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 up his neck and wrists, cracking sounds echoed out.
“This is a berserker.” Xu Yangyi leaned his upper body over lowly, and the moonlight shed upon it. His muscles weren’t developed, yet they were tight and delicate, possessing an astonishing explosive force. His posture was like that of a hunting cheetah, and his ears were like that of 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 the extreme. Not only was this his graduation exam’s final subject, it was moreover the first genuine demon he had confronted. This creatyre wasn’t one of those Form Transformation demons, but rather a berserker that was incapable of assuming human form!
For some demons, Berserker Syndrome occurred as they were on death’s door and unable to make a breakthrough. Such resentment would lead to these demons madly hating humans, believing them to have squeezed down upon their own room for survival. Their bodies were no longer capable of sustaining a relative human form, but rather they would transform step by step into their most primal demon form, ultimately completing their demonification.
During the course of these events, a berserker would become increasingly addicted to killing and progressively more ruthless. Then, at the instant it fully demonized, its hatred towards humans would arrive at the zenith! A mad carnage would unfold!
No matter whether it was human or demon, due to Berserker Syndrome, they had to kill! Their existences already threatened the fragile bonds between humans and demons.
Suddenly, a penetrating, void-shattering sound mixed with low hissing traveled across 500 meters like a sharpened arrow that had left its bow string! Carrying a bright-red color and with a speed that humans simply wouldn’t be able to react to, it broke across the sky!
Xu Yangyi’s gaze unexpectedly saucered, and he twisted towards his left side reflexively.
Boom… A noise echoed heavily, like a tremendous fist hammered the ground. At this moment, everyone on the outside was stunned.
“Old Qin… You felt that?” Vice Captain Chen asked the policewoman suspiciously: “Just now… did the ground quake?”
As if they were being separated by a gigantic glass screen, they simply couldn’t hear the sound coming from within. But while they couldn’t observe the scene inside, 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 at Xu Yangyi’s side was already inundated with many half-a-meter-sized holes! The clothes that he had placed there had long vanished into thin air!
In midair, a blood-red shadow was in the midst of an explosive retreat. He simply didn’t consider it as his two legs trudged forward, his entire being rushing forward like a sharpened arrow leaving its bow string!
Huff! Like an artillery shell was fired, the grass at the side of his foot dispersed in a great circle with him in the eye of it.
Xu Yangyi leapt over a dozen meters in distance! Up 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 retreating at lightning speed and suddenly caught onto the tip of the red shadow with both of his hands!
“Hiss!” Soon after, a sharp 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 that covered 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. It 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 wasn’t known when, but many gigantic holes had already appeared on the structure. Inside the building, there was a thing refracting the rays of the moon. At the back of Its tongue, there was a rolled up pile of tattered clothes. From where he stood, Xu Yangyi firmly pulled the tip of Its tongue like a tug-of-war.
He pulled with a single hand from where he stood, and the blue arteries of his hand began to reveal themselves, every muscle and vein clearly visible. His legs had already dug out a ravine over a dozen meters in length 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 that of a human's! [2]
“A competition of strength?” A cold light flashed at the back of his eyes: “How unfortunate. My strength is no laughing matter, as well.”
On both of his hands, a series of runes mystifyingly revealed themselves. Immediately following, the muscles all over his entire body expanded 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!”
The qi of Xu Yangyi’s entire body 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 Its tongue, a blood-curdling screech followed in the wake of four bloody florets! A tongue that was no less than the thickness of a man 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 enormous 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 berserking demon... would absolutely not be any smaller!
It… was on the cusp of revealing itself!
Bang! Like the eruption of an underground fountain, the ground around him suddenly burst open! Immediately following, the ground didn’t halt at a single section, but rather countless areas! It was as if an infinite number of fountains buried beneath the ground had completely ruptured forth with a rumble!
The yellow grains of sand that filled the sky were like night-time clouds and mists, making even the moon lose its color.
“My god! What’s going on?!”
“What’s happening!”
“Earthquake?! Earthquake!”
Vice Captain Chen looked around at his surroundings in amazement; the ground was obviously shaking! He had started to believe it was of his own imagination, but he discovered in the next second that it wasn’t so!
Ka thunk! At his side, the water cup he had placed on the hood of the Disciplinary and Investigation Unit’s car had spilled over!
Everyone hefted their rifles at command. In this moment, not a single person was still standing steadily! It seemed like there was a gigantic creature beneath the ground 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, at the moment she managed to regain a bit of her standing, her eyes suddenly needled!
“My… god…” She sluggishly looked ahead of herself. There weren’t any changes with the pitch-black run-down building. However…
It was because it was without a shred of change!
This earthquake, so abrupt and so fierce, caused everything to shake! A soldier holding his gun wasn’t even able to grasp 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 the building trembled. In comparison to the motionless building though, it 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 happened to 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… sorcery?”
