Chapter 36: Autumn Leaf, Great Sun
'Clap' 'Clap' 'Clap'
Crisp clapping sounds echoed in the silent night as a silhouette slowly walked towards the rubble on which Li Qiu currently stood.
"That was one of my Demon Soldier that you killed. You are passably strong" Commented the silhouette as it stood a couple of metres before Li Qiu.
"It's you" Said Li Qiu in a solemn tone as he immediately became vigilant.
"You seem to be quite wary of someone who just saved your pitiful ass" Sneered Katsurou as he used his pinky finger to dig into his ears.
"And that someone just tried to kill me" Snorted Li Qiu.
"Kill you? Heh, if that was my intention, I would have attacked you with a couple more Demon Soldiers" Laughed Katsurou.
"That's cause you're scared" Taunted Li Qiu.
"Scared? Me?" Katsurou coldly said as he began unleashing his overbearing aura and killing intent.
"You're someone who couldn't even put up a fight against a single Adept Stage David and you say that I'm scared of a Practitioner Stage ant like you? Me, the one feared as the Blood Demon?" Katsurou bellowed towards Li Qiu in rage.
"David's abilities could counter my current methods but for you…." Li Qiu said as he flickered behind Katsurou and lodged his Thermal Sword through Katsurou's stomach and uttered near his ears "You can't harm me"
"Bleh" Katsurou spurted out a mouthful of blood as he began to laugh.
"Hahaha…..interesting…"
The next moment, before Li Qiu could even react, he was blown away by something that seemed to suddenly pop out from Katsurou's body.
Li Qiu immediately rolled on the ground to ease his fall and stood up from his position to gaze towards Katsurou's general direction.
He saw that, on Katsurou's body, there was a grey coloured circle, about a foot in diameter through which a blood-red hand had popped.
It was this very hand that had previously hit Li Qiu.
The next moment, the grey coloured hole enlarged to about 2 metres in diameter and a demon soldier walked out from it.
"Hmmm….. I guess one isn't enough…have 10" Katsurou laughed in a deranged manner as another 10 Demon Soldiers walked out.
"Oops, I'm weak at maths you see" Katsurou mocked, as on his command, the 11 Demon Soldiers encircled Li Qiu.
"Heh, perfect timing…..Bring it on" Li Qiu snorted as he materialized two Thermal Swords in his hands.
But unlike the previous Thermal Swords that he had created, this version of his Thermal Sword had various tiny blue crisscrossing lines overlaid on its surface, giving it a rather cool and royal look.
"Let's see if your abilities are as good as your smack talk" Said Katsurou as he commanded his Demon Soldiers to attack Li Qiu.
On seeing the actions of the Demon Soldiers, Li Qiu raised his two Swords to his shoulder-length "Autumn Leaf, Expanding Flame Blade" and made a 360-degree turn.
At the next moment, his two swords instantly elongated to about 10 metres in length and cleanly bisected all the heads of the Demon Soldiers from their bodies.
"Great, you have some skill… but my Demon Soldiers won't be eliminated with just their heads chopped off" Mocked Katsurou.
"I thought so" Replied Li Qiu as he snapped his finger.
The next moment, the cut-off heads were enveloped by flames which instantly reduced them to ashes. The same thing happened to the bodies of the Demon Soldiers as they started to burn from their necks and completely evaporated into mist within a second.
"My flames! Are your counter!" Li Qiu slowly proclaimed.
"Heh, well see about that" Katsurou snorted as he brought out 30 more Demon Soldiers.
These Demon Soldiers immediately took off to the air the moment they emerged and surrounded Li Qiu.
Unlike the previous Demon Soldiers who only had close combat ability, these Demon Soldiers were equipped with blood spears.
"Now" On Katsurou's command, the Demon Soldiers began to hurl the blood spears at Li Qiu.
'Swoosh' 'Pop'
Li Qiu used his high agility to dodge the blood spears hurled at him when one of the spears grazed his cheeks while another scraped away a bit of flesh from his thigh.
"Ugh…" Li Qiu grunted in pain as he burned off the places where the blood spears scratched him with his Thermal Flames to avoid suffering from the abilities related to blood that Katsurou could wield and grit his teeth as he muttered "Great Sun"
At the next moment, bright blazing red flames gushed out of his body and materialized into a huge 3-metre wide ball of flames around him.
