archfiend
Chapter 10: Berserker (2)
Swish… Xu Yangyi disrobed himself of his coat and folded it neatly, placing it on the ground. As he stretched out and loosened his neck and wrists, cracking sounds echoed.
“This is a berserker.” Xu Yangyi leaned his upper body over lowly, and moonlight shed upon him. His muscles weren’t developed, yet they were tight and delicate, possessing an astonishing explosive force. His posture resembled a hunting cheetah, and his ears were akin to a wild beast, slightly trembling as they caught onto each and every sound of blowing wind and rustling grass in his surroundings.
Every one of his nerves stretched out to extremes. Not only was this his graduation exam’s final subject, it was moreover the first real demon he had confronted. This creature wasn’t one of those Form Transformation demons but rather a berserker that was unable to take human form!
For some demons, Berserker Syndrome occurred as they were on death’s door and unable to break through. Such resentment would lead to these demons madly hating humans, believing mankind to have squeezed down on their own room for survival. Their bodies were no longer capable of sustaining a relative human form, and they would instead transform step by step into their most primal demon form, ultimately completing their demonization.
Over the course of these events, a berserker would gradually become addicted to murder, revealing an ever-increasing ruthlessness. Then, at the instant a demon fully demonized, its hatred towards humans would reach the peak! A mad carnage would unfold!
Regardless of human or demon, these afflicted had to kill, due to Berserker Syndrome! Their existences already threatened the fragile bonds between humans and demons.
Suddenly, like a sharp arrow leaving a bow string, a penetrating, void-breaking sound mixed with low hissing traveled across 500 meters! Cloaked in a bright-red color and with a speed that humans simply wouldn’t be able to react to, the demon tore across the sky!
Xu Yangyi’s gaze unexpectedly saucered, and he reflexively twisted towards his left flank.
Boom… A noise rumbled deeply, as if a tremendous fist hammered the ground. At this moment, everyone outside the formation was stunned.
“Old Qin… You feel that?” Vice Captain Chen asked the policewoman suspiciously. “Just now… did the ground quake?”
As if they were separated by a gigantic glass screen, they couldn’t hear the sound coming from within at all. But while they couldn’t observe what was going on inside the formation, the heavy feeling on the ground passed into their bodies.
“It’s like…” Officer Qin furrowed her brows. What had happened? The ground was suddenly shaking?
Within the “glass”, the ground all around Xu Yangyi was already inundated with many half-meter-sized holes! The clothes that he had set down had long since vanished into thin air!
In midair, a blood-red shadow was in the midst of an explosive retreat. He simply didn’t consider this as his two legs trudged forward. Xu Yangyi rushed forward like a sharpened arrow taking flight!
Huff! Like an artillery shell was fired, the grass beside his feet dispersed in a great circle with him at the eye of it.
Xu Yangyi jumped up over a dozen meters high! In the air, the red shadow and the black shadow that was his figure were like chasing stars overtaking the moon! He unwaveringly stared down the shadow that was retreating at lightning speed, and suddenly caught onto the tip of the demon with both of his hands!
“Hiss!” Soon after, a biting hiss cried out. Xu Yangyi was like an enormous stone sculpture, falling down from midair to the ground with the weight of a thousand catties. With a rumble, the dust covering the ground scattered about like a shock wave with him as nucleus of it! [1]
The night wind blew forth, brushing away at the dusty mist. The tip he had caught onto was an enormous tongue. Covered in nauseating yellow saliva, the meat of the tongue was red in color.
One end of the creature wasn’t within the building. It was unknown when, but many gigantic holes had already appeared on the structure. Inside the building, there was something reflecting the moon’s rays. At the back of the serpent’s tongue, there was a rolled-up pile of tattered clothes. From where he stood, Xu Yangyi firmly pulled the tip of the demon’s tongue like a tug-of-war.
He pulled with a single hand from where he stood, and the veins on his hand began to reveal themselves, every muscle and vein clearly visible. His legs had already dug out a ravine over a dozen meters long in the ground! Surprisingly, his feet couldn’t be seen anymore!
Pure strength, bodily strength, this was a maneater’s most terrible aspect! A demon’s body was much more powerful than a human's! [2]
“A competition of strength?” A cold light flashed at the back of his eyes. “How unfortunate. My strength is no joke, either.”
