Chapter 118 - Facing a Second-Level Spirit Beast

Without a moment's hesitation, Old Tohyon changed the direction of the ship so that it pointed towards the Bowhead Whale. Several sacks containing spirit stones had been placed near him. The more spirit stones he put together, the greater the propulsion would be, and this was fundamental to avoid a direct contact against the spirit beast.

After all, a single direct contact was enough to bring down their boat and decree their end. The problem, however, was the presence of the endurance limit of the propulsion system. Hei and his crew could only hope that with its immense body, the whale wasn’t rapid in small displacements around a specific area.

Lian was at the bow of the ship, sitting on the deck. One of her ribbons had been tightened on her waist, keeping her tied on the parapet so that she wouldn't jump away. Standing next to her was Ho Yeon-Hong, who was nervously watching the situation unfold.

Hei and his little sisters were instead in front of Lian and Ho Yeon-Hong, above the parapet. Ye and Xing still had their petite shape and were respectively on the left shoulder and right shoulder of their big brother, who had tied the end of Lian's second ribbon to his waist, while the other end was held by the beautiful blue-haired girl.

Battle Formation. It was the answer Hei quickly came up with. It was like when the Formation Flags came together in a precise pattern. This time, however, instead of creating an area subject to a specific effect, it was going to influence their same spirit power. The Battle Formation combined the spirit power of the users and then amplified it. The more people there were, the more power would be generated.

Generally, Battle Formations were used by weaker martial artists to fight a stronger opponent. With this technique, it was possible to overcome the cultivation gap between the two parts.

The problem was the extreme difficulty in implementing such a technique. Each member of the group had to be in unison with each other. A single disharmony would destroy the Battle Formation, going to disperse the group's spirit power into thin air. That would then almost always lead to the death of some or all of the group members.

For this reason, it was a rarely used technique. After all, as much as one could train with one's teammates, it wasn’t certain that any of them wouldn’t make an execution mistake during the fight. It was like putting one's life in the hands of others and vice versa. It was, therefore, necessary to have absolute trust in one's companions.

Of course, trust was something it wasn't a problem at all for Hei, Lian, Ye, and Xing. During this month, in addition to cultivating, they had also trained to use this technique.

Originally, Hei and her little sisters already had a battle formation used for hunting, although they had never used it to combine their spirit power. So they just had to use that as a base and then modify it to add Lian. Thus was created the ‘Snake-Flower-Spider’ Battle Formation. Lian was at the bottom and controlled from a distance Hei through her ribbon and provided him with spirit power. Hei was the avant-garde that would act as both a shield and a spear. Ye and Xing were on Hei's shoulders, and their job would be primarily to protect Hei and provide him with spirit power; only if the opportunity was right, they would attack too.

Even though the battle conditions weren’t favorable since they were in the middle of the ocean and they still didn't know how to fly, with some modifications, they had still been able to use their Battle Formation. Only, since Lian had to use one of her ribbons to not fall off the ship and her other ribbon was tied to Hei, they used Ho Yeon-Hong as an emergency shield in case one of the killer whales attacked from behind. Of course, it didn't mean that Ho Yeon-Hong had been included in the Battle Formation. But she would simply help them from the outside as an external element.

Meanwhile, the killer whales had started attacking Sok Yeong-Gi's ship, waging a battle against his crew. The two spirit soldiers, on the other hand, were challenging each other in the air as they launched their elemental attacks. The Bowhead Whale had finally selected the last remaining target - the artifact ship that was aiming at it. After making a deafening sound, the whale charged towards the arriving ship.

"Get lost! If you don't want to become whale meat! ”Hei screamed in the direction of the whale, using the language of spiders.

This action momentarily stopped the whale in its advance. It didn't believe a human boy could communicate with it using the language of spirit beasts. But nothing would have changed even if he could speak that language. The only thing that awaited the humans in that area was death.

However, the whale didn't realize that all Hei wanted was just that brief slowdown. By making it stop in its advance as they advanced at full speed, they would quickly bridge the distance from the whale. In that way, the charging power of the imposing spirit beast would have been decreased.

Hei suddenly began to hover in the air as he moved away from the bow of the artifact ship and then stopped when he reached five meters away from Lian. A silk ribbon sprouted from his back that held him tied to Lian and held him suspended in the air.

A radius of five meters. That was the space where Hei could move suspended in the air. Since he couldn’t move independently in the air, he decided to leave the decision of his movements to Lian. That meant that if Lian had been slow to read the whale's movements, Hei would have received the full impact of the attack. Undoubtedly, it was something that couldn’t be done without absolute trust.

So he could entirely focus on attacking. He didn't even have to worry about managing his spirit power; his little sisters were there to do it for him.

Finally, Hei and the Bowhead Whale were now face-to-face. In a few moments, they would collide.

Hei pulled out his spear as he attacked.
"Intent of the Spear, Law of Poison, Poisonous Spider Thrust!"

