Archfiend Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Berserker (Two)

"Swish……" He disrobed himself of his coat and folded it neatly, placing it on the ground.

As he stretched out and loosened up his neck and wrists, cracking sounds echoed out.

"This is Berserker Syndrome." Xu Yangyi's upper body leaned lowly, the moonlight shedding upon it. His muscle wasn't developed, yet it was tight and delicate, possessing an astonishing explosive force. His posture was like that of a hunting cheetah, his ears like that of a wild beast were slightly trembling as they caught onto every sound in his surrounding, the blowing of the wind and the gentle swaying of the grass.

Each one of his nerves stretched out to the extreme. Not only was this his graduation exam's final subject, moreover it was the first genuine demon he had confronted—it wasn't one of those Form Transformation demons, but rather a berserker that was unable to assume human form any more!

Berserker Syndrome, for some demons, occurred as they were on death's door and were unable to make a breakthrough. This kind of resentment would lead to it madly hating humans, believing them to have squeezed down upon its room for survival. Its body was no longer capable of sustaining a mutually corresponding human form, rather it had transformed step by step into its most primal demon form, ultimately completing its demonification.

During the course of these events, it would become more and more addicted to killing, more and more ruthless, and then at the moment as it fully finished its demonification, its hatred towards human would arrive at its zenith! A raging carnage would unfold!

No matter whether it was a human or demon, due to its Berserker Syndrome, it had to kill! Their existence already threatened the fragile bonds between humans and demons.

Suddenly, a penetrating, void-shattering sound mixed with low hissing traveled across five hundred meters! Like that of a sharpened arrow that had left its bow string! Carrying a bright red color and with a speed that humans simply wouldn't be able to react to, it broke across the sky!

Xu Yangyi's gaze unexpectedly saucered, twisting towards his left side in a conditioned reflex.

"Boom……" A noise echoed heavily, like a tremendous fist had hammered the ground. At this moment, everyone on the outside was stunned.

"Old Qin…… You felt that?" Vice Captain Chen asked the policewoman suspiciously: "Just a moment ago…… the ground quaked?"

As if they were being separated by a gigantic glass screen, they simply couldn't hear the sound coming from the inside. Moreover, they couldn't observe the scene inside, however, the heavy feeling of the surface of the ground passed on to their bodies.

"It's like……" Officer Qin furrowed her brows; what had happened? The ground was suddenly shaking?

Within the "glass", the ground at Xu Yangyi's side was already inundated with many half-a-meter-sized holes!

The clothes that he had placed there had long vanished into thin air!

in midair, a blood-red shadow was in the midst of an explosive retreat. He simply didn't consider it as his two legs trudged forward, his entire being rushing forward like a sharpened arrow leaving its bow string!

"Huff!" Like a fired artillery shell, the grass at the side of his foot dispersed in a great ring with him in the eye of it.

A leap of over a dozen meters in distance! Up in the air, the red shadow and he, the black shadow, were like chasing stars overtaking the moon! He unwaveringly stared down the shadow retreating at lightning speed, and both of his hands suddenly clawed out, capturing the tip of the red shadow!

"Hiss!" Soon after, a sharp hiss cried out. He was like an enormous stone carving, falling down from midair to the ground with the weight of a thousand catties*. "Boom!" The ground was covered with dust, fluttering about in the manner of a shock wave with him as nucleus of it!

The night wind blew forth, brushing away at the misty dust.

It was an enormous tongue.

Covered in nauseating yellow saliva, the meat of the tongue was red in color.

One end wasn't within the building. It wasn't known when, but many gigantic holes had already appeared on the building, the thing inside refracting the rays of the moon. At the back of its tongue, the ragged clothes were rolled up in a pile, yet Xu Yangyi had firmly pulled the tip of it like a tug-of-war in his original location. 

With a single hand pulling at where he stood, the blue veins on his hand began to reveal themselves, every muscle and vein clearly visible. His legs had already dug out a ravine several meters in length on the ground! Already, its depth went so far as to the side of his feet that it couldn't be seen!

Pure strength, bodily strength, this was a maneater's most terrible aspect! A demon's body was much more powerful than that of a human's!**

"A competition of strength?" A cold light flashed at the back of his eyes: "That's really unfortunate, my strength isn't minor, either."

