by Gore, A. P.
“Again.” Wei attacked again with his One Sword Strike, but this time he didn’t pour his qi into it, nor did he activate the array. He’d felt something in his last attack, something that touched on the next barrier to late completion. Martial skills were mysterious. Some required one to comprehend them, some required one to use a set of qi channels from their body to activate them, while others required one to imbue qi in their attacks or weapons in a particular way to execute them.
Sometimes they acted mathematically where one plus one became two, and one just had to reach a higher attack power to breach that next level, but some martial skills required one to comprehend the next level, and those skills were rare. The One Sword Strike belonged to those skills, while the Mad Elephant Stomp was an external martial skill, the third type of martial skills. One could reach late completion with One Sword Strike only with comprehension. Without comprehension, one would be stuck at middle completion of level one. Many of his fellow brothers were stuck at level one for life.
That feeling of touching something important was what mattered most.
Man, and beast attacked viciously. Their attacks met in the air, forcing Wei backward. The space between his thumb and index finger tore apart under the repulsive force, but the beast came out unscathed.
The beast shook its head as if to say Wei’s first strike was a fluke. The other nine beasts turned their attention away as if they’d completely lost interest in Wei.
“Again.” Shouting, Wei charged ahead, raising his sword and attacking with all he had. Their attacks clashed back and forth. Sometimes Wei came out on top, and sometimes the beast came out ahead, but the match was undecided until they were on their forty-fifth attack.
Something clicked in Wei’s mind, and he realized he understood the next threshold a little better.
This was it. If he could grab this chance, he would leap straight into late completion of his One Sword Strike.
“Let’s try this again.” Wei leaped forward, activating his One Sword Strike, pushing it toward perfection. All the ten moves of the martial skill were superimposed on each other until they became one, and Wei’s attack power doubled instantly.
Wei’s sword cut through the beast’s paw like a knife cutting through tofu. Sharp and clean.
A bloody paw dropped on the stone floor, splattering blood around it.
A sense of dread gripped Wei’s heart. The paw he had just cut off had shriveled, and another paw had grown on the beast’s limb. It was dark gray, like a piece of earth.
A message flashed in Wei’s mind. It was an old memory that had been pulled up by the system.
System:
Black Fox
Mutated Ferocious Beast
Threat Level: Normal.
Special ability: Black Fox’s Wrath. A gravity-based attack that is triggered when the beast is enraged. In an enraged state, it can grow a special limb made from earth essence that can attack the enemy. This attack can be used as a normal attack, but the effect is halved. After activating this divine ability, every slash that connects with the opponent will increase the gravity effect by one level. If ten consecutive hits are landed, even a higher-realm opponent will die from heavy pressure.
“Brother Tiang. I’ve gathered some information.”
Tiang Fu opened his eyes, frowning deeply at the interruption from a brawny junior standing at the base of the small hill Tiang Fu sat on. He’d been pondering the last obstacle that had plagued his mind for months. Wood King’s Strike was an elusive martial skill, and no one had practiced it to its peak, but he was determined to do so before he broke through into layer seven of the Bone Baptization Realm so he could practice level two of his Wood King’s Strike to middle completion before entering the Marrow Cleansing Realm.
The brawny junior lowered his head when Tiang Fu glared at him. “Senior apprentice brother Tiang. We’ve gathered information on the girl who helped Wei Lin enter Black Fox Valley.”
Tiang Fu’s knitted brows curled downward. “Speak.”
“The girl is Sun Nuan, from the fifth concubine of the emperor Sun Tu. The concubine Sun Ru was cast away after she failed to do something for the queen Sun Kiyari. But . . .”
Tiang Fu brushed his fingers over the long sword hanging at his waist. This was his favorite sword, and it had yet to taste blood this week. “Say it.”
“Junior Tiang Chi was chasing after her, but she kept declining his proposal.”
