Chapter 130: The Path to Long-Awaited Freedom (Part 2)

"Ghaa..." Kneeling on the ground, An pressed a hand to his own head, feeling the deformation and dampness there. Pulling his hand away, he looked at it.

His whole hand was covered in a mix of pink and red fluid. 'M-my head... Wh-where am I...'

With his brain caved in and damaged, his thought process fractured, and lost in this state, he tried to stand, but suddenly looking at the left side of his body and not finding his left arm, panic set in. 'Wh-where?! What?! Wh-where's m-my arm?!'

At that same moment, his brain's regeneration process kicked into gear on a subconscious level, tiny particles of his own mind activating it, recognizing the priority of the situation.

C-crack! Crack!

His skull began creaking and shifting, trying to settle back into place, straightening out every deformation.

"A-aaGH! A-aAH!!" The instant his brain began repairing itself, every nerve ending suddenly started transmitting the full pain of every wound across his entire body. Not yet fully in his right mind, he collapsed to the ground and started screaming.

"What even are you?" Suddenly, out of nowhere, Captain Scar was standing beside him.

Standing over the screaming body, seeing the state this incomprehensible creature was in and that it could still breathe somehow, he felt something deep in his soul that he hadn't felt in decades. "What kind of beast are you? Withstanding that many direct attacks. Losing that much blood... even pieces of your own body... Even a dagger straight to the heart, and you're still standing!"

Stepping even closer, in one sharp motion, Captain Scar grabbed An by the throat and lifted him up in front of himself.

An’s face was scraped so deeply that the skull showed through, his right eye completely swollen shut with blood, leaving only a single, panicking eye filled with utter terror.

Lifting him, the captain could hear and feel the bones inside An's body grinding and scraping against each other, as if he'd picked up not a body, but a sack full of living bones.

"Haa... Haaa..." Eyes darting around, An didn't even resist. He only kept drawing in air mixed with Qi from his surroundings.

The captain sensed these shifts in the Qi around them, but didn't think much of it.

"I've never encountered anything like you before... Your abilities! Your will to live!" Holding An in front of himself, he started pulling something out of his inner pocket with his free hand. "Unfortunately for you, you've caught Miss Ridegold's attention... And now you belong to her. No matter how much you resist, how much you run, how much you hide... the Ridegolds always get what they want!"

The instant he pulled something out of his pocket, the cries coming from An suddenly went silent. Lifting his gaze and looking into An's eyes, now staring straight back at him, the hair on the back of the captain's neck stood on end.

"Hm?!"

In one sharp motion, An's legs wrapped around the captain's arm.

"FUCK-!!" That was all he managed to cry out.

CRACK!

"AGH-AAH!" In one sharp motion, An pressed down with his legs and tore the joint of the captain's elbow apart, breaking his arm in several places.

"GH!" Though the pain nearly knocked him out, Captain Scar, with decades of battle experience behind him, immediately kicked An square in the chest, sending him flying to put some distance between them.

"Agh! You little- Hmph!" Grinding his teeth against the pain, the captain held his broken arm, uselessly trying to find some way to brace it.

"Haaa..." Across from him, barely a few dozen meters away, An, barely managing to stay on his feet, drew Qi into himself through his mouth with everything he had, channeling it directly into his inner world for rapid filtering.

Standing there across from each other, both were completely focused, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Afraid of making a mistake, they watched each other, afraid even to blink.

The captain ran through dozens of plans in his head, fully understanding that with an arm like this, his odds of finishing this fight successfully had dropped significantly.

An, meanwhile, used this brief lull, these precious few seconds, to try to pull himself together in whatever way he could. 'M-my mind's s-still, still... still foggy... I n-need to recover or I'm f-fin-finished...'

Every deep breath he took, drawing in Qi from his surroundings, came with real difficulty, every broken rib and bone making its presence known each time.

….

"Wh-what are you-! FUCK!! Waiting for!! Don't give him a chance!! Kha!!" Far off, sitting up with a pale face and both hands pressed to the hole in his chest, the bandana cultivator watched them standing across from each other and couldn't hold back, screaming at the top of his lungs.