On both of his hands, a series of runes mystifyingly revealed themselves. Immediately, the muscles all over his body swelled like they were filled with air. From his stature of 1.8 meters he transformed into a giant exceeding over two meters!
“Solution Ninety-Five—Dragon Biting!”
All of Xu Yangyi’s bodily qi coalesced in his hand, and a simple, incorporeal blade surprisingly appeared. He suddenly chopped down with it!
“Hiss!” Just as the seemingly illusory blade was about to touch the serpent’s tongue, a blood-curdling screech followed in the wake of four bloody florets! A tongue no less than a man’s thickness had been severed from the inside like a taut bow!
In the next second, the entire ground began to tremble!
Xu Yangyi firmly fixed his eyes below his feet. How massive was this demon? He knew that the demon at the top of the Venture Pharmaceuticals building was no less than thirty to forty meters in size. The body of a berserker demon... would absolutely not be any smaller!
The beast… was on the cusp of revealing itself!
Bang! Like the eruption of an underground fountain, the earth around him suddenly burst open! Shortly, the ground didn’t halt at a single section but rather countless areas! It was as if an infinite number of fountains buried underground had completely ruptured!
The yellow grains of sand that filled the sky were like night-time clouds and mists, making even the moon lose color.
“My god! What’s going on?!”
“What’s happening!”
“Earthquake?! Earthquake!”
Vice Captain Chen looked around him in shock; the ground was obviously shaking! He had started to believe that it was his own imagination, but he discovered in the next second that it wasn’t so!
Ka thunk! At his side, the cup of water he had placed on the hood of the Disciplinary and Investigation Unit’s car spilled over!
Everyone hefted their rifles at command. In this moment, not one was still standing steadily! It seemed like there was a gigantic creature underground just about to drill out of the earth’s surface, as if it was charging out!
Officer Qin supported herself against a car, in astonishment. The tremors beneath her feet were far too intense, however, in the instant she managed to regain a bit of her standing, her pupils suddenly needled!
“My… god…” She sluggishly looked ahead of herself. There were no changes to the pitch-black, run-down building. But…
It was strange, because the structure was without a shred of change!
This earthquake, so abrupt and fierce, caused everything to shake! A soldier holding his gun wasn’t even able to hold onto his rifle! Yet the building hadn’t shaken! As if the building hung suspended in the middle of a snow globe, the area all around it trembled. Compared to the motionless building, though, the sight was simply far too inharmonious!
“Old Qin! Old Qin!” Old Zhu approached and tugged at her, yet he was brushed away by her hand.
“What’s going on with you?!” Old Zhu worriedly pressed down on her shoulder. “Get down now! Don’t you know this is an earthquake?!”
Officer Qin appeared not to have sensed such a thing at all. She only looked at the seemingly static building, her lips trembling.
“Is this… magic?”
Within the Big Dipper Heaventail Formation, sand had already covered the ground and dust had blocked out the moon.
At the center of the cloud formed by dust, wind, and air, a tremendous shadow, similar to Optimus Prime, calmly towered within, as if it was a guard dragon in the mists.
It was a serpent.
A tremendous serpent, a black serpent like the blackness of death. Its skull was three to four meters in size, its sapphire eyes were pervaded by a layer of abnormal red, and its gigantic maw was like an abyss. In the midst of the dust-filled sky, its two eyes were like two enormous blue searchlights, carrying a deathly still gaze as it looked at everyone.
Its length could not be reckoned, its height could not be distinguished, and its thickness could not be discerned.
Yet this was not the end… there were also over a hundred little serpents on the surrounding fissured ground. Even the smallest one could be said to possess the thickness of a man’s waist. Nevertheless, they simply couldn’t be compared to the tremendous serpent that was approximately as thick as a room!
Standing in front of the serpent in contrast, Xu Yangyi was like an ant standing across from a tree.
Swish! The serpent’s head slowly drew itself upwards, accompanied by a long hiss. The monstrous serpent raised its head and bathed itself in moonlight, enveloping Xu Yangyi in darkness and roaring loud enough to shake the world!
“Hiss!!!”
