Chapter 363 Instant Defeat

Despite being on the brink of death, Kim Jin Seok managed to hang on until Satoshi came to his aid. For a moment back there, he felt his consciousness fading as his soul tipped to the side of death. But before he could completely cross over that fine line between life and death, he felt warmth enveloping him, and his energy was replenished at the minimum.

"You all right?" Satoshi asked with a hint of concern in his voice. While he didn't know Kim Jin Seok personally, he felt a slight connection with him since he was the one who guided him when he first ventured inside the Beast Dimension. Also, he seemed like a good guy albeit being a spontaneous person who reacts based on his emotions, mostly.

When Kim Jin Seok finally got back to his senses, he realized that Satoshi appeared right when he needed help. Somehow, Satoshi and the other two with him predicted that they'd teleport right where they did. "Satoshi, right? What are you doing here?" He asked, surprised that they managed to arrive on time.

"Well... I'm sort of on monitoring duty. I mean, we can't really leave Link on his own devices due to his erratic nature. He'd caused more than his own fair share of troubles, after all... and we wouldn't want another attempted murder to happen during the Official Beast Tournament." Satoshi explained as he stopped Sera from healing Kim Jin Seok completely.

As mentioned before, Satoshi decided to only heal Kim Jin Seok by the bare minimum. That way, he'd be able to save Sera's energy without disregarding someone who needed her skills.

"Thank you for that. Here I was, thinking that I'd be able to defeat Link. I clearly underestimated him. I guess I brought this upon myself. Had I not irked him in some way, he wouldn't have reacted like that."

"Hey, do you have the time, Satoshi? Can you get that Korean out of the way? We can't really unleash our power with the two of you in the way." Luke Skyrunner grimaced as he parried another vine that whipped at him at insane speeds. Thanks to his unearthly tamed beast, he managed to fend off the attack and counter at the same time.

"Ah, right," Satoshi muttered to himself as he summoned his portal familiar, Ghast. After manifesting a portal, he then grabbed Kim Jin Seok by the armpit and hauled him through the portal. There were only mere seconds before Kim JIn Seok could react, that's why when he finally screamed in confusion, he was already deep inside the portal.

One moment, he was in the Beast Dimension, lying down on the ground while he got some rest after that exhausting fight. The next moment, he was in a comfortable airconditioned room, lying down on the couch as he fell on it with a soft thud. He immediately recognized the room to be one of the many waiting rooms located inside the American Dome.

"That's pretty neat." He muttered to himself as the portal on top of him disappeared in a snap of a finger. He didn't even have the time to ask Satoshi about his portal-creation superpower. Instead, he made a mental note, telling himself that' he'd bring the topic up when he finds another opportunity to talk to the beast tamer prodigy, Midoriyama Satoshi.

...

Back in the Beast Dimension,

Now that Kim Jin Seok was out of the way, both Luke Skyrunner and Yun Zhe could finally unleash their full power while the fight head to head against Link.

"Crimson Dagger. Retract. Stretch." Link barely had time to react when Luke appeared behind him. In an instant, he retracted his Crimson Dagger, making it shrink, and then he grabbed its blade before commanding it to stretch. In one swift motion, he managed to dodge Luke by accelerating toward the ground while the Crimson Dagger stretched.

"And where do you think you're going?" Yun Zhe called out as he swiped at Link without reprieve. As Link accelerated to the ground, Yun Zhe stood midway through his trajectory, causing him to decelerate in a panic. That didn't do anything though since he had already reached his peak acceleration.

Without thinking twice, Link tried to block Yun Zhe's claws, putting his arms up as he tried to guard himself.

His defense wasn't enough to cut Link off completely, though. Using his claws, Yun Zhe cut through Link's wings and vines as if they were butter. Yun Zhe completely caught Link off guard, and his claws left huge gaping wounds from his side all the way to his neck.

Before he could recover, Link felt himself being suspended in the air. Dark chains wrapped around his arms and legs while his entire body was encased in dark energy. He tried to squirm but it was to no avail. The dark binds that held him were strong.

"Crimson Dagger. Stretch!" In a desperate attempt to get out of the dark energy prison, he commanded the Crimson Dagger to stretch.

Oomph! With the Crimson Dagger's hilt positioned right on Link's stomach as it stretched, it pushed Link out of the prison completely. All the air was squeezed out of his lungs in return, and he felt cramping in his diaphragm. Adding to that, his back was also covered in scars since he broke through the dark energy prison with his back.

Blood spurted out of Link's mouth as he coughed. It was worth it though since he managed to get out of the dark energy prison. Clicking his tongue, he continued his onslaught by summoning more vines and madly swinging them around.

Luke and Yun Zhe felt the desperation in Link's attacks. But even then, they couldn't find any openings anymore. Link was simply regenerating vines faster than they could cut them, and if they were to take a break, they knew that they'd be overwhelmed by his attacks.

"Hey, Luke, got any ideas?" Yun Zhe asked as sweat trickled from his forehead. He was weaving all over the vines, cutting and parrying them without taking a breather.

The same could be said for Luke. Despite the fact that he seemed more relaxed than Yun Zhe, it was obvious that he was backed into a corner. He was conserving his energy, but it wouldn't take long before he runs out of it... and then absolute defeat awaits him.

"Honestly, I have no idea. At this rate, we'd need really need a fire-type tamed beast with us." Luke responded, dodging a pair of vines that shot from behind him.

"Why don't you use your teleportation? You know, your unearthly tamed beast could handle that, right? I mean, you could easily teleport all his vines out of the way and then we can attack him." Yun Zhe continued.

"It's not that simple. Even with a powerful tamed beast, there's no way I could create so many dimensional portals at once. At most I can create five but that would be useless. Link would just regenerate his vines and then we're back to square one again." Luke explained, much to Yun Zhe's disappointment.

Meanwhile, Satoshi just sat beside the rock, watching the two of them deal with Link. He couldn't believe that the two of them couldn't handle someone who wasn't even thinking about his moves. After hearing Luke's explanation, he understood where they were coming from. Unlike him, they don't have a large pool of energy reserves. Meaning to say, they couldn't just waste energy like that.

The reason why Link could go berserk without thinking about his energy expenditure was that he'd already gathered a lot of energy from his previous fights against James, Jessie, and Kim Jin Seok. With that energy, he could go out of control as much as he wants without worrying about the repercussions or running out of energy just like his opponents.

"Satoshi, can't you do anything about this guy?" Yun Zhe finally asked, turning his head towards Satoshi before jumping out of range of the vines. He'd finally reached his limit, and there was no way he could jump into the sea of vines again.

"If I didn't have any duties to carry out during the Official Beast Tournament, I'd have finished this in one fell swoop..." Luke finally gave in as well, getting out of the vines' range as he tried to catch his breath. He also undid his beast integration.

Seeing that his opponents had finally given up, Link decided to go on the offensive. This time, he was the one who approached the two, intending to tie them up and suck their life energy out.

"Ghast, Sain, you know what to do," Satoshi spoke, summoning two familiars at once. He didn't even bother to integrate with them, he just let them attack Link so he would stop his frenzy.

In an instant, countless portals appeared all over Link, cutting all of his vines off. And before he could recover from the surprise attack, countless chainsaws protruded out of his body, severely wounding his entire body as liters of blood gushed out of his system.

"Aghkk~!" Link let out a literal gut-wrenching scream.