Solitary Sword Sovereign 15 Blood Calamity: Part 3

Fear of the unknown was something all sentient creatures had; it was the driving force for many fears, including fear of death. We fear death because we have never experienced it, one could even go as far as to say that no logic can get this fear out of you.

We want to survive because we don't know what happens if we die. Do we disappear into nothingness? Or is there life after death? No matter what you believe, the driving force behind the fear of death is the fear of the unknown.

It's not necessarily a bad thing either, this fear also drives curiosity, it drives us to understand, and it drives us to learn; which in turn drives us to become smarter.

The wolves had the intelligence of a human, thus they should have the emotions of one too. Emotional intelligence is also part of human nature. Will was counting on the emotional intelligence these creatures had.

They had just seen three of their comrades die, in a matter of seconds, and they had no idea how. They could clearly see that Will was below them In terms of cultivation, and in terms of numbers, but his confidence and his actions had made the generals doubt their senses. The king, on the other hand, was not as affected as his counterparts.

Although Will had put on quite a show, to the king, at the end of the day, it was merely a show. As far as the king was concerned, if Will was really as strong as he seemed, he would have finished them off sooner, and in a clear manner, without having to rely on tricks like a mist.

Will saw the wolves and was happy with what he had done. Remembering what he had just pulled off; Will couldn't help but curve his lips into a smile.

...

Earlier, the moment the wolves lunged at Will, he put up a thick mist wall that covered the front, making it impossible for the other side to see through, and then he jumped back a little bit.

As soon as he landed, he quickly whipped out roughly two cubic meters of water, separated it into two balls of water that were roughly the same mass, then he put each ball in one hand.

Will then started compressing and rotating the balls, just like what he had done with his first custom technique; Suijin no Ikari. Each ball reduced to almost a quarter of its original size. Such was the wonder of yuan.

Since he had done it once before and was doing at a smaller scale, with an upgraded class, the process was much faster and more efficient, as the balls were spinning, Will brought out some more water, effectively covering each sphere completely in a sheet of water.

He did this because once the technique reached its optimum state, it was very loud and imposing, so he wanted to hide this. From the outside, these looked like stationary balls of water. This incredible feat of control was only possible due to the dual mind skill.

Will could sense that the wolves had impacted his wall, so he got ready and crouched, jumping forward with all his strength. The moment the wolves approached the other side, all they saw was Will jumping toward them with two balls of water. Due to being blinded by anger, they completely forgot about their other abilities, and opened their mouths, wanting to bite and rip Will to shreds.

To Will, this made his life much easier. Will was really close to the wall, so the moment the wolves got out and saw Will, he was only a few feet away. Will threw the water spheres inside the mouths of the generals. He ducked at the fastest speed he could muster and rolled forward. Once the spheres had entered the mouths of the wolves, Will knew that the fight was virtually over.

The wolves shut their mouths and instantly turned around, once more lunging for Will. Their ignorance, rage, and their misfortune, ultimately led to their very painful demise. This eventually led to what the other wolves had seen.

The convulsions were the result of the activation of Suijin no Ikari. It was a technique where rotating compressed water exploded like a grenade, releasing a torrent of incredibly fast and sharp water blades. Due to the fact that they exploded inside the bodies of the wolves, they did damage instantly. If the blades had attacked the outside of the wolves, they would have only caused some flesh wounds.

The defense of storm wolf generals was nothing to laugh at. The fact that no water blades had been able to escape their bodies was a testament to this. Will had been planning to attack their undersides, the part he knew from his countless battles, was the weak spot of storm wolves. That would have been a gamble, Will had some contingencies in case that failed, but lady luck smiled on him. The fact that he was able to put the Suijin no Ikari inside the wolves, was a massive stroke of good luck.

The Suijin no Ikari destroyed the insides of the wolves. Although they were tiny, they were made up of countless water blades, waiting to come out. The blades were incredibly thin, almost to the point where they were hardly visible. They invaded and cut every inner organ inside from the brain, to the heart, to the other organs, nothing could escape the wrath of the water god.

The generals died almost instantly. When they had crashed into the ground, they were already dead. Will could tell because he could feel yuan entering his body from the corpses.

Another good thing was that Will learned an important aspect of custom skills. The creator of a custom skill could modify them and control them, assuming they had enough skill and talent. These were called custom skill variants. These were the main reason why custom skills were so dangerous. Originally, Suijin no Ikari was meant to be an AOE attack, but Will turned it into a single target attack with relative ease.

The greatest advantage Will had at the moment, was that he had managed to kill three of the wolves, without the others learning of his abilities. All the remaining wolves knew was that Will could call out an eerie blood mist. What he did within that mist, they didn't know, and like Will had assumed, fear of the unknown was a powerful tool in battle.

Even though the king still believed that he was more powerful than Will, he was still hesitant about how to act at the moment. Even if you are at a higher cultivation level than your opponent, it does not guarantee that you will win; strategy and skills also affect the tide of battle. Take for example a fight between a male lion and a male tiger.

Tigers are bigger and more athletic than lions. They are also solitary creatures, so they are used to being by themselves. Naturally, you would assume that the tiger would win if it entered into a deadly fight with a lion, but nature it seems would disagree.

Tigers primarily fight by aiming for your throat. Male lions have manes on that area, thus it would be very difficult for them to kill male lions via normal means. This leads to the lion obtaining victory most times if the two beasts fought. At the end of the day, power, strength, and experience are not the only thing that can allow you to survive. Often, luck has a major part in it as well.

Will opened his eyes and stared at the trio of wolves. He still had a large mountain to climb. The battle was far from over. Not in the least. The true battle was only just beginning. These wolves were prideful, especially so for the stronger ones. So retreat was not an option. They could only continue the fight and put their lives on the line.

Will was no different in this respect, he was not really prideful, but he would not run. It wasn't what he wanted to become. Victory or defeat lies not only in the hands of fate, but can also lie in your own hands. The question is whether or not your hands have the power to seize it.

Keeping these words in mind, Will decided to stop playing games. Thanks to his previous victories, his power was now enough; just enough to allow him to defend himself.

He had only held power for a few days, yet now he felt like it was now a part of him. Absolute power absolutely corrupts, absolutely. That's what Will was told growing up.

His thoughts at this instant had changed on that topic. Power could only corrupt if it was given to you if it was an external force. But what if...just if...that power became a part of you? What if you became the very source of power? To Will this was a chance, to make this power a part of him, to see if he, was worthy of it.

As Will thought of such profound thoughts, he took his rusty katana out of his ring and gripped it with all his strength. Now was to time to act, whilst the wolves were still hesitating. This was Will's first time to experience with what he had always read about but didn't think he would experience. This was going to be Will's first earth-shattering battle!

Chapter end