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 like 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 it didn’t stop here… there were also more than a hundred little serpents on top of the ruptured surroundings. Even the smallest one could be said to possess the thickness of a man’s waist. Nevertheless, they were simply incapable of being 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 the moonlight, enveloping Xu Yangyi in darkness and generating a heaven-and-earth-shaking cry!
“Hiss!!!”
While the serpent had a gigantic body, in the next second, It seemed to be an arc of black lightning as It suddenly charged several tens of meters in front of Itself!
At the same time, the hundred plus little serpents in Xu Yangyi’s surroundings were like a cage, filling the sky with the sound of hissing. Bringing with them a strong, repulsive wind, they all shot towards the same spot!
Exactly where Xu Yangyi was situated!
Boom… Boom! Boooom! The sound of the ground shattering in uninterrupted succession 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” just as he wiped his sweat away. Very light, rather heavy, awfully oppressive, and quite subtle. It was like in Jurassic Park where the car jumped in the same manner as when Tyrannosaurus Rex stomped on the ground. The corners of his eyes fluttered immediately afterwards. Subsequently… the entire ground began to tremble madly! The intensity was several tens of times greater than the tremors from moments ago!
“Merciful Heavens!” Captain Gao supported himself unsteadily against the car in a state of fright: “Earthquake! Earthquake!”
“Damn!” Vice Captain Chen only had time to let loose a 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 richter scale! Furthermore… he kept on having a kind of unusual feeling. This earthquake… was right below his feet!
“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. There wasn’t any person that knew; what on earth was going on? Why was it that there were such violent tremors all of a sudden?
Moreover, there wasn’t a single person that had heard… the slamming of over a hundred snakes against the ground, nor their wretched shrieks and any of their biting. There was only the heavy impact on the ground like that of a beating drum, smashing the floor and pounding into the earth once more, the pitter patter of shattered rain!
An ocean of serpents continued to rush forth like they were attacking a mouse, chomping down… If someone was placed in the midst of this, they would certainly be torn to pieces!
Swish! No less than ten-odd minutes later did the 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, and as he twisted his neck once more, the sound of cracking echoed out. He had a smile on his face as always, merely, the crook of his mouth carried a blood-thirsty coldness.
“Initial-stage Qi Condensation… It’s truly strange…” He pressed down on his leg unconsciously: “Your might is rather great, and I thought I would even 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 at the very least by two minor stages. 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, no?” 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 informed 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: “A problem has come up in your body. Perhaps 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 leavings its 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 one pound~. 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.
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 up his neck and wrists, cracking sounds echoed out.
“This is a berserker.” Xu Yangyi leaned his upper body over lowly, and the moonlight shed upon it. His muscles weren’t developed, yet they were tight and delicate, possessing an astonishing explosive force. His posture was like that of a hunting cheetah, and his ears were like that of 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 the extreme. Not only was this his graduation exam’s final subject, it was moreover the first genuine demon he had confronted. This creatyre wasn’t one of those Form Transformation demons, but rather a berserker that was incapable of assuming human form!
For some demons, Berserker Syndrome occurred as they were on death’s door and unable to make a breakthrough. Such resentment would lead to these demons madly hating humans, believing them to have squeezed down upon their own room for survival. Their bodies were no longer capable of sustaining a relative human form, but rather they would transform step by step into their most primal demon form, ultimately completing their demonification.
During the course of these events, a berserker would become increasingly addicted to killing and progressively more ruthless. Then, at the instant it fully demonized, its hatred towards humans would arrive at the zenith! A mad carnage would unfold!
No matter whether it was human or demon, due to Berserker Syndrome, they had to kill! Their existences already threatened the fragile bonds between humans and demons.
Suddenly, a penetrating, void-shattering sound mixed with low hissing traveled across 500 meters like a sharpened arrow that had left its bow string! Carrying a bright-red color and with a speed that humans simply wouldn’t be able to react to, it broke across the sky!
Xu Yangyi’s gaze unexpectedly saucered, and he twisted towards his left side reflexively.
Boom… A noise echoed heavily, like a tremendous fist hammered the ground. At this moment, everyone on the outside was stunned.
“Old Qin… You felt that?” Vice Captain Chen asked the policewoman suspiciously: “Just now… did the ground quake?”
As if they were being separated by a gigantic glass screen, they simply couldn’t hear the sound coming from within. But while they couldn’t observe the scene inside, 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 at Xu Yangyi’s side was already inundated with many half-a-meter-sized holes! The clothes that he had placed there had long vanished into thin air!
In midair, a blood-red shadow was in the midst of an explosive retreat. He simply didn’t consider it as his two legs trudged forward, his entire being rushing forward like a sharpened arrow leaving its bow string!
Huff! Like an artillery shell was fired, the grass at the side of his foot dispersed in a great circle with him in the eye of it.
Xu Yangyi leapt over a dozen meters in distance! Up 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 retreating at lightning speed and suddenly caught onto the tip of the red shadow with both of his hands!
