Chapter 199. (Patreon)

The youth was decked in a pair of loose pants lined with intricate fractals and a sleeveless vest that went all up to his throat, leaving both his arms bare. His body was of the wiry kind, like something that made Zac think of kung-fu masters rather than bodybuilders, but Zac knew only too well just how much power that was contained in his arms.

Just as Zac scouted out the new variable entering the fray, so did the teenager hesitantly look over Zac. Soon after Zac felt the fractal from [Mental Fortress] flash, meaning he was getting probed or attacked by a mental skill. Looking at his opponent Zac guessed it was the former.

“Why aren’t you answering? Just who are you? Did my siblings send you?” he angrily said, warily keeping his distance from Zac after his sneak attack failed.

Zac ignored the question, instead quickly using his skill [Inquisitive Eye] just like the other guy did. But for the first time since he acquired it, it almost failed completely, giving even less information than when he scanned his sister.

A muddled row could be seen, only telling Zac the name of the enemy. If even that. Because the only thing that was legible was "Average", with the rest being blocked. That meant one of two things. Either there was a huge disparity in Intelligence or Wisdom, or he possessed far superior means to block mental attacks. In either case it indicated that he wasn’t a simple opponent.

Zac soon got his answers, as one of the teenager’s bracelets shone with a white luster that reminded Zac of the diadem Ogras used to protect from mental attacks. The teenager started and looked down on his arm, immediately raising his guards afterward.

“Average? Is that really your name? I don’t know who you are, much less anything about any siblings of yours. Why did you attack me when I was about to fight that beast? Are you the one that unleashed it on these people?” Zac asked, taking note of every move with vigilance.

He couldn’t be completely sure, but it felt like the teenager was roughly as strong as he was. Not only did he move like a lightning bolt, but there was also enough strength behind his punch to hurt him. There also was the issue of the mysterious power contained in the punch, and Zac not being able to identify it properly was a bit unnerving.

“I knew you were a liar! Everyone in this sector knows who I am. Who else dares to have hair this stylish? Only I, the great Average-“ the teenager angrily said, but his introduction was rudely interrupted by the bellow of the frenzied beast.

There was no way the demon bull hadn’t been alerted by the commotion the two caused. It had barely restrained itself due to the enormous amounts of energy released from the strike of the teenager. But after observing the two small humans for a bit longer, it apparently felt confident in attacking.

To Zac’s surprise the teenager didn’t seem alarmed but rather elated that the beast was bearing down on him. The air around his fists started shimmering like stars as it distorted from dense energy gathering, and he actually seemed ready to meet the charge from the beast head-on.

Zac had a decent what the brat was about to do, and he felt he couldn’t allow him to attack the beast. This so-called Average had muddied the water of his quest completely. Did the system expect this kid to be here? Was he the real challenge?

All these variables cropping up were a pain in the ass, but Zac could only fight for now. He instantly swung his axe toward the teenager, and as the edge sliced through the air a huge fractal edge from [Chop] appeared. After a brief hesitation, he also imbued the strike with the Dao of Sharpness before launching it at the human rather than the beast.

Zac was afraid that the kid would simply shrug off the attack if he didn’t put something extra in the strike, and he couldn’t let the teenager kill the beast. He had a strong feeling that his mission would be a wash if he just watched someone else claim the head of the bison-monster.

The fractal edge flew at the pugilist with full force, slicing the cobblestones on the ground to ribbons on its approach. Average clearly had good battle awareness and immediately noticed an attack was incoming. However, even with the knowledge his eyes widened in alarm form the huge size of the incoming attack, and he threw himself down at the ground in order to avoid the attack that wanted to slice him in two.

Tp Zac's surprise Average moved like an acrobat, pushing off from the ground with his hands and flew up towards the head of the charging beast.

“I knew it! You work for eleventh brother, don’t you!” the teenager screamed angrily as he kicked the beast with enormous force. “He always does things like this!”

Due to Zac’s strike, Average was out of balance and couldn’t properly utilize that dense energy that he had gathered in his fists, and the pugilist only managed to transfer some of it to his feet in time. But the effect still shocked Zac. It sounded like a bomb went off as the foot slammed into the side of the head of the beast.

