Bing and Lei Zhi stood side to side as the Flame King Hippopotamus glared at them. It was mostly glaring at Lei Zhi but from time to time it glanced over to Bing. Not that he’s done much of anything to deserve such a scowl. He’s been tossed around by the thing more than he has actually hurt it. And the only way he was going to hurt it was if the tongue of his devil hand managed to pierce its skin. But the problem was that just getting close to that steaming pile of pure hotness wasn’t possible unless he wanted to turn out like Ying over there.
“How are we going to handle this?” Bing asked honestly.
“I know as much as you do Bing.” Lei also responded back honestly.
“We’re so gonna die...” Bing’s skull necklace lit up as he drove his qi inside it.
4 skeleton heads rotated around him and stared directly at the hippo with their purple glowing eyes. From their eye sockets beams of qi shot towards the spirit beast. None of the shots did anything to the animal’s thick large skin. It mostly just made it angry. Angry enough to start charging towards them. Normally at this point when a beast was charging towards Bing, he would ready his shield and prepare to take them head on.
This wasn’t one of those moments.
“Run!” He yelled.
The two of them ran in opposite directions inside the caverns, forcing the hippo into choosing which human it wanted to kill first. Not surprisingly, it chose Lei Zhi. Lei Zhi’s movement art, Xiangqi, helped him in speedily retreating from the beast’s charge. Lei knew he was by far the weakest in their group if you were comparing body strength. He wouldn’t survive a single hit or lick of fire from the Flame King’s without perishing instantly.
“There’s not much room in here for me to constantly be on the move...” Lei muttered.
He jumped into the air and tossed his fishing pole towards the big hippo. It remembered the last times this hook came towards it and responded not so kindly when it saw it coming again. Flames exploded around its figure and it roared, sending those flames directly towards Lei Zhi. There was no chance of him avoiding this. His mind raced to think of a solution to save himself but nothing came to mind. Perhaps jumping wasn’t the correct choice in this situation...
“Art of Deflection!”
The concentrated mass of flames were sent straight down into the lava pool to their right. Bing gritted his teeth, expecting to feel a sudden increase in temperature on his shield arm. The bone shield stayed the glossy flawless white shade of color it has always had instead of a deep orange like he thought it would turn.
“Maybe this thing is more resistant than I thought it was...” Bing muttered to himself.
Slowly confidence trickled into him. A nervous smile started to appear on his face.
“Follow me!” Bing used Swift Devil and charged straight at the king hippo.
He rose his shield to knock it across the face of the animal. It showed its yellowish terrifying tusks it has for teeth in an attempt to intimidate Bing. His response to this intimidation was a powerful blow to the side of its head with his shield as his skeleton heads continued to fire useless qi attacks. Just like it before, it didn’t seem to do any damage but this wasn’t Bing’s goal in the first place. It was actually Lei Zhi he was waiting on!
“I got it this time!” Lei yelled.
His fishing hook soared past Bing’s head and stuck itself in the head of the flame king. Bing jumped away before the 1st stage Qi Consolidation beast could do that fire explosion thing again and let Lei Zhi handle this beast. Everyone watched as Lei Zhi used the anomalous properties of his fishing rod to lift, pull, and throw the Flame King Hippopotamus all around the cave. He smashed it into the roof of the caverns, onto the rocky walls, boulders, anything that wasn’t the lava lake.
Bing, Ying, and Hu Tao saw his tactics were working. The spirit beast couldn’t do anything to resist Lei Zhi’s fishing rod besides shoot out fire from its body. But even that wasn’t enough to stop him as his refined fishing pole was resistant to the extreme heat given off by its flames. Bing stood in front of Lei to defend against any stray flames that managed to make its way over to him. Whatever strange ability that gave Lei’s fishing rod to pull up any beast no matter its size or strength made it seem like the past several minutes of them struggling pointless. He was beating the hippo just by using its own size against itself and Ying’s wound from earlier that only became more agitated by his moves against the beast.
The gash slowly ripped open more and more until its internal organs started to spill out from the injury. By this point everyone understood that the fight was already over and they just had to wait for the remaining vitality of the flame king to die out. And until Lei Zhi heard the creature’s heart stop beating, he wouldn’t stop smashing it into the surroundings. Sensing that the fight was over, Bing walked over to the recovering Ying and chatting Hu Tao.
