The Kang Family Used Axes

The knight was startled, then rose to his feet with a grave expression.

"What is it saying?"

Cleveland asked.

The knight didn't understand much of the Zhendan Language. Earlier, when the parrot had chattered at him, he had only understood crude, shallow insults like "your mother's dead." The rest, like "cuckolded" and "big Western mare," had gone over his head.

Let alone "blooming in two places," a term from the Sixology of another world.

Kang De took a deep breath and explained succinctly, "It's a red-crested parrot. When it spots a dangerous enemy, its red feathers turn green. 'Blooming in two places' means there are two enemies, and 'big Western mare'..."

He glanced at the knight, looking a little awkward.

But his eyes said it all.

The knight's expression changed abruptly. "Excuse me!"

He immediately left Kang De behind and sprinted toward the mouth of the valley.

"Fuck." Kang De looked utterly baffled. "Why are the Black Beasts coming out now? The timing's wrong..."

For a whole year, the Black Beasts had always appeared once every seven days. Their numbers varied, but their timing had never been off by so much as a second, just like in Heroes of Might and Magic.

But only three days had passed since they last cleared out the Black Beasts.

In any case, now wasn't the time to think about that.

Time to grab a weapon.

Cleveland raced out of the valley, sprinting along the path he had taken to get there. Suddenly, he heard a low rumble behind him, a sound he had never heard before.

He looked back and saw Mr. Kang De riding something strange that resembled an alchemical machine, charging toward him at tremendous speed.

"Mr. Kang De!"

Kang De pulled up beside him on a motorcycle. "No time to explain, get on!"

"...All right!"

Without another word, the knight sat on the back seat and held Kang De around the waist. "I'm counting on you!"

"Be careful. The terrain here is rough, and I've never ridden this fast..." Kang De put on his helmet and said gravely, "If we crash, remember to protect yourself!"

"That's a required skill for a knight, Mr. Kang De," Cleveland said. "Please, ride as hard as you like."

Kang De took a deep breath and twisted the throttle. The motorcycle's engine gave a low rumble, its cylinders building toward an explosive roar. The tires gripped the ground, dust flew, and the bike sped away.

Back on Earth, Kang De had been a good driver. It ran in the family—his mother had taught him.

In temperament, he took after his father. Both father and son believed a gentleman should not stand beneath a dangerous wall; they were steady, liked peace and quiet, and disliked taking risks. But his mother was different. She was more explosive and loved all kinds of extreme sports. She often dragged Kang De along, too. Skiing, rock climbing, rappelling, skydiving—those were all her favorites.

And since Kang De's father worked on engineering projects in Africa year-round, Kang De lived with his mother back home. Over time, his mother raised him to be good at racing, refined and easygoing, and quick to let loose a stream of colorful language.

But then again, if his mother hadn't spent years subtly instilling both useful and useless knowledge in him, such as life skills like arson and explosives, he probably wouldn't have lived as comfortably as he did on this deserted island in another world—and the same went for his racing skills, of course.

Racing was a way to relieve stress.

When the idiot students and moronic parents at school made his mother so furious that smoke came out of her ears and her blood flowed backward, yet she couldn't smash their fucking heads in, she would go to the racetrack and race lap after lap. Sometimes she drove a race car, and sometimes she rode a motorcycle. When she drove, Kang De would occasionally sit in the passenger seat, where he would always hear her grip the steering wheel and calmly mutter things like, "I'll run you stinking fucking [beep-] to death."

At such times, Kang De had trembled as an elementary schooler and sighed by the window as a middle schooler. By high school, he had developed a mind of his own. While his father was home on leave, the two of them talked it over and coaxed and tricked Ms. Li into visiting a famous psychologist for an evaluation.

His mother was inside answering questions while father and son exchanged looks outside. After a few dozen minutes, they heard lively conversation and laughter from within. The two peeked inside to find that his mother and the psychologist had hit it off at first sight and become friends. If they kept chatting, they might well have sworn sisterhood and become kindred spirits on the spot.

The result of the psychological evaluation hardly needed mentioning. She couldn't have been healthier.

That had been a long time ago.

Fate was mysterious, and fortune played such cruel tricks. Kang De had now arrived in another world and had gradually come to love racing. Of course, he only did it on relatively smooth stretches of road, and he took every possible precaution. Besides, he had a body strengthened by crystals, so nothing dangerous would happen.

Back then, friends and relatives had advised his mother not to take her child along, even if she loved racing. She would reply that precisely because she had her son with her, there wouldn't be the slightest danger.

Now Kang De truly understood what she had meant.

Because he always carried his most important concern in his heart, nothing would go wrong.

He really wanted to go home.

The motorcycle roared ahead like an enraged beast, racing across the long, narrow island. Amid the engine's rumble, they faintly heard beasts roaring. They were already very close to the Goth camp.

The knight braced himself with his legs and rose steadily, slowly enough not to upset the motorcycle's balance, to look into the distance. "Mr. Kang De, there are far more than two hostiles. My men are in formation defending the camp, and your animal companions are helping, but the situation is deadlocked. We need to find a way to break the balance on the battlefield."

Kang De thought for a moment. When it came to tactics, the battle-hardened knight should be better than him.

He asked, "What do you have in mind?"

"I don't know how strong you really are in battle, Mr. Kang De. You always seem to display abilities and skills beyond our imagination, so we should split up. I'll get off at the inlet ahead, launch a surprise attack on my way back to camp, retrieve my weapons and equipment, and further organize our defense and counterattack. As for you, Mr. Kang De..."

"Please act as you see fit," the knight said. "See what you can do."

