Chapter 28 - Just A Simple Misunderstanding...

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The [Fungus-Ape] crashed heavily on Kai's location, which attracted the attention of those fighting nearby.

"Damn, another one showed up before we could finish up. Vice-Captain, should we retreat?", said one of the men with a surprising amount of calmness.

"No, it seems to be attacking something else. Let's finish up here while it's distracted". The armor-clad person said with the voice of a mature female.

As she spoke, her spiked whip wrapped around the beast's neck. She exerted as much strength as she could muster as she pulled the whip down and along with it, the heavily wounded [Fungus-Ape], forcing it crashing into the ground. It struggled for a while but seemed to have been drained by the long-drawn-out fight. it quickly succumbed to its heavy wounds and died in a pool of its own green blood.

Inspired by the scene, the rest of the men responded in unison. "Understood Vice-Captain!" and began fighting their targets with even more fervor.

At this time, Kai had just used [Hare leaps over Moon] to dodge his [Fungus-Ape]'s sudden attack. Unfortunately for Kai, he had now used his only Qi which he got passively overnight, so he was now completely out of Qi. He didn't expect to fight a [Fungus-Ape] but he was confident in getting away even if he had no Qi.

Kai noticed the [Fungus-Ape] was still coming for him, then had an interesting idea. He turned around and ran away with a devious smile across his face.

The armor-clad woman had just defeated the [Fungus-Ape] and was about to take a small breather when she saw a suspicious-looking person with a large straw hat running in her direction. What's worse was that he had a massive [Fungus-Ape] hot on his tail.

She was so surprised that she was momentarily stunned. The man didn't slow down ran right past her. He jumped over the large body of the recently killed [Fungus-Ape] and like that, he was gone from his pursuer's gaze.

The armor-clad woman finally realized what was going on when the [Fungus-Ape] switched its target and focused on her. She angrily turned her head in the direction the man had run and roared at the top of her lungs.

"You bastard!"

Kai ignored the angry shout and just kept running.

"I'm out of Qi so I can't fight that thing right now". Kai gave a silent word of thanks to the woman for getting him out of that situation and kept running.

Kai stayed in the shadows and shrubs as he moved closer to the center of the Swamp. After a while, Kai finally came across a tree with a large number of seemingly regular tree vines. He used [Qi Detection] and found a few well-hidden [Slime Vine] alongside the regular vines.

"Finally found some. I had to go this deep just to find this small group. Hunting here is not going to be easy in the future".

Kai didn't waste time. He pulled his mind away from the random thoughts and threw his dagger at the closest [Slime-Vine]. The dagger landed heavily on the [Slime-Vine], making it wriggle in pain, and alerting the other vines. Before the rest could react, Kai jumped onto the injured [Slime-Vine] and shoved his hands into the newly formed wound. Using as much strength as he could muster, he ripped it apart from the inside out, creating a gory mess in the process.

=[Grade-1 [Slime-Vine] defeated, [5 Qi] absorbed by [Dragon Subduing Law]=

With that, Kai was back in action. He enhanced his entire body using [1 Qi] and made quick work of the rest of the [Slime-Vine].

Kai then looked at his current Qi to see what he had to work with.

[ 49/500 Qi]

"Good, I feel safe again. But this is yet another reason for me to try and get a good body cultivation manual. I can't keep relying on Qi alone"

Kai cut open the dead [Slime-Vine] and stored their gallbladders in his backpack. Kai cleaned the surrounding area of any [Slime-Vine] but he quickly noticed that their numbers had drastically reduced. Where before he could t go 5minites without running into them, he now needed to travel more than 20 minutes.

He also had to avoid the roaming bands of [Fungus-Ape] which were eating the [Slime-Vine] like locusts, completely cleaning the place out at a rapid pace.

Kai kept wandering around the center of the swamp while using [Qi Detection]. He finally found a single [Slime-Vine] which he quickly killed.

Just as he was about to cut it open, Kai felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a cold sweat ran down his back all of a sudden. He didn't ignore the feeling and quickly used [Hare Leaps over Moon] to leap a few meters away.

He turned back to look at the spot where he was standing and noticed a deep slash mark. Had he still been standing there, he would have probably been split in half.

