“Icarus!” He opened his book and chanted the incantation. Luckily his jacket was already tied around his neck to be an impromptu coat. After he used the robe from sect, he found that he didn’t really need his jacket anymore. So, he always tied it around his neck in case he needed emergency use of ‘Icarus’, like the time when he was about to fall from the cliff. He really should consider buying a coat, wearing a jacket like this seems wrong.

The book glowed when he said the incantation, then he closed it and threw it upward. The book turned into particles that seeped into Tethra’s body. Now his body had the physique of peak of the third cultivation stage, Qi to Strength stage. He ran to the front of the Blade Rhino while it was still huffing. He used Instant Movement to instantly appear in front of the Rhino... just to collide with its calf.

His collision made the Rhino shook because of the momentum brought by the super speed travel. The Rhino stepped back in anger. Around the lower part of its leg, there was an indentation at the size of a head there that was hurting badly. It was a shock to the Rhino. It only just appeared and a human already damaged this much? Of course it would be angered by it. By the way our protagonist was currently recovering from the dizziness he just had. The fact that he only got dizzy after striking that huge hard leg with only head was already a miracle itself. His head collided directly with that steel like calf and he still didn’t get a concussion? What a hard head.

“Damned Rhino! My head now has a bump on it!” Tethra got annoyed and stepped back with Instant Movement again. This time he missed his landing and fell on his butt.

“This damn difficult ability!” Tethra didn’t do that all on purpose. He was actually trying to learn this move in battle. If he can learn it in time, it would be a great help to most of his tactics. The Rhino that already got mad charged at him while he was on his butt. Its speed was actually the same as him while running full strength with Icarus equipped. Tethra got anxious because having the same speed meant it will be a hard battle, luckily he had Instant Movement. In fact, its speed was higher than that, but the damage on its leg caused its speed to lower even though it was only an indentation caused by accident, of course Tethra didn’t know this.

Tethra stood up hurriedly and stepped sideward with Instant Movement again. He got thrown off this time. The sidewards step are always the hardest to learn in the art of dodging, moreover he used Instant Movement, obviously he would fail more. So, began the battle between a 1 and half story rhinoceros and a thrown off human that always dodged by too large of a margin. It looked comical.

After about 10 minutes of continuous running and Instant Movement, both of them started to feel tired. The Rhino got enraged because it couldn’t kill the annoying human in front of him, the horns on its head then flew and levitated around him. The horns then alternatively attacked Tethra while the Rhino itself tried to recover by resting for a while. Tethra, who was still awkwardly trying to use Instant Movement right while avoiding the flying horns, got annoyed by the resting Rhino.

“You think you are the only one with ranged attack? I have it too!” Tethra launched himself apart first by using the full power of Instant Movement, then he started to draw on the air using Qi Attraction Finger, Qi Finger for short. The drawing had the hieroglyph images he had remembered when he created this original Runic Work. The drawing could be read like this.

‘Flames, burn the air obstructing my path, fill the air with your heat, Barrage of Flames!’

The Runic Works combined and glowed, it released horizontal crowd of flames to the direction of the Rhino. Tethra already stepped far away avoiding another attacks of the horns. The Rhino noticed the heat coming his way, but failed to avoid it completely and got grazed on its side. The burn mark showed that magic actually could harm its skin better than physical attack.

Seeing the result, Tethra drew more of Barrage of Flames but all of them got avoided completely because they were too far apart. Tethra felt that his control over Instant Movement got better than before, so he didn’t hesitate anymore to get near the Rhino. He stepped near so that the distance between them got reduced into 6 meters. He maintained that distance while shooting more Barrage of Flames. The Rhino got more and more burn mark on its body. The Rhino roared.

“ROAAAAARRR” And let out a sheet of silver covering his skin making it look more metallic. This sheet rebounded Tethra’s Flame of Barrage that make it got scattered everywhere. Tethra himself got limited vision because of the scattered Flame of Barrage. While still avoiding the flying horns with normal footwork, because he still couldn’t use Instant Movement to that degree, Tethra found a new tactic. He neared the Rhino to attack physically because randomly attacking with Flame of Barrage may disadvantage his vision.

