Chapter Twenty - Two Headed Rouge Panther

Yue Chen lowered the blade with a conflicted expression, before he could relax a flurry of blades swiped at him from behind.

Instinctively leaping forward Yue Chen twisted his body and shards of ice collided with both impending sabers.

Without halt Yue Chen shot towards the two bandits in a lunge, claws of ice condensing at his fingertips.

Both bandits rushed forward with a the intention to perform a pincer attack. Yue Chen deflected both the sabers effortlessly and arrived before the bandits, grabbing their throats with minimal force.

"I'm not in a hurry to get to the Western Sea so a little detour wouldn't hurt. What I don't appreciate is you trying to rob me however, it was only an accident so I'll let it go" Yue Chen knew the bandits were here for Long Yi and chose not to pursue the matter. Whatever either party chose to do had nothing to do with him. Since he already saved Long Yi , he had cleared his debt of traveling together.

Throwing both men to the ground Yue Chen looked over at Long Yi who was losing a lot of blood. He would die if his bleeding persisted. "Do you have anything to alleviate the bleeding?"

"There are bandages and pills in the caravan" Not waiting for Yue Chen to help him up Long Yi weakly arrived before the caravan and climbed in, blood trailing after him.

After thinking about it Yue Chen decided not to return to the caravan and headed for the fork road.

"Little brother we're still headed the same direction" Long Yi leaned forward to call out to Yue Chen through his teeth.

Yue Chen thought it was unnecessary to inform Long Yi but his actions contradicted his thoughts"I'm headed to the valley "

"Eh? theTwo Headed Rouge Panther is still living there!" Long Yi's eyes widened in surprise and he hurriedly tried to discourage Yue Chen "Little brother Demon beasts and humans can't be measured on the same scale, a Nascent realm demon beast would pose a challenge to even Human realm persons!"

Yue Chen smiled at Long Yi's warning and continued "I'm just curious, if I encounter it I'll just run away"

"Be careful!" Long Yi gave a final warning.

Yue Chen soon came to the fork in the middle of the road. The fork was formed by a tall mountain that extended for thousands of kilometers upward until it's peak couldn't be seen. The left would bring him into the valley and right was a detour of 9 days.

To save time Yue Chen ran most of the journey. Unfortunately there weren't much trees nearby to cover so all he could do was run in the open. Yue Chen travelled until night then hid in the bushes to get some rest.

"The shadow element" the eerie voice in Yue Chen's head spoke up. "It's not far"

A cold fluctuation of qi was coming from the distance. It wasn't the same freezing cold sensation that the ice element gave off but something entirely different.

"....." Yue Chen stood up and dusted himself off and headed in the direction of the shadow element.

As Yue Chen came closer to the source of the fluctuations he spotted a narrow crack in the side of the mountain that seemed to lead to somewhere else. The crack was beyond a tight fit so passing through was near impossible.

"I'll just blast it open then"

Immediately large chunks of ice condensed in the air and bombarded the small crack.

*Kakaka*

Pieces of rock fell from the crack but there still wasn't enough room. Yue Chen readied his second attack when a shadow flew from the crack and blasted Yue Chen back.

*Growl*

The gigantic cat like creature growled unnaturally and looked down at Yue Chen with both heads.

Yue Chen was barely aware of what happened in the instant where the Rouge Panther rushed out the crack. The only thing he saw was a shadow that rushed out and he felt the fluctuation of qi draw closer, the next instant the source was directly above him looking down at him.

"A Rouge Panther with the shadow element?" Yue Chen thought while retreating to a safe distance.

The natural element of Two Headed Rouge Panthers was the wind attribute so discovering one of the shadow attribute puzzled Yue Chen.

The Rouge Panther didn't give Yue Chen the opportunity to escape and immediately chased after him. The demon beast was much faster than Yue Chen and caught up to him in mere seconds, the first head spat a ball of black flame at Yue Chen.

Feeling the approaching heat Yue Chen rose a layer of ice to block the attack. Unexpectedly in mere seconds the black flame burned its way through like a hot knife through butter without as much as slowing down.

Yue Chen shifted his body and allowed the black flame to pass him by, landing on the ground. The fire quickly spread and devoured the nearby bushes.

Yue Chen's ice qi started to leave his body scatter in the air forming snowflakes that covered a radius of nearly 15 meters around him.

Sensing an impending danger from the snowflakes the Two Headed Rouge Panther hurriedly tried to escape Yue Chen's range of attack.

Yue Chen was surprised at it's survival instinct. The demon beast had chosen to retreat in a moment of danger. This didn't stop Yue Chen from raising a counter attack against the demon beast. Knife shaped shards of ice condensed before Yue Chen and flew towards the demon beast's retreating figure, aimed precisely at it's spinal cord.

What happened next shocked Yue Chen into instantly putting up his guard. The moment the knives were about to pierce into the Two Headed Rouge Panther's spinal cord the demon beast vanished!

Yue Chen Spun around instantly and his fist collided with the Panther's paw and sent him retreating a few steps.

Yue Chen frowned slightly. The longer the battle went on the more of a disadvantage he would have considering his qi wasn't pure and lacked in quantity to boot.

Yue Chen thought of possible solutions while retreating with a defensive stance. Almost immediately his face lit up.

A swirling dark energy engulfed Yue Chen and spread forward for a few hundred meters which also trapped the Two Headed Rouge Panther