Sikatini

Lin Shan placed the Heart Light sword on the ground.

Then he stepped onto it with both feet.

Hum. The Heart Light sword actually rose shakily into the air with Lin Shan aboard.

The next second, the Heart Light sword carried him forward at a steady, moderate pace, roughly as fast as an ordinary person could run.

Lin Shan sat cross-legged on the sword, feeling the breeze brush against him. He had something of a sword immortal's bearing-if one ignored his speed.

Feeling his spirituality drain away, he calculated how best to use it. If he kept flying at this speed, his spirituality would probably run dry in forty minutes.

But he absolutely could not let it run dry. Otherwise, he would lose even his means of defending himself.

After twenty minutes of flight, his spirituality would probably drop to the level of the first stage of Sequence 9. That was an acceptable margin.

As he worked through these calculations, twenty minutes soon passed, and Lin Shan jumped off the flying sword.

He gauged how quickly his spirituality recovered. It would take about thirty minutes to replenish it completely. In other words, even if he used it all up, he would only need an hour to return to peak condition.

Lin Shan could precisely detect every sliver of spirituality he lost or gained. He had absolute control over his own spirituality.

He glanced at the distance displayed on Parchment again. He had flown five kilometers in twenty minutes...

Although he had known it was slow, seeing the actual figures still left him speechless.

Once his spirituality had fully recovered, he continued "flying on his sword." After repeating this three times, he finally reached the target area. Parchment showed a distance of 300 meters!

Lin Shan jumped off the flying sword but did not head straight over. Instead, he first stayed where he was to recover his spirituality. The coming battle might be easy, or it might be difficult. He could not rule out the possibility that he would lose.

A while later, Lin Shan set off on foot toward the target's location.

The hunt began.

Standing on a branch of a tree, Lin Shan watched the strange creature over a hundred meters away and muttered to himself:

"So this is the Fallen Sikatini. It really does look bizarre..."

Over a hundred meters away stood a creature with the body of a horse, but two small bone wings jutted from its back. Its mouth hung slightly open, exposing the sharp teeth within.

Strangest of all, the creature had no eyes on its head. Where its eyes should have been was another, circular mouth, churning like a meat grinder. Its actual eye grew on its tail: a large eyeball attached to the tip, swiveling around.

"Worthy of being called a Fallen. That appearance alone could make children cry." Lin Shan's scalp prickled. Before the fighting had even started, he had already lost a good chunk of the battle of intimidation.

There was no helping it. Even if for nothing else, he had to steel himself and fight for the potion ingredients!

Heart Light's current remote-control range was twenty meters. Rather than charge straight in, Lin Shan slowly approached under the cover of the trees. Once he was within attack range, the Heart Light spear shot out. Whoosh. It sliced through the air and drove straight into the eyeball on Sikatini's tail.

The next instant.

The spear burst the eyeball apart.

A cry resembling a baby's wail came from Sikatini's mouth. Sharp and piercing, it assaulted Lin Shan's eardrums again and again. Fortunately, it had no tangible effect. It was purely the creature's scream of agony.

"My gamble paid off!"

Lin Shan secretly rejoiced. After that large eyeball burst, Sikatini began dashing about wildly as though it had gone blind.

Lin Shan pressed his advantage, turning the spear back toward Sikatini's head.

Clang!

This time, however, things did not go so smoothly. Its head seemed to be made of steel, and the thrust did not leave so much as a mark.

"Then let's try somewhere else!"

Lin Shan directed the Heart Light spear to attack relentlessly.

Clang, clang, clang...!

A series of metallic clashes rang out. The spearhead struck blinding sparks from its body, yet only left white marks on its abdomen.

Sikatini was still screaming and running wildly. Without Lin Shan noticing, it moved beyond his attack range.

Lin Shan could only give chase, but he kept the full twenty meters between them, concealing himself among the trees.

The spear soared high into the air and began spinning at tremendous speed. Even the radiance at its tip gave off a humming sound. As it spun, that radiance grew brighter and sharper!

Lin Shan had developed this move himself and had used it before when killing the white-furred gorilla. By spinning the spear, he could gather momentum and increase its penetrating power. It was currently his strongest attack.

Whoosh.

The spear tore through the air, aimed straight at the poorly defended spot on Sikatini's abdomen. It had the imposing force of a cold glint arriving first, followed by a spear surging like a dragon.

The strike did not disappoint him. It ripped straight through the creature's abdomen, punching a large hole in its belly. Its organs and intestines spilled across the ground, mixed with foul-smelling blood.

It collapsed on the spot, unconscious.

Lin Shan stepped forward to inspect the corpse.

As he approached, a sudden change struck!

Sikatini moved with astonishing speed and clamped its jaws around Lin Shan's arm.

Lin Shan's pupils contracted. He discovered another eyeball hidden inside its circular mouth. It had never been blind at all. That exposed eye had only been bait!

Without a moment's hesitation, he tore off his own arm.

He immediately put distance between them. The Fallen did not get up for a long time. Perhaps it was waiting for another chance to ambush him, or perhaps that last bite had merely been the final flare of life before death.

Lin Shan did not approach it again.

Instead, he transformed Heart Light into scissors and sent them into the Fallen's belly, snipping wildly. Only after every internal organ had been cut to shreds did Lin Shan cautiously approach again.

When he reached it, the Fallen did not move at all. It seemed to be thoroughly dead this time.

He had never expected it to grow an eyeball in such a conspicuous place while hiding another inside its mouth. If Lin Shan had leaped out right after blinding it, he would certainly have been done for.

Even with all his caution, he had still lost an arm.

A thought stirred in Lin Shan's mind. Perhaps I haven't lost it. Last time, even after my body was reduced to minced flesh, it still recovered.

He pried open Sikatini's mouth. His arm had not been swallowed, but it had been bitten into three pieces.

Lin Shan held the upper section of his arm against the stump. Numerous black tendrils sprouted from the severed end and connected to that section. A moment later, it had been stuck back on. He repeated the process with the other two pieces, and his arm was restored to its original state. He still could not move it, though. It probably needed time to recover.

Looking at his intact arm, Lin Shan gave a bitter smile. "I'm becoming less and less human."

Once his arm was restored, a wave of weakness washed over Lin Shan. He did not faint outright as he had last time, but his entire body felt limp and powerless, as though something was missing.

It seemed that piecing his body back together did come at a cost. He simply did not yet know what was being consumed.

After resting for a while, Lin Shan walked over to the Fallen's corpse and looked at Parchment.

Parchment: [Inside the eyeball in its mouth.]

Sure enough, Parchment might have a mind of its own... He no longer dared to ask it questions lightly, afraid that it would turn against him after absorbing too much of his lifespan.

He silently resolved that, from now on, apart from questions about Sequence Potions, he would not trade with Parchment for answers unless he had absolutely no other choice.