29: Chapter 29: You can unleash your ultimate skill even without a mana bar.

The distance closed to two meters.

In high-speed movement, this was effectively zero distance.

The War Boar's pair of yellowish tusks were like two curved blades, and it looked like Lin Qi, along with his branch, was about to be tossed into the sky.

Li Shaobai shut his mouth, because he felt that he was about to see Lin Qi split in two.

Lin Qi didn't fly.

It was as if he had stepped on a banana peel; his whole body slid to the left in a posture that defied the laws of physics.

His toes tapped the ground, his knees bent slightly, and his waist and hips twisted.

Plum Blossom Stakes.

This was a footwork technique for maneuvering within a tiny space, best suited for close-quarters combat.

The War Boar's tusks grazed past Lin Qi's ribs, the wind pressure they brought scraping his skin until it stung.

A hair's breadth away.

"Looking for death!"

Lin Qi gave a low shout. The branch in his hand did not stab at the thick pigskin; instead, with a flick of his wrist, he whipped the tip of the branch hard onto the War Boar's wet nose.

Smack!

The sound was as crisp as a slap to the face.

This strike had no frills, it was all Inch Power.

Force rose from the ground, passed through the waist and back, and reached the extremities.

The War Boar's massive body suddenly stiffened, and it let out a miserable howl that sounded just like a slaughtered pig.

Tears and snot sprayed out together.

The nose was the most sensitive part of a porcine creature; it was densely packed with nerves, and taking a hit there hurt even more than being stabbed with a knife.

Its charging rhythm was disrupted.

Its four hooves scraped wildly at the ground, and the kinetic energy that was originally moving in a straight line turned into chaotic blundering like a headless fly.

Lin Qi didn't stop.

He was like a piece of taffy that couldn't be shaken off, his feet stepping in Bagua positions, always sticking to the War Boar's blind spot on its side-rear.

The branch in his hand turned into raindrops.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

There was no wide, sweeping swinging; it was all short, powerful stabs.

All at soft flesh.

Ear canals, eyelids, the joints of the hind legs.

Even though this branch had no spearhead, under Lin Qi's Penetrating Force, every strike felt like a steel nail being driven in.

"What... what kind of fighting style is this?"

Wang Gang lay behind a tree, poking half his head out, his mouth wide open.

He had seen many warriors fight monsters; they either used shields to take hits head-on or hacked at each other with greatswords. This fighting style, which was like dancing, completely exceeded his understanding.

"Weak point strikes."

Instructor Su Qing stared at the black shadow in the arena, speaking rapidly.

"He knows where the defense is weakest, and... his footwork is too exquisite; every time, he perfectly catches the blind spot of the War Boar's force."

The War Boar was going crazy.

It couldn't even touch this slippery bug, and instead, waves of piercing pain came from its body.

This humiliation made its eyes turn blood-red.

"Roar—"

The War Boar suddenly stopped blundering and dug its four hooves firmly into the ground.

The black bristles on its body stood up one by one, like a hedgehog with exploded fur, emitting a metallic clanging sound of friction.

Instructor Su Qing's expression changed drastically.

"Quick, dodge! It's Steel Bristle Bodyguard! Area-of-effect damage!"

This move was a 360-degree, no-blind-spot physical attack; those bristles, hard as steel needles, would shoot out in all directions like a rain of arrows.

At such a close distance, one would be shot into a sieve.

Lin Qi didn't dodge.

Or rather, there was no time to dodge.

The moment the War Boar was charging up, he grabbed the collar of the black gravity restraint suit he was wearing with both hands.

This garment was woven from memory metal specially made by the military; it usually clung to the skin and was incredibly heavy.

"Open!"

Lin Qi gave a violent shout, his muscles bulging all over his body, and he forcibly ripped off this equipment that resembled a tight-fitting suit.

Clatter.

The instant the clothes left his body, he felt as light as a feather.

But he didn't throw it away.

He swung the hundred-pound garment around, holding it in front of him like a black shield.

Clang, clang, clang, clang!

A dense sound of impacts rang out.