….

"Kid... this is your last chance... I'm offering you the chance to surrender, or I promise you, I'll tear off every limb you have and leave you right on death's doorstep! You still have a chance to avoid that!" The captain turned his body, pulling his broken arm back, shielding it with his own frame.

Swish!

At that exact moment, without even letting the captain finish speaking, An broke into motion and, in two steps, was already standing right in front of him, swinging his right hand, aiming straight for his thigh.

Not expecting such a direct and strange attack, the captain understood his technique wasn't ready yet. All he could do was wrap his leg in Qi and kick with everything he had, straight at An's fist.

Without changing its trajectory, fist and leg met, and the force of the impact spun the right side of An's body around. Taking advantage of the momentum, An delivered a spinning kick straight into the captain's stomach.

"GHMAA!!" The force of the blow nearly popped the captain's eyes out of their sockets. In that instant, he felt at least three of his lower ribs shatter.

'FUCK! I n-need to create distance!' The captain's only option in this moment was a fast attack that would push An away from him. He tried once more to create some space between them.

With that in mind, he activated his Qi, channeling it into the palm of his good hand. But in that same instant, he saw a leg flying straight at his shoulder, shredding off scraps of skin and flesh as it flew.

At the last moment, he raised his broken arm and covered his shoulder with it, taking the full force of the blow directly on his hand.

Using the momentum from the force of An's kick, the captain flew back several meters and immediately began activating his technique.

….

Never taking his eyes off his opponent, An watched hundreds of Qi flows running along the outside and inside of Captain Scar's body. 'N-now I kn-know your Qi's patterns!! J-just h-hold on...'

Finally having decoded the captain's Qi, how it flowed when he used his techniques, the path it took, the routes it ran through inside his body. This was one of the main reasons An had kept closing the distance without hesitation every single time.

He understood perfectly well this was his only chance at staying alive in this situation. The combination of the captain's high cultivation and his sheer combat experience made him a terrifying opponent at range, and An had already felt that firsthand.

….

Having prepared his technique and channeled a massive amount of Qi into his palm, the captain had only just opened his mouth, ready to attack, when he saw An standing right in front of him again. 'Again?! Little bastard!!'

Thrusting his hand forward, palm open, the captain was ready to strike. But at that instant, he saw An suddenly stop, lifting his right leg, a massive clump of energy sitting right on the sole of his bare foot.

"FUCK YOU-!!"

BOOOM!

Slamming his foot down onto the ground, An drove the clump of Qi into the earth and detonated it, completely throwing the captain off balance.

"Agh! KHA!!"

Because his technique had already been fully prepared, but thanks to An's sudden, foolish little stunt, the captain lost his concentration, and the energy trapped in his hand went wild, unleashing what's called backlash.

The skin all along his arm cracked open, and Qi began bursting out through the openings.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, afraid An might take advantage of the moment, the captain took a short step to the side, ending up at the boy's left shoulder.

Not expecting this, An quickly redirected a massive amount of Qi to the inner membrane of his Qi Armor on his left side, stealing some of the energy away from his right fist. An immediately threw a random strike.

The captain's leg slammed into the left side of An's chest.

An's fist only grazed past the captain's leg, flying wide.

….

The instant of the blow, from the horrific force transferred through the leg, several ribs on the right side of An's chest burst outward from the pressure.

"Ai-GH!" Crying out in pain, carried by the momentum of the leg that had just struck him, An lifted his left leg and, spinning around his own axis, drove a kick straight into the knee of the leg the captain was balancing on.

CRACK!

Not caring about the consequences, An struck with everything he had. And at the moment of impact, both of their bones couldn't withstand the pressure and cracked in several places.

"A-AH!!"

"Gh-!!"

Both of them, thrown by the momentum of the blows, fell in opposite directions.

Captain Scar, half-lying on the ground, hearing a sharp ringing in his ears from the pressure that had built up around them, no longer wanting any part of this absurdity, reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a bracelet, something like a web inside it, split into five sections of different colors.