While the serpent had a gigantic body, it seemed to be an arc of black lightning as it charged tens of meters in front of itself in the next second!
At the same time, the horde of little serpents in Xu Yangyi’s surroundings were like a cage, filling the sky with hissing. Bringing with them a strong, repulsive wind, they all shot towards the same spot!
Exactly where Xu Yangyi was located!
Boom… Boom! Boooom! The sound of the ground breaking apart over and over made the scalps of everyone who heard it turn numb!
Boom… Boom… Outside the formation, Old Zhu sat on the ground, watching the car at the side suddenly “jump” as he wiped his sweat away. The impact was awfully light, heavy, oppressive, and subtle. It was like in Jurassic Park, when the car jumped in the same way when Tyrannosaurus Rex stomped the ground. The corners of his eyes immediately fluttered afterwards. Subsequently… the earth began to tremble madly! The intensity was many tens of times greater than the tremors from moments ago!
“Merciful heavens!” Frightened, Captain Gao unsteadily supported himself against a car. “Earthquake! Earthquake!”
“Damn!” Vice Captain Chen only had time to screech. The violent tremors made both his legs go soft, and he fell down on the ground, landing flat on his butt! “What the heck is happening?!” He gritted his teeth rigidly. Should they retreat? Should he sound the call? The captain still hadn’t come out, however…
Such violent tremors could be an earthquake greater than a five on the Chinese seismic activity scale! Furthermore… he kept on having a kind of unusual feeling. This earthquake… was right below his feet! [3]
“Captain! What’re we doing?!”
“Instructor, what are we doing now?”
“Why is there an earthquake all of a sudden?”
“What the heck happened?”
Cries of alarm rose and fell in succession. No one understood. What in the world was going on? Why was were there such violent tremors all of a sudden?
Not a single person heard… the slam of a hundred snakes against the ground, or their wretched shrieks and snapping jaws. There was only a heavy impact on the earth like that of a beating drum, smashing and pounding into the soil once more, the pitter patter of shattered rain!
An ocean of serpents continued to rush forth like they were attacking a mouse, biting… If one was placed in this swarm, they would certainly be torn to pieces!
Swish! No less than ten-odd minutes later did this surging tsunami come to a halt. In the center, a blood-drenched figure was standing tall in the thick of it.
Xu Yangyi protected the vital points of his entire body with both of his hands. At this moment, he had finally been taken hold of.
He swung his shoulder, making a popping noise. As he twisted his neck again, a cracking noise echoed. He had a smile on his face as usual, merely the crook of his mouth wore a bloodthirsty coldness.
“Initial-stage Qi Condensation… It really is weird…” He pressed down on his leg unconsciously. “Your strength is pretty good, and I even thought I would be severely injured… but how could you be so weak?”
“Berserker Syndrome coupled with the transformation of your most primal demon form should’ve raised your boundary by two minor stages, at the very least. Even if you’re at the initial stage, shouldn’t you at least be late stage right now?”
“Not only are you weak, your strength fluctuations are also too great… This shouldn’t be, right?” Xu Yangyi laughed, rubbing his pallid chin. “Has the qi sea within your body fallen into shambles? Has your willpower been swept away?”
The tremendous serpent’s eyes unwaveringly locked onto Xu Yangyi. Over the course of their exchange of blows just now, the demon’s remaining consciousness told it that the smiling human in front of it was quite strong… extremely strong!
It was correct that it shouldn’t have been so weak! It was true that it should’ve torn Xu Yangyi to pieces moments ago!
“You’re afraid.” Xu Yangyi slowly walked over, smiling as always. “There’s a problem with your body. Maybe you didn’t take the initiative to lose yourself and become a maneater… Whatever, it's not important.”
Before his voice even fell, he charged toward the serpent’s head like an arrow leaving a bow!
“Solution Ninety-Seven. Tiger Crane!”
1. A catty is a term of measurement often seen in Chinese novels. From what I researched a catty is roughly half a kilogram, perhaps a little bit more, making it roughly 1 lb~. In other novels, you may see this unit of measure unlocalized as jin.
2. 异食癖 - maneater. Literally: “different eating habit” I figure maneater works best in this context.
3. The Chinese rate earthquakes on a scale of 1 to 12.