“Hiss!” Soon after, a sharp 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 that covered 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. It 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 wasn’t known when, but many gigantic holes had already appeared on the structure. Inside the building, there was a thing refracting the rays of the moon. At the back of Its tongue, there was a rolled up pile of tattered clothes. From where he stood, Xu Yangyi firmly pulled the tip of Its tongue like a tug-of-war.
He pulled with a single hand from where he stood, and the blue arteries of his hand began to reveal themselves, every muscle and vein clearly visible. His legs had already dug out a ravine over a dozen meters in length 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 that of a human's! [2]
“A competition of strength?” A cold light flashed at the back of his eyes: “How unfortunate. My strength is no laughing matter, as well.”
On both of his hands, a series of runes mystifyingly revealed themselves. Immediately following, the muscles all over his entire body expanded 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!”
The qi of Xu Yangyi’s entire body 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 Its tongue, a blood-curdling screech followed in the wake of four bloody florets! A tongue that was no less than the thickness of a man 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 enormous 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 berserking demon... would absolutely not be any smaller!
It… was on the cusp of revealing itself!
Bang! Like the eruption of an underground fountain, the ground around him suddenly burst open! Immediately following, the ground didn’t halt at a single section, but rather countless areas! It was as if an infinite number of fountains buried beneath the ground had completely ruptured forth with a rumble!
The yellow grains of sand that filled the sky were like night-time clouds and mists, making even the moon lose its color.
“My god! What’s going on?!”
“What’s happening!”
“Earthquake?! Earthquake!”
Vice Captain Chen looked around at his surroundings in amazement; the ground was obviously shaking! He had started to believe it was of his own imagination, but he discovered in the next second that it wasn’t so!
Ka thunk! At his side, the water cup he had placed on the hood of the Disciplinary and Investigation Unit’s car had spilled over!
Everyone hefted their rifles at command. In this moment, not a single person was still standing steadily! It seemed like there was a gigantic creature beneath the ground 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, at the moment she managed to regain a bit of her standing, her eyes suddenly needled!
“My… god…” She sluggishly looked ahead of herself. There weren’t any changes with the pitch-black run-down building. However…
It was because it was without a shred of change!
This earthquake, so abrupt and so fierce, caused everything to shake! A soldier holding his gun wasn’t even able to grasp 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 the building trembled. In comparison to the motionless building though, it 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 happened to 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… sorcery?”
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 like 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 it didn’t stop here… there were also more than a hundred little serpents on top of the ruptured surroundings. Even the smallest one could be said to possess the thickness of a man’s waist. Nevertheless, they were simply incapable of being 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 the moonlight, enveloping Xu Yangyi in darkness and generating a heaven-and-earth-shaking cry!
“Hiss!!!”
While the serpent had a gigantic body, in the next second, It seemed to be an arc of black lightning as It suddenly charged several tens of meters in front of Itself!
At the same time, the hundred plus little serpents in Xu Yangyi’s surroundings were like a cage, filling the sky with the sound of hissing. Bringing with them a strong, repulsive wind, they all shot towards the same spot!
Exactly where Xu Yangyi was situated!
Boom… Boom! Boooom! The sound of the ground shattering in uninterrupted succession 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” just as he wiped his sweat away. Very light, rather heavy, awfully oppressive, and quite subtle. It was like in Jurassic Park where the car jumped in the same manner as when Tyrannosaurus Rex stomped on the ground. The corners of his eyes fluttered immediately afterwards. Subsequently… the entire ground began to tremble madly! The intensity was several tens of times greater than the tremors from moments ago!
“Merciful Heavens!” Captain Gao supported himself unsteadily against the car in a state of fright: “Earthquake! Earthquake!”
“Damn!” Vice Captain Chen only had time to let loose a 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 richter scale! Furthermore… he kept on having a kind of unusual feeling. This earthquake… was right below his feet!
“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. There wasn’t any person that knew; what on earth was going on? Why was it that there were such violent tremors all of a sudden?
Moreover, there wasn’t a single person that had heard… the slamming of over a hundred snakes against the ground, nor their wretched shrieks and any of their biting. There was only the heavy impact on the ground like that of a beating drum, smashing the floor and pounding into the earth once more, the pitter patter of shattered rain!
An ocean of serpents continued to rush forth like they were attacking a mouse, chomping down… If someone was placed in the midst of this, they would certainly be torn to pieces!
Swish! No less than ten-odd minutes later did the 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, and as he twisted his neck once more, the sound of cracking echoed out. He had a smile on his face as always, merely, the crook of his mouth carried a blood-thirsty coldness.
“Initial-stage Qi Condensation… It’s truly strange…” He pressed down on his leg unconsciously: “Your might is rather great, and I thought I would even 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 at the very least by two minor stages. 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, no?” 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 informed 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: “A problem has come up in your body. Perhaps 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 leavings its 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 one pound~. 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.
