"It"s going to be different now, so make sure to hold those arms up!" Patriarch Shen said with a wide grin, confident that Duan Li would no longer be able to treat them casually as he did.First transformation of the Nine Deadlock!
CRACK!
With a single dash, all eight patriarchs moved towards Duan Li at the same time, leaving indentation marks behind their every footsteps, hinting at how heavy their form and stances were!
Left, right, forward, backward..
"An attack formation that seals all four directions.." Duan Li nodded in approval.
This was actually a fairly common group tactic used to deal with an enemy, and the idea was to block all escape routes and deal devastating damage at the same time!
Usually, a panicked or novice martial artist would leap up to escape from this predicament, but that would only bring them a swifter end instead of escaping as the opening was but a bait to lure them in for the real finisher.
Experienced fighter on the other hand, would be able to easily escape from this situation by exploiting the weakest link in the attack formation; either by going straight at the weakest person in the formation itself, or by destroying the ground to destabilize their stances, creating opportunity to counter-attack or escape!
However, the opponents that Duan Li was fighting right now were not those average joes at all.
After all, each of them could take on a thousand opponents by themselves and would probably remain unscathed fighting a thousand more.
Therefore, not to mention that the usage of such common tricks to escape their encircling right now would be useless, even if Duan Li were to defend and then counter them, his limbs would probably be locked by the patriarchs, rendering him immobile!
Snake slip palm, Eagle swipe chain, Panther claw strike, Willow footsteps, Fists of tempering will, Yellow tempest moveset, Jiu"s Nine powerful move and Dragon descension kick..
"All these moves are really well thought out and complements the might of each other while covering their weaknesses at the same time.. truly a powerful move.."
However..
Duan Li"s stance changed from a defensive into an offensive stance, creating the image of a rotating and furious porcupine!
"What?" the eight patriarchs was taken aback by Duan Li"s sudden move, before realizing its rationality!
"Breaking offense with an even stronger offense, in this case, the stronger ones would definitely win!" Patriarch Jiu noted this in his mind.
The rest also came up with similar epiphany in their minds.
Right now, their furious collaborative attacks sealing all the escape routes left Duan Li with no other way other than defending himself, at least, this was how it was supposed to be. They were even left with expectations on how Duan Li would defend himself!
Yet, what they witnessed instead was an angry porcupine, threatening to blast holes on the body of its predator that dared to eat it!
Seeing that they would be the one to be attacked if they continue on with such trajectory, hints of smile appeared on their face before their form quickly change at the next instant!
Second Transformation of the Nine Deadlock!
Whooshh!
"Hm?" Duan Li was astonished, his face full of disbelief!
To be able to change their movement in the middle of executing it, anyone would have to face the backlash from the sudden change in momentum, causing internal damage!
However, not only that they didn"t experienced any sorts of backlash at all, their movements became even faster!
Whooshh!!
"I see.. so they channeled the change in momentum into their speed.. easier said than done.." Duan Li remarked as he understood what was going on.
In theory, energy could not be created nor destroyed, only converted. In this case, if they did not redirect the momentum, then the resulting outcome would definitely be not pretty.
Then again, converting energy from its natural form to another was not something that can just be done by will alone.
To put this into another perspective, it was similar on how a rolling boulder down a slope would have an energy change from movement energy to heat, sound and light energy upon impact. But what the patriarchs did was convert the whole energy to sound energy only!
While such a thing was in theory possible, it was almost impossible to be done in practical!
The fact that they were able to do this speaks volume of their capabilities!
Additionally, the resulting change in speed also brought about change in their position, and this time, Duan Li could see several flaws where he could escape to as their movement change from direct attack to side-steps instead.
"No, these are not openings.. but traps!" Duan Li narrowed his eyes under his white mask.
Due to his Martial True Instinct, he could subconsciously deduce that the openings were deliberately made like a well crafted net. If he pushed onto those flaws, he would find that instead of weakening their collaborative attack, it would become tighter instead!
"Creative.. but.." Duan Li changed his stance back into defensive mode and stood still.
"He realized?" the eight patriarchs was once again surprised on the action that Duan Li took to counter them.
The second transformation of the Nine deadlock was an illusion made for the enemy to escape the encirclement and it didn"t matter whether the first transformation worked or not.
If it worked, then the chances are their opponent would likely try to exploit the flaw to escape after being dealt damage. If it didn"t, the opponent would somehow attack in return, resulting the same thing.
However, if their opponent chose to remain still, then the flaws they made by side-stepping would become useless!
Third Transformation of the Nine Deadlock!
Huuu!!
With another heavy indentation marks on the ground with their footsteps, all eight patriarchs did a somersault and lunged towards Duan Li at a very peculiar angle!
"Irregular attack trajectory.. impossible to predict.." Duan Li was surprised yet again with such an outrageous maneuvers made by the patriarchs.
"By the looks of it, their bones seems to be dislocated on purpose during their somersault, creating an angular attack that should not be possible with the human anatomy."
If that is the case, then..
Crack!
Duan Li also dislocated a portion of his limbs and was able to perform an extraordinary dodge at a very creepy angle!
Fourth Transformation of the Nine Deadlock!
The patriarchs swiftly took a backstep each and swerve around Duan Li in a clockwise direction.
Then, they punched out at the same time using all their strength!
BOOMMM!!
The resulting force from their fists became sonic booms, evidence of their overwhelming physical might despite their age!
Since they faced each other with Duan Li as the center, the sonic wave collided against one another, sending broken visual cues and scrambled Duan Li"s hearing senses.
...