Tiang Fu’s face hardened. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the girl and that boy had met here. But the question was: How did that girl manage to enter Black Fox Valley? The area was covered in a strange light barrier that only mortals without any cultivation could pass through. And no mortal who went in had come out, so it was treated as a forbidden area by all sects and empires. “This girl and the boy who killed my brother must be in cahoots.” He unconsciously ran his finger over the sharp edge of his sword, slicing his finger. Blood leaked on the sword, and for a split second the sword seemed to come alive before going back to a calm state.
Looking at the blood, he vowed, “I’m going to kill them both. And if they will not come out, I’ll kill their whole families.” He looked at the junior standing in front of him with his head down. “Get a team together and find out everything about this guy, Lin Wei. I want that information in a day’s time.”
Chapter 51
Mother Fox
Li Wei jumped back, avoiding a vicious attack from the Black Fox by a hair’s breadth. The earthly gray paw the beast had grown passed inches away from his face, sending a reeking smell into his nose that smelled like a thousand-year-old rotten corpse. Yes, once he had smelled something similar in his previous life while exploring an ancient tomb protected by zombies. Those nasty things had smelled like this.
Wei landed on his heels, but the next attack had arrived already. The fox had gotten faster than before, and it was getting difficult to dodge these attacks.
Squinting, Wei focused on the black paw coming at him and slashed down with his sword, utilizing all his physical strength, his qi, and the Strength Expanding Array’s power, yet he was sent flying backward a dozen feet and crashed into a rocky surface. Pointy rocks cut through his robe and pierced his back, drawing blood. The mutated gray paw had power beyond what he could withstand.
This was bad. After the beast had mutated, everything had changed. Even reaching late completion of his One Sword Strike didn’t help him much. The beast overpowered him with every attack.
The worst part was he couldn’t let the paw touch him, or he would be poisoned.
The situation was turning dangerous, and he was just at the edge of Black Fox Valley. If this was what it was like on the outskirts of the region, what would he face in the inner regions?
Growling, the beast threw its paw like a punch, and Wei had to take it on the flat of his blade. Using the sharp edge of the blade might have gotten it stuck in the beast’s pointy talons, and he didn’t want to lose his sword.
No, he couldn’t afford to lose his sword in a losing battle.
Wei nearly lost control of the sword when a rebound force shot into his arm, traveling to his torso and shaking his viscera, making him spit more blood.
By now he had lost count of how many times he had spat blood. But this time he realized his situation was worse. If this continued, his body would break down. He hadn’t been at peak condition to start with.
What should he do?
From the corner of his eye, he spotted Sun Nuan recuperating in a corner.
Maybe he could use those.
Swinging his sword, he defended against the next attack, but before another one came, he threw some wood pieces at the nearby foxes. They were the same type of pieces carved with the exploding array he had used to fool the Destiny Mirror Sect disciples.
After a loud explosion, thick smoke blanketed the vicinity.
Seizing the moment, Wei stabbed with his sword and felt the familiar sensation of his sword piercing through some
thing squishy. It was his opponent’s brain.
The beast died with a sharp cry, and every other beast howled in response. There was panic in their cries.
Wei grabbed the beast’s corpse in his left hand and ran toward Sun Nuan. While running, his heart beat faster, and his blood called for something. Something from the beast’s corpse.
Devour! Devour! The blood was calling to him. It was similar feeling to when he first spotted the Ferocious Wolves’ blood, but it had gone away after he’d devoured blood from the Divine Yin Yang worms. Why was it coming to him again?
Ignoring the strangely familiar feeling, he dashed forward. Living for two hundred years had taught him that pride wasn’t important when facing beasts. If he survived, he could take revenge, and right now he needed to survive.
With a guess, he grabbed for Sun Nuan’s very soft hand.
“Wei Lin, what are you doing?” she cried softly.
He arched his brows. What was wrong with this girl? He had only grabbed her . . . He suddenly realized the shape between his fingers wasn’t a hand. Before he could guess what it was, a stabbing pain came from his right hand.
