Legend of the Heavenly Fruit
Eps. 81 — Side Effects
"What are you waiting for! Attack him at the same time!" The Hooded Leader turned his head towards his subordinates who were still grinning on the spot.
The hooded member gulped, they could see Zhou Yuan's strength had now vastly increased. They hesitated to attack even more after seeing how the sharpness of Kusanagi Sword could cut an heirloom of first class level.
Even so they continued to advance against Zhou Yuan simultaneously, the members were not brave enough to ignore the orders of their group leader.
Zhou Yuan smiled cynically, he could see that the Headed Group Leader had no intention of fighting him anymore but rather wanted to escape at the expense of his subordinates.
Sure enough, when his members exchanged attacks with Zhou Yuan, the Hooded Leader immediately turned around and fled.
The leader of the Hooded Group knew that even mocking Zhou Yuan would not be able to win against him, instead it would put his life in danger.
"It looks like you're in trouble..."
Zhou Yuan smiled widely, albeit against 13 people at once but with his strength he could now calmly compensate them.
The hooded group members immediately took some distance and turned to their running leader, clearly not expecting the situation to end like this.
Zhou Yuan seized the opportunity by attacking the 2 peak warriors of the Golden Realm not far from him.
The attention of the 2 warriors was still distracted by the mannerisms of their leader so it was not aware of Zhou Yuan already being nearby with the sword that had swung.
In one go Kusanagi's sword slash cut off the heads of the 2 peak warriors of the Golden Realm, at the same time Zhou Yuan immediately moved quickly but this time his target was not another member but a hooded leader who had run far enough.
With his speed Zhou Yuan caught up and stood before the Headed Group Leader, making the man shocked instead of playing.
"You, how can!"
The heart of the Hooded Leader almost stopped when Zhou Yuan suddenly appeared before him.
"I told you, I'll end you all here..."
Zhou Yuan disappeared from the sight of the Hooded Leader then appeared right in front of him.Not only that, the two hands of the Hooded Leader had already slipped out of place.
"Arghh! How, how did you do it?!" The Hooded Leader could not see Zhou Yuan's speed when suddenly his hand had already been cut off and spurted blood.
Zhou Yuan did not reply but swung his sword back, this time the target of his attack was the hooded Leader's neck.
All happened so quickly, the remaining members could only watch as their Chief Chief had already rolled on the ground.
Their knees felt limp, for so long they did not feel this great fear especially when Zhou Yuan suddenly turned his head towards them.
The hooded member gulped before one of them shouted out loud. "Everything! Run!"
The remaining hooded members immediately split in different directions. Zhou Yuan snorted before chasing after them one by one.
***
Zhou Yuan had chased all the scattered Hooded Groups to the point of killing the last member, when it was all over Zhou Yuan re-sheathed the sword of Kusanagi in its sheath.
Zhou Yuan's breathing was already irregular, he intended to rest for a while but before he did so suddenly his heart area throbbed painfully.
Zhou Yuan held onto his hot chest, not to the point of his suffering, now his entire body felt intense pain.
Every single cell in his body was like being pierced by a needle, Zhou Yuan collapsed to the ground, his body was already hard to move again.
Zhou Yuan's breath was breathless and cold sweat drenched his body, such intense pain made Zhou Yuan's consciousness slowly disappear.
In the second that he was about to faint, he faintly saw Linxia coming and walking towards him. The girl yelled at him but Zhou Yuan could not hear him, her gaze suddenly turned perfectly dark.
***
The first thing Zhou Yuan felt after the rumination was a warm sensation that enveloped his body.
Zhou Yuan felt his body lying on the ground with his head on a piece of cloth. Judging from the surroundings, Zhou Yuan guessed that he was currently inside the cave.
Zhou Yuan wanted to move but his body did not follow his will, he also felt pain when trying to move his body.
It took a few minutes until Zhou Yuan managed to move his head to turn his head, he then saw that there was a bonfire not far from him lying down.
Half an hour later Zhou Yuan was finally able to wake up from his sleep, he looked around, no one here except himself.
Zhou Yuan's attention focused towards his body which was still a little stiff to move.
"I thought the effect would be like this..." Zhou Yuan sighed softly followed by a bitter smile.
The pain he was feeling right now came from the forbidden technique he used before, the totokan that made Zhou Yuan's strength increase quite rapidly to several times over.
The technique he learned from his teacher in the first life, did not Zhou Yuan guess he had to use the technique in his second life.
The problem is that the totokan technique also has side effects that are not mild. An example is the intense pain earlier but that is not how much with other more serious effects.
The effect on Zhou Yuan's strength had now decreased quite far, if he had previously been at the level of the 5th Golden Realm but now those levels had changed.
"It... I didn't expect to go down like this?"
Zhou Yuan could feel his current strength drop back a moment before he broke through that was at the peak level of the Silver Realm swordsman.
Zhou Yuan had originally expected himself to descend at the 4th Stage Gold Realm but it seemed like his conjecture was wrong, Zhou Yuan guessed this was due to his Sky King body making the side effects suffered were also different.
When Zhou Yuan was still focused on the condition of his body, a girl walked into the cave. Zhou Yuan tried to smile as the sight of him and the girl met.
The girl was of course Linxia, Zhou Yuan so remembered that Linxia now knew some about his abilities.