Countless black steel needles shot into the restraint suit, sparking a series of flames, but not a single one could penetrate this layer of special Materials.

"Thanks."

Lin Qi hid behind the clothes and grinned.

If not for this thing, he would have really lost a layer of skin just now.

After one round of bursting, the War Boar was clearly more listless, panting heavily.

Skills also have cooldowns and costs.

"Run!"

Lin Qi suddenly threw the clothes on the ground and turned to run.

Without any warning.

The second before he was still fighting head-on, the next second he became a deserter.

"Huh?"

Zhang Wei was just about to shout "Brother Qi is awesome," but the word "awesome" got stuck in his throat and didn't come out.

"Is he crazy? Exposing his back to a beast?" Li Shaobai frowned.

The War Boar saw that the bug was about to run, so how could it let it go?

Old grudges and new hatreds surged into its heart.

It roared and set off on its four hooves in pursuit.

This time its speed was even faster because that berserk state hadn't ended yet.

Lin Qi ran extremely fast.

Having shed the gravity suit, his speed finally displayed its terrifying side.

He wove through the forest like an agile ape, landing every step on tree roots or rocks.

Even with oncoming vines, he only needed to slightly turn his body to avoid them.

The War Boar wasn't so particular.

It pushed horizontally all the way, breaking countless shrubs, and clung tenaciously to a spot ten meters behind Lin Qi.

The terrain ahead changed.

It was no longer solid, hard ground, but a low-lying wetland covered with thick, rotting leaves, emitting an odor of marsh gas.

Lin Qi did not slow down.

He tapped his toes lightly on a few pieces of rotten wood floating on the water, and his whole body skimmed across as if he were drifting on water.

Swallow Skims the Water Three Times.

The War Boar's brain had already been scorched by anger; it didn't look at its feet at all.

It followed Lin Qi's route and stepped right into it.

Squelch.

Mud splashed.

Beneath the seemingly solid layer of fallen leaves was bottomless sludge.

The War Boar's two-ton weight became a fatal burden at this moment.

Its massive body sank straight in halfway; the sludge went over its knees and even reached its abdomen.

In this kind of mud pit, the more one struggled, the deeper one sank.

The War Boar let out a terrified cry, kicking its four hooves wildly, but this only accelerated its sinking.

Its momentum came to an abrupt halt.

Lin Qi stopped on the opposite bank of the swamp.

The distance was twenty meters.

He turned around and looked at the giant beast floundering in the mud pit; his expression was very calm, without any relief of surviving a disaster, only the indifference of a hunter watching prey enter a trap.

"It felt great chasing me just now, right?"

Lin Qi shook his wrist.

He hadn't thrown away the branch in his hand.

Although the front end had been somewhat shattered by that last round of strikes, it was still generally sturdy.

He took a deep breath.

He stepped his right foot back, sinking it deep into the soft soil.

His waist and back arched, and his whole body pulled into a full-moon bow.

His spinal Dragon emitted crisp cracking sounds; that was the power connecting section by section.

At this moment, he was no longer Lin Qi.

He was a precision human catapult.

In the distance, Zhang Wei covered his mouth; he felt that the Aura on Lin Qi had changed, becoming extremely dangerous, like a fierce weapon about to be unsheathed.

"Die."

Lin Qi spat out one word.

His arm swung out violently.

Whoosh—

The sound of the air being torn apart even drowned out the War Boar's howling.

That ordinary branch turned into a gray afterimage, so fast that the naked eye couldn't catch it at all.

The twenty-meter distance was covered in an instant.

The War Boar had just lifted its head, wanting to roar.

Thwack!

A dull sound of entering flesh.

The branch pierced precisely into its one remaining good left eye.

Without encountering any bone obstruction, it drove straight in.

Piercing the eyeball, crushing the optic nerve, and finally stabbing deep into that walnut-sized brain.

The War Boar's howling stopped abruptly, like a chicken whose neck had been throttled.

Its massive body twitched violently a few times, its four hooves churning the surrounding mud into a mess.

A few seconds later.

It collapsed heavily into the sludge, with only its hind legs still kicking nervously.