Even though the attack had been interrupted there was just as much force in it compared with the sneak attack the teenager used against him, and Zac made a note to be wary when that odd energy appeared again. The bison was actually lifted up in the air and thrown into a neighboring building as well with a wail.

Initially, Zac was worried that the strike had actually killed the beast, but he soon realized more was needed to kill a true E-Grade creature as it got up to its feet with a shake of its head. This time it didn’t mindlessly charge again, and instead kept its distance as it emitted a low growl.

Since the beast looked a bit groggy Zac took the opportunity to scout it out and tried his luck with his ocular skill.

[Moonpike – Star Ox – Level 79 – Strength]

The skill actually worked this time, and it gave a brief rundown of the animal. The level and its main attribute weren’t a surprise, but what made Zac a bit confused was the first two lines of information. It had a name. Did it mean that the ox was intelligent enough for the system to consider it a cultivator? Or perhaps it only meant that the animal had an owner that had named it, like the Heralds he had fought earlier.

Average landed a bit haphazardly, angrily glaring back and forth between his two enemies. He seemed to want to say something else to Zac, who could only shrug his shoulders.

“I don’t know anything about your family circumstances. But I cannot let you claim the kill of that beast, even if we have to fight over it,” Zac evenly said, completely unleashing his aura.

“What the fuck! I can give you the corpse, but I need to be the one to kill it,” Average angrily shouted back, seemingly shocked that someone didn't let him have his way.

“No deal,” Zac said with a shake of his head.

“You rogue cultivators are god damn lunatics. A thousand D-Grade Nexus Coins! That’s over 10 times the value of the horn. Leave me alone and it’s yours,” he said, not being able to hide an air of superiority.

That actually made Zac stop for a second. A thousand D-Grade Nexus coins were equivalent to a Billion normal Nexus Coins. That was far more than the total wealth he had accumulated so far. Perhaps it was worth to fail the quest for that amount of money.

He soon steadied his mind though. Failing the quest wasn’t so simple as to only lose a Dao Treasure and an entrance ticket to the Tower of Eternity. It would also mean losing access to all future quests in the chain, and all the rewards they would bring. And a quest chain called The Path to Hegemony surely wasn’t something simple.

“I am sorry, but I have an important quest to kill this beast. I have nothing against you, but you need to back off from this one,” Zac steadily said.

“You think I’m afraid of you? I know you haven’t evolved, and I can count the worthy rivals to me in the F-grade in this sector on my hands, and you are not one of them. I offered you a peaceful solution, but you wouldn’t have it," Average said, cracking his neck while glaring at Zac.

A monstrous aura erupted from the youth as well, almost matching that of Zac’s. It was as though the two forces fought for supremacy in the air.

By this point, the beast had gotten back on its feet, and it warily growled as it watched the youth. It clearly didn’t want to eat another of those monstrous strikes, and instead leveled its gaze on Zac. With a roar it charged at Zac, who frowned as he glanced over at the incoming animal.

Torrential amounts of killing intent, garnered from killing hundreds of thousands of beasts poured out of Zac on top of his normal aura, and the beast quickly stopped in its tracks. It was as though as it had seen an apex predator who wanted to feed on it, and it didn’t dare fight Zac either.

Instead the beast seemed to have had enough of the situation, and instead started to slowly back away from the two, careful not to make any hasty movements. Zac knew it was stuck inside the town for now and didn’t mind its actions. The youth warily stepped back a bit as well due to the killing intent, some hesitation finally appearing on his face.

“Are you an unorthodox cultivator? There shouldn’t be any of you in this sector,” he said.

“Unorthodox Cultivator? I don’t even know what that means,” Zac said with a shrug, which seemed to calm down the youth a bit. “Winner gets the beast.”

“…Good!” the pugilist said, and immediately disappeared after.

This time Zac was ready, and after sensing the changes in the surroundings quickly swirled around and swung his axe straight down in a tremendous swing. A grating sound could be heard when the edge of the axe was deflected with the help of one of the bracers on Average's forearm, and immediately after a knee came flying toward Zac's gut.

Zac angled his body to avoid the blow, immediately trying to ram his shoulder into the chest of his youth afterward. However, a lightning-quick jab in his jaw stopped him in his tracks, forcing him to back away. With a grunt Zac shook his head, immediately getting back in the thick of it.

