The Rat Cultivator

Chapter 84: Overwhelming

On the surface, Wu Yuan and the Pangolin seemed to treat the Winged Tiger with utter disdain, lounging around as if the approaching beast were nothing more than a passing breeze.

But this was merely the art of war: despise the enemy strategically, yet respect them tactically.

Beneath his calm exterior, Wu Yuan was already primed for violence. The [Blood Surge Art] churned beneath his skin, filling his veins with explosive power. His magical artifact hummed at his waist, eager for blood. Beneath them, the Pangolin had already prepped its [Earth Walk] technique, ready to merge with the soil at a moment’s notice.

Even deeper underground, Bibo and the rat swarm lay in ambush, a hidden legion waiting for the signal to drag the intruder into the abyss.

However, as the Tiger closed in, Wu Yuan felt a wave of confusion.

“Is this it?” he thought, genuinely perplexed. “Any demon beast sent here by the outside clans should be an elite. Why does he feel so… underwhelming?”

As these thoughts raced through his mind, the Winged Tiger launched his assault.

Wu Yuan’s Divine Sense locked onto every twitch of the Tiger’s muscles. He raised a claw, initially preparing to unleash eighty percent of his strength. He paused, reconsidered, and dialed it back to fifty percent. He didn’t even bother amplifying it with his Blood Qi or Demon Power.

He simply swatted at the incoming shadow.

Bang!

A dull thud of meat striking meat echoed through the clearing.

As the melee erupted, the Winged Tiger grew more alarmed with every exchange. Wu Yuan, on the other hand, grew more disappointed.

“What garbage,” Wu Yuan scoffed internally. “Forget it. I’ll just use him as a training dummy to test my full kit. It’s not every day a volunteer shows up.”

At that moment, the Winged Tiger revealed his true colors. He opened his maw and spat a wind blade straight at Wu Yuan’s eyes. Simultaneously, he conjured a gust of golden wind that solidified into needle-like spikes, aiming viciously at Wu Yuan’s crotch.

To top it off, he lunged forward to bite Wu Yuan’s skull, his fangs glowing with the golden light of a Sharpness Art.

The combo was intricately linked and incredibly insidious. A lesser beast would have panicked, covered their eyes, and left their vitals exposed to the lethal bite.

Wu Yuan remained expressionless.

He raised one claw and casually crushed the wind blade into motes of light. Simultaneously, he stomped his foot, sending a ripple of Qi into the ground that erupted as jagged [Earth Spikes] beneath the Tiger’s soft belly.

With his other claw, Wu Yuan condensed a foot-long blade of energy and thrust it toward the Tiger’s eye.

Dirty move for dirty move. Neither beast found anything wrong with this exchange; it was simply how nature worked.

The Winged Tiger, realizing his ambush had failed, frantically twisted his head to avoid the eye-stab. He wasn’t willing to trade injury for injury.

Wu Yuan’s eyes flashed with cold amusement. He unclenched his claw into a fist and hammered it into the side of the Tiger’s neck. His other fist followed up instantly, aiming to crush the skull.

Crack!

The first punch landed flush, knocking the Winged Tiger’s neck askew. The beast’s eyes bulged from the impact, and he crashed into the dirt. If the second punch had connected, the fight would have ended right there.

“[Wind Walk Technique]!”

The moment the Tiger hit the ground, a gale wrapped around his body. He vanished from his spot, reappearing 10 meters away just as Wu Yuan’s second fist pulverized the empty air.

Wu Yuan retracted his fist and shook his fur. The golden needles that had struck his lower body fell away harmlessly, having failed to even penetrate his protective layer of Blood Qi.

“Wind Walk, huh?” Wu Yuan looked at the distant Tiger with a spark of interest. “This little kitten has no guts and mediocre spells, but he sure can run. His body is decent, though. He took a punch without dying.”

Generally, for first-order demon beasts, spells were merely support tools; the real killing was done with claws and teeth. Only after reaching the second-order did spells become the deciding factor.

