NOVPUB
Chapter 77: The Day Hunt & Improvements (2/2)
John rolled over a branch as he saw a clear patch ahead and quickly nailed his legs with a force stop before pushing hard from his legs, and used Pymon’s Tempest Streak by activating Soul Synergy.
Zoom!
John appeared mid-air six meters above while crossing around 500 meters in an instant. Below, he got a clear view of the five running cheetahs.
"Gotch ya!"
His gun was aimed and he shot.
A long bullet zoomed out of his now rather long and a bit bigger pistol.
The bullet was the size of an adult’s middle finger. It crackled with lightning because John had just forcefully channeled the electricity generated from Tempest Streak into the gun with the Metal and Blood conduction pattern he had designed, increasing the rotation and burst speed of the bullet once the magazine executed the pattern and the barrel generated the bullet before the empowered firing pin strikes it.
The impact of this bullet was so high that the gun would break after a single bullet usage, so John would have to repair it by consuming some soul energy, and despite his physical stats being at 60, John would get a strong recoil that would forcefully fling his arm away.
However, the bullet that gave him such trouble was very well worth it.
It was his own combo move, using Tempest Streak to increase the bullet’s speed and rotational power, and when pairing that with two new bullets he created, a monstrosity produced.
*Bang!*
This long bullet was a trap-type ammo.
It traveled at an insane speed of 3000 to 4000 meters per second, depending on John’s shooting position and precise timing when executing this combo move of Tempest Streak with firing a bullet.
He had mastered the application, so the shot was correct. It traveled 130 meters pretty much instantly and struck the Cheetah in the middle of the group.
The moment it struck that Cheetah, the bullet burst out with three smaller shards that struck two nearby cheetahs while missing the third one due to an awkward angle.
In the next moment, the three shards resonated and released metallic crimson threads like a net, forcefully cutting through their flesh and connecting to each other.
All three cheetahs stumbled hard and were completely trapped with their flesh ripped through by the metallic net.
The net had twelvefolded thin threads of Blood Allow, the unique material that Blood Alloy Sculpting generates from combination of Blood and Metal.
John had used pure technical aspects to empower this net.
Its only weakness was fire as a monster who could generate flames could break free from the net fast, but for others, this net was a death sentence.
Still, not even Fire-attributed Monsters could free themselves from these crazy body-shredding nets, at least, not if Pymon swiftly bombarded them with Winged Tempest Blasters to finish them off.
The three cheetahs died instantly as they were sitting ducks for Pymon’s bombardment.
One second was all Pymon needed to shoot those orbs from his wings at high speed and bombard them.
Since he was basically shooting his feather, Pymon had improved in the usage of the skill to shoot the projectiles of Winged Tempest Blasters faster.
Pymon had gained Combo Moves in all of his skills except for this Winged Tempest Blaster, but John knew it was just around the corner.
John extracted the soul crystals from the cheetahs and continued moving. He spared the other two cheetahs since he just got out of this quagmire zone.
"Kreee!"
Just as he landed on solid ground after the last swing, the ground trembled.
In front of him was another strange area influenced by natural spirit power—Short trees with bowl-shaped leaves growing on uncontrollable branches that extended higher and chaotically around each other.
From the area, a seven-meter-tall gorilla with four arms was rampaging through and coming straight for John while breaking and smashing the trees and branches that came his way.
Silver Armed Diamond Kong.
It was a recently reached Adult-stage Gold-rank Monster!
[ Silver Armed Diamond Kong ]
[Attributes]: Metal / Diamond
[Rank]: Gold
[Growth Stage]: Adult
— Gene Potential: 38/100
— Strength: 162
— Speed: 132
— Defense: 182
— Soul Core: 744/1000
[Skills]: <Expand>
[Quirks(2)]: <Expand>
[Talents]: —
"This looks like one of the evolved versions of Four Armed Silver Forged Apes I killed an hour ago," John blinked. "This one looks like a very tough bastard, but diamond, eh?
"I’d love to break it."
Only seventy meters of distance remained between him and the Diamond Kong, who was coming at him with glowering arms, ready to smash him to death one second later.
It made the last jump, darting straight towards John.
John grinned as he pointed his gun forward while he also summoned Twin-Fanged Snake Panther, who immediatly glimmered briefly before shooting two orbs from its snake mouth.
Both orbs struck the chest of the incoming Diamond Kong with corrosive acid poison.
But that wasn’t enough because Diamond was resistant to such poison and acid to a certain extent, not to mention this was a Gold-rank Monster’s toughness.
John knew that. So he had also summoned Alfred alongside the Panther.
Shader Blaze Beam!
’Show your power, buddy!’
This beam was more attributed towards Frostfire with Alfred’s control as Alfred had successfully reached level 2 in Frostfire and Darkness both in the past seven hours of combat.
Alfred was a true monster because reaching level 2 mastery this fast in three attributes while being Silver rank meant he was one of the smartest and most talented Monster.
The Frostfire beam with temperature mayhem was the bane of the Diamond attribute and doom of this Diamond Kong.
The moment the beam struck, the Gold-rank Kong’s chest cracked, and its body froze as its internals couldn’t take it.
But that wasn’t over yet. Diamond Kong still could use a skill and defend itself while also landing with a bang...unless it was killed in the next moment.
John’s figure sparked briefly as he used Tempest Streak to move one meter back before shooting a bullet.
A reasonable 286 soul energy bullet, which was all the soul energy he had at the moment.
The bullet spiraled forward at insane velocity with a speed of 3500 meters per second. His feet were dug properly, and his position was perfect, so the shot was also perfect.
The gun broke.
The bullet this time wasn’t a trap one. It was a pure offense-type one.
Blood Alloy Blooming. To fuel a creation via an established pattern. Like a seed turning into a tree eventually by getting water and sunlight.
This bullet, once inside, could bloom once the stored soul energy executed its pattern.
This one...could bloom as hyper-speed blade-spinning fist-sized drills to a meter long ones that would tear out of one’s body.
Blood splattered as the drills burst out of Diamond Kong’s upper body, splattering its body parts as bloody diamond and metal chunks fell a few meters ahead of him.
’Geez, if this penetrated into a Tamer’s body...’ John wryly chuckled as he stretched his hand, extracting the Soul Pond of the Diamond Kong.
This was his 11th Gold-rank hunt and the fastest executed one so far.
Using the soul orb he conjured from the extraction, John recovered his and the other Monsters’ soul energy before he continued moving.
"We’ll take a break after ten minutes, so let’s continue. I want to hit the 300 hunt milestone before the sun fully sets."
"Woof!"
"Groar! Hiss!~"
"Kreee!"
"Spoooooook!"
