Chapter 183

Lykan

The Rematch

A lot had to go right the last time Lykan found himself squaring off against a leviathan. He had to manage to break through the sonar waves of qi that were sent through the water. He had to slowly lure the creature up to the surface of the water, and beyond. Then finally he had to manage to kill the beast.

Of course, he had changed since then. The most notable change was the fact that he no longer had his mithril bo-staff, a weapon that was broken when he squared off against his newest pupil Pentra.

The next major change was that he was no longer solely devoted to the use of Air qi manipulation. In fact, last time he fought a leviathan was before he even realized to learn to cultivate at all. So much had changed since that last battle. The world had changed, and yet it also didn’t.

Despite all his effort and sacrifice, the world continued to move along at its languid pace through the cosmos. That was a sobering thought, and one that Lykan tried to remind himself of daily. He was but one man, with an impossible dream of preventing his world from being completely corrupted by qi.

At this point, he knew that preventing the world from truly transforming into a qi cultivator’s paradise would be devastating to the world. The planet itself had gone too far and had now reached the point of no return.

Instead, all Lykan could do now was prepare for the inevitable. He needed to prepare himself both mentally and physically to be the strongest form of opposition this world had to offer. This way when the inevitable did happen, and the true masters of Titans like Pentra came, he would be ready. Well, he knew he would never be ready. Instead, he just wanted to be as prepared as he possibly could.

With that desire to be prepared, Lykan made it a point of contention to push himself forward as much and as hard as possible. That was why, when given the chance to test himself against a true leviathan, not just one that was contained within a self-contained biome, but one that had been released upon the world, Lykan knew he had to battle the monster.

It had been months since he last fought one and barely won. Now he needed to conduct this battle to see how much he had grown in such a relatively short period of time

Even now, he knew that the battle would be far different than last time.

Despite not having a weapon, he felt confident in his capabilities. Even now flying towards the giant beast, Lykan could feel the different components of qi all cycling through the monster before him. He felt Air qi, filling the creature with immediate energy. He felt the water qi within the beast’s blood that also pumped blood throughout its body. He felt the earth qi in the massive scales that covered the beast’s body. And finally, he felt fire qi as a connecter, something that invisibly bridged every fiber of the monsters being.

With Lykan’s newfound understanding of cultivation he began to see the world more clearly, at least he thought he did. He didn’t want to fall back into his old traps of thinking he was infallible in his current understanding of the world. He had grown a lot over the years, and realized that while his current understanding might be correct, or at least aspects of his thinking were correct, he knew there would always be gaps in his logic. Gaps of details that he knew would come back to bite him if he ignored them, or assumed they were inconsequential.

That was why Lykan found himself only accepting certain portions of his thinking as true. In this he assumed that only the components of what he could see and verify were accurate. Even then, he knew they should only be considered accurate in that he observed the phenomenon this time.

If he wanted to begin to assume certain aspects of understanding that related to qi, Lykan knew he would need to experiment. He would need to come up with a hypothesis, come up with ways to measure and test the hypothesis and then conduct the tests.

Currently Lykan was under the understanding of a few things.

First premise:

All forms of qi are intertwined with each other.

With that premise, he knew there was a lot to unpack with that statement. Looking at the beast before him, it was clear that there was some measure of linking that tied all components of qi together, even if by tangential strains. This was important as it led Lykan to his second premise, or maybe his first test to prove his initial hypothesis.

Second premise:

Disrupting the interconnected nature of qi within the body will have a negative impact on life.

It was this second premise that Lykan decided to test here and now.

The giant serpent rose high above the water, easily thirty meters of serpent bobbed and swam about the ocean. The monster towered over the surface of the water and struck out at Lykan. Of course, the monster’s size did it a disservice in comparison to Lykan’s tiny human sized frame. The monster was too large to be swift. Instead it relied on its sheer size and girth to act as a bludgeoning force to any would be source of danger.

The fact that the beast could feel and even recognize Lykan and the others was a testament to this creature’s ability to sense qi. Or maybe it had some deeper understanding of power, some form of danger sense that alerted it to Lykan’s presence in its domain. A domain that had seemingly gone uncontested for quite some time, if this beast’s current size was to be any indication. The beast was so large that it could easily swallow the boat that the three had managed to salvage and get sailing once more.

Yet, there was a different understanding of intelligence in the beast, for the creature instantly reacted Lykan’s movement away from the boat. Focusing on Lykan, instead of focusing on Brenna, Pentra, and the qi infused boat.

This likely meant the creature either saw Lykan as a threat, or more likely saw Lykan as the closest meal. Regardless of the reason why the creature was so intent on Lykan, this was perfect for Lykan to try out a few things.

First, he wanted to test out his new capabilities of cultivation.

Before with just manipulating Air qi, the battle between himself and a leviathan was more chaotic. Lykan focused on speed and maneuverability to survive and find the perfect way to counterattack.

SKRAAA!

The giant serpent let out a massive war cry as it charged forward.

As the beast charged at Lykan, Lykan noticed a few things. First the beast was slow. He didn’t think he had gotten that fast since his last battle, but then again maybe he had. His mind was able to see the scope and flow of battle clearly. He saw the way the massive serpent’s muscles rippled and twisted. Seeing the muscles and form, it was easy for Lykan to see where the monster would go, and then to avoid the blow entirely. Then as the beast barreled past, Lykan gathered qi in his own fist and struck out.

