Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reforged: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 2

by M. H. Johnson

  Skill check failed!

  Heavy Wound inflicted!

  You have suffered 40 Damage and 1 Medium Wound!

  Save versus Stunning Blow!

  Alex roared as he embraced his favorite attack, ingrained so well he need only think the words, delighting in the fierce satisfaction of his deadly polearm hammering into the skull of the massive beast that roared and tossed his horned head, sending a surprised Alex flying through the air, shaken and stunned, knowing that when he hit the ground, he’d be out cold.

  And the blow had hurt. The massive beast’s forward momentum had disrupted his ability to use his gifts in sync. He could feel the wrench in his shoulder, though wrath and fury kept him strong for now. But the minute he hit the ground, he feared bones would break and the children would be dead.

  Desperate eyes locked on the carriage.

  Bullrush!

  In an eyeblink, as if momentum meant nothing, he was on the tip of the wagon, all but weightless, arcing back his neck in a desperate bid to lock eyes with the surprised-looking spirit bull that was sentient enough to gloat in its work, and be frozen in disbelief at the feat Alex had pulled off.

  He embraced Bullrush a third time as he deliberately fell from the carriage as if making a backwards dive, before streaking forward with all force and fury, this time his entire body slamming into the beast in a perfect frozen moment that transferred all momentum to Adderstrike while the flat-footed spirit beast bellowed its dismay, crashing to the ground.

  Alex had already learned his lesson. That monster’s skull was harder than steel, and not even his Qi attack could do more than chip it. But take advantage of his dive and the wagon’s height to plunge his fangtian ji into where the heart would be? That he could most certainly do, blasting clean through the hide, spear point and razor-sharp crescent blades perpendicular to and sliding past the ribs, lodging itself in the monster’s lungs before the bellowing bucking horror flung Alex free once more.

  You have failed to save against disorientation!

  You have suffered 1 Heavy Wound. 2 ribs fractured. 2 organs bruised. Solar plexus bruised. Vitality check made.

  And this time he was too dazed and stunned to do more than fall into a dazed heap, gasping for breath, watching Sun Sun and Li spring into desperate action, both amazement and despair flowing through his veins as time seemed to slow again.

  There could be no doubt that Sun Sun was at least a basic cultivator, so fast and fluid were his strikes, always managing to weave in and dodge away before the massive bull could gore him with his deadly horns. Yet Alex also felt despair. For the bull wasn’t just fearsome, but dreadful in appearance. Its thick spirit beast hide nigh-impregnable. For all that he was at least a basic cultivator and at least as strong and fast as Alex was, he was fighting a beast as massive as an elephant, with hide as thick as a rhinoceros, and infused with wild spirit energies as well.

  Alex already knew that even with Adderstrike and Bullrush, his fangtian ji couldn’t penetrate the massive bony skull. And even with all his gifts and Qi abilities working in perfect tandem, his deadly ji had penetrated no deeper than the crescent blades, utterly missing the heart. If it had not been for their momentary indestructibility at the moment of impact, both he and his weapon would have been shattered. As it was, the polearm was still stuck to the beast’s hide and spurting blood, an injury that at least served to distract the giant bull, giving Alex’s companions a desperately needed edge against their monstrous foe.

  Yet poor Li lacked the speed and timing to even get close, no matter how well he aimed his strikes. And no matter how dead-on or powerful the blow, poor Sun Sun’s spear couldn’t penetrate at all.

  Alex heard frantic screams from the wagon. “No, Uncle! No!” That’s when Alex’s heart skipped a beat, his desperately gasping lungs, breathing precious air after being stunned for agonizing breathless moments, nearly stilled once more.

  Hao Zei was still in the carriage, but Hao Lin and Hao Yin were now both in a heap outside. Yet they were not fools, at least, both immediately sprinting for the nearby trees. Then his eyes widened in terror.

  Hao Chan was also outside the wagon, but she was not retreating.

  She had somehow found a spear.

  And she was approaching the massive spirit beast even now roaring challenge.

  Perception check made! Qi Perception active!

  Everything came into sharp, crystalline focus, Alex sensing the hot waves of desperate battle Qi flooding the battlefield, and his friends.

  The drops of sweat, flickering off Sun Sun’s straining body, the desperate eyes of Li who took in Hao Chan’s peril even as he prepared himself for a desperate lunge.

