Running towards the other teams, Lu Tai punched in their teacher's link number in a hurry.
"Come on, Come on!!" Lu Tai muttered while the dial tone played.
After having run a fair distance, the dial tone stopped, and teacher Su picked up the call.
"Student Lu? What is it?"
"Teacher Su, help! We were fighting a-and then it came and now…!" Lu Tai stammered
"Calm down." Teacher Su said in a stern tone.
Hearing her, Lu Tai took a few deep breaths.
"Are you calm?"
"Mhmn," Lu Tai nodded
"Alright, tell me what happened,"
"We were fighting a mutant boar when a 7th realm corrupted beast took it down at the last moment.
"After we managed to retreat to a place about 50 meters from the crater the beast created, we prepared to return to camp when that … thing crawled out of the crater and turned towards us.
"Wu Haoran instructed me to get reinforcements before turning to face that thing.
"Please send help! I'm heading for the other teams for reinforcements!"
Hearing all that, Teacher Su went quiet for a moment before calling out.
"Go get the other teams nearby; hold out until we get there. We are rushing over this instant."
Over the line, Lu Tai can hear people scrambling in the background, accompanied by a thunderous boom.
Immediately after Teacher Su relayed her instructions, the call cut out.
Lu Tai focused on running, and before long, Team Spirit Flower appeared in the distance.
Running over, Lu Tai began yelling to get their attention.
Turning to look in his direction, the four girls who were heading in the opposite direction stopped and turned around.
After Lu Tai arrived, they all stared at him. Before they could let out a word, Lu Tai immediately got to the point.
"My team is in danger. We need your help."
After he told them what he had said to the teachers, Fei Baixue immediately ran off towards the battlefield without a second word.
After informing them that he would inform Hong Wuhao's team, Lu Tai left.
The other girls, after some hesitation, quickly ran after Fei Baixue.
While Lu Tai went to get reinforcements, Wu Haoran, Chen Zhiyu, and Tian Qingfeng went to intercept the 7th realm corrupted panther. All of them running wasn't an option; a 7th-rank was too fast to outrun.
While they were running towards the beast, the alloy halberd Wu Haoran threw flew towards the corrupted panther and arrived first. Flying forward, the glint of the halberd's sharp blade pierced towards the panther's head.
The panther, sensing the incoming danger, swiped a paw and deflected the halberd aside with its claws. Then, it lunged towards the rapidly approaching Wu Haoran.
Seeing the corrupted beast's maw getting larger and larger, Wu Haoran swung the silver halberd at the panther, chopping down at its snout.
The panther, seeing the Sky Piercing halberds' sharp crescent blades cutting towards it, decided to evade the sharp edge by pushing off the ground with its paws and launched itself to the side.
Having just dodged the halberd's sharp blade, the corrupted beast then ducked its head as it lunged forward. Chen Zhiyu's spear stabbed right above its head, splitting a few strands of fur on its head.
Seeing the corrupted panther's maw inching towards Chen Zhiyu, Tian Qingfeng swung his saber at the panther's jaw, chopping at its snout. The saber's blade sliced towards the area between the panther's teeth, threatening to split its jaw in twain.
Reacting quickly, the corrupted beast snapped its jaw shut. The metal saber blade collided with its teeth, and a heavy crunch resounded.
The heavy force knocked the panther backwards as Tian Qingfeng completed the swing, allowing Chen Zhiyu to pull back his spear.
Taking advantage of the panther being midair, Wu Haoran swung his halberd at the flying panther and managed to cut a gash into its side as it flew by.
"Tch, too shallow," Haoran muttered
Sure enough, the gash was indeed too shallow. It had just barely cut the skin and dug into the flesh. By the time the panther stabilized itself and got back on its feet, the gash had already stopped bleeding.
Regrouping with Tian Qingfeng and Chen Zhiyu, Wu Haoran stood before them shoulder to shoulder, brandishing their weapons towards the area where the corrupted panther was flung.
After it regained its footing, the panther turned towards the three and growled. It then charged towards them again.
