The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 778: Nobody

Tia’s long arms turned into two crimson scimitars. She had been hiding in wait on a rooftop. With her legs bent and charged with power, she made a strong stomp, shooting toward Azure Dragon in a fierce oval-shaped red light.

Azure Dragon sensed the tremendous killing intent coming from behind him, but after making the Strongest Punch, his body was exhausted, and his energy sluggish. Simply put, he was slow.

He couldn’t dodge the attack in time.

He struggled to tap into what little energy he had left to take the attack with his body, but he didn’t think he could endure the hit.

Clang!

But then a figure appeared behind him like a ghost, parrying Tia’s two arched blades.

The man was tall and skinny with messy curls and deep-set eyes. The character “tiger” was tattooed on his left temple. With a toothpick in his mouth, he blocked Tia’s sneak attack with one hand wielding a giant Black Gold blade taller than a person.

“Whew, made it in time.” War Tiger spat out the toothpick. “I gotta say, the food here is terrible. The beef is so chewy it might as well be gum.”

Azure Dragon sighed in relief when he heard War Tiger’s voice.

The man being here meant that the reinforcements from the Ocean River Union were here, too.

Azure Dragon could guess that they had a Plan B, too. He realized it when Surnamed Li refused to set out for Aurora Town immediately after reaching Snow Nation.

It turned out that Surnamed Li was waiting for reinforcements to arrive. She must have foreseen the future of getting ambushed by swarms of monsters with level 7 Prophet.

War Tiger twisted the blade and made a powerful swing, sending Tia flying about seven meters away.

Tia steadied her footing, staring at the careless-looking man. He was strong!

“Need any help, War Tiger?” An old man in black cotton clothes slowly emerged from an alley on the side. It was Elder Yan Liang, wearing his signature mask.

“No, I’m more worried about the others.” War Tiger gave him an easy smile. “Go ahead.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve sent the others ahead already.”

Yan Liang didn’t actually think that War Tiger needed help. His concern was that War Tiger would seize the chance to kill Azure Dragon while he was weak—the possibility was slim, though.

He lifted his right hand and pulled, using Spatial Magic. In the blink of an eye, Azure Dragon found himself back at Yan Liang’s side.

“Can you walk?” Yan Liang asked.

Azure Dragon was pale, but his eyes remained sharp. “I’m good. Go help Six Rime.”

“Don’t worry. The group is heading there.”

...

War Tiger faced Tia amid the ruins, bodies, and fire. Falling from the sky were snow and the occasional golden shards of light—the remnants of the energy of the Strongest Puch.

The human and monster stared each other down in silence, quickly giving each other a once-over.

“I’m War Tiger, deputy captain of the Twelve Zodiac Signs.” War Tiger lifted his greatsword. “And you?”

“Tia, slaughterer prime and an apostle of the Heavenly Godbearer,” Tia made an official introduction, too.

“Haha, good!” War Tiger perked up visibly with childlike excitement. “My Dragonslaying Giantsword shouldn’t be used on regular folks. It’s great that you’ll be its first kill!”

Rage rushed into Tia’s head. The failed mission, Tokoos’ death, and the insult and humiliation from her enemy burned away what little rationality there was in her head.

“I’m going to strangle you with your intestines and make a ribbon.” Tia clenched her teeth.

“Oh, how exciting.” War Tiger grinned and raised his greatsword at Tia.

“Ahhhh!!”

Tia stopped wasting her breath. A furious growl burst out of her chest as her body grew in size, her armor of hardy scales spreading to cover her from head to toe. Then her tailbone protruded and turned into a large, thick green tail, followed by gushes of viscous dark brown fluid.

In two seconds, she turned into a giant lizard person at three meters tall.

Whoosh.

Instantly, she disappeared, leaving only two cracked footprints and a rush of current.

Her arms turned into two giant arched blades and made a cross cut at War Tiger horizontally, slicing at his head like a pair of scissors.

Clang.

War Tiger thrust his greatsword into the ground with both hands holding the hilt, accurately blocking the point where the two arched blades crossed to stop the lethal attack.

Surprise flashed through Tia’s golden marble-like eyes. He had stopped her without even moving!

Her tail whipped toward War Tiger, planning to grapple him. War Tiger jumped and tucked his legs to dodge the tail. Then he stomped on the greatsword with both feet.

Bam!

Tia’s two arms, parried by the greatsword, felt suddenly numb, and she staggered back.