The Winged Tiger, however, was staring at Wu Yuan in sheer terror.

“What the hell is this thing?” the Tiger thought, his heart pounding against his ribs. “That punch almost sent me to see my old man! How is he so strong? And his defense… my Golden Needles didn’t even scratch him!”

He looked at Wu Yuan’s pristine fur, doubt gnawing at his soul. “My early stage and his early stage… the math isn’t adding up!”

Wu Yuan rolled his shoulders, feeling properly warmed up. He unhooked the Gu Duo mace from his waist and weighed the heavy iron weapon in his hand.

“Use whatever you have left,” Wu Yuan called out, pointing the mace at the Tiger. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This next one is going to hurt.”

Before the last word had even faded, Wu Yuan vanished.

The ground where he had stood exploded into a crater.

“Faster than my Wind Walk?!” The Winged Tiger’s pupils constricted to pinpoints, a chill shooting down his spine. “No martial virtue!”

He realized too late that the rat cultivator had been toying with him. He opened his mouth to surrender, but Wu Yuan didn’t give him the chance to speak.

In a panic, a [Tiger Head Great Shield] materialized in front of him. The shield was wreathed in black, beast-shaped Qi that emitted piercing shrieks. Simultaneously, a suit of [White Bone Armor] formed over his body, encasing him in a protective shell.

ROAR!

Wu Yuan opened his mouth and unleashed the [Ten Thousand Roars Spirit Sound].

It was a rat’s squeak, yet it carried the majestic, crushing weight of a dragon’s roar.

The sonic blast slammed into the Winged Tiger. The world went silent. Blood trickled from his ears, his vision blackened, and his thoughts scattered into chaos.

Seizing the moment, Wu Yuan raised the Gu Duo mace. The spirit patterns on the weapon flared to life, emitting a terrifying aura of suppression.

Even through his concussion, the Winged Tiger felt his hair stand on end. His instincts screamed one thing: The artifact can’t block that!

His face twisted in horror. Cyan light surged around him like a tide as he tried to trigger his [Wind Walk Technique] to flee.

But Wu Yuan was ready.

He flared his Blood Qi and Demon Power simultaneously, creating an invisible, crushing field that disrupted the delicate Qi structure of the Wind Walk spell.

Pure physical vitality and brute force were the bane of intricate spells.

Trapped, the Winged Tiger could only pour everything into his defense. A massive phantom of a white-browed, golden-eyed tiger rose from the shield, glaring ferociously at Wu Yuan.

Desperate, the Winged Tiger spat a mouthful of his own essence blood onto the phantom. The illusion solidified, its eyes glowing with intelligence as it roared and lunged to intercept Wu Yuan’s mace.

Wu Yuan watched the counter-attack coldly. The phantom carried the momentum of a mid-stage Qi Condensation beast.

“Impressive pressure,” Wu Yuan noted. “But without a physical body, it is ultimately just rootless wood.”

With a thought, a streak of green light wrapped in red Blood Qi shot out from Wu Yuan’s free hand.

[Stone Wood Horn Arrow]!

Under the Winged Tiger’s despairing gaze, the arrow wove through the air like a needle, piercing the tiger phantom dozens of times in a split second.

The phantom whimpered, its structure collapsing into motes of light that were sucked back into the shield. It hadn’t slowed Wu Yuan down by even a fraction of a second.

In the next breath, Wu Yuan was there.

He brought the Gu Duo mace down with catastrophic force.

“Spare me!!” the Winged Tiger screamed, his eyes nearly bursting from their sockets.

THUD!

The mace struck the [Tiger Head Great Shield].

It was metal striking metal, yet it sounded like a butcher’s mallet hitting a slab of meat.

The tiger head embossed on the shield shattered. The black Qi was obliterated. The spirit patterns flickered and died.

“No! Father!”

The Winged Tiger stared at the broken shards of his shield, letting out a cry of utter heartbreak. He didn’t even seem to notice that the shockwave had snapped his arm like a twig.

“I surrender!” he wailed.