“Damn you, Sun Nuan. Why did you stab me?”
“Why are you holding me so close?” she sobbed. “You pervert.”
Heat rushed to his face when he realized he had accidently grabbed her waist instead of her hand and held her next to his heart. “I’m sorry, but let’s get out of here. I’ll apologize to you once we get out of this place.”
A soft hand grabbed his hand and then dragged him in a direction.
“Where are you heading? We should go the other direction,” he whispered. The smoke should last for a few more breaths, and they should run away as far as possible and find a safe location.
“Do you want to die? The Black Foxes are heading that way. We should run away from them. Just come with me, I can see a cave not far away from here.”
“You can see through smoke?”
She sped up and so did he. While running, he threw the beast’s carcass in his storage ring.
“Of course. I have a hereditary martial skill that let me see in the dark.”
Wei gulped. How could he forget her origins? She belonged to the Sun clan, one of the hereditary clans of the Mortal Realm. It was said that the first emperor that ruled over the whole Mortal Realm had the bloodline of a strange beast and was so powerful he could threaten anyone from the Martial Realm. Before dying, he’d passed on his bloodline powers to his ten descendants through a special method that allowed his descendants to use those abilities as martial skills. They didn’t have to practice body cultivation. In fact, they were barred from using body cultivation, and their Physical Root was sealed from their birth. It was the Martial Realm’s doing.
The Sun clan was one of the eight remaining hereditary clans. They had strange eye powers. One record mentioned that if anyone from the Sun clan reached the Houtian Realm, they could kill anyone in the Houtian Realm with a single glance.
Of course, they could never reach the Houtian Realm. Their destiny was fixed from their birth, and if anyone showed any promise to become powerful, someone from the super-sects would cut them down.
It was the law of the powerful. The politics of the Martial Realm’s super-sects.
Saying nothing more, he followed Sun Nuan’s lead, and they ran over the uneven landscape for ten minutes before reaching a strange mountain. Through the darkness, he could only make out the hazy outline of the dark gray mountain. It was spooky, and it smelled like a giant rotten corpse.
“I sense nothing from the cave up ahead.” Sun Nuan pointed toward a gigantic black hole at the base of the gray mountain. It could easily fit an elephant through it.
Wei stared at the black hole, wondering if he should go in there. Uncertainty lurked in his heart. Did a calamity await inside or a safe heaven? If only his divine sense was unsealed, the uncertainty could be avoided.
“Let’s go. We can’t stay here,” Wei replied after a brief thought. Those nine beasts they’d met earlier might have found their tracks. “But let me set up something first.”
Pulling a bottle of beast blood out, he set up a Lesser Isolation Array around the cave entrance. This array should keep those beasts fooled for some time, giving him time to figure out his next move.
Ten minutes later, he finished and activated the array with a Qi Stone and they stepped through the giant hole. Looking at it from close up, he thought he could fit two elephants’ side by side.
That was a bad move. After entering they found themselves staring into a human-sized half-closed dark-red eye.
“Humans. Interesting.” A voice that shook their internal organs reverberated in the cave, and a message popped up in his vision.
System:
Mother Black Fox
Threat level: Dangerous.
Mentioned in ancient records, this Mother Fox is a Heart Blood Realm beast that has a life span of hundreds of years. She is the mother of a whole generation, and there can only be one Mother Fox alive in a large pack. She has vicious nature and loves human meat. A special skill inherited from the bloodline of the Black Fox allows her to strengthen her own body, making it tougher than steel and harder than metal, using earth essence. She can conjure a special prison around her opponent’s body made up of earth essence energy. When enraged, she can fight against a Houtian Realm qi cultivator.
