Chef in the Apocalypse

Jayce had just been pushed back by Baran’s palm which had rattled his organs upon impact. He tasted the sweet and metallic taste of blood enter his mouth, forcing him to spit out a mouthful of the warm liquid.

He stared at the furious alien which had taken on a red hue and his face quickly turned serious. Jayce wasn’t sure how many of those heavy palms he would be able to take on before he collapsed from internal bleeding.

After just one exchange, he could tell that the enemy was stronger than himself, at least in speed and attack power. Yet Jayce did not despair, he would do whatever it took to keep Baran at bay, otherwise he could only imagine what would happen to all of his friends below.

Baran was breathing heavily, the air surrounding his red skin distorted from the heat of his body, giving him an imposing look.

Jayce could see that the man was devastated at the loss of his sister and was likely in something of a berserk state. If it was similar to the goblin berserker state, then there might be a chance that the enemy would not fight intelligently.

If this was the case, then he might be able to eek out a victory by relying on his wit rather than brute force.

Yet before he could come up with a plan, Baran charged forward ferociously. Jayce didn’t even have the chance to blink before a palm reached his face, filling him with shock.

He managed to barely lift his purple sword to block the attack, yet the force sent him flying backwards, towards the ground.

Jayce felt his vision swim from the blow, filling him with confusion. The attack had not landed, yet his face was burning with pain and it felt as if his brain had been bounced around in his skull.

’What the f*ck is happening?’ he cursed inwardly.

It took a few moments to recover from the blow, however Baran was already on top of him, sending out palm after palm down in a vicious rhythm.

"Arghhh. Cough cough!"

Jayce cried out in pain as the blows rained down upon him. The attacks were bypassing his strong body and tearing him up from the inside, causing him to cough out mouthful’s of blood one after the other.

Feeling as if he was on the verge of passing out, Jayce quickly activated his Core within his Dantian and circulated his Qi aggressively. He had to break out of this situation, otherwise he would die from internal injuries in a few moments.

The rampaging Qi within his meridians filled his body with strength, breathing new life into his tattered body. He pushed his body to the limits, trying to put as much distance between himself and Baran.

Thankfully, this action allowed him to create a little breathing room. He sucked in a cold breath of air after sensing the state of his injuries. It had only taken a few blows, yet Baran had already managed to put his organs in a precarious position.

Jayce felt trepidation, yet he also felt annoyed. He had focused on the Divine Body Arts for the past 6 months, yet this asshole directly countered all of his hard work. If it weren’t for those palm attacks, he would have likely had a much easier time.

’I can’t let it go on like this...’ Jayce thought inwardly, his mind racing, trying to think of what he could do to change the status quo.

Unfortunately, the invasion had been so sudden that he had been unable to prepare any adequate defenses. If they knew that the breech in the barrier would limit the enemies to one location, they could have set up tens of formations before easily tearing them apart.

’That’s it!’ Jayce’s eyes lit up as he finally thought of something that could help him whilst he had been lamenting.

’I just don’t know if it will work in the air...’

In the next moment, Jayce’s face turned resolute. He wasn’t sure if Baran was truly in a berserk state or if he retained all of his wits.

However, he did not want to take any chances. If Baran were to get wind of his idea, it would be very possible that he wouldn’t let Jayce have his way.

Therefore Jayce decided to play it safe. He began to slow down, showing visible signs of fatigue, hoping to play the pig to eat the tiger.

Baran’s expression was still twisted in anger as he followed Jayce with a dangerous glint in his eye. As soon as he got into range, he fired off a few more palms, using his lightning speed and vicious power to swat at the enemy as if they were a fly.

Jayce quickly stopped in place and surprisingly sprung forward with great speed and agility. In a flash he had appeared directly next to Baran, yet surprisingly, he did not move to strike him.

Baran reacted quickly, seemingly not noticing Jayce’s lack of attack despite the perfect timing. He struck out consecutively, this time with fists. Due to not carrying the same penetrative power as the palms, his strikes fell upon Jayce’s tough body, not leaving so much as a mark.

In fact, Jayce had put away his purple sword and was simply smiling at him with a condescending grin.

This only served to fuel Baran’s anger and he let out another howl before changing back to his palm technique.

"How dare you mock me you human ant!"

Jayce could only watch on as the palms fell onto his body, gritting his teeth through the pain that assaulted his organs. He had been lucky that Baran had not battered him with palms from the beginning, otherwise his plan may have failed.

The smile which had instinctively crept onto his face was thanks to his gamble paying off. He had been hoping that the enemy would not be able to produce the palm strikes at such short notice if he caught him by surprise. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

It had been a dangerous bet, especially since he wasn’t sure what his opponents full capabilities were. But at the same time, he guessed correctly that it took a certain amount of time to send the Qi through the correct channels to produce the palm attack.

If Baran wasn’t in a berserk state before, he sure was now. Being mocked by the man who had killed his sister only further played with his emotions. Therefore when he saw Jayce unarmed, he unleashed his full strength.

He could tell that the strikes were doing damage, so he continued, wanting nothing more than to tear the man apart. He was so focused on destroying Jayce, that he did not notice the disk that was sitting neatly in his enemies palm.

It was only when the disk shone brilliantly that his mind snapped out of its rage induced state.

Baran shielded his eyes out of reflex, a feeling of dread creeping into his stomach.

"Shit! Formation disk." He cursed as his surroundings suddenly filled with light.

By the time the light subsided, he slowly opened his eyes only to curse a moment later.

Baran moved his gaze to the surroundings, which were now filled with a green forest. The sound of insects and birds chirping filled his senses, while a light drizzle of rain pitter pattered upon his back.

"Where did this guy get an illusion formation?" He murmured, looking around with trepidation.

Baran could easily identify the formation considering his home planet of Tartarus was known for their Formation Masters. In fact, Baran was also a Formation Master, although it was not his primary profession.

So while he was surprised, he wasn’t yet despairing. As long as he could locate the core of the formation, he would be able to destroy the whole thing with ease. Once this was completed, there should be no more tricks up the pesky human’s sleeves.

With a flick of his wrist, the man pulled out an odd looking compass and held it out in front of his face. He stared at the item for a while before frowning a moment later.

"This doesn’t make sense... This isn’t a typical illusion formation." He mumbled, scratching his head in thought.

He took a deep breath in through his nose before exhaling deeply, calming his mind. Once he had reached a peak state, his skin slowly began to return to the light green color that it had been originally.

Figuring out a formation, especially while inside of it was a difficult task. It required the person to do thousands of calculations, whilst also relying on a lot of trial and error. There was no way that he had the mental capacity to do so while in his berserk state.

Now that he had returned to normal, he could focus on finding the core of the formation and breaking out. As long as he did so, he was confident in defeating the human leader before dispatching the rest of the human army.