412 The Butterfly

He started running after that and before long, Virus was directly beneath the flying butterfly as he leaped above, leaving a fissured ground behind.

This time, however, as he was upon the butterfly, he did not attack. Instead, reaching out with his hand, he head-on grabbed one of its legs as he brought it down with himself.

Bang!

Of course, just when he was about to hit the ground, he did a downward slashing motion as he smashed the beast right into the earth.

SCREECH!!!

"Shut up." 

Bam!

Sending a cruel punch at its tube-like tongue next, Virus pondered, 'Although I would be able to just rip its head off, let's test how energy liberation feels like.' Thinking this, raising his left hand before his face, he made a finger gun with it.

Simultaneously, within his body, a large amount of his energy was led into his left arm.

FSSSH!

Promptly, a beam of light came to be visible from the tip of his index finger. 'Hmm, cool… so this is what releasing my energy outside my pathways feels like.'

'Unfortunately, I'm only able to liberate energy from here since I've just fused the pair of pathway within this particular arm of mine…' 

In fact, every time a new pair was fused, the body would be able to release energy from the location of that particular fused and synthesized pathway. This meant that as one progresses and synthesizes more pathways, the said person would be able to liberate energy from more parts of his own body. This process will go on until the cultivator finally completes the 6th level of Liberation when he or she will be able to release energy from most of the major areas surrounding the corporeal figure.

Regrettably, however, even then, the cultivator would not be capable enough to release energy from every part of his or her own body. Not even close!

This had to do with the fact that in Virus's previous world, a cultivator being able to liberate energy from any desired part of his figure was a mere long lost myth. An impossibility even.

Furthermore, it was said that even those legendary geniuses who will be able to tread upon to the 7th or even the 8th level of Liberation would be incapable of achieving that kind of miracle.

No matter, gazing upon the smashed yet struggling butterfly within his locked grasp, without any delay whatsoever, Virus directly slashed with the beautiful beaming light on his finger.

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!

Subsequently, anywhere his finger went and the energy beam touched, destruction followed as that part was detached from the rest of the butterfly's physique without any resistance.

It was like a knife cutting through butter, with the beam of light being the knife and the butterfly being the butter, only without the fly part.

Swish!

The energy knife caressed one of its wings next… 

And the wing was cut off!

And the butterfly's head was no more!

Therefore, as simple as that, a gory corpse of a messed-up butterfly was now exhibiting itself in front of the two speechless Guardians, Tongue Woman and Gun Mustache.

"I-It died… just like that?" Gun Mustache mouthed with every strand of his mustache having stood up in goosebumps.

Nodding, Tongue Woman also mouthed, "Yeah… that beam of light… it must be his trait. The damage it deals must be horrifying for it to cut through that terrifying monster as easy as that." 

Meanwhile, having already killed the butterfly, Virus was just about to turn around and leave…

Abruptly, however, he started to feel great palpitations within his body which increased by every second.

At the same time, the butterfly's corpse seemed to be reacting to whatever that was palpitating within his body as something strange seemed to be drawn from within its carcass into Virus's being.

'W-What is this?' Shell-shocked, Virus didn't hesitate to sit down and close his eyes as he focused every bit of his awareness within himself.

'I-I can feel the existence of Origin again!' Greatly dumbfounded, Virus realized that this strange reaction was from the Origin itself.

Currently, the 'Origin' seemed to be trying to absorb and suck something from the butterfly's carcass into Virus's body.

Nonetheless, marking time patiently, Virus waited for what was to come.

Afterward, slowly but surely, he felt a very odd type of energy appear within his body as Origin gradually guided it to his third and fourth energy pathways.

Then, as the strange fuel was tightly escorted into his third and fourth passage which were supposed to form his 2nd synthesized pathway, something even more shocking took place!

The synthetization and fusion rate increased to one percent!

Right after that, it shot up to 2%, 3%, 4%...

Whatever it was that Origin had extracted from the butterfly was insanely directly fusing and synthesizing his second pathway!!!

"What the fuck!" Murmured Virus speechlessly. He was truly horrified at the concept of cultivating like this since he had never seen or heard of anything like it.

Of course, not waiting for Virus to get a grip, slowly but surely, the fusion rate continued to go higher.

5%, 6%, 7%...

In the meantime, watching Virus suddenly sit down cross-legged and close both his eyes beside the corpse of the butterfly, the two Guardians were really confused.

"What's he doing all of a sudden?" Gun Mustache said in all his puzzlement.

Even more befuddled, Tongue Woman suggested, "I… I don't know? Maybe he's resting? Or… praying for the monster perhaps?"

"Sigh… whatever he's doing, let's get lost before he's done with it. Although we didn't offend him exactly, who knows if he's one of those weirdos with a strange personality and decides to teach us a lesson." Was Gun Mustache's response.

"Yeah, the young generation these days are really weird. Moreover, he must have one hell of a background for him to know such detailed information about me…" Recalling the scene of Virus narrating every little detail about her and her life, a shiver went down Tongue Woman's spine as she decided to get away from this rather young man as soon as possible.

Listening to her, an awkward expression took shape on Gun Mustache's face as he proclaimed, "Uh… but, just what kind of background is it that's even able to unearth and get to the bottom of the mole on your right but-cheek?"

"Left butt-cheek!" 

"… O-okay?"

Quickly noticing what she had done, a slight shade of red was drawn on her face as she changed the subject. "L-Let's just get away from here."

"Ah, okay…" Feeling even more awkward, Gun Mustache replied in his frozen state.

"…"

"…"

For a few seconds after that, the two Guardians stared at each other in some embarrassment before leaving.

…

Meanwhile, not bothering to pay attention to his surroundings in the least, Virus proceeded to closely study this heaven-defying progress happening within his body.

8%, 9%, 10%...

And…

11%!

When the fusion rate touched eleven percent, the odd fuel seemed to have been finally depleted as the process stopped and 'Origin' seemed to have blinked out of existence again.