"Yeesh, it just won't quit." Chen Zhiyu complained
"Of course it won't. It's a corrupted mutant beast after all," Tian Qingfeng quipped
"In what world is this an injured mutant beast?" Chen Zhiyu complained
Gripping the halberd tightly, Wu Haoran narrowed his eyes and responded.
"No, this has to be an injured mutant beast. If it were not, we would all be dead.
"Before it was corrupted, it should have been an intermediate stage 7th realm beast.
"Now that it has been corrupted, its strength has gone up, and while the external injuries are healed, the internal ones aren't that easy to fix even if it has grown stronger."
"How do you know that?" Chen Zhiyu questioned
This time, Tian Qingfeng answered the question as Wu Haoran trusted his Sky Piercing Halberd against the beast.
"Wu is right. If you look carefully at how it has been moving, you would see that it instinctively applied less force on its right side than its left. Also, its strikes are a lot stronger with its jaw and left paw than when it uses its right paw."
With those words, Tian Qingfeng swung his saber at the panther's right side as it grappled with Wu Haoran.
The saber cut a deeper gash into the flesh this time compared to when Wu Haoran last cut it. After the first cut, Qingfeng lashed out with a series of consecutive slashes, aiming to tear the flesh on the right side to bits.
Chen Zhiyu stepped forward and thrust his spear at the panther's left flank. As he continuously thrust, he managed to pierce several holes in its flesh.
Unfortunately, by the time he started to stab the beast, the gashes Tian Qingfeng had made were already slowly healing bit by bit at a noticeable pace. By the time he had pierced 15 holes in its flank, the first hole he made had almost healed.
"Damn it."Chen Zhiyu huffed in frustration. "Wu, have you figured out what abilities it gained from the corruption?"
In annoyance, Chen Zhiyu swiped his spear down. Using the bladed edge of the spear head to cut wider gashes.
Meanwhile, Wu Haoran was grappling with the panther's jaws while deflecting the strikes coming from its paws.
Swinging the halberd in a wide arc, he knocked its two paws aside before lunging and driving the halberd towards its head.
While doing so, he replied to Chen Zhiyu.
"It should have undergone some form of energy corruption. Probably a tier 2 on the corruption scale. It seemed to have gotten some form of minor enhancement, which included minor regeneration, slightly increased durability, and maybe some enhanced strength."
In response to the lunge, the panther crouched and rolled to the left to dodge the halberd that was coming at its forehead. Chen Zhiyu, seeing the panther roll towards him, stopped stabbing it and scooted backwards to prevent himself from being crushed by the 1-meter-tall panther.
Seeing the panther on the ground, Chen Zhiyu ran forward with his spear to try to stab into the panther's spine. As he was running forward to drive his spear into the panther's back, a black blur flashed forward, and Chen Zhiyu was knocked to the ground.
The panther, having just gotten back up from the ground, whipped its tail at him, and without a moment's pause, a paw followed, swiping forth in a brutal arc. While Chen Zhiyu quickly brought his spear up to brace against the strike, the paw surged forward and slammed into the spear shaft with so much force that it split the pole into two pieces, flinging Chen Zhiyu backwards.
Chen Zhiyu slammed into the ground a ways away from the battlefield. After coughing up a mouthful of blood, he lay motionless on the ground.
"Chen!!!" Tian Qingfeng and Wu Haoran yelled.
Tian Qingfeng strode forward and chopped down hard. He held the saber's hilt in his right hand as he brought the saber down upon the panther. In response, the panther swung its right paw out to meet the strike.
With a sudden spray of blood, Tian Qingfeng managed to cut a few inches deep into the panther's foreleg before the force of the paw caused the blade to snap. The saber had already begun to dull from the consecutive slashes swung at the panther, which had worn down its edge. Now faced with such a strong shearing force, it was inevitable that the saver would break.
Unimpeded, the panther's paw surged towards Tian Qingfeng, as if it were aiming for a repeat of what had happened earlier.