Two-star (3)

The red tiger had also detected the smell of danger coming from the prey, but it thought there was no way this human could be a threat. And yet, right in front of it, the human had transformed into a being that could face it. Noticing this change, the tiger extended its claws and lowered its head, ready to pounce.

"Grr..."

"..."

The red tiger didn't understand how this prey could suddenly improve in strength, so it decided to test him out first.

Roar!

The shout of the beast was enough to make the knees of mortals weak, but this was even more than that. The roar was actually a mental spell that attacked Shui. As long as he was in auditory range then he couldn't avoid it, even if he was deaf. However, Shui didn't need to avoid it since the beast spirit's spell wasn't strong enough to surmount the strength of Shui's soul. Since the tiger was occupied with roaring, Shui threw his shield at its head. Though surprised, it managed to evade by shifting the position of its head in time.

It showed obvious shock but then that changed that into anger as it went on to charge at Shui. Its sight was focused on him, and so it couldn't evade the shield that came back like a boomerang.

Whack!

The sudden strike to the back of its head halted the beast spirit, and had it looking at Shui with even greater fury as it watched him catch the shield.

"Damn human!"

Before it could make another move, Shui swung his sword at its head. The strike did indeed reach the target, but it ended up clamped by the tiger's jaws.

Unable to pull the sword from its mouth and with the tiger's paw closing in on him, Shui gave up on the sword and evaded the incoming paw by jumped to the tiger's back. He then slammed the shield on the red tiger's head and took the sword out of the loosened clamp. The beast spirit's rampage to shake him off was obviously incoming, so after reclaiming his sword Shui jumped off the tiger.

No blood was spilled, but it unquestionably took damage from the hits done by the shield. Infuriated by the human's actions, the beast spirit no longer treated him lightly. Its claws shined with a red light and that made Shui apprehensive. Unlike most humans, evolved beasts could inherit bloodline spells and arts from their ancestors. Red tigers were descendents of scarlet tigers which could become beast lords by adulthood. Due to this bloodline, red tigers could use aggressive spells and arts that increased physical ability or range. There were a few exceptions such as the roar which the red tiger used, but those were generally weaker compared to its other abilities.

With its glowing claws, the red tiger swung at Shui despite him not being within apparent range. That was Shui's thought as well a moment before the swing was finished. Without waiting for confirmation, Shui jumped out of the way as three arcs of red flew past his previous position and diced the trees behind that spot. With power like that, Shui knew he would diced the same way if he got hit directly.

After missing its first attack, the red tiger quickly launched another at Shui. This time he had no chance to evade so he used his shield the block it. Though he could only rely on the material of the shield, it was enough to take attacks of this beast spirit. Beast spirits generally needed to be fought against by a group of human cultivators at the same level, but the shield was of supreme special-rank and was handmade by Bartos so it was no wonder why it was able to take the attack.

However, once he blocked the second attack, Shui was stuck in place tanking the rest as well. There was no gap for him to exploit so he could only hold out until such a gap was created. On the other hand, the beast spirit was upset that this human was holding out so well against it. Shui was actually under a time limit so pressuring him like this would be to its advantage, but it didn't know this. Additionally due to its internal injuries, it also had a time limit.

The pressure of its own time limit and its impatience made it stop swinging at Shui from afar and instead pounce at him. Shui noticed the brief rest between red arcs but he couldn't move before the tiger's paw reached his shield.

The attack blew Shui away to a firm tree that stopped his flight but also damaged his back, and forced him to sit planted to the ground. He spat blood but didn't lose grip of either of the artifacts in his hands, however he couldn't stand up before the tiger rushed at him. Still with his butt on the ground, Shui rolled away as the tiger attempted to crush his head with its paw. After his roll, Shui got in a slash on the tiger's right. He only managed to scrape the surface, but he had finally penetrated its skin.

"Garr!"

If it was in perfect condition then this wound would have been a minor thing, even in its current state it shouldn't have been much. However, it couldn't hold back the blood that gushed from its throat.

Shui knew he couldn't bypass the defenses of a beast spirit with his nature energy, especially since the nature energy of evolved beasts' was more belligerent and so its internal organs were less likely to be seriously injured by his energy. He didn't have enough nature energy to activate the sword either, but by applying nature energy to the surface of his sword and getting the sword inside the body of the beast spirit, he could at least aggravate the injuries it already had.

The red tiger was now completely infuriated. Not only was it seriously injured by this prey, it hadn't even given him any major injuries!

At this time, Shui knew the red tiger would go all out to try and kill him. To it this was an all or nothing battle; either he would be killed, or it would die either from its internal injuries or from his attacks. Both of them were now extremely pressured by their time limits, so they mutually agreed to go all out.

As Shui stood with the sword in one hand and the shield in the other, the red tiger was surrounded by a fierce, deep red aura visible to the general human eye. When this red aura appeared, its wound quickly stopping bleeding and the whites of its eyes gained a similar shade of red. With one look, Shui knew this was its berserk state and he gripped tighter on his artifacts. Now that it entered berserk state, this fight couldn't be stopped until one of them died.

"Human, DIE!"

The tiger charged at him, headfirst. It was too fast for him to see anything more than a blur, but since he knew it was coming he could dodge in time. After missing, the tiger knocked down a tree before stopping, and turned towards him once more. Shui threw his sword at it, and it reached its target, however, the sword couldn't even make it past the aura and was deflected back to Shui.

After buffing himself with a talisman, he finally managed to land a hit. And yet now, that strength wasn't enough.