Chapter 37 (Part B) – The Nefarious Chimera

(Mustang: Hi guys, well, I figured that it’s a Festive season. And what’s a festive season without a little extra. Here’s an extra release. Merry Christmas and A happy new year. Enjoy, party hard and don’t forget to invite me :))

So, one human against one Chimera in a fight, well, this was turning out to be a very fierce battle.

The Chimera was incapable of using its tail at targets in close proximity, but it also had a very large mouth, which had very sharp teeth, and then, claws, which were its most aggressive weapons in war.

Grab, bite, thump, pounce…

The Chimera was willing to employ any means and any part of his body from head to toe.

Bi Fan was extremely agile and quick on his feet, and normally he would use ‘the immortal finger’ finger to save himself if he was caught in a moment of crisis, but hadn’t done that so far in this fight, as he hadn’t sustained any injuries.

Using ‘the immortal finger’ meant consuming a lot of his inner energy, so Bi Fan was judicious with its use, and only resorted to it in moments of grave crisis, to bail himself out.

The Chimera on the other hand was completely enraged by Bi Fan. He roared and roared, constantly storming towards Bi Fan, ready to shred him to pieces.

Bi Fan side stepped its attack, and intentionally backed away. He intended on leading the Chimera away from the valley and into the forest, this way the Marten could conduct his covert operation peacefully.

Soon, Bi Fan had managed to draw the Chimera away from the valley and into the forest.

Once inside the forest, the Chimera’s tail was confined due to all the big trees around them, which meant that he couldn’t use it as freely as he was able to earlier, which meant that Bi Fan could relax a bit.

The Chimera had a very strong body, but in this environment, the sheer size of its body reduced his agility.

Bi Fan was now fully concentrated on practicing his martial arts, using all kinds of sword techniques to attack. He cast the same skills out, again and again, trying to increase the efficiency of his attacks.

Using the same tricks, he tried to change the angle of the stab, tried varying the force and intensity and practiced on.

This was one of the benefits of having a sparring partner, for practicing in itself wasn’t enough, one also needed to explore.

It requires a very strong opponent to practice with if one needs to increase strength while being able to find the best combination of moves, angles, or trying to find a new style of fighting.

Finding demons in the devil’s territory was easy, but something as powerful with skin as rough and hard as this one’s, made for the best of sparring partners.

Bi Fan kept an eye out for the Chimera’s attacks and dodged them effectively, but apart from that, he was having a jolly good time, he had already cast out the same moves almost a dozen times.

Apart from swords play, he had even resorted to melee attacks, and had already tried to use the Wan Zu boxing style, punching and pounding.

The Chimera was completely enraged, mad and violent by now. Even though he wasn’t injured, but his inability to tear Bi Fan to pieces was driving it mad, which reflected in its fighting.

“Roar!” The Chimera made an unexpected move and severed the trees in the immediate space.

The tall and towering trees fell down, giving the Chimera sufficient space to move around. Scared, Bi Fan dodged his way away from the Chimera.

“Creak….” The Marten creaked, announcing that he had returned from its operation, but Bi Fan had no idea whether he had succeeded or not.

Bi Fan had expended most of his inner energy and decided that it was time to withdraw.

Especially considering that the Chimera was even angrier now, Bi Fan figured that it’s in his best interests to find a temporary refuge and restore his strength.

As Bi Fan turned around and made a run for it, the Chimera decided to pursue him, still angry at Bi Fan’s intrusion.

The Chimera was really quick on its feet, forcing Bi Fan to scurry, in a completely disarrayed fashion. Bi Fan was trying to pick his path through the most obstacle studded routes, choosing to make his way through areas where the trees were clustered close together.

The trick finally worked. Due to the sheer size of the Chimera’s body, he was unable to intertwine his way through the forest like Bi Fan. And since Bi Fan was taking his detours through areas where the density of tree population was at its maximum, the Chimera was slowed down further and eventually gave up.

Bi Fan finally got rid of Chimera and breathed a sigh of relief, and the Marten showed up by his side.

Inside the forest, the Marten was one of quickest animals, even Bi Fan couldn’t hope to keep up with his pace here.

A black lotus was dangling from the Marten’s mouth. The lotus was the size of a wash basin and the Marten was holding it from its stem, between his teeth.

The black lotus was flickering and shimmering, making it appear as if the lotus was blazing with a dark black fire.

Bi Fan had inadvertently seen something like this before and knew that this was a very precious flower. An extremely rare breed of flora which could be best described as extremely poisonous.

This lotus was even more toxic than the Chimera, and its poison contained a great amount of aura. This lotus’s poison was classified as a Mysterious level entity, which meant that it would most certainly be a favorite for the Chimera that it was stolen from.

Plants, including poisonous ones that contained aura inside them were classified into nine categories, as yellow, mysterious, earth, sky, king, emperor, Imperial, aged, and legendary. And further, depending on their potency, they were divided into four more sub categories.

The Chimera was probably guarding this lotus as he needed this nefarious breed of flora for his evolution at some point in time.

“Greedy, here, let me have a look.” Bi Fan reached over to the Marten, excitedly.

Bi Fan had barely ever touched a Mysterious level Panacea; the ones that he had been planting all his life were mostly yellow level herbs as he had never been given the responsibility of such precious herbs at the orchards.

The last time he had seen a mysterious level herb, was inside that Mysterious ravine that he had accidently ventured into. The rainbow colored flower that he had tried to pick up on his way out was in considered similar in ranking as this one.

However, this nefariously poisonous Lotus was extremely rare, even more so than that flower which took centuries to bloom.

The Marten was a little reluctant to hand it over, but did so any way.

Bi Fan picked up the lotus very carefully, he wrapper its stem in cloth before holding it in his hands.

He was preparing to take a close look at the black Lotus when suddenly, out of his body, emerged silk-like black threads, and all of a sudden, enveloped the black lotus in their grasp.

This was the first time that Bi Fan was conscious when the black thread had come out of his body. He was completely unaware of their existence; his heart skipped a beat as he looked on in absolute horror at the black silk threads that were coming out of his body.

The black silk threads scared the Marten as well, who ran, petrified, screeching and squeaking long the way.

The black lotus started melting and eventually disappeared, even its stem vanished into nothingness.

The black silk threads that had emerged from his body looked even shinier now, than they had emerging from his body, and soon after, disappeared into his body, leaving no trace of their existence.

Bi Fan stood there for a long time, motionless, speechless.

How could black silk threads like those ones be coming out of my body? What were those black silk threads? Why did those threads absorb the black lotus?

Bi Fan’s heart and mind were filled with doubts and fears.

“Creak….” The Marten creaked from a distance, looking rather annoyed. This lotus was supposed to be his treat, not only did it contain an amazing amount of aura; it was also extremely poisonous; just what a growing Marten likes.

The disappearance of the black lotus had certainly made the Marten angry.

On top of that, he also seemed very scared of the black silk threads that had emerged out of Bi Fan’s body and wouldn’t dare come near Bi Fan, for now.

The Marten made another squeaking sound, almost as if he was yelling at Bi Fan, as Bi Fan touched himself, to ensure himself that nothing strange was going on now.

“Fortunately, no one was harmed.” Bi Fan breathed out a sigh of relief.

“However, what were those black silk thread at the end of the day? And how did they get inside my body? Will they remain there?” Bi Fan was completely puzzled and his head was exploding with questions.

Bi Fan carefully examined his body, which showed no trace of any kind of abnormality, and he couldn’t make any discovery regarding the existence of the threads. He started introspecting, meditating, trying to search the depths of his mind for any knowledge of this incident, he needed to know.