"All right," Kang De said.

"In that case," said the knight behind him, "I need a weapon."

Kang De kept the speeding motorcycle steady. "You can have that sword."

The knight paused. "It would be better if you just lent me an axe. I only need to reach the camp to retrieve my weapons and equipment. This enchanted weapon..."

"Cut the crap."

"...Yes."

The knight gripped the famous sword with its three enchantments and looked ahead, calculating speed, direction, and force. He said, "Please be careful. I'm jumping."

The motorcycle slowed, turned, and fishtailed. The knight leaped like an ape and rolled. He glanced back at Kang De as he sped away, then held the shortsword across his body in a reverse grip and strode over the rocky slope, approaching the chaotic camp.

Kang De, meanwhile, continued racing along the gentle grassland.

The terrain here had become complicated. The Goths' campsite was both good and bad. It was easy to defend and hard to attack, but that applied to humanoid enemies. Against the agile Black Beasts, with their astonishing ability to leap and climb, its defenses were far less effective.

The terrain also greatly affected the motorcycle's speed and made it much harder to ride.

Kang De raced along, looking for a high point from which to survey the battle. Suddenly, the wind stirred above him, and a Black Beast pounced from behind a giant boulder. It looked like a tiger and a leopard, with black fire burning in its eyes and long feathers spreading from its neck.

The Black Beast came at him at tremendous speed. Kang De's eyes flashed. He raised his shotgun and fired straight at it. The heavy rubber projectiles tore through the air and struck the Black Beast squarely in the belly.

Rubber rounds were far less lethal than conventional ammunition, but they had tremendous stopping power. The Black Beast howled in pain, its charge checked, and tumbled to the ground. Kang De had already sped past.

The creature roared and clambered to its feet. The next moment, wind howled as a fire axe came spinning through the air and struck the Black Beast's skull, nearly splitting its hard head in two. Kang De rode back, reached out from the moving motorcycle, and pulled the fire axe free. The Black Beast's mutilated corpse twitched and fell to the ground.

He stopped.

Kang De repeatedly twisted the throttle.

The motorcycle let out low growls.

He had turned back because beasts wreathed in black vapor had appeared in front of him, behind him, and on both sides.

There were more than ever before. In his year here, he had never seen so many Black Beasts appear at once... What on earth was going on?

The immense, magnificent altar suddenly appeared in Kang De's mind.

If anything unusual had happened recently, first, Tina and the others had come to the island, and second, the animals had carried him to that altar, where he had awakened this mysterious ability.

His intuition told him that the Black Beasts' sudden appearance in such numbers had something to do with the second event.

Because the Black Beasts were staring fixedly at him, and the look in their eyes had changed.

Before this, the Black Beasts had simply regarded all living beings as enemies, eager to kill every living thing. But now, their hostility toward him had grown exceptionally intense, surpassing their hatred for living creatures, as though he were their lifelong, irreconcilable enemy.

Was it also related to his acquisition of that ability...?

Everything was unknown.

But one thing was certain.

Kang De murmured, "So many crystals..."

The Black Beasts gave low growls, a coordinated signal that they were about to attack.

The first rule of combat for a terrifying upright ape: eliminate enemies on their way into a charge as far as possible. Avoid close combat unless necessary, and make use of superior speed.

"Let's make some noise and do some cooler riding."

Kang De broke into an eager smile. He held one of the crimson crystals the Goths had given him in his hand, extended his mind, and extracted it. The crystal vanished before his eyes, and a surging wave of scorching heat rushed into his body. He placed both hands on the handlebars, held his breath, and concentrated, guiding the flow of the fire element.

With a roar, both of the motorcycle's tires suddenly burst into fierce flames. At the same time, the mixed element Kang De had absorbed from the white fog on Earth surged of its own accord within his body. This mysterious element was closely tied to "fantasy," and the product of fantasy that matched a burning motorcycle was...

Ghost Rider's big toy.

Kang De keenly noticed the change, but he had no time to ponder this new mechanism and phenomenon. He opened the throttle, and the motorcycle roared, raising a blazing wall of fire. Fire Element Attachment set the tires ablaze, while the mysterious mixed element protected the wheels and even the body of the bike from burning. This hellish steed roared with seething, furious flames, and the firelight that scorched everything sent the Black Beasts retreating with roars.

It stopped them from coordinating to surround and kill him.

Kang De drank the magic potion the knight had given him in one gulp.

Before this, he had secretly extracted the potion and obtained an extremely pure elemental component. It wasn't poisonous; otherwise, he would have extracted an elemental component resembling dark green droplets. He had tested it.

So he could drink it.

He felt the potion run down his throat, then burst into flames.

In an instant, his physical strength grew explosively. The potion's components flowed through every part of his body, strengthening his flesh. Kang De glanced at his hand. In his vision, mysterious runes flowed through his flesh, the source of the enhancement to his strength.

These runes were also made of... elements.

In other words...

He set the thought aside for now and twisted the throttle. He couldn't afford to be distracted in battle. The blazing motorcycle roared forward, and Kang De raised his fire axe and charged at a Black Beast like the wind. His explosively increased strength drove the axe, and with a bang, a Black Beast was sent flying into the air.

Dad had said that the Kang family used axes.

$$$$$$$$$$

PS1: Fuck, the people upstairs started renovating again today. Motherfuckers, I just learned some new life skills the day before yesterday and was going to use them in the book. If they piss me off one day...

PS2: This chapter's 3,500 characters. Please vote, please vote... Also, my updates have been getting later and later these past two days. I need to adjust that.