Kai saw a long spiked whip get retracted and followed it up a tree. The armor-clad was on top of the tree branch, holding the now coiled up spiked whip.

"Oh, you were able to dodge that?"

She jumped off the branch and did a flip before landing elegantly on the ground.

"Did you think I wouldn't find you?. I'll make you pay for what you did back there."

Kai knew why she was here, so he didn't bother to try explaining himself. She looked angry and ready to fight so Kai simply enhanced his body using Qi and cautiously looked around waiting for her reinforcements to show up. She had 15 [Grade-3] Body Cultivators with her last time so if they were here, he would have to consider running away.

The woman cracked her whip again on the ground before shooting it in Kai's direction. it moved as fast as an arrow, but now that Kai had enhanced his body, it wasn't too difficult to dodge.

Using his Qi enhanced body, along with [Twig] to keep himself balanced, Kai was able to dodge all her strikes.

"Not half bad, but how long can you keep this up?". The woman said, but she was secretly surprised by Kai's unnatural movements. He was able to twist his body into strange positions without losing his balance at all. This completely shocked her since she couldn't exploit any of his supposed 'openings'. She had also seen him move with incredible speed, so she was reluctant to get into melee range against someone as fast as him.

Kai on the other hand had his eyes on the cool-down for [Hare Leaps Over Moon]. He hadn't noticed any people in the surrounding yet, so if he could finish her off quickly, then he could hide all the evidence. But If their group suddenly showed up, he would have to use it to run.

When Kai had 5 seconds left on his cool-down, he heard the familiar roars of the [Fungus-Ape].

"Dammit, these guys sure pick the wrong times to show up". Kai sad out load.

The woman didn't seem phased and kept attacking. "At this rate, we'll both be out in the open when the beasts arrived, and If their group has too many of them, then escaping would become an impossible task", Kai yelled, hoping to have her fall back but she simply ignored him and continued attacking.

Kai made up his mind and threw his dagger at her. He had been practicing his throwing skill on the [Slime-Vine] so his accuracy had improved a lot. The dagger flew straight for her head at a high speed.

The woman saw the attack coming and quickly retracted her whip, using the whip's backward momentum to knock the dagger up into the air. She faced Kai again but found that he was no longer there.

"Did he move already?". She had been cautious of his fast movements so she kept an eye on his every move, however, the dagger had distracted her, making her lose his whereabouts.

She looked around but couldn't find any traces of him. That's when a terrifying thought suddenly flashed into her mind which made her lookup. To her horror, Kai was silently dropping towards her head with the dagger in hand.

He was too close so she couldn't dodge. She could only tilt her head towards the left. The dagger plunged into her right armor's shoulder plate.

At the moment of impact, the dagger shattered from the sheer force of the attack. Her armor was not spared either as it caved in deeply, dislocating her shoulder and shattering her right collar bone.

She roared in pain as she used her left arm to viciously punch at him.

Kai was still in mid-air and had no way to dodge the attack. All he could do was take the attack head-on and hope that his enhanced body could handle it.

The fist landed on Kai's chest and knocked him several meters away. Kai landed on the ground in a crouching position and spat up some blood. He noticed that a rib or two had been broken, but this much was still bearable for him.

"Damn you!", yelled the woman in undisguised rage. However, she didn't continue her attacks. Her right arm swung limp on her body with warm crimson blood seeping through the gaps of her armor.

"He's more powerful than I thought..." She murmured to herself. She assessed her damage and realized that this person was more than he seemed. Her armor was made out of low-tier [Grade-3] beast materials. This meant even [Mortal Grade-4] Body Cultivators would struggle to leave such a dent on it.

His dagger was obviously of low quality, so it absorbed a lot of the impact when it shattered. What worried her most was that her dented armor as well as the gauntlet she had used to punch him were both slowly disintegrating as if infected by something. They were both slowly rotting away. She quickly stripped her gauntlet and shoulder guard off and threw them aside. She then became even more cautious of this mysterious person. Poison users were the bane of all warriors so she decided to no longer attack him until she figured out what his true identity was.

Kai on the other hand couldn't feel his right arm anymore. He had super-enhanced his right arm multiple times over the last two days so his muscles were beyond torn at this point. If he continued using this arm, he risked having permanent damage.

"You...If you're this powerful, why did you lure that [Fungus-Ape] towards me?"