All the blood spears which came near him instantly evaporated. The heat unleashed was in such high intensities that the nearby Demon Soldiers had steam rising out from their bodies.
Li Qiu suddenly shouted, "Autumn Leaf, Needle Pincer". The next moment, from the surface of the blazing ball of flames, 30 needle-like projections immediately formed and protruded out at insane speeds and instantly pierced through the bodies of all the Demon Soldiers.
Immediately, blazing heat traveled through the pincers and poured into the bodies of the Demon Soldiers and immediately vaporized them. After that, the needle-shaped pincers retracted back into the burning ball of flames.
But, before Li Qiu could proceed with his plan of retaliation, the 3-metre wide ball of blazing flames that enveloped him was hit by a powerful breath attack filled with blood mist that emitted intense corrosive stench that made him want to puke.
"That's it, I'll kill you"
Li Qiu could hear Katsurou's rage-filled voice followed by a loud dragon roar as the intensity of the breath attack doubled instantly.
Li Qiu felt that the flame ball enveloping him was rapidly decreasing in size. Li Qiu calmly activated his 'Essence Sense' innate ability to analyze the position of his attacker and its vital areas to strike at.
"That cowardly f***er" Li Qiu cursed as he saw Katsurou standing behind a giant turtle while another dragon hovered in the skies as it unleashed its breath attack on him.
Learning from his previous experience, Katsurou made sure that the dragon didn't hover in a single spot but kept flying around.
"Humph, that is not enough. Autumn Leaf, Needle Heart Pincer" Snorted Li Qiu as a single needle immediately elongated from his ball of flames, traveled in the air like a string as it twisted and turned according to the movements of the dragon and accurately pierced through the dragon's mouth and kept pouring out copious amounts of flames inside its throat.
The dragon's breath attack immediately stopped as it began wriggling in the air trying to snuff out the flames burning through its body.
"Are you really at the Adept Stage?" Mocked Li Qiu as he materialized a huge 1-metre big blue coloured hand, obviously made from his Spirit Flames that displayed a middle finger towards Katsurou.
"Bastard" Katsurou raged at being insulted like that by Li Qiu as he coldly said "Don't get too cocky, I'll let you know the reason as to why I'm feared as the Blood Demon in such short notice. Blood Devil unleash"
The next moment, the giant turtle and the dragon wriggling in the sky were all sucked back into Katsurou's body.
Slowly, blood red mist that was emitting an intense stench of death, depravity and despair poured out from all the pores on Katsurou's skin.
"Form" Katsurou coldly proclaimed as all the blood mist rising out from his body condensed over his body and took on various forms starting from his toes, then on his legs and finally on his head.
When the blood mist was condensing over his face, Katsurou's eyes shone a crimson red. The blood mist rising above his head took on the form of a dragon's head as it roared to the skies and slowly condensed over Katsurou's head. Two horns that glowed like rubies in the night sky grew above his head.
The entire body of Katsurou looked like he had worn a crimson black full body armour with a dragon faced helmet. His gauntlets had dragon claws while his legs too took on a similar claw-shaped structure.
Katsurou slowly stomped on the ground, when the entire ground 50 metres around him caved a metre deep due to such a casual action from him.
"Now…" Katsurou said as he slowly turned his head towards Li Qiu "What did you say again?"
Li Qiu had a pale face as his knees began to shiver a bit due to the sheer amount of Aria Intents radiating from Katsurou's aura.
The intent was full of blood thirst, despair, death, primal savagery and other such negative intents that would make the minds of others go insane from just being in its presence.
These intents permeated the air and seeped into Li Qiu's body trying to take over his mind and Willpower.
"Spirit Flame" Li Qiu immediately activated his Spirit Flames the moment he sensed this abnormality occurring within his body.
'Thump' 'Thump'
Li Qiu's heart began to pump out copious amounts of Spirit Flames through his arteries as they burned out all the Aria Intents that rampaged over his body.
"Bleh" Li Qiu spat out a mouthful of blood as, within the short instant that took for his Spirit Flames to burn off all the Aria Intents, a sizeable amount of damage had already been dealt to his body.
"Oh, it seems you could survive that. Then, try to survive this" Katsurou arrogantly exclaimed as he flickered towards Li Qiu's location before his senses could even keep up.
"Great Sun, Flame Rotation" Li Qiu desperately urged his 3-metre huge ball of flames to materialize before Katsurou's blow could land on him.
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