The jet-black pollen scattered across the Amethyst War Tiger’s body and melded into it. Then a speck of black, so dim the naked eye couldn’t detect it, surfaced on the tiger’s purple body, and a -5 number floated up above its head… The slumbering war tiger was roused at last, the discomfort in its body drawing a low growl from it, and the explosion that came hard on its heels drew from it a deafening, tremendous roar.
Bang! Bang!
-150, -150.
A Double-Bang Firecracker lit by the lighter flew in from a distance and struck the Amethyst War Tiger squarely in the face. As the two blasts went off, two identical red damage numbers floated up above its head, thoroughly igniting its fury as well. In an instant it found its target — this territory that belonged to it alone now held an intruding creature. Amid its roars, it flipped over and sprang up, a tiger’s pounce biting and tearing toward Ye Tianxie.
-5, -5, -5…
Steady, even damage numbers floated up above the Amethyst War Tiger’s head, once per second. And these damage numbers let Ye Tianxie see a gleam of hope. He gathered his focus, held his breath, his gaze sharp as a blade, silently calculating the timing within — and as the Amethyst War Tiger sprang up, he flung out another Double-Bang Firecracker.
Not one Double-Bang Firecracker could be allowed to miss! This was his… minimum requirement of himself!
The airborne Amethyst War Tiger couldn’t possibly dodge and was struck dead-on, another 300 HP carried off amid the blast. The Double-Bang Firecracker’s hit didn’t stall its leaping momentum; as the huge black shadow loomed overhead, Ye Tianxie snapped his upper body back, forming a near-perfect parallel with the ground, the shadow and a cold, sinister wind screaming past overhead.
Ye Tianxie took out a third Double-Bang Firecracker, lit it swiftly, and flung it again at the just-landed Amethyst War Tiger. But the tiger’s mobility far exceeded his expectations — the firecracker struck its body, and in the very instant it landed, it whipped around explosively and charged straight at Ye Tianxie, who’d just thrown the firecracker…
The purple giant tiger’s figure swelled in his pupils, and when the cold-gleaming tiger claws expanded to their largest in his eyes, his mind spontaneously calculated its mobility value…
Movement speed — 150!
The brief rigidity of his body after throwing a Double-Bang Firecracker, the Amethyst War Tiger’s extremely swift counterattack and movement, and his misjudgment of its mobility… Though he forced a half-step sidestep, he was still struck by the tiger’s claw, a thread of faint pain coming from his flank.
-468!
Ye Tianxie’s full health bar turned in an instant to almost complete blankness, plunging from 470 straight down to 2. Looking at that last sliver of health, however tough his psychological endurance, Ye Tianxie broke out in a sudden cold sweat all over.
Without the full two hundred HP the Ring of Life added, he’d have been instantly killed without question.
Ye Tianxie swiftly broke away and hurriedly downed an Advanced Recovery Potion and a special recovery potion to fill his health back up. But the cold, sinister wind gave chase close behind. With his movement speed of 100, how could he possibly escape the Amethyst War Tiger’s speed of 150? The Amethyst War Tiger was not that pack of Frenzied Fierce Oxen with movement speed of only 80 and brains that couldn’t take a sharp turn.
Faced with a potentially fatal blow, Ye Tianxie’s body reacted on instinct, twisting aside to dodge by the barest of margins, his body riding the momentum into a roll as it hit the ground. His gaze slanted toward the stone platform where the Amethyst War Tiger had lain sleeping earlier, and his mind made a lightning judgment. Without the slightest hesitation, he ran at full speed toward that platform over three meters across.
Roar!
The Amethyst War Tiger, having pounced on empty air, let out a furious roar, wheeled its body around, and followed close behind Ye Tianxie. Ye Tianxie leapt onto the platform and, mid-run, turned his head to glance at the Amethyst War Tiger, which had likewise sprung onto the platform and all but collided with his body — and his figure suddenly vanished mid-run…
That wasn’t a true vanishing; rather, at the same time as he leapt off the platform’s edge, he swiftly crouched down, disappearing from the Amethyst War Tiger’s line of sight.
The platform’s height was under a meter, which with Ye Tianxie’s jumping ability he could vault straight up onto, then leap down from the other side. Pressing tight against that meter-high vertical stone wall, he curled up there. The Amethyst War Tiger’s body was too enormous, destined to be unable to hug a corner as easily as Ye Tianxie. Just as he’d expected, as he leapt off the platform and crouched against its edge, the Amethyst War Tiger’s huge shadow sprang past overhead… He swiftly took out a Double-Bang Firecracker and lit it, judged its landing point, and flung it straight at where it would land, then — without even looking to see whether it hit — vaulted back onto the platform the instant he’d thrown it, ran quickly to the edge on the other side, turned, and made a taunting gesture at the Amethyst War Tiger, which the firecracker had blasted into a scream.
-5, -5, -5…
Though the numbers of falling health were tiny, they hadn’t broken off or stopped the whole time. The Amethyst War Tiger sprang back onto the platform once more with its furious air, but in the very instant it was about to catch up to Ye Tianxie, he leapt down again as before and crouched low, pressing tight against the edge, letting the tiger pounce over his head yet again. The instant it landed, with no way to dodge, it ate another Double-Bang Firecracker and was blasted for 300 HP.
Once, twice, three times… round and round it went. Ye Tianxie used this stone platform as his medium to repeat the same routine of actions, and the Amethyst War Tiger was held in check by this one fixed pattern, pouncing on empty air time and again, carried off a fixed 300 HP by the same method of attack time and again.
Knowing how to make use of every usable factor to win… one’s own advantages, the items one possessed, the surrounding environment, the climate, even the opponent’s build. This was something a true powerhouse couldn’t do without. A short span of time passed, and the Amethyst War Tiger, pouncing on air again and again, had over two thousand HP blasted off it, while not one of the Double-Bang Firecrackers flying from Ye Tianxie’s hand had missed.
Had the Amethyst War Tiger been the Frenzied Fierce Oxen from before, it would have gone on being led by the nose by Ye Tianxie like this, mindlessly. But it wasn’t… When Ye Tianxie leapt onto the platform once more, the body it wheeled around didn’t give chase; instead it glared upward, tiger’s maw gaping wide, and loosed a deafening, tremendous roar at the heavens.
Roar!!!!
That tremendous roar carried a boulder-heavy oppressive weight, and Ye Tianxie felt at once as though heaven and earth trembled along with it, his running body stumbling and pitching to the ground. His consciousness was scattered in an instant, an intense dizziness leaving his vision a blank, and through the blur he felt that purple giant shadow bearing down…
The War Tiger’s Roar — a wide-area daunting technique, with a very high chance of causing a stun and fear state lasting over three seconds.
(End of Chapter 43)