The instant he pulled the bracelet out and pointed it at An, the hair on the back of his neck rose in fear.

Just centimeters from his own face, he saw An's bloodied hand reaching straight for him.

"A-activaTION!!!"

Instantly, the bracelet lit up, and five beams of energy tore loose from its five sections, shooting straight at An.

"You b-bastard!!" An cried out in fright, but understanding on some subconscious level that dodging wasn't an option, he didn't stop. He formed his hand into a spear shape and drove it straight into the shoulder of Captain Scar's uninjured arm.

"A-aaH!"

"Little- Gha-AH!!"

Both of them felt the pain at the same instant. For Captain Scar, it came from An's hand punching clean through the shoulder of his uninjured arm, tearing and breaking everything in its path, fully paralyzing it.

At the same time, An got lucky, because the captain had activated the bracelet in a panic, only three of the five beams actually reached him. One punched through his chest near his left shoulder, opening a massive hole. The second took the left side of his lower jaw and part of his throat. The third only grazed the left side of his head, tearing away part of his stiil good scalp.

Without pulling his hand out of the captain's shoulder, An wrapped his legs around the captain's body, locking them behind his back.

Successfully locking him in place, An began pressing down with his legs, pulling the captain in tight against himself.

"L-let go! BASTARD!!" Panicking, the captain, through the pain, started striking An's head with his broken arm, but in his disoriented state, he didn't bother wrapping it in Qi.

Continuing to hit him in the head, blow after blow, his arm suddenly got stuck in place.

Timing it perfectly, An sank his remaining teeth straight into the arm. Clenching his jaw with everything he had left, he bit through the flesh and clamped down right onto the bone of the wrist.

"YOU LITTLE-!!" Feeling An's teeth scraping against the nerve endings in his bone, the captain nearly lost his mind.

Finally collapsing to the ground, still with An on top of him, he began screaming wildly. "Let go! Let GO!!" Looking into those green eyes, empty and feral, never once looking away from him, the captain began to feel death drawing closer and closer.

Lying on the ground, feeling this beast had nearly bitten all the way through his arm, and feeling his own ribcage on the verge of bursting from the pressure of the leg lock, darkness began creeping into the edges of the captain's vision.

"Strike of Origin!" Suddenly he heard the bandana cultivator's scream, like a lifeline thrown his way. The next instant, a massive beam of energy slammed straight into An's body.

Thrown back several dozen meters, An barely managed to stay on his feet, and activating his Qi, formed thousands of Qi Blades around himself.

"Judgment Day Strike! Judgment Day Strike!" Swinging his spear with one hand, holding the hole in his chest with the other, the bandana cultivator advanced on shaking legs, forcing An to retreat further and further.

'I-I... c-can't keep th-this up...' His vision already swimming, An abandoned every tactic and just fought back head-on, unleashing a chaotic barrage of Qi Blades.

Trading attack for attack, the sheer amount of chaotic Qi generated by the collision of the spear's waves and the blades made the air crackle and burst with bright flashes, some even setting the air itself alight.

"HA! HA!!" Continuing to swing his spear and send attack after attack, the bandana cultivator's body shook harder and harder. His face had already started turning blue.

Wooosh!

Suddenly, in the middle of another clash between the two attacks, a Qi Spear made of Death Qi unexpectedly slipped through the cloud of chaotic Qi.

At tremendous speed, without any trouble at all, it flew straight beneath the bandana cultivator's feet and detonated instantly.

"Ah! AAH! A-AAA!"

Thrown backward dozens of meters, the bandana cultivator, forgetting entirely about the hole in his chest, grabbed at his legs, which were no longer there. One leg had been torn off just above the knee, and the other had lost most of its flesh and bone below the shin. Holding what remained of his legs in his hands, he screamed wildly.

Thud!

An dropped to his knees. "H-hang on... p-please... h-hang on- please!!" Vision blurred, in a half-convulsive state, An, still screaming, managed to force himself back up onto his feet.