Solo Cultivating in Superhero Academy
Chapter 109: flying strategy

Chapter 109: flying strategy

The instant Elius’s five swords lifted into the air, forming a loose spiral around him, he made a decision.

He didn’t want a messy fight.

Bloodshed was fine.

Violence? He could live with it.

But wasting energy on a creature so brutish, so emotionally unstable, felt beneath him.

Elius lightly stepped onto one of his floating swords, his balance effortless, almost casual.

The blade barely dipped under his weight before stabilizing, carrying him slowly upward into the air like an ancient cultivator from forgotten myths.

The arena lights glinted off his white uniform, and the wind stirred his hair, making him look ethereal—untouchable.

Below him, the hippopotamus man—the so-called King of Beasts—bellowed furiously, stamping the ground, causing micro-tremors with each heavy step.

The mechanical female voice calmly spoke again:

> "Combat begins."

Elius crossed his arms, standing atop his sword as if he were simply on a balcony overlooking a pathetic show.

"Hey, Fatass of the Swamp!" Elius called out, his voice cutting cleanly through the roaring echoes of the arena.

The King of Beasts jerked his head upward, eyes burning with fury.

"You gonna stand there flexing those oversized sausage arms all day?"

Elius grinned mockingly. "Or do you actually know how to fight?"

The beast-man snarled so hard that froth gathered at the corners of his wide, tusked mouth.

"COME DOWN HERE, YOU COWARD!!" he roared, his voice booming off the metallic walls.

Elius placed a hand over his ear theatrically.

"Sorry, couldn’t hear you over the sound of you wheezing from climbing a single stair!"

He leaned lazily on his knee atop the flying sword, one hand holding his chin like he was bored.

The veins on the beast’s temple bulged grotesquely.

"COME DOWN!!!" he roared again, saliva splattering the ground.

But Elius simply hopped lightly to another floating sword, which carried him higher, twirling slowly in the air.

"Come up here if you want me so bad," Elius said with a smirk, spreading his arms mockingly.

"I’ll wait."

The King of Beasts let out an earsplitting bellow and, without hesitation, charged forward with terrifying speed.

The ground shook under his massive feet, each thunderous step breaking tiny cracks across the arena floor.

He leapt—an incredible, monstrous leap for something his size—arms outstretched to grab Elius from his perch.

But Elius, smiling thinly, stepped lightly onto another sword mid-air, letting the hippo-man’s grasp swipe through empty air.

The beast crashed heavily back onto the ground, a loud BOOM resounding through the arena as dust clouds exploded upward.

Elius clicked his tongue.

"So slow," he said lazily.

"Are you trying to wrestle the air? Should I ask the referees if that counts as a technical foul?"

The King of Beasts roared in frustration, his hands clawing at the ground as he pushed himself up.

His yellow eyes locked onto Elius with raw, animalistic hatred.

"You little...!!"

He sprinted again, faster this time, using his immense strength to launch himself toward another sword.

Again, Elius floated just out of reach, hopping gracefully onto a different sword with the ease of a man stepping across a gentle brook.

The beast landed hard, panting now, his huge barrel chest heaving.

Elius pretended to yawn.

"Are you even trying?" he said, tilting his head.

"You know," Elius continued conversationally, "the more you jump around, the more exhausted you get."

He gestured downward at the hippo-man’s swelling muscles and sweat-drenched hide.

"And trust me," Elius smirked cruelly, "you really can’t afford to get any heavier."

The King of Beasts lost what little composure he had.

With a guttural snarl, he ripped chunks of broken arena tiles from the ground and hurled them skyward, each one the size of a boulder.

They whistled through the air, aimed straight for Elius’s floating swords.

Elius sighed, stepped sideways, and another flying sword whisked him elegantly out of the way, dodging the projectile with minimal movement.

The boulders missed by meters, crashing back to the ground with bone-jarring CRASHES.

Dust filled the arena, obscuring visibility for a moment—but not for Elius.

Through the haze, he saw the beast-man charging again, faster, more desperate, losing all semblance of strategy.

Elius merely kept moving from one flying sword to the next, as casual as a nobleman strolling through his private garden.

Every time the King of Beasts leapt or threw something, Elius would simply glide to another sword, high above the chaos.

Each taunt he threw down was like a dagger in the beast’s pride:

"Too slow, swamp king!"