“How would you handle being hooked by the Old Man?” Hu Tao asked her.
He knew how he would handle it. Seeing that resisting against the pull of the hook and line would be basically impossible, Hu Tao would attack Lei Zhi himself while he was hooked or try and rip the hook out of his body. The first option would be easier because of how weak the Old Man was. All it would take was a slap across the face with his chains and his neck would snap.
“Don’t get hooked in the first place.” Ying responded. Hu Tao felt like groaning to that answer.
“I said if you got hooked! Not what would you do if his hook was coming after you!” Hu Tao restated for the dumb noble.
“None of your damn business!” Ying yelled. She didn’t like his attitude.
If she was to seriously answer him, she’d probably tear whatever clothes got hooked by him apart to free herself. If he didn’t hook her clothes for some reason and he was going after her seriously, she’d use her Frost Flames on his hook. The icy blue flames would race across the line of his fishing pole and eventually make their way to Lei himself, freezing him solid in no time. Unless he dropped his fishing rod in time, but then all she had to do was beat him before he could try his God’s Fingers on her.
Bing would just use his shield to block. Him and Lei sparred several times before and already tested if he could hook through his shield or not. The sharp part of the hook bounced off his shield and that was that. After that day when they sparred, he tried hooking part of his clothes instead of aiming for his shield.
“It’s dead now!” Lei shouted to them, very worn out after all the fighting he just did.
Ying bounced up and excitedly made her way over to its carcass. Her dainty thin fingers dug through its fat internal organs for the shiny red beast core hidden deep inside its body. It only took her a single second to start absorbing the fire energy concentrated in the Flame King Hippopotamus's core. Several minutes went by before Ying reopened her eyes with a beautiful smile on her face. She brought out the Goddess of Calamity’s Fire Art from her storage ring and immediately tried opening it.
The book easily allowed Ying entry to its first page. Ying’s eyes lit up like the night sky seeing that she could finally open the book. But soon that joy, excitement, and anticipation was extinguished once she found out that she could only view the first chapter of the cultivation martial art. She couldn’t turn past that chapter even with all of her strength!
“Well. Looks like today’s adventure was a success.” Lei said, coming over to the rest.
“Yeah... Thanks everyone... Except you, Hu Tao.” Ying glared.
“Hey I helped! If it wasn’t for my cloud, it would’ve taken you kids weeks to get to this mountain!”
“Who are you calling a kid!? How old are you?! You can’t be that much older than us!”
“You’d like to know wouldn’t you, Princess?” He smirked.
“Quit acting like you’re the most mature just because you’re a little bit strong! Strength isn’t everything!” Ying lied, knowing that strength was everything.
Hu Tao only burst out laughing at this remark.
“Shut up! Let’s just get out of here already! Next time you can’t come no matter what!” Ying told Hu Tao.
“I’m coming no matter what next time.” He assured her.
“I’m going to pick the most boring and tedious task in the sect if you do. I know how bored you get not being near any fights.”
“A threat like that won’t work on me. Like you of all people would pick a boring task. If it was Fat Ass or the Old Man that said that, I’d believe them. They aren’t like us.” Hu Tao told her.
“I’m nothing like you.” Ying growled.
“Being in denial isn’t going to prove me wrong.” He grinned.
“Your face is in denial! Just shut up already!” Ying angrily hopped up the hole they came from.
“Running away from your problems won’t help either!” Hu Tao yelled upwards as he followed close behind her.
In the next second they saw Ying’s fist covered in flames heading straight for Hu Tao’s face.
“I’m surprised it took her so long to explode.” Bing quietly spoke to Lei.
“She’s really making progress, isn’t she?” Lei was proud of her.
“A couple months ago, it’d only take one insult before she tried killing him.” Bing remembered.
“I can’t wait to see the day she learns to completely ignore his taunts and insults.” Lei smiled.
“Well, I don’t know about that...” Bing didn’t hold as much faith as Lei did in Ying.
“You’ll see.” He was confident for some reason as well.
“Well if you think so.” Bing shrugged.
Heaven’s Angels spent a couple more hours inside Dead Immortal’s Cliff before making their way out.
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