Both of his hands oddly revealed a series of runes. Immediately following, his muscles from top to bottom expanded like they were filled with ear. From his stature of 1.8 meters he transformed into a giant exceeding over two meters!

"Solution Ninety-Five —— Dragon Biting!"

The spiritual energy of his entire body coalesced in his hand, and a seemingly-real, simple, unembellished blade of quasi-fantasy surprisingly appeared. He suddenly chopped down with it!

"Hiss!" Just as the seemingly illusory, ethereal blade was about to touch its tongue, a blood-curdling screech followed in its wake with four blood florets! The tongue that was no less than the thickness of a man had been severed from inside like a taut bow! 

In the next second, the entire ground began to tremble!

Xu Yangyi rigidly fixed his eyes on the enormous body of the demon beneath his foot. He knew that the body of the demon at the top of the pharmaceutical venture building was no less than thirty to forty meters in radius. This one…… nevertheless, the body of this berserk demon was absolutely not any smaller!

It…… was on the cusp of revealing itself!

"Bang!"

Like the eruption of an underground fountain, the ground at the side of his body suddenly burst open!

Immediately following, it didn't stop at a single section, but rather countless parts! Like a limitless number of fountains buried beneath the ground, "Boom! Boom! Boom!", everything ruptured forth!

Sand stretched out across the entire sky, yellow grains like night-time clouds and mists, and even the moon had lost its color in its entirety.

"My god! What is this?!"

"What's happened!" 

"Earthquake?! Earthquake!"

Vice Captain Chen looked around at his surrounding in amazement; the ground was obviously shaking! He had begun to believe it was of his own misconception, but in the next second, he found it wasn't so!

"Ka Thunk!" At his side, the cup of water had had put on the hood of the Disciplinary and Reconnaissance Group's car had already spilled over in this moment!

Everyone hefted their rifles at command. In this moment, not a single person was still standing steadily! It seemed like there was a gigantic creature beneath the ground just about to bore out of the surface of the earth, like it was charging out!

Officer Qin supported herself against a car in astonishment. The tremors beneath her feet were far too intense, however, just at the moment she managed to stand firm a bit, her eyes suddenly began to sharpen!

"My…… god……" She listlessly looked ahead of herself. There weren't any changes with the pitch-black run-down building. However…...

It just didn't have a single trace of variation!

This earthquake, so abrupt and so fierce, had caused something to flash! A soldier holding his gun wasn't even able to grasp onto his rifle! Yet it hadn't sparked off!

As if it hung suspended in the middle of a crystal ball, the area all around the building trembled. In comparison to the motionless building though, it was simply far too inharmonious!

"Old Qin! Old Qin!" Old Zhu approached and tugged at her, yet he was brushed away by her hand.

"What's happened to you!" Old Zhu worriedly pressed down on her shoulder in restraint: "Crouch down quickly! Don't you know it's an earthquake!"

Officer Qin appeared to have completely not sensed such a thing. She only looked at the seemingly static building, her lips trembling.

"Is this…… sorcery?"

Within the Big Dipper Heaven-Tail Formation, the ground was already covered in sand, and gravel and stone concealed the sun.

Sandy gravel, wind, and air formed a cloud, and in the center of it was a tremendous shadow in the manner of that of an elevated heavenly pillar, like a dragon could be seen in the fog, calmly towering within.

It was a serpent.

A tremendous serpent, a black serpent like the blackness of death. Its skull was three to four meters in size, its sapphire eyes were pervaded by a layer of abnormal red, and its gigantic maw was like an abyss. In the midst of the sand-filled sky, its two eyes were like enormous blue searchlights, carrying a deathly-still gaze as it looked at everyone. 

Its length could not be reckoned, its height could not be distinguished, and its thickness could not be discerned.

Without end in such a way…… on top of the all the surrounding ruptured ground, there were also more than a hundred little serpents. Even to speak of the smallest one, it possessed the thickness of the waist of a man. Nevertheless, they fundamentally were incapable of being compared to the tremendous serpent that was approximately as thick as a room!

Standing in front of it in contrast, Xu Yangi was like an ant standing across from a tree.

"Swish!" The head of the serpent slowly raised upwards accompanied by the sound of a long hiss. The monstrously-strange tremendous serpent raised its head, bathing under the moonlight, it enveloped Xu Yangyi in darkness, generating a heaven and earth shaking cry!

"Hiss!!!"

