“Checkmate Bitch!” I pulled the other trigger and a second barrage of BBs crashed into that icy shield that surrounded Li Xia, shattering it into pieces.

She shouted “Hmph~!  Pathetic!  This is the end!” There was a blindingly bright grey flash of light and for a moment, I thought that I saw a massive blue-skinned goat-woman charging towards me.  That strange illusion had silver fur covering her legs and curly purple hair, along with two ram-like horns sticking out of the sides of her head.  That majestic, large-breasted, giantess glared at me with her pitch-black eyes for only an instant, before vanishing from my sight.

Meanwhile, Rong Li Xia was thrusting her shiny rapier towards the center of my chest.  It felt like time slowed down until everything around me stopped.  I was about to die… Maybe if it was just a regular sword, I could still survive, but that thing was definitely a Rank-E weapon and she was also using a Celestial Daoist Art, and-or Martial Skill, so I was basically fucked.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to have my ankles chained to the ground.  I figured that I could use my agility against her to some extent, but hey, sometimes ‘luck’ is more important than anything else.

Her super-awesome finishing move just happened to be a ‘Lunar’ Thrust.  It wasn’t only the Yin Qi, but also the fact that it had to do with ‘Luna’.  When the blade slowly approached my chest, my pendant released a powerful burst of energy.  For an instant, there was a protective barrier surrounding my entire body.  It separated me from those icy shackles and also blocked that pointy rapier… Unfortunately, I was still pushed backwards and was airborne for a few seconds, before smacking into a bunch of random stalactites.

No, the magical pendant didn’t activate to protect me.  On the positive side of things, because of the angle, I wasn’t impaled and I was launched really far away from Rong Li Xia.  I definitely had a concussion and a bunch of broken ribs, but nothing too bad.  After falling down five meters and nearly breaking my legs, I quickly threw my shotgun in my bag and unholstered my revolver.

As I pulled the hammer back with my right thumb, I struggled to pushed myself off of the ground with my left hand.  “I think it’s about time to end this.” When I said those words and pointed my revolver at the slowly approaching, heavily panting woman, she sneered at me.

“Another one of your toys?  Hmph~, I didn’t expect you to have a life-saving treasure on you, but it makes little difference… This cavern shall be your grave, Levi-” A loud *Bang* interrupted her speech, but it wasn’t from my pistol.  That shell that was ominously floating in the air behind her was zapped by a small electrical shock and it was enough to ignite the primer.

“Gyah~!” She immediately fell forward and kneeled down onto the ground, as she used her left hand to grab her right shoulder.  There was plenty of blood pouring down her arm, onto the floor, but I was irritated that there was no explosion.

I grumbled “Goddamn it Azrael!” However, it wasn’t his fault; without striking a hard enough surface, the Fire Bead powder or whatever the fuck he stuffed inside of those slugs, weren’t able to detonate.  That ‘invisible’ demonic skull was screaming in pain and flailing around through the air.  The shell casing she held with her teeth had sent her soaring backwards from the recoil.

The golden runes along the barrel of my black revolver started to light-up and shine all over the place.  It was pretty inconvenient, because that bitch knew that I was about to start shooting at her.  Li Xia grabbed the rapier out of her useless right hand and held it with her left, then leaped up off the ground and started sprinting towards me.

“Aim!” As I yelled that, all of those ethereal crimson cockroaches that were crawling around on the floor, lifted up their shotgun shells.  It was kind of like having a dozen tiny cannoneers.  The moment that I saw them like that, I immediately thought “Holy shit, I really need to show this to Azra…” I wasn’t totally sure what the limits were, but I knew that Azrael would definitely be able to make some weird miniature firearms.  “Maybe one day I’ll be able to have a whole army of giant Spiritual Cockroach, mobile artillery and tanks?  Nah, that’d be ridiculous… right?”

For the moment though, I was stuck with suicide roaches.  When the beautiful woman was sprinting towards me, she didn’t notice that there was a shotgun shell a few centimeters away from her right foot.  That robe went down to her ankles and she wore black sandals, but there was a lot of skin that was completely exposed.  “Number one!  Fire!~” *Pop!* Her entire foot was shredded to pieces and she tumbled across the ground, wailing in agony.

However, she was only about fifty meters away from me, so I wasn’t going to let her get back up.  “You cowardly little bastard!  How dare you set up traps for our duel!  You’re courting death!  Grah~!  Stop it!  Agh~!” I stood up and rapidly fired all six shots from the hip.  She wasn’t that far away, but it was also the first time I ever shot a pistol before, so I did miss once.  

Somehow, she managed to deflect two of the bullets that were going to strike her head, but the other three penetrated her lower-abdomen.  Although her robe was really durable, it couldn’t protect her from the relatively long and pointy armor-piercing rounds.  In my world, forty-four magnum hollow-point or just normal lead, rounded bullets were enough to take down a person.  However, a Peak-Level Adept is literally four times stronger, their skin is twice as tough, even her stupid fucking clothing was equivalent to a thick elephant’s hide.  

Seriously, even after getting shot in the gut three times, having her right arm crippled at the shoulder and losing her right foot, she was still capable of killing me!  She ignored the bloody stump and started sprinting forward again!

“Number two, fire!  Number three, fire!  Number four, fire!” As I was reloading, I had the three closest roaches fire off their shotgun shells.  It was only steel ball bearings, which couldn’t even penetrate her robes, but she still had to slow down in order to deflect or dodge the BBs that flew towards her face, neck or head.  Hell, when she cut one of those things in half, one side still managed to clip her left earlobe.  It hit her expensive-looking golden earring and trashed it.

“Gyah~!  Fuck your grandmother!  Damn it!  I’ve changed my mind!  I won’t kill you!  I’m going to cripple you and torture you for the rest of your pathetic little life!” Yeah, she was starting to get angry, but she wasn’t the only one.

“Levi~!  Hurry up and kill her!  Quick~, quick!  Let me help!  Tell me what to do!” Xiaotong was frantically flying around my head and wasting her energy by annoying me.

I flipped the revolver magazine out to the left and faced the gun towards the ceiling, shaking it a bit to make the shell casings fall.  Meanwhile, I reached into my ammo bag and grabbed a quick-strip.  Although I never actually shot the pistol before then, I did practice loading and unloading it a few dozen times.  It wasn’t particularly difficult either.  Not like I needed to memorize some kind of magical chant or anything like that.  I pressed two cartridges at a time into the cylinder and within three seconds, it was totally reloaded.  

Then I threw the rubber quickstrip back into the pouch and mentally whispered “Xiaotong, stop freaking out and calm down.  You’re wasting Qi!  If you really want to help, then go over there and finish the job… No, nevermind, that’s too dangerous.  I don’t know what kind of effect an explosion like that would have on you.  Just go back inside my Dantian and make me stronger.  This cunt is way too hard to kill!”

When she entered my Dantian, I could feel a storm brewing inside of me.  I was kind of exhausted and worn out before then, not to mention seriously injured, but it felt like I was literally getting stronger.  Crimson sparks occasionally jumped off of my skin and I immediately had the sudden urge to sprint towards that rapidly approaching woman.

It was mostly just Xiaotong driving me crazy and hampering my judgement, but my sudden change in strategy startled my opponent.  Rong Li Xia actually stopped moving and retreated a few meters, before regaining her composure.  She took up a defensive stance and prepared for me to come into the range of her rapier.