The phoenix moved, and it left a hurricane in its wake. It was not a normal hurricane either. The gusts of winds burned with a black fire that consumed the wind itself.
Ning, who was charging against the Midnight Phoenix couldn't keep up with its speed at all. The only thing he found out was that he was struck by the bird and sent flying down to the ground.
A crater formed near the tower but Ning was unhurt. His incredible strength and durability from being enhanced by Aether fully protected his body.
Even if he hadn't, the bird wouldn't have managed to do the same amount of damage as he had expected it to.
The bird was fast, there was no denying that. He couldn't even see it move after all. However, it wasn't very strong. At least, not in its cultivation base.
This was definitely one of the weaker ones.
That wasn't something to be happy about, however. This just meant that he would last a little longer than if the bird was stronger.
Ning was about to get back up when he saw a flash of black come through the sky. The next thing he knew, he was missing a leg.
The Midnight Phoenix appeared to the side, with half of his leg hung on the side of its abyssal beak and chewed on it.
Ning watched angrily as his leg grew back. And the bird saw that too.
The bird wasn't intelligent at all, that Ning could guarantee for sure. After all, this bird held no soul.
Only those that held a soul could be considered to be intelligent. However, that did not mean that the bird had no shred of intelligence.
Even wild animals had some sort of intelligence. Usually, that intelligence came in the form of instincts.
Instincts to prey for food when they were hungry. Instincts to run away from predators when they were scared.
Instincts to breed when they were in the heat. Instincts to be afraid of a trap they had fallen for before.
Instincts guided the brain of those that did not have a soul. As such, the Midnight Phoenix's current brain also had an instinct to tell it something.
It told it that the prey down there could become full even after it had eaten his leg. So, if it could continue it, it would be able to become its food forever.
When Ning saw the bird's eyes, he knew what he was in for.
Immediately, he flew up but the bird was way too fast. Ning was swept away to the side while the bird ripped off his leg again while he was in mid-air.
At the same time, his left arm caught on fire even as he was tossed away in the air.
Ning didn't hit the ground this time and continued flying in the air. At the same time, he used his spear to cut off his arm before it was fully consumed by the black fire.
Slowly, his leg and arm regenerated back and he couldn't help but look at the beast with anger in his eyes.
"Goddamn you! I will kill you," Ning said to the bird as he held the spear tight. Even as the bird began to move, Ning created a portal large enough for the bird to enter through.
At the same time, he created a portal right in front of the first portal and made it the destination of the first portal.
So, when the bird entered the portal, it was now forever stuck in between those two portals.
The bird was stuck in the portal for a few seconds and fire built up in the air around it.
Then, the bird slowed down as it realized it wasn't going anywhere.
When Ning saw this, he immediately created more portals around the bird to keep it contained.
The bird tried flying once again and entered through one of the portals. It appeared from a random one in the sphere that surrounded it.
Ning continued to power the many portals as it, fortunately, didn't cost him a lot of energy to create portals with such a small distance.
At the same time, he watched the bird enter through each of the portals and try to figure out what was going on.
Even as it entered through every portal available to it, it still couldn't escape the entrapment.
Ning felt quite happy that he managed to trap it. Now, he simply needed to think of a way to kill it before he was fully drained of his energy or another one of these birds popped out of nowhere.
A minute later, the bird finally got angry as it realized that it was truly trapped and started getting restless.
The fire burned around it with no heat at all as it shot out flames from its mouth as a dragon would.
The black fires spilled from the cracks in between the trap that Ning couldn't cover as his portals couldn't touch each other, lest they destabilize and destroy each other.
Fortunately, the spillage wasn't a problem for Ning.
Then, the bird flapped its wings real hard and shot out a bunch of burning feathers all around it.
Most of the feathers entered the portals and came back at the bird. However, some of it spilled through the cracks once again.
One of them was headed straight for the tower.
Ning immediately stopped it, but the bird saw what happened. It realized that there was a way out.
The way out was incredibly small, but it was there. And the size of something hadn't mattered to the bird in a very long time.
Immediately, the bird's body began to shrink until it was the size of a sparrow.
Then, it flew into the portals again. It didn't know where the crack was exactly, so it was going to brute force it.
Ning tried his best to stop that by increasing the size of the portal, but no matter how large he made them, they could never touch each other.
So, he wasn't surprised at all when the bird managed to fly out of the trap. Only worried.