He was sure that this sheet of silver is the Rhino’s energy, demonic qi. Every monster usually use demonic qi that they refine from the atmosphere and made it demonic qi inside their bodies. Demonic qi of the monsters is not infinite, they can be exhausted too. This monster though, with its grade 6 quality, able to make defensive skill that covered their bodies like this. For practitioners that uses long ranged attack, this could be nightmare.

Luckily Tethra could use both, so he struck the Rhino with a palm. A palm he found in one of the opened martial arts memory. This palm skill damages only the outside part of the body by making the vibrations caused by the palm skill spread evenly on the surface of the body. So this will damage only the skin or muscle, not the internal organs. This palm was considered useless in xianxia world because skin and muscle could be healed easily. But in modern time, outer damage may make the enemy get physiological damage and make them lose their will to battle. And at this time too, this would be useful to exhaust the Rhino’s demonic qi faster by only attacking its defensive skill.

“Erosion Palm” The metallic sheet that Tethra struck shook rather intensely but stabilized almost immediately. This showed how strong the ability of this 6th grade demonic beast. The Rhino’s eyes glinted and the metallic sheet suddenly let out bunches of blades. Because Tethra just struck it, he was very near. He wouldn’t be able to use Instant Movement, because he got no proper footing right now. Luckily one of the martial arts he got specialized in dodging many attack at once.

“Three Cloud Form Step : One, Cloudy Hazy Step” His footwork suddenly grew hazy, his body blurred too. Almost all of the blade that neared him got avoided. But alas, he hadn’t learned this skill yet too so he couldn’t master it in one use. Two of the blades stabbed him on his left arm and right waist. The right waist one only got grazed but his left arm got stabbed quite deeply. With his whole body safe except his left arm, he hurriedly stepped back with Instant Movement to set apart their distance.

“Woah, that was a close one. This Three Cloud Form Step is cool! I should train it more in the future. Shit this hurt more than I though!” Tethra held his bleeding left arm with his right hand while his breathing got more rough. The Rhino already took the flying horns back. This confirmed Tethra’s theory : it couldn’t maintain both ability for too long because it would exhaust its demonic qi faster. Now that all of the cards of that Blade Rhino is already out, Tethra could push off his fear.

Humans always feared the unknown. When he had heard that the Blade Rhino got to keep its original ability, he got worried about it. The abilities of 6th grade monsters couldn’t be underestimated. That’s why Tethra always tread carefully before. Now seeing that it couldn’t hold both of its ability and releasing its blades could only be done once because of demonic qi problem, Tethra grew excited to end this battle. He started to got real tired from all those exchanges.

Tethra once again stepped forward to attack the Rhino. He was just about to palm the Rhino but its tail attacked him from the side. He jumped and attacked Rhino once more. “Erosion Palm”. This time with full power until he got rebounded back. He flipped and stood still near Rhino without escaping back. He determined to finish this Rhino now before it got the chance to do anything. Tethra used his Qi Finger once more. Meanwhile, the Rhino charged at Tethra while letting out the flying horns. Tethra with his finger dancing on the air, avoided Rhino with Instant Movement, but this time he didn’t step too far away. He finally finished the Runic Work on the air.

‘Electrons in the air, collide and rub, generate electricity, focus it at one point, Lightning Pierce!’

The Runic Work Tethra made glowed and let out a strand of concentrated electricity that attacked the Rhino directly. It got pierced by the nose. Blood splattered around the Rhino’s nose. The Rhino let out an amazing roar of pain that signified the damage caused by Tethra’s Runic Work. The Rhino slowed down his charge but still charged at Tethra even with bloods dripping down from his nose and head.

“Eh, I miscalculated its vitality?!” Tethra was just about to dodge the Rhino with Instant Movement but got stopped by a loud howl from the Rhino. This howl is different from its roar of pain.It sounded more like howl of intense rage. The Bladed Rhino then got smaller to become around 1 story tall and started to stand up by using his 2 back feet. His 2 front feet got longer and shifted to the side. Its fingers on the front feet grew and become like humans fingers with claws. It then took both of its horns on the head with its hands and used it like swords. The Rhino looked at Tethra with burning rage from its eyes.

“Ehhhhh??? It could transform to humanoid form too?! Shit, you are already OP enough in beast form and now you can transform to humanoid?!”