Who’s the villain now?

A figure descended from the top of a tall building on Jade's right and landed in front of him. The figure was a creature that had the body of a blue lizard man with long claws on its paws and the head and neck of a falcon; it was about 9 feet tall.

It faced Jade and the IP in Jade's mind showed [Rank 4 Lesser Horus] on the creatures head to Jade. "It seems the hero has come to save the day" Jade said jovially.

'For a high ranking monster, it's quite small, the lion and sphere were way bigger. He will be a good opponent for me to test my new strength against' Jade thought as he gathered the energy in his body and sent some of it to the two claw swords in his hands, one was a long sword while the other was a short sword he had armed when he sensed the Lesser Horus. The swords lit up with aura as he took a stance.

And then they began: Jade filled his arms and legs with energy and stabbed at the Horus' chest with his long sword and kept his short sword ready for a parry. The Horus twisted his waist out of the path of his long sword with ease and swung its right claw, which were enhanced by a blue aura, toward Jade at a blinding speed.

Jade parried the hit with his short sword and filled his whole body with energy as he couldn't react swiftly enough without the full energy enhancement while the Horus' swing sent him flying into a building on his left.

The wall of the building was shattered as Jade passed through it, but before the broken wall started falling Jade had canceled out the punches momentum and had jumped back toward the Horus. They met in the air and exchanged blows as they jumped to and from different walls in the vicinity.

Both Jade and the Horus were not used to fighting opponents on their own level but after 7 seconds of fighting, which felt like 4 minutes to Jade, the difference began to show. The Horus had great physical stats especially its stamina and senses. Its main use for its energy was for his claw's aura as his energy was not high.

Jade compensated for his lacking physical stats and senses with his energy which took a toll on him as his temperature began to rise with the constant use of energy over his entire body.

The Horus' downfall was that it was not as intelligent as Jade. Although Jade's body was emitting some steam, the battle was tilting to his favor as he began to see through the Horus's habits and began to take advantage of them.

The wounds on the Horus's scales increased with the Horus healing back almost immediately after the wounds were made due to its high stamina; the Horus's highest stat was obviously stamina. Jade knew he couldn't continue the fight forever so he made a different move.

He threw a dagger into one of the Horus's wounds, on its left thigh, that was closing up. The dagger sunk deep into the wound, the Horus quickly removed the dagger as leaving it there would not allow the wound to heal.

Its decision gave Jade the opportunity to close in on the Horus, he swung his long sword at the Horus's neck, only the tip of the sword hit the Horus as it had dodged at last second, but that was enough for Jade.

The Horus was off balance and was focused on blocking the long sword that was coming back around, heading for its ribs with its claws, it saw Jade drop his short sword and extend his palm toward his lower abdomen in a palm strike but it didn't understand what Jade was planning and fully focused on blocking the long sword.

It successfully blocked the long sword with both its arms but Jade's palm had hit it as a result. Jade instantly transferred all the heat his body had built up into his palm and focused it on a point in the Horus's abdomen. He diverted a ton of energy toward his palm to protect himself from what was about to happen.

The left side of its abdomen rapidly expanded and exploded as Jade transferred all the heat that he could from his whole body to a small portion of the Horus's abdomen.

The Horus's abdomen exploded with a "BANG!" and it flew to right as a result of the force of the explosion. Jade's palm was burnt but was not as bad as the Horus whose innards were now leaking out of the hole Jade had opened in it abdomen, white blood flowed out.

The Horus tried to get up amidst the pain but it was too slow, Jade had already approached it, he stabbed his long sword into the wound and upward toward the head. He stabbed again and again as the Horus weakly struggled until the IP said 'You have killed a Rank 4 Lesser Horus'.

Jade assessed the situation. 'The undead are heading toward one direction that should be where the monster that controls them is… IP how much encode did I get?' the IP answered 'You got 67,892 unattributed en-code from the Lesser Horus, 28,673 unattributed en-code from 68 Hive soldiers, 805 unattributed en-code from one Hive mind and 6,034 unattributed en-code from 765 Rank 1 Hive cogs. 102,599 en-code in total'

Jade focused all his kinetic energy on his leg and jumped toward the direction the undead were heading. His leap took him above the 3 and 4 storey buildings in the area. While he was in the air he saw two pinkish yellow monsters; the first one looked like a giant jelly fish, the IP denoted it as [Rank 3 Hive Noble Mind]. While the second one looked like a tree of pinkish yellow flesh, the IP called it a [Rank 3 Hive Noble Womb], they were both filled with holes that oozed grey fumes and they were trying to escape.

The Jelly fish crawled on the floor with its many tentacles and the tree was walking away on its roots. The moment Jade came into range the Jelly fish stopped crawling and hit Jade with a psychic attack while the tree kept running.

Jade's head began to hurt him as his mind struggled to stay whole, he fell to the ground clutching his head and screaming in pain. He instinctively filled his mind with energy which greatly lessened the pain and disorientation; Jade's energy was way higher than the Jelly fish's energy.

"Wow! I'm meeting a lot of heroes lately, first the Horus and now you, you're fighting to buy more time for your tree friend huh?" Jade said as he swiftly launched himself toward the jelly fish and cut a big hole from its exterior to its center. The jelly fish went limp as the IP said 'You have killed a Rank 3 Hive Noble mind'

Jade leapt toward the Womb, he was expecting a psychic attack but it never came. He cut the tree at its trunk and the IP said 'You have killed Rank 3 Hive Noble Womb'. Jade was surprised 'So there are more than just minds out there, if there is a Hive womb there also has to be a hive vagina and penis'