Disruptive Palm Strike.

This was not the same strike that Lykan had used previously while fighting. This was more refined, more of an infusion of different components of qi. With this strike, Lykan was not trying to strike for force and power. Instead Lykan was doing something far more subtle. He could see the flow of Earth qi that rippled about the monster’s scales.

Seeing the Earth qi and the way it fused together and flowed into the beast’s body, drawing qi energy from the other flows of qi that were innately pumping throughout the serpent’s body, Lykan tried a different approach. Rather than using a known variant of qi to strike at the creature, Lykan pulsed his qi to be the exact opposite of the qi being used by the monster before him.

Whoom!

The strike was quick and devastating, causing a ripple effect on the beast’s normally impenetrable scales. What made the strike even more impressive was the way the scales seemed to ripple like water for a moment. As if Lykan had punched a pool of water, causing a sharp wave of energy to build up and bulge out.

Of course, there was just one problem for the serpent. Once Lykan removed his fist from the beast’s side, the ripple effect stayed. Like a pond frozen in time, the circular wave of force froze, seeming to be forever imprinted on the beast’s side.

SKKRRAAHHHH!

The monster now enraged twisted about for a second, whipping its head about wildly, as if trying to get the odd indention in its scales to retract. Unfortunately for the beast, the indention seemed to be a permanent fixture.

Twitch, shake, splash.

The monster danced about wildly for a second, twisting its neck in defiance of the strike. Trying desperately to remove the indention from its neck. A mark that clearly caused the creature some manner of discomfort if its reaction was anything to go off of.

Lykan for his part just stared at the beast, then waited.

Finally after a few seconds of dealing with the indention that wouldn’t go away, a now enraged beast turned its full attention on the floating Lykan and charged forward once more.

This time, it used a qi movement technique, one that Lykan had never seen before, but one that was simple enough to watch and predict.

This time as the creature came by, Lykan infused his feet with the oppositely tuned Earth qi.

Disruptive Kick.

Disruptive Heel Strike.

Wham, wham.

In quick succession, Lykan struck the beast with two quick strikes that given the speed that the monster had been moving covered two sections of the creature that were meters apart, despite their rapid succession.

Once again two more ripples of energy erupted from the impact locations, then billowed out before freezing in a giant ring of frozen rippled scales.

Looking at the monster, Lykan couldn’t help but feel a measure of pity for the creature. The monster had the privilege of being the strongest and fastest in its own little section of the world. So used to absolute power that it seemed to assume it was at the pinnacle of evolution. In a way, the beast was at the pinnacle of evolution. The monster had been so powerful for so long that it assumed its power was absolute.

Lykan took this as both a personal warning of his own complacency, and the fact that it was only a matter of time before a bigger monster would likely one day cross his path.

As it was, this monster was little more than a testament of the hard work and commitment to improvement that Lykan had achieved over time.

Wham!

Slosh!

Wham!

Over and over the monster grew angry and struck out at Lykan. Each time the creature made a lunge or strike, Lykan easily evaded and countered.

By the end, multiple impact marks littered the beast’s body, as it looked like it went toe to toe with a swarm of giant angry bees and lost. Finally, when the body of the beast was covered in such indentions, Lykan focused on the next test. What would happen if he struck the same area twice.

This was a task that was harder than expected, given the sheer size and movement capability of the great beast. Fortunately, after so many strikes, the areas where Lykan could make such a double strike were abundant.

Striking at one such location, Lykan noticed that the mixture of earth qi had changed. Being so close to the body, and with the risk of injury so great, water qi had been added to the mix. No doubt the water qi was somehow related to the beast’s ability to heal itself.

Seeing that, Lykan almost missed his chance to strike. Instead, he only gave half a strike of disruptive qi that held the opposite polarity of water qi as well.

Whoosh!

This strike, like all the others, caused a new ripple to appear. Unlike the others however that were all protected by scales, this strike seemed to peel back the layers of qi and cause no undue amount of blood to spray forth from the creature’s neck.

GRROOOAAARR!

The puncture wound that was the size of Lykan’s entire body sprayed the beast’s black-red blood wildly.

This final strike was apparently the final blow, as the beast chose that as an excuse to run away, ducking under the surface of the water. Lykan watched as a black trail of condensed water qi followed the beast in its wake.

Lykan watched the beast for a few moments, making sure that it dove deep under the water in an attempt to escape. Only once Lykan was certain the beast had gone to nurse its wounds did Lykan nod to the beast and decide to head back to check on Brenna and Pentra.

This too Lykan saw as a sign of his own personal growth. In the past he would have felt the need to chase down the monster, in an attempt to stop the spread of qi, that little bit. Instead, Lykan now found himself to be not quite content with the world, but more accepting that the world was continuing to change, despite his best efforts.

Lykan landed, and turned to Brenna who all but beamed with excitement.

“That was amazing.” Brenna said, darting forward and hugging Lykan tightly. Lykan returned the gesture and could almost feel her body tremble slightly. Feeling her tremble, he could almost feel the way she worried about him, about the rematch with a bigger, stronger, and faster opponent.

Realizing how much he had improved, he looked up to the red flare in the sky and nodded to himself.

“I think I am almost ready.” Lykan said, before he sat down at the bow of the ship and began focusing his mind and body to consolidate the recent discoveries he had made. While he might feel that he is ready, he knew that he could and likely should try to improve.