Everyone in the room watching John was stunned silent, filled to the brim with absolute shock. They had been surprised when the Devil had revealed itself, and then stunned senseless when John had decided to reveal himself and fight it instead of run away from it.
Everyone had assumed they were about to witness him perish, but the truth was the complete opposite of that. Common sense and all known laws of cultivation were thrown out the window as they watched John, an Early Dao Transformation cultivator, fight against an Early World Expansion Devil.
Just keeping himself alive in such a situation was enough to be considered heaven-defying, but the scene they were seeing couldn't have been farther from that. Everyone in the room watched with eyes wide and mouths agape as John turned this impossible, horrifying trial, into his own personalized training session.
…
The Devil arrived at John's side, hovering in the sky a few feet below him as well. Its claw shot upwards towards John's waist, intending to pierce through and cause grievous damage. John twisted his body in the opposite direction of the Devil and delivered a powerful backwards sweeping kick towards the claw.
Foot and claw collided, creating an explosive shockwave of power, sending John upwards into the air, and the Devil down towards the ground. The Devil suffered almost no damage in the exchange, while a large wound appeared on John's foot.
For any other Dao Transformation cultivator, even those in the peak of the realm, taking such an attack directly would have led to death, or at the very best, the loss of that entire leg. But for John, thanks to his heaven-defying Immortal Asura Body and Dragon-God Shift, the wound was merely a gruesome but not serious one.
He looked at the wound, which started to heal at visible speeds, and then looked down on the Devil, a large smile appearing on his face.
"Hahaha, so that's how I can best counter an attack from that angle," John roared with loud laughter as he and the Devil exchanged a calamitous barrage of attacks. The Devil had managed to get itself on his right side, and shot a sharp claw attack towards his lower waist.
This was the twelfth time that John had allowed that part of his body to become exposed, which the Devil expectantly attacked. Thanks to its nature as a formation-built creature and not a true, living Devil, its attack patterns were predictable, and could even be exploited.
The first attack from this angle had come unexpectedly, and John had instinctively decided to dodge it, as he was not able to twist in time to unleash a counter-punch of his own. The angle was too awkward to perform such a maneuver quickly enough.
His decision to dodge had allowed him to avoid the attack, with the Devil's sharp, outstretched claw just missing behind his back. However, the Devil followed up the attack with a quick and sudden elbow attack, digging its sharp, bony elbow into his back. With the natural physical power the Devil race possessed, the sudden elbow attack had been quite devastating, opening up a wound on his back, and forcing him to the ground below.
Had the Devil decided to augment the attack with Dao's, the result would have been even more devastating. Thankfully, the Devil was a rather straightforward opponent, programmed to be a full major realm higher than the trial taker. The creator of the trial, the first Guildmaster of the Shadows of Death, had not expected one to be able to fight the Devil head on, and so had not expended much effort in fleshing out its attacks to be what a true Devil was capable of.
John grumbled with pain as he recovered from the elbow attack, and then started to fight the creature once more. Using only his Dragon-God Shift left him at a disadvantage, but his current form was strong enough to keep himself alive while fighting the Devil. After a long period of exchanges, he had figured out the attack patterns of the Devil, and had decided to use it to his advantage.
By opening up certain parts of his body to attack during their exchanges, the Devil would attack those parts, as it had just done with his lower waist. By trial and error, John had figured out the best way to defend against such attacks, and was slowly but surely becoming even more frighteningly competent in close-quarters combat.
"Hahaha, this training is perfect!" John laughed loudly, speeding towards the Devil once more. His body was covered in blood from the numerous wounds he had sustained from his exchanges with the Devil, but thanks to his Limiter of Healing, Limiter of Life, and natural healing rate of his Immortal Asura Body, his healing capability was even more heaven-defying than his strength now, and those wounds had already healed themselves.
The sky rumbled and the earth trembled as he and the Devil fought a brutal, barehanded battle. The forest below them had all but been destroyed by their calamitous exchanges, and their shockwaves from attacks and bodies colliding into the ground had destroyed everything in their path.
John focused on blocking the Devil's furious barrage of sharp claw attacks, knocking aside its claws at the perfect moment, while countering with his own quick yet brutally powerful attacks when he managed to create an opening.
It was an incredibly rare opportunity for him to fight an opponent just barely stronger than he was, which was the case with his current Dragon-God Shift only transformation, and also an opponent that never tired out. Due to his prodigal combat prowess, John had not had to hone his combat instincts recently, which naturally declined as a result. This battle was the perfect opportunity to hone his combat instincts back to the peak of perfection.
After knocking aside another claw attack, John raised his arms and twisted his waist, opening the same part of his body to attack. The Devil's claw pierced directly towards it, which was met midair by a twisting leg kick. The kick, powerful enough to shatter mountains with ease, slammed into the claw, shaking the very fabric of space from the powerful collision.
The Devil shot backwards once more while John was knocked upwards, stopping in the air a moment later. His foot ached with pain as a large wound had appeared on it, so deep that bone could be seen. The wound started to knit and heal at visible speeds, and was completely healed over a few seconds later.
"I now know how to perfectly defend against such an attack," John said, nodding his head in satisfaction. "Now onto the next one!" he yelled, his smile returning as he shot forward once more towards the Devil, resuming his brutal training session.