"Maybe after this, you can join a circus. They always need clowns!"

"Hey, hippo! You missed me! Again!

Maybe you should try a ladder!"

The beast-man tried everything—short charges, long leaps, throwing debris, even trying to topple the swords by sheer shockwaves—but nothing worked.

Elius was too fast, too light, too untouchable.

Every miss exhausted the beast further.

Every failed attempt ate away at his sanity.

The hippo-man’s mighty shoulders slumped slightly, his breathing labored, his muscles twitching with overuse.

Sweat poured down his body in rivers, pooling at his feet.

His massive fists were bloodied from repeated impacts with the unyielding ground.

And above him, Elius just floated.

Untouched.

Unworried.

Unimpressed.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of humiliation, Elius ceased his gentle movements.

He stopped hopping between swords, letting the five flying blades steady themselves in the air around him, forming a loose orbit.

He stood there, arms folded, eyes half-lidded in amusement.

There was a pregnant pause.

The King of Beasts, panting heavily, looked up in confused, frustrated rage.

And then, Elius spoke, his voice low and filled with finality:

"There’s plenty of time left."

He extended a single hand outward, palm open.

The five swords around him gleamed sharply in the artificial light.

"It’s time..."

Elius’s smile sharpened into something cruel.

"Time for me to attack."

The air around the arena suddenly thickened, as if the world itself was holding its breath, waiting for the slaughter to begin.

The moment Elius declared it was time to attack, the atmosphere inside the arena shifted completely.

No longer the untouchable ghost floating above his opponent, he became a hunter.

The five swords orbiting him spun faster, gleaming as they sliced the air with faint hissing sounds.

The King of Beasts — still wheezing, still soaked in his own sweat — crouched low, readying himself for something, maybe one final desperate leap.

But before he could make a move, Elius struck.

With a flick of his fingers, one of the swords whistled downward like a falling star.

CLANG!

The flat of the blade smashed into the beast-man’s shoulder, throwing off his balance and forcing him to stumble sideways with a grunt.

The hippo-man growled and tried to reset his footing, muscles tensing for a counterattack, but Elius gave him no chance.

Another sword hurtled down like a viper’s strike, SLAMMING into his back.

A ripple of flesh jiggled grotesquely as the weapon struck, but still — no blood.

The blade rebounded as if it had struck ironwood rather than flesh.

Elius narrowed his eyes.

"You’re a thick one, huh," he muttered, sending yet another sword darting toward the beast’s thigh, aiming to cripple his movement.

The hippo-man howled in pain as the blow struck —

but when the dust cleared, there wasn’t even a puncture wound.

Just a dark bruise beginning to blossom on his thick, leathery hide.

Elius clicked his tongue sharply, annoyed.

He floated higher, sending the swords into a new pattern — three striking low, two spinning up high.

It was a dance of violence — an elegant, merciless rhythm.

SWISH!

CLANG!

SLAM!

Each sword struck at a different angle, a different timing — some aiming to disorient, others to cripple, some even aiming for vital points like the temples, throat, or heart.

And yet... it was like trying to cut through a mountain with feathers.

No matter how vicious the strikes, the humanoid hippopotamus withstood it.

His hide, rough and cracked like ancient armor, absorbed blow after blow.

Even as he grunted and growled in frustration, he still stood.

Even as sword after sword pelted him relentlessly, he still stood.

It was maddening.

Elius shifted his strategy, focusing his flying blades on key joints — knees, elbows, ankles — trying to cripple mobility instead of piercing flesh.

But every time a blade slammed into those thick bones wrapped in meat, it simply bounced off with a reverberating clang that made Elius’s hands buzz unpleasantly.

From atop his flying sword, Elius frowned deeply.

’This body’s ridiculous...’ he thought coldly. ’It’s not just muscle. It’s something deeper... like spiritual reinforcement... no, maybe it’s an innate racial trait?’

His cultivation instincts screamed that this beast was more than just flesh and blood.

The King of Beasts straightened himself, shrugging off a particularly savage strike to his collarbone that should have broken it.

He grinned, bloody spit dribbling from his massive tusked mouth.

"Heh," he rumbled, voice deep like distant thunder.

"You see it now, pretty boy?"

He pounded his own chest with one massive fist, creating a sound like a drum of war.

"This body—" he flexed grotesquely, veins bulging, muscles swelling like ballooned cables under his skin,

"—is built different."