Killing Star Demon Bat
The well water settles without a ripple, though the mortal Gu tossed in by Fang Yuan has vanished into it. He can still sense it, but only faintly, as if the two stood far apart, since such a bond usually weakens with distance. Following the thread in his mind, he raises his head and sees only the hall’s own walls. Activating his investigative Gu, he turns the roof translucent and looks through to six huge star shadows in the green sky beyond. One shadow catches at his mind. By the thread that remains, he knows his mortal Gu now sits atop it. ch. 717
Elsewhere, the star demon bat whips up wind with its huge wings and looses a storm of starlight arrows at Immortal Monkey King Shi Lei. He scoffs: merely a rank two star arrow Gu, its only strength in numbers. He does not dodge, letting the arrows dissolve on contact with his mortal killer move fallen grey cloak, a layer of yellow-white smoke and dust. Shouting that he will show his eagle transformation, he vanishes in gold light and reappears as the desolate beast iron crown eagle. Star Lord Wan Xiang, watching, sighs. Shi Lei is a battle maniac who refuses to team up in these fights, having already killed eleven desolate beasts this way, using a different transformation path killer move each time to raise his transformation path realm. ch. 717
The eagle pounces and the bat, its ruthless nature awakened, meets it head-on. The two huge shapes clash violently through several exchanges, evenly matched claw for claw, before pulling apart; the bat shrieks in satisfaction while the eagle, most of its feathers gone, only just steadies itself. A wound on its stomach carries star path dao marks that bleed without stopping and block its own healing. Desolate beasts differ from Gu Immortals. A Gu Immortal’s strength rests in Gu worms, but a desolate beast’s strength is born into its body, and such wounds resist both natural healing and healing Gu alike. A desolate beast holding an Immortal Gu would be another matter entirely. ch. 717
Ignoring its wounds, the eagle pounces again, but the bat finds an opening and slams a wing into the eagle’s head, sending it dazed to the ground. Flying above, the bat flaps three times: the first raises a wind of blades, the second sends over ten thousand star arrows, the third gathers darkness into a bodiless specter that charges in. The eagle takes the impact, endures the wind blades, and takes many shallow wounds from the arrows, but destroys the specter with a thought the moment it drills into its mind, since this eagle is Shi Lei’s own transformation. Wan Xiang calls out in concern. The eagle only laughs in a human voice that this is his own battle, and no one is to interfere. Sent flying and crashing down again, Shi Lei rises more excited each time, refusing to use defensive moves like fallen grey cloak while transformed, since fighting undefended raises his battle foundation fastest and is the whole pleasure of it to him. ch. 717
The bat slips past him once, striking his back with a shooting star, but Shi Lei only laughs and charges again. The bat keeps its distance after that, attacking from range with star path, wind path and dark path Gu. After a long fight both carry heavy wounds, the bat’s sealed by metal path dao marks and the eagle’s at least twice as severe. Even so, Shi Lei’s crazed fighting frightens the bat, a beast that otherwise rules its own mountain, out of close combat and into its own weakness. The eagle finally closes the distance and tears the bat’s wings. With its flight collapsed, the bat cannot recover before Shi Lei finds flaw after flaw and, after its last struggle, kills it. Its blood pours into the ground like a river, and just as Wan Xiang had said, a formless energy stirs and starlight appears again in the sky. ch. 717