Both of them wordlessly agreed to not use any of their skills, as whoever won had to fight the beast afterward. Unfortunately, Zac quickly realized that the situation wasn’t really in his favor. Clearly his enemy had great combat experience, likely having trained in hand-to-hand battles since young.

With an angry glare Zac refused to give up and stubbornly kept going, trying every trick he had learned from his Axe Mastery skill and his countless battles. After having fought a while Zac felt that the two were quite close in at least Dexterity and Strength, though Zac guessed that Average had a closer balance of the two attributes compared to Zac’s 2:1 ratio.

At least Zac had a feeling his Endurance and Vitality were a notch above the teenager’s, as the youth didn’t dare use his body to block Zac’s punches and swings. He wasn’t like the Corpse Lord whose body had turned into a defensive treasure in other words.

Instead, the teenager mostly used deft movements or his magical bracers to avoid taking any direct damage by Zac’s various attacks. Zac himself was continuously hit with powerful punches and kicks, and he knew he’d be black and blue come tomorrow.

Initially, Zac’s goal was to break those bracers so that the kid would be forced to give up, but he soon realized his folly in that plan. The bronze hoops around his forearms were clearly high-grade treasures, likely far better than anything Zac possessed. Even after having intercepted tens of swings from [Verun’s Bite] there wasn’t a single mark on them, though Average's arms were shaking a bit.

Zac’s body was getting beaten like a slab of meat, and he had a feeling he would pass out before Average ran out of steam. The pugilist was like a machine, continuously launching forceful attacks that made Zac wince. The fight had actually lasted less than a minute, but Zac was already starting to feel woozy.

Though the two only used their bodies to fight they caused widespread destruction in the town, pushing through the buildings like two intertwined tornadoes. He knew he needed to do something to change the situation quickly.

Besides, he didn’t want to let the beast roam freely too long. Perhaps it would actually manage to break through the array given enough time. Then he and the brat would truly look like fools.

Zac even started contemplating using [Hatchetman’s Rage] to subdue the kid, but he was afraid that would escalate the situation into a true life and death battle. Normally he wouldn’t shrink away from that, but he felt the situation wasn’t as simple as two people fighting for some treasure.

Average, in spite of his name, seemed to come from a truly powerful faction from the small pieces of information that could be gleaned from what he had said earlier. And they weren’t on earth anymore where tools and other items were a bit limited. Since he could throw out a billion Nexus Coins like nothing he likely had some supreme defensive treasures, so an-all out fight would probably backfire on Zac instead.

Fortuitously, Zac soon caught on a small hint. Every time the youth dodged one of the brutal swings of his axe there was a brief hint of fear in his eyes. Between what Average said earlier and this lack of real life-and-death experience it wasn’t too hard to figure out what was going on.

The teenager was a greenhouse elite. He was given all kinds of advantages to boost his attributes and trained in combat with great instructors. But he was still young, and his power didn’t come from numerous bloody battles. He let his fear of being seriously hurt or killed affect him somewhat.

Since he had nothing to lose Zac decided to try a gambit. After blocking another punch with his arm Zac swung his axe overhead straight at the youth’s head, intentionally leaking some killing intent. It was a huge swing that would no doubt kill the teenager if it hit, but there was no way such a wide swing would go unpunished.

As Zac expected a lightning kick slammed into his wide-open side, causing a few ribs to crack. Zac groaned and dropped the axe, causing the eyes of the teenager to widen in elation. However, the next moment the now freed hand closed around the leg of the pugilist.

There was no dodging any longer as Zac held one of his enemy’s legs in an iron vise, which brought the two to a state of mutual destruction. Average wouldn't give up, and engaged Zac in a brutal close-combat melee. For every strike Zac managed to land on the locked-down teenager, he received two in return.

But Zac simply soaked up the damage with a stone-cold face, his eyes boring straight into the increasingly frantic eyes of the teenager. The strikes between the two sounded like continuous thunder throughout the town as knuckles met flesh. This kept going for a while until Zac was about to land his fifth strike in the face of Average, whose left eye was closed shut and nose crooked. 

Suddenly a red shield sprang up and blocked Zac’s strike.

“Shit! I give up!”