthless, this was how he replied the man. After hearing that, Uncle Worthless could not help but feel a little bit regret for exposing his secret. But after he gave it some thought, he soon understood brother Jue’s meaning… If like the mini boss said, ‘she’ was already on the way here. Then… feng Bujue perhaps might not have the time to save all of them. Under that premise, naturally he would save the person who had the means to save themselves last, it was the logical thing to do.
“Very good, the military shovel can cut through the web, it is just that the web is quite st.u.r.dy so it will take some time to saw through it.” At that moment, even though Feng Bujue tried to keep his tone light, his action was swift and hurried, he did not take any break. “Based on this speed… I should be able to remove you from this web in about another 5 minutes.” The first person Brother Jue rescued was Atobe because Atobe’s weapon was perfect for sawing. Once he made him loose, the rest of the process would be much simple. Brother Jue had even figured out the plan already… He would carry Atobe and jump to a perfect height and then order this young man to use his fan to cut through the spider web.
“By the way, what exactly did you do earlier?” While Brother Jue was cutting through the web, Atobe asked with curiosity. “How did you manage to avoid all those rebounding sound waves?”
“Haven’t I told the boss earlier?” Feng Bujue replied in an even tone without stopping the movement of his hands. “I did not avoid them.” He paused before continuing, “I initially wanted to avoid them but I failed… luckily, my equipment managed to absorb most of the damange.”
“Hah?” Atobe was stunned. “Your armor is that good?”
“Yes, why are you so surprised?” Feng Bujue replied expressionlessly. Actually… they were not that good, his armor was that powerful until they could completely absorb the damage from the attack of a boss level monster. There were two reasons why he could take on those sound waves… number one was because Artemis’ Embrace could greatly reduce the damage of all long-ranged attacks and number two was… because Echo Armor had the hidden property of the ability to resist most sound wave-based attacks.
Even though Echo Armor’s actual item description did not point out this special effect, it was heavily insinuated in the item remark: “After collecting the whispering from Blackbolt, Dr. Doom used the powerful energy to create this equipment. After activating the belt, the user will obtain invisible armor made from ‘echo’.”
This invisible ‘echo’ armor naturally had the same essence as sound wave. And the voice of ‘Black Bolt’ was naturally the king of all sound waves attacks. This boss… would be able to level more than 10 square feet of land with just a few sentences, he could bring down a planet if he shouted and if he yelled at the top of his lungs… he could even cause a dimensional tear.
With the double buff of these two armors, Feng Bujue barely managed to survive the attacks from the Blade b.u.t.terfly Queen’s sound wave attacks…
Of course, the man himself was indispensable in this effort as well. If not for his use of zero-time simulation to try his best to make the evasion to the best of his ability and successfully counted the timing that he would be able to narrowly slip through the gap in the attacks, then the result might be completely different… Even if his armors happened to perfectly counter the enemy’s attacks, if he suffered two to three such attacks in quick successions, his armor might be broken as well.
“So you never intended to jump up from the very beginning?” Atobe was a clever person, he was that brazen to inquire after the armor that Brother Jue had on so he changed the subject.
“Well, that was not true.” Feng Bujue replied, “The reason I did not jump had nothing to do with my armor but because I thought the boss was acting a bit strangely…” He licked his lips and continued to explain. “Pegasus’ Pegasasu Ryūsei Ken has an upward trajectory and it does not cover that big of an angle. To evade this kind of attack, the most effective evasive manoeuvre is to follow the trajectory of the attack pattern and fly directly upwards. With the boss’ speed and ability, the most effective solution for her was definitely to fly immediately perpendicularly upwards. But… she did not do that but she chose to flutter backwards and then upwards at an angle. The feeling that she gave off was… she did not dare to burst at a high speed directly into the air.”
Brother Jue paused for two seconds before he resumed, “What happened next proved that I was right. When she was doing the evasion, the boss had figured out the plan and laid down the trap…” At this point, to adjust to the sawing angle, he slightly adjusted his hand that held the military shovel. “First, she retreated to the extreme height that was closest to this web… as the local creature on this island, she naturally knew where this limit was. And then, she unleashed her ultimate…”
“Wait a minute, how did you know those sound wave attacks were her ultimate?” Ambitionist at the side interrupted to ask.
“That is very simple. From all the skills that she has shown, the sound wave is definitely the strongest…” Feng Bujue answered. “if she has any other ultimate, she would have used it when I was close to her earlier.”
“Hmmm…” Ambitionist nodded. “You have a point.”
“In any case… she used this super powerful skill to try to force us to jump into the air.” Feng Bujue continued. “Under normal circ.u.mstance… if one is going to get involved in an aerial battle, the battle instinct will push the person to move to a higher alt.i.tude than the enemy to gain the advantage… even I have this kind of habit, that can’t be helped because even power is just to hover in the air, it is not flying in the actual meaning of the word. Unless we are able to fly to any direction like Superman, or else, this is the kind of reaction we will all have.”
“Yes, because we need to factor in the distance that we will eventually drop to the ground.” Uncle Worthless added, “The higher you jump, the longer you will hover in the air, that is just basic conceptual knowledge.”
“And the boss used this habitual instinct of ours… to lay down this extremely cunning trap.” Feng Bujue said with a hint of admiration. “The combo will work almost every time… those who remain on the ground will be crushed by the sound waves and those who jump into the air will run into the web. The only survivors will be those who jump to the same height as her and stop… but for us ‘outsiders’ who do not know about the presence of this big web, naturally we would not do that.” He t.i.tled his head to look at his teammates. “Naturally, earlier i… did not factor in so many factors, I merely… saw all of you have jumped up into the sky so I decided to take a risk to verify the suspicion in my heart.”
“Hah… Only a narcissist like yourself will be able to do something like that.” Ambitionist chided. “based on a bit of uncertain suspicion to do such high risk commitment…”
“That is not true… actually, if you consider all the extenuating factors, you will be able to grasp my action.” Feng Bujue replied. “The situation at the time was… I did not know about the trap in the air, I only suspected it… so the path I had laid before me were two, one was to stay on the group and face the threat that I already know; and two is to jump into the sky to face a sky that might not exist and unknown.”