Chapter 52
Ray of hope
Li Tang walked into the secret chamber his father was cultivating in. To his surprise, his father had made huge progress in the last twelve days. He had reached layer eight of the qi Foundation Realm, like the minor realms were made of wooden planks. This was shocking even for Li Tang, who had jumped two realms with the help of three Foundation Refirming Pills to reach layer seven of the Foundation Realm.
It was infuriating, but he couldn’t do anything about it. This was necessary. Their clan’s survival depended on it.
“Father, please let me in.” He knocked on the fist-thick wooden door.
“Tang’er, what do you want?” The second elder, his Uncle Li Wan, stepped forward and stopped him. He had an old demeanor and layer four Foundation Realm cultivation. Although Li Tang could crush him if he wanted to, he was an elder, so he didn’t dare. “Don’t disturb your father while cultivating. He is trying to break through to layer nine today.”
“Another breakthrough?” Li Tang frowned. Uncle Wan, what kind of divine elixir is father taking? Isn’t it better to let others take some as well? We’re not taking part in just one battle. There will be ten battles to determine the winners.”
Uncle Wan didn’t reply for a moment. “Tang’er. Even I don’t know what he is doing to break through this fast. I don’t have a clue.”
Li Tang caught a hint of greed in his uncle’s voice. “Uncle Wan, how about we just sneak in and check what’s he is eating?” He whispered in his uncle’s ear, and his uncle’s face turned stiff.
Li Wan shook his head reluctantly. “Tang’er. The patriarch is cultivating, and any mishap will bring disaster to our clan.”
“Uncle Wan, don’t worry. We’ll just look at the thing. If we don’t make a sound, Father will not be disturbed at all. Maybe we can benefit from this and make a breakthrough accidentally. I heard there are treasures that let you break through just by looking at them. Judging from the speed father is breaking through his cultivation, he must have a treasure similar to this. What do you think?” Li Tang had no idea what his father was eating or seeing to break through, but the more he thought about it the more he wanted to get his hands on that thing. After all, he had to get rid of the poison in his body and reaching the Bone Baptization Realm would help him achieve that. “You don’t have to worry about Father. If he is disturbed, I’ll say I insisted on it.”
Li Wan looked around, his face turning pale. “Okay. Let’s just look, okay? And if the patriarch is disturbed, then you’ll have to help me.”
“Yes, don’t worry, uncle. I’ll tak
e care of everything.” His eyes flashed with a cold glint. Once he got his hands on the treasure, he would run away from the Li clan and find a place to cultivate peacefully.
“There’s no need for this.” The wooden door opened with a creak, and Li Shua walked out, his face looking much younger than it had before.
“Father, you . . .” Li Tang stepped backward. His father had broken through again.
“Yes, I’ve reached layer nine of the Foundation Realm. Is Wei’er back yet?” he asked.
“Reporting to patriarch, he isn’t.” Uncle Wan held his head down. “But I have news from master Wu, and he will be here in two days.”
Li Shua’s face shifted between hope and despair. “Wei’er should be back by now. He is our only hope.”
“Human, you’ve delivered yourself to my door.” An ear-smashing sound echoed in the cave, forcing Li Wei to cover his ears with his palms to protect his eardrums.
However, Sun Nuan didn’t fare as well. She kneeled on the rocky surface, bleeding from both ears.
Would he die before he could find out why she’d brought him here?
Wei’s mind rushed through all the possibilities, trying to find a solution. But unless he found a Houtian Realm cultivator to help him, he wouldn’t escape from this calamity. Of all the predicaments he’d had faced since reincarnating, this was the worst one. Now that he thought about it, his journey since reincarnating had been more difficult than his entire previous life. Sure, he’d suffered a lot at first, but once his dantian was fixed he’d walked a smoother path than what he faced right now. At least he hadn’t faced such impossible opponents.
This was the end.
A sure shot dead end.
Devour! A strange call echoed in his mind, and he felt his blood moving of its own accord, as if it had gained intelligence. It was urging him to devour something. Maybe the heart of the Black Fox in his storage ring?