War Tiger kicked the greatsword as soon as he landed. The blade twirled upward and spun before returning to War Tiger’s hands, scattering soil.

He looked at his weapon with unbridled joy in his eyes. He looked like a kid who had finally got his hands on an exclusive edition toy.

Awesome! The sword is great!

And this monster! She’s like an enemy tailor made for my new weapon!

War Tiger lifted his greatsword with both hands, a smile tugging his lips.

As he injected his energy, the Dragonslaying Giantsword radiated a grayish-blue blade aura that resembled a strange fire. Then thud, War Tiger charged at Tia like a phantom, leaving a trail of the same color in his wake.

Clang.

Tia blocked a horizontal slash with her arms crossed. A strange numbing pain shot from her arms to the rest of her body, and many of the hard scales covering her fell off.

What’s going on?!

Before Tia could dwell on it, War Tiger was already above her, making a fierce vertical slash.

Tia raised her arms to block it again.

A sharp, stinging pain spread through her.

Large swathes of scales fell from her arms. She felt like a fish on a cutting board, having her scales peeled off by the back of a knife.

Tia came to a realization.

The greatsword didn’t do slashing damage, but hurt the enemies with the power tremors. The energy War Tiger injected into the greatsword entered her body and wreaked havoc through the powerful swing.

Although her explosive power and defense were ten times greater after a full transformation, it came with the downside of slowing her down, and she had to parry all of War Tiger’s slashes.

The greatsword itself wouldn’t hurt her, yet the tremors would spread through her body like electric currents.

What made the greatsword threatening wasn’t simple damage to the external, but its ability to destroy a lifeform inside out, through the great tremor it brought about.

Tia realized then: the greatsword was meant as a counter to a large enemy with high defense!

In fact, War Tiger had commissioned the weapon to make up for the shortcomings of an assassin-type like him, meant to deal with his bane—enemies with high defense and great constitution.

Had Tia maintained her human form and dodged his attacks agilely, fighting him through skills, the fight wouldn’t have been so one-sided.

Tia regretted her decision, but there was no turning back time.

In her moment of distraction, the greatsword hit her in the back.

“Agh!”

It didn’t feel so much like she was cut, but clubbed.

Violent, wild tremors instantly shot to all parts of her body, running wild and disturbing the energy circuits inside her.

Her scales fell in large parts.

Like a fir in heavy snow, the snow on the branches fell as soon as a man kicked the trunk.

No! I can’t fall here! I have to avenge Tokoos...

Bam!

Stripped of most of the protection of the scales, Tia got hit in the chest with War Tiger’s fourth attack.

This time, even her prided sturdy skin and flesh gave way. Blood splattered from the open wounds.

Bam!

The fifth hit.

Bam, bam, bam—

In truth, War Tiger was quickly losing energy since he had to feed the Black Gold monstrosity in his hands to ensure its incredible power. He was more and more tired, yet he moved with increasing speed and trapped Tia with several afterimages—Killing Expert made him stronger the worse his condition was.

Although he was wielding a heavy greatsword, he moved as agilely as he would with a whip. Crisscrossing slashes hit Tia like countless whips.

Thirty seconds later, War Tiger stopped attacking.

He was going to collapse soon at this rate, and he would have to hurt himself to the point of dying in order to make another barrage of fierce attacks. However, he didn’t see the need for that.

Clang.

War Tiger dropped the Dragonslying Giantsword and fell on his butt, panting heavily. “Huff, huff...I’m beat. I’m completely beat...”

It was as if the fight was already over.

Tia remained ten meters behind him, covered in open wounds with no part intact. Her hair was messy, and she bled from all orifices. Her once beautiful golden eyes threatened to pop out of her eye sockets like those of a dead fish.

While it seemed like her gaze was still on War Tiger, she wasn’t seeing anything.

She was already dead.

Boom.

Three seconds later, Tia’s body exploded into splashes of blood and body parts.

The tremoring power of the Dragonslaying Giantsword had destroyed all the energy routes in Tia’s body and broke her every bone and muscle.

War Tiger rested for a full minute in the rain of blood before standing up, putting the Dragonslaying Giantsword back on his back. He wiped the sweat and blood on his face.

He took out an almost empty pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket in the back and shook out the last cigarette. Only after lighting it and taking a deep drag did he feel alive again.

He strolled toward the other side of the town, going over the fight in his head.

Hm, it was my first time using my big treasured sword. Feels nice. There’s room for improvement in terms of techniques, though, or the battery life is too poor. I’ll run out of energy too soon.