Depthless Hunger

When Kai struck the monster his Tyrant's Claw tore deep, unleashing streams of blood into the water, but he immediately realized that it wasn't enough. The Great Cetae wasn't armored, it was just massive, covered in so much blubber that his strike was only a minor wound, not crippling. He could see the beast's body was covered in countless scars as if from massive jaws.

Before he could strike again, the Cetae rolled in the water. As its wings turned, they seemed to generate great currents of water that hit like a wall, knocking Kai out of the ocean. He broke into the air in time to see that the roll had tugged some of the cultivators with qi chains down, slamming them into the water.

The Cetae was already turning toward them, opening its maw...

Most of the cultivators were standing on flying swords, or some were even hovering, but they weren't acting. In fact, many of them seemed to be staring at him, surprised at his arrival.

"Who are you?"

"Savage cultivator..."

"This is our hunt!"

There was no time to negotiate with them, not when the Cetae was about to swallow some of the chain-bearers and completely destroy their formation. As Kai reached the apex of his arc, he activated Thunderbird's Wings and streaked down, wings emerging for a split second as his right hand transformed into a claw. He brought a Tyrant's Claw down on the Cetae's back as he landed.

This time, propelled by all his momentum, the power of his claw bit deep. Not deep enough to kill the beast, but it let out another echoing roar and thrashed underneath him. Kai raised his left hand with another Tyrant's Claw prepared, but the monster rolled again and he had to dodge vast wheels of water that it turned using its power.

A jump left him suspended in the air, and his instincts roared to attack and eat the monster again... but no, his goal wasn't simple victory. Instead he used the moment to examine the cultivators more carefully. Some were still stunned while others had recovered - perhaps most importantly, there was a man a few years older than him who skipped across the water, pulling cultivators to safety and returning them to flying swords. Oddly, many of them had blood running down their jaws, suggesting some attack Kai hadn't seen yet.

Their formation hadn't been entirely restored yet, so the Great Cetae wasn't bound. It tried to swim downward again, dragging several of the cultivators bearing chains closer to the water. Some held firm but Kai spotted several who stumbled on their flying swords, staggering closer to the edges. Several spat out mouthfuls of blood in the process, as if they had internal injuries.

That was his chance. Kai leapt over to one with a thunderclap, and while the clap made them reel, he reached around to grab the cultivator's hands. He couldn't grip the qi chain directly, but he could use their hands to grasp it, so Kai gripped tighter and then tugged backward.

Adding his strength to the others helped them resist the Cetae's pull. The cultivator Kai was helping looked alarmed, which was unsurprising given that Kai was a head taller than him and much stronger, but the other man managed to recover. Once he set his feet, he began to pull again.

"Hold firm!" Kai ordered as he stepped away. He spotted another chain-bearer who had collapsed onto her flying sword, losing hold of her qi chain, and stepped off the edge of his current sword to leap to hers.

In the air, he noticed that the man who had been saving cultivators earlier was doing the same, supporting an old man who was struggling to maintain his grip. As they moved, the leader nodded to Kai, and he nodded back, but there was no time for anything else.

Landing on the next flying sword, Kai pulled the woman to her feet. "Can you fight?"

"I just lost my grip!" she insisted angrily. She gathered her qi - frustratingly slowly compared to Zae Zin Nim - and then hurled a spear of qi downward.

The qi technique pierced deep into the Great Cetae's blubber and then unraveled into a chain that returned to her hands. All around the air, the other cultivators were recovering and throwing out their own chains. With their combined strength, the monster could only thrash as it was pulled up into the air. Yet despite all the blood from its wounds, it looked far from dead.

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More cultivators who had been flying at a distance closed in, and Kai noticed that they carried bright blue spears instead of wielding qi chains. They began to hurl them toward the Cetae, and the first one that hit unleashed a wave of damaging qi.

Before a second could hit, the monster thrashed its wings again and the water around it swelled up into a shield. The spears that struck it lost their momentum and failed to penetrate - even the young man who seemed sharper than the others only threw hard enough to prick the outer blubber. They might have the Cetae bound, but this wouldn't be enough.