By simultaneously activating the Law of Poison and the Intent of the Spear, Hei went on the attack. Old Tohyon, meanwhile, used the propulsion system to its fullest for the first time. Thanks to this, the ship moved from the whale's trajectory. It navigated instead toward the left side of the big creature.

Screech! Stab!

As Old Tohyon had moved the ship, Hei, connected to Lian who was on the deck, was also dragged out of the whale's path. Quickly, he attacked the enemy creature's flank for the whole length of its body. His attack had done nothing but generated a single barely visible line on the creature's side.

“Shit, the meat is so thick that it's hard to make a cut properly. But if I were to attack the head, it would be even worse. Not to mention the tail.” Hei complained as he gritted his teeth.

As he thought, facing a second-level spirit beast, comparable to a spirit soldier, was really difficult when he was only at the spirit apprentice rank. If it weren't for the Battle Formation that amplified his spirit power and, therefore, the power of his attacks, he wouldn't have even left that little line. The good thing was, however, that in that exchange, he had sensed that the whale had just advanced, thus making it comparable to a first-stage spirit soldier.

The whale let out a cry of anger at being cut. It didn’t expect to be injured by an insignificant human being who wasn’t even at the spirit soldier rank. Quickly, it began to change direction as it slightly moved its head down.

Bowhead Whales possessed a pair blowholes, which were nothing but holes through which these creatures breathed. Considering their size, the air jet that was blown out was quite strong. That was even more true for Bowhead Whales that had developed spirit power, not to mention a second level specimen.

Swoosh! Rumble!

Suddenly, two superimposed jets of air emerged from the whale's blowholes while the surrounding water was splashed everywhere for meters and meters. Since the flanks were the most delicate points of a ship, Old Tohyon made the artifact ship turn by pointing the bow against the two jets of air.

After considering the speed of these air jets, it was unlikely that they would be able to dodge them. So, Old Tohyon, with Hei’s approbation, decided to receive the impact head-on. Fortunately, they were the air jets of the whale. If they had had to receive the impact of the whale's own body, there was no way Old Tohyon or Hei would have done such a thing unless they were without other solutions.

"Intent of the Spear, Law of Darkness, Half-moon Blade!" Shouting aloud, Hei generated a black half-moon-shaped blade that was thrown against the two incoming air blows.

The Poison Law was ideal for dissolving the protective layers of spirit power. It was also possible to dissolve enemy attacks. However, in a situation where they were at a disadvantage in cultivation, Hei didn’t have enough strength to do this. So, he resorted to his second element; the one Hei had awakened on his own and not because he had received a bloodline.

Screech!

The crescent blade and the two jets of air collided. Hei had thrown the half-moon blade vertically towards the exact center of the conjunction of the two air jets. The black blade thus managed to break the union of the two air jets, dispersing them on the sides of the artifact ship. Rather than blocking the whole attack, it was better to focus on a specific point and then deflect it.

The jets of air continued in their path for several meters until they lost power. On their way, they had inadvertently struck some of the orcas that were attacking the crew of Sok-Yeong-Gi. The poor creatures were killed on impact and were now floating motionless on the surface of the ocean.

The Bowhead Whale made another deafening sound. This time, even without understanding the language of spirit beasts, one could clearly guess that it was pissed off. Not once, but twice Hei had managed to stop its attack.

In a few moments, the whale dived underwater, disappearing from everyone present. Even its spirit power had been nullified so that it wasn’t perceptible by the spirit sense technique that detected nearby spirit power.

"Lian put us underwater. Ye, Xing, take a deep breath and close your eyes."

In an instant, Hei commanded Lian how to proceed and warned his little sisters. An underwater fight was beneficial for the whale. However, it was the whale who was chasing them, so there was no need to go into its territory. The only reason Hei had gone underwater was to sense its movements.

'Spider Hair.'

Even when the whale was hiding underwater, Hei could still perceive it with his 'Spider Hair' technique. Furthermore, the very bulk of the creature made it visible from afar. So Hei could detect the movement of his enemy, and when he was at a sufficient distance, Hei tugged the ribbon tied to his waist. It was the signal for Lian to pull him up.

Once out of the water, Hei quickly shouted.
"Old Tohyon, it is coming from east, full speed!"

Old Tohyon promptly inserted a new load of spirit stones into the propulsion device. In an instant, an outburst of spirit power in the form of an air blast propelled the artifact ship forward. A few seconds later, the huge whale body came out of the water just where the artifact ship had been moments ago.

Hei, in fact, had waited for the last few moments to be sure that the whale had no time to change its direction. After all, although they had a tremendous amount of spirit stones, he wasn't sure that the propulsion system would hold so many accelerations in a row. The less he was forced to use accelerations, the more his chances of victory were.

However, while Hei and everyone else on the artifact ship thought they had dodged the danger, something that they didn't expect at all happened.

The whale that was to fall back into the water moved its body in midair. It shifted its head to where Hei and the others were. Then, remaining suspended in the air, a couple of meters from the water, it advanced towards its prey.