Kai was happy that she finally seemed ready to have a rational conversation. He tilted his head down, hiding his face under the large straw hat before he answered.

"What happened before was just a simple misunderstanding, but I don't think I'll have time to explain in full detail...". Just as Kai said this, four [Fungus-Ape] appeared swinging from the vines. They quickly noticed the two humans and started releasing intimidating roars as they lunged towards them.

"How about we have a temporary truce? I doubt you'll be able to keep using your whip as you did with your arm like that". Kai said as he pointed towards her arm.

She looked at her arm and sighed, picked up her whip with her good arm.

"Worry about yourself," she said as she cracked the whip and wrapped it around one of the nearby branches. She pulled down hard and the same downward force pulled her up, essentially allowing her to bungee up to the tree branch.

"You better hope that we never meet again". And with those words, she left, using her whip to wrap into other branches to swing away. Kai was astonished as how she had a way to escape with only one functional arm.

Two of the Apes roared and quickly followed her, while the other two focused on Kai. He had just used [Hare Leaps over Moon] so it still had about 45 seconds left on the cool-down.

"Any chance you guys will let me off with a warning?" Kai asked as the two snarling [Fungus-Apes] moved towards him from opposite directions.

Kai couldn't be stingy with Qi anymore, so he activated [Corrosive Dragon Stance]then rushed towards one of the Apes. Kai's super-enhanced his right leg, using it to do a power jump off the ground with full force. He then brought his right leg in and then super Qi-enhanced his knee before connecting it to the beast's jaw.

A sickening crunch was heard as the beast's jaw cracked, pushing it back and making it fall over. The spot where Kai's attack had landed started to crackle as the hard skin corroded off, exposing the soft green flesh which also started to sizzle.

The beast seemed to be in pain and tried to use its hands to remove whatever was burning it. However, this only infected its arms which also started to sizzle and corrode.

The corrosive effect was evident but seemed to have mostly been used up when corroding the tough surface hide. He needed to hit an open wound if he wanted to deal maximum damage. Kai moved quickly towards the downed Ape. The second one was about to get to him so he needed to end this quickly.

Kai jumped onto the beast's neck and held on for dear life. However, it grabbed him hard with all four of its four arms and began to squeeze, Kai felt like his bones were about to break, but almost immediately, a sizzling sound came from the beast's arms. The searing pain it felt intensified as the corrosive attribute multiplied, causing it to feel unimaginable pain. it quickly let go of him and tried to separate itself from him.

Kai was using [Corrosive Dragon Stance]'s passive corrosive ability, and felt it was worth the cost. Kai super-enhanced his left arm and punched at the now corroded and soft flesh under its skull. His entire arm penetrated the soft flesh and appeared through the back of its skull, along with another sickening crunch sound. The beast instantly died with its mushy green brains scattered everywhere.

Kai was already moving when he got the system notification.

=[Grade-2 [Fungus-Ape] defeated, [5 Qi] absorbed by [Dragon Subduing Law]=

Kai quickly hopped off its large body, using it to hide from the incoming [Fungus ape].

The second one arrived and roared as it looked at its fallen companion. The beast threw a fit for a few seconds running around the body before spotted Kai. The Ape's four fists were about to land on top of his head before Kai suddenly disappeared.

[Hare leaps over Moon] had just gone off cool-down and he used it dodged the attack. Kai appeared above its head as he super-enhanced his left arm and again, delivering a devastating fist towards the back of the [Fungus-Ape] skull.

The skull was a lot harder from the outside, so it did not shatter as Kai had hoped, but he still heard an audible cracking sound. He had also added [Corrosive Dragon Stance] to the attack so a large wound was quickly forming behind the beast's head. It fell to the ground and put its hands behind its head, but those hands were quickly infected as well, inflicting even more pain.

While it was distracted by the pain, Kain jumped into the air and super-enhanced his right foot. He brought down a heavy stomp towards the now softer skull, instantly shattering it into small bits of bone and spraying mushy green brains matter everywhere again.

=[Grade-2 [Fungus-Ape] defeated, [5 Qi] absorbed by [Dragon Subduing Law]=

Kai fell onto the ground and panted heavily.

"Phew, that went better than I thought it would," said Kai as he lifted his leg and shook the brains off his boot.

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