Kai noticed that many of them were still looking at him nervously, so he didn't want to act too recklessly, yet he had to do something. After a second of thought, he drew up his qi into his right arm. He might not be able to make a refined palm strike like Zae Zin Nim, but he could put a lot of strength into a hit and let them fill in the blanks - the strength wasn't the point, anyway.

He leapt off the flying sword and then activated Thunderbird's Wings when he approached the water shield. The thunderclap knocked away the water and he burst through, slapping the Cetae's hide with his palm. Ṛ

It did nothing... but at that moment he activated Void Gaze.

For a moment the Cetae froze in place: its thrashing stopped, the unnatural water fell back to the ocean, and its wings even dimmed.

"What palm technique is that?"

"The beast is limited!"

"Attack, attack!"

The cultivators began eagerly hurling their spears into the monster while it was undefended. Many of the projectiles got dangerously close to Kai and he even had to knock one aside with his hand... or rather claw, because his body was shifting automatically. The Savage Heart had grown much stronger, but he still hadn't fully mastered it because the power flowed from his rawest emotions.

The Great Cetae let out a roar of pain and he suspected it was mortally wounded, but in its final moments it unleashed the remainder of its power. Water shot from it in all directions in razor-sharp spears, several of which pierced Kai's body. He was knocked into the air again, though not severely injured, and took the moment to take stock.

His wounds were already healing thanks to Behemoth's Heart, but he saw that many of the other cultivators were falling back or disabled. Even some who weren't stabbed coughed up mouthfuls of blood, which seemed unusual, but there was no time to think about that. They wouldn't be back in action immediately, so even if the Cetae couldn't escape, things could easily turn bad.

One of the cultivators had fallen off his sword into the water and the Cetae turned sluggishly toward the body, opening its maw. No one else seemed to be recovered enough to do anything, which meant there was only one choice: go back to one of his oldest tricks.

Kai drew on the full power of Thunderbird's Wings, and the shockwave actually knocked some of the cultivators out of the air, but it sent him downward at top speed. He hit the water with an explosion and grabbed the fallen cultivator, hurling him into the air. Then there was nothing except the maw of the Cetae closing around him.

Instantly he was underwater with walls of teeth closing on him in both directions. Kai grunted and managed to catch them before he could be crushed. The teeth were razor sharp and bit into his back, but his arms and legs had instinctively developed an armored carapace that the teeth couldn't penetrate. He grimaced and managed to push the teeth further apart, out of his back, which began to heal instantly.

From the inside of the Cetae's mouth, Kai had a muffled sense of the rest of the battle. Desperate bursts of qi, more javelins impacting, water surging in all directions. The monster's dying thrashing could easily take out more of the cultivators and Kai needed them on his side, so he had to do more than just hold firm. Well, if he was already inside the monster...

He shoved the jaws away and hurled himself deeper. As he reached the wall of the creature's throat he opened his mouth and Isulfr's Bite consumed a chunk of its flesh. Kai hurtled into the blood and gore, biting over and over again, seeking a core of power that he could feel with raw hunger.

Several more bites tore a grisly path through the monster's body until he consumed the fleshy monster core. It tasted like the monster's blubber but even more savory, and Kai was eager to feel its full potential... but he was also eager to get out of the disgusting mess. He manifested a Tyrant's Claw and tore his way upward until he burst through the monster's side.

Kai grinned savagely as he clawed back into the air and pulled to his feet atop the monster's bulk. All around him, cultivators had been in the midst of celebration but now stared at him with a mixture of shock, disgust, and awe. Before he could say anything, he heard a cry of panic and then suddenly pain lanced through his side.

He looked down in surprise and saw one of the blue spears piercing his body. It vibrated with qi that tried to harm him, but it wasn't strong enough to do much damage. Figuring out the source was far more important... Kai turned and saw one of the youngest cultivators staring in shock, arm trembling. All around him, the others were drawing up in reprobation or anger.

Just a stupid mistake, but it made the whole situation uglier. Kai groaned as he reached down to grip the spear in his side. Dealing with the cultivators might be more dangerous than the monster.