In that case, I'll switch tactics!
Seeing that there was no end to the demonic beasts, no matter how many he killed, Zhang Junbao kept calculating ways to break through the encirclement.
At that moment, the demonic beasts that had been chasing him from behind also caught up and joined the battle.
The ones chasing me are actually a flock of Beast Soldier-level Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrows. They're tiny, less than twenty centimeters long, but incredibly fast. Their speed when maneuvering over short distances is comparable to a human's Minitia Level movement technique.
That means I'm facing hundreds, even thousands of demonic beasts with Minitia Level movement techniques. That's a terrifying situation.
Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrows are fast, but they're also much weaker than demonic beasts of the same level. They can't do anything against huge, heavily armored demonic beasts. If only there were a few One-Horned Wild Boars or Ironclad Rhinoceroses here.
There were no Ironclad Rhinoceroses, but Zhang Junbao controlled the corpses of two larger Long-Fanged Bats, using them as shields against the attacks coming from all sides.
The Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrows' attacks were not particularly powerful. A bone spike tipped each of their slender tongues, which they shot out at tremendous speed to kill their prey. They relied on their uncanny aerial movements and sudden attacks.
But Zhang Junbao simply used the Long-Fanged Bats' corpses to take the blows head-on, while he held the Dragon Roar Sword and the spearhead in his hands, constantly blocking the demonic beasts that broke through his defenses and attacked.
Although this method killed fewer demonic beasts, they found that Zhang Junbao seemed to have changed from an unstoppable killing fiend into a slippery iron ball. No matter how they attacked, they could never hurt him, or even land a hit.
Zhang Junbao had originally wanted to kill the demonic beasts quickly and escape from underground, but he killed them far more slowly than they gathered. He could only switch to Tai Chi Circular Soft Force, using the corpses of the two Long-Fanged Bats to block and deflect the force of their attacks.
This demanded an extremely high degree of control over force. He had to grasp the angle and strength of every demonic beast's attack with flawless precision.
But to Zhang Junbao, who had spent his entire life immersed in Tai Chi Chuan, it was merely the most basic of basics.
He turned his Spiritual Force into a pair of hands, gently gathering and slowly turning. His entire body became utterly relaxed, and the murderous aura that had surrounded him fell silent.
One circle, one turn; one entanglement, one block. Slow but not rigid, soft but not weak. His movements were not devoid of force; rather, he used push hands to keep every attack the demonic beasts made firmly under control.
The surrounding demonic beasts, meanwhile, kept coughing up blood. There was no other reason: not only did their attacks fail to hit Zhang Junbao, but quite a few struck their companions instead.
The demonic beasts had never seen anything like it. Their battles had always been contests of speed and strength, where greater speed and strength often meant absolute domination.
Now, however, Zhang Junbao gave the demonic beasts a proper lesson: humans did not have to rely solely on brute force to fight demonic beasts, and the wisdom passed down by the ancients was not merely about fighting and killing.
Every word and phrase, every move and technique contained insight into and exploration of the fundamental principles of heaven and earth.
And the art that brought such philosophy to its fullest expression was Tai Chi Chuan!
Unlike Hong's "World Destruction," which was filled with a spirit of resistance against apocalyptic disaster-Hong's most direct impression-Tai Chi Chuan blended together the ancients' countless experiences over thousands of years with martial arts, philosophy, and understanding of the world.
That was precisely why Tai Chi Chuan was so easy to learn yet so hard to master. Everyone could gain insight from it into a state of mind closely connected to themselves, but that could only ever be a tiny part of Taiji.
Now, Zhang Junbao relied on his profound understanding of martial arts, force, and even the rules of the world to utterly overwhelm the demonic beasts' crude use of strength.
Although he killed fewer demonic beasts, Zhang Junbao advanced even faster, because within the range of his Spiritual Force, the power of their attacks was turned into a force that propelled him forward.
Thus, he was not fighting the horde of demonic beasts alone. He borrowed the strength of some to counter the others, and the demonic beasts knew nothing of it.
They only felt that Zhang Junbao had turned into a great iron ball against which the whole horde was helpless. Whatever attack they used was passed to the other side of the ball, sometimes even injuring their companions.
The stronger demonic beasts, however, felt that the others around them were all targeting them. Every attack they made was unintentionally blocked or interrupted by another beast.
But neither Long-Fanged Bats nor Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrows were good-tempered creatures. After attacking again and again to no avail, and even coming to feel that the other beasts around them were severely holding them back, the demonic beasts that had shared a common target finally began to turn on one another.
Sure enough, a Junior Beast General-level Long-Fanged Bat had found the right moment to attack, only for an Advanced Beast Soldier-level Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrow beside it to crash into its wing. The tremendous impact knocked it out of position.
Worse still, the Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrow's sharp bone spike tore a long gash in its thin, fleshy wing. The Long-Fanged Bat immediately struggled to control itself and crashed into an Advanced Beast Soldier-level Long-Fanged Bat.
The demonic beasts were already packed close together, and now that they had killed until their eyes were red, they cared nothing for whether another was a companion or an enemy. Anything that stood between them was an enemy.
The Junior Beast General-level Long-Fanged Bat turned and sank its bloodstained fangs into the Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrow, sucking what little blood it had completely dry. A Beast General-level Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrow happened to witness this.
The Advanced Beast Soldier-level Long-Fanged Bat that had been struck also took the opportunity to launch a sneak attack on the Beast General Long-Fanged Bat. The Extreme Shadow Bee Sparrow seized its chance, and the two demonic beasts joined forces to kill the Long-Fanged Bat that had started the trouble.
The same thing continued to spread through the horde. Gradually, the demonic beasts came to see their enemies not as Zhang Junbao, but as the demonic beasts beside them that had temporarily banded together.
Fighting among the demonic beasts erupted in an instant, and none of them paid Zhang Junbao any further attention. Anything in their way, whether demonic beast or human, was an enemy.
What had begun as an attempt to trap Zhang Junbao had now become a chaotic battle among demonic beasts.
Zhang Junbao took the opportunity to speed forward and finally found the exit.
At a subway entrance in City 003, any human martial artist nearby would have witnessed a spectacle rarely seen in the world.
A horde of demonic beasts gushed from the subway entrance like an erupting volcano. Mists of blood burst open again and again, filling the entire sky.
The demonic beasts nearby smelled the overwhelming stench of blood and could no longer sit still. They came one after another to see what was happening. Demonic beasts were bloodthirsty creatures, and with such a dense surge of blood scent erupting here, they all wanted to come over and seize a share of the spoils.
A chaotic battle like this only happened when different groups of demonic beasts clashed. Normally, unless they had killed until their eyes were red, the higher-level demonic beasts would keep their subordinates in check.
That was especially true of Advanced Beast Generals and even Domain Level demonic beasts. At their level, their intelligence was already no lower than a human's. They also knew full well that a pointless bloodbath would only let other nearby hordes reap the fisherman's profits.
Taking advantage of the chaos within the horde, Zhang Junbao mingled with the demonic beasts and quietly escaped.
Once outside, he did not leave openly. Instead, he quickly hid in a small supermarket nearby, gasping for breath.
The chaotic battle with the two groups of demonic beasts had nearly drained his physical and mental strength. Zhang Junbao was now in desperate need of rest.