In the next second, its gigantic body, yet like that of black lightning, suddenly charged ahead towards a location several tens of meters in front of it!

Simultaneously, the hundred plus little serpents were like a prison cell, filling the sky with the sound of hissing, raising a strong, repulsive fishy wind, and desiring in same to go forth in bursts!

There, exactly where Xu Yangyi was situated!

"Boom…… Boom! Boooom!" The sound of the ground shattering in uninterrupted succession made everyone who heard scalps turn numb!

"Boom…… Boom……" Outside the formation, Old Zhu sat on the ground, watching the car at the side suddenly "jump" just as he wiped his sweat away.

Very light, rather heavy, awfully oppressive, and quite subtle. It was like in Jurassic Park, the car jumped in the same manner as the Tyrannosaurus Rex stomped on the ground. 

The corners of his eyes jumped immediately afterwards.

Following adjacently…...

The entire ground had already begun to tremble crazily! The intensity was several tens of times greater than the tremors from a moment ago!

"Merciful heavens!" Captain Gao supported himself uncertainly against the car in a state of fright: "Earthquake! Earthquake!"

"Damn!" Vice Captain Chen only had time to let loose a screech, the violent tremors made both his legs go soft, and he fell down on the ground, landing flat on his butt!

"What the heck is happening!" He grit his teeth rigidly. Should they retreat? Should he sound the call? The captain still hadn't come out, however…...

Such violent tremors, it could be an earthquake greater than a five on the richter scale!  Furthermore…… he kept on having a kind of unusual feeling. This earthquake…… was right below his feet!

"Captain! What're we doing!" 

"Instructor, what are we doing now?" 

"Why is there an earthquake all of a sudden?" 

"What the heck happened?"

Cries of alarm rose and fell in succession, there wasn't any person that knew; what on earth was going on? How was it so sudden that there were such violent tremors?

Even more, there wasn't a person that saw…… the inside of the Big Dipper Heaven-Tail Formation. Or of the sound of over a hundred pythons slamming against the floor, their wretched shrieks went unheard and so did the sound of their biting. There was only the oppressive sound of the ground being battered like that of the beating of a drum, smashing the floor, pounding into the ground once more, and the pitter patter of shattered earth!

An ocean of serpents rushed forth like they were attacking a mouse, biting…… If someone was placed in the midst of this, they would certainly be torn to pieces!

"Swish!" It was no less than over a dozen minutes until the surging tsunami halted. In the center, a blood-drenched figure was standing straight among it.

Xu Yangyi's two hands protected the vital points of his entire body. At this moment, he had finally been taken hold of.

He swung his shoulder. Making a hacking noise as he twisted his neck once more, the sound of cracking echoed out.

He had a smile on his face as always, merely, the corner of his smile carried a blood-thirsty icy coldness.

"Initial stage Qi Condensation…… Truly strange……" He pressed down on his leg unconsciously: "Your might is rather excessive. I had thought I would be severely injured…… How could you be so weak?"

"Berserker syndrome coupled with the transformation of your most primal demon form should've raised your boundary at the very least by two minor stages. Even if you are at the initial stage, shouldn't you be at least at the late stage right now?"

"Not only are you weak, your strength fluctuations are moreover too great…… It shouldn't be, no? He laughed, rubbing his pallid chin: "Has the sea of essence within your body fallen into ruins? And has your willpower been swept away?"

The tremendous serpent's eyes unwaveringly locked onto Xu Yangyi. Over the course of their exchange of blows a moment ago, it didn't have much of a remaining consciousness to tell him, but the smiling in front of him was quite strong…… extremely strong! 

It was correct that it shouldn't have been so weak! It was right that it should've torn Xu Yangyi to pieces moments ago!

"You're afraid." Xu Yangyi slowly walked over, smiling as always: "A problem has arisen from your body. Perhaps you didn't take the initiative at all to lose yourself and become a maneater…… Forget about it, it's not important."

Just as his tone of voice fell, already like a sharpened arrow that had left its bow, he charged forth, facing towards the head of the serpent!

"Solution Ninety-Nine. Tiger Crane!"

*A catty is a term of measurement often seen in Chinese novels. From what I researched a catty is roughly half a kilogram, perhaps a little bit more, making it roughly one pound~. In other novels, you may see this unit of measure unlocalized as jin. 

**异食癖 - maneater. Literally: "different eating habit" I figure maneater works best in this context.

Chapter end