The tiger waited for Team One to run down the mountain and request an iron fork that could be wielded as a weapon from Luo Siming – even though it took a while. Despite being outnumbered and having a chance to flee, the tiger chopped up firewood and started a fire to roast three potatoes it dug up. Su Xiao wanted to ask for one, but Shen Yiren stopped him. By the time they came back with a fork, the tiger was done eating two potatoes and burping.
Upon seeing her henchmen watch the tiger take its time peeling the last potato, Mountain Monster thundered, “The hell you looking at?! Hand over the fork!” As soon as she got her hands on the fork weighing roughly twenty kilograms and almost three heads longer than her, she aimed it at the tiger and demanded, “Get up, fool!”
Ever since Ming Feizhen exposed Mountain Monster’s real appearance, she seldom used her disguise technique again because she didn’t commit any more murders.
“I’ll grind your bones and flesh to dust!”
The only one who wasn’t astonished with Mountain Monster’s display of potent internal energy was Abels.
“Keep the fur! The fur is worth a lot!” Long Zaitian cried from the ground.
The tiger strafed away, albeit barely, falling for Mountain Monster’s feint. Mountain Monster caught the tiger moving sideways via interception and then plunged the fork through the unstable tiger.
“She won!” Su Xiao cheered.
Long Zaitian: “The fur! That’s authentic fur!”
Shen Yiren stomped on Long Zaitian’s face. “Give it a rest… How…?”
The tiger rolled up, then immediately targeted Mountain Monster’s neck with their claws. Their disguise sure was shoddy, but their speed and willpower certainly matched wild beasts. Mountain Monster reacted with a measured sweep and then flowered. The tiger rolled across the ground, subsequently uncoiling a left palm strike, followed by a right, keeping the fork at bay.
Prajna Palms was one of the most advanced disciplines among Shaolin’s seventy-two arts in addition to being their most advanced palm style. Shaolin monks didn’t start learning it until they’re thirty years old, at earliest, which would then take decades to call themselves a master of it. For an elder to move at the speed the tiger was defied human evolution.
Dozens of exchanges later, neither could defeat the other. Perhaps that was why the tiger got up on their legs as a human would, forcing Mountain Monster into cowering behind her fork. There was no blood at their belly, but there was torn fur, which could only mean that Mountain Monster never managed to penetrate her opponent.
Shen Yiren analysed the fight and then turned to Abels, who regarded her with a head bob. Both of them noticed Mountain Monster’s sluggish true qi flow due to her opponent’s discipline. Had they been a more advanced practitioner of Prajna Palms, Mountain Monster would’ve already bitten the dust.
Mountain Monster gradually lost her cool as she struggled to find a window for a counter; the desire to ask for her dual blades from Luo Clan even flourished in her mind. As a dual-wielding broadsword specialist, she became the owner to the only pair of broadswords Luo Siming brought along, one of which she called “b****” and the other “b******”.
“Let me.”
By the time “me” hit Mountain Monster’s ears, Abels had taken the fork from Mountain Monster. The gap between Abels and the tiger’s abilities needed no description for the former had already found the latter’s back within the next second.
“I remember teaching you to strike without mercy. You forgot everything I taught you after Ox Demon died?” Abels, expert at Beijiang’s renowned spearplay and Mountain Monster’s spear teacher, added, “This is how you’re meant to utilise a spear.”
The pressure emitted from Abels’ straight thrust restrained the tiger in place, rewarding Abels with free rein to smash the fork into the tiger’s neck, sending the tiger rolling for several metres. Abels ambled over to Mountain Monster and whispered, “Stop waiting for someone to tell you what to do with your life. Ox Demon is no more…”
Mountain Monster neither disputed nor looked up.
Bam! Abels caught the iron hammer Mountain Monster swung at him out of nowhere between two fingers. While perceived to be a foolhardy act in the eyes of outsiders, everyone in Evil Spirits had witnessed a similar scenario between the two more times than they could remember.
“Glad to see you haven’t given up on trying to kill me.” Abels set the hammer down. “From now on, kill for your own sake,” he said prior to walking off, leaving Mountain Monster to stand there poignantly.
Note
I apologise for the name censorship. It’s Google Adsense’s annoying policy.