  The massive bull’s hot-eyed glare.

  The way it locked onto Li’s approaching form.

  The hot flood of Fire and Metal Qi somehow infusing the beast, flowing through it in pulsating waves from the massive beast core Alex could sense in its skull.

  Peering ever deeper as time slowed to a desperate crawl, eyes widening in wonder and horror as he intuitively translated the pulses of fiery metallic Qi with the twitches of muscle, the roping of flesh, portions of the creature’s toughened hide suddenly infused with twice their normal strength as it fluidly dipped its massive head in preparation to disembowel the hapless guard and send him hurtling through the air to his doom.

  All this Alex could sense, his Qi Perception picking up every player on the battlefield in sharp, crystalline focus like never before.

  Sensing the desperate waves of vital Metal and Water Qi flowing from the beautiful girl who had embraced a courtesan’s cultivation, now as fleet of foot as any doe, crying out with her high-pitched voice her challenge against death itself.

  But the bull had already chosen its target, Alex knew, pivoting and turning, its muscles rippling, flowing forward just as Alex knew it would.

  Sensing in that terrible moment of epiphany the sacrifice that had to be made, the dire peril that could well kill him as he made his choice once more.

  Qi Perception check: critical success! Breakthrough achieved!

  Qi Perception is now Rank 4!

  You have discovered Soul Sight! Transcending surface perception alone, you can now sense the flow of Heaven and Earthly energies within sentient beings who understand the flow of Qi! Rank 1 Achieved! You may sense the Qi flow within the most primitive and primal of cultivators, spirit beasts, and all others whose Qi are tied to beastly cores!

  You may now use Find Weakness against any spirit beast or demon whose Qi flow you have penetrated!

  Transcendent success! You have gained added insight into the fusion of Qi and motion within your opponent! You intuitively understand where he will strike, when he will strike, and where his resistance is strongest!

  Find Weakness is now Rank 2!

  Bullrush & Adderstrike successfully used in tandem!

  You have taken a Severe Wound! Save versus death!

  And suddenly it all made sense. Alex understood the Dance of the Bull, the flow of raw, primal Qi through the beast like watching a puppeteer twitch the strings of his marionette. And Alex forced himself to make that terrible choice.

  To wait a precious extra heartbeat as Hao Chan dashed forward, a screaming Li thrusting his spear.

  Waiting for the explosive release of devastating power from the snorting bull, effortlessly goring the foolish guard, deadly horns piercing as deep as any spear, ripping a shrieking Li completely open before flipping the shrieking human clean over its back, a spray of blood and looping entrails bursting free from the centrifugal force as the broken guard spun like a top through the air for countless awful seconds, so far did their awful foe fling him.

  And in the moment the bull’s massive neck was fully arched, Alex embraced his abilities to the fullest. “Adderstrike!” Alex roared as he used his Qi attacks in tandem to strike with pinpoint accuracy the momentarily vulnerable spirit hide just above his foe’s carotid artery, sensing how his foe’s Qi had instinctively flo
wn where it was needed to deliver the most vicious goring possible, never having thought a foe could launch itself forty feet in a single eyeblink, or strike with such deadly, armor-piercing force.

  Beastly thoughts Alex could somehow intuit in the instant Alex’s eyes met its own.

  Then all thought was replaced by blinding rage as the beast sensed the mortal injury it had taken, caring not that it made the blood-spurting wound even larger as it abruptly jerked its massive horned head around, unable to spear Alex through, but more than able to smash the young man with the sides of its horn with bone cracking force, sending the already wounded Alex slamming into the ground.

  The last sound Alex heard was Hao Chan’s desperate scream as he felt bones shatter and organs bruise, the massive dying spirit bull determined to kill Alex at all costs, deliberately seeking to crush him, Alex disappearing from Hao Chan’s horrified sight as the ground shook with the bull’s crash to the ground, unable to rise once more as the gushing fountain of blood drained it of all strength, and then it was still.

  “Alex!”

  18

  In those hideous moments between life and death, the golden glow of his saintly treasure his only comfort in a sea of agony, Alex thought he understood the meaning and essence of life.

  It was suffering. Pure pain and suffering as he struggled through cracked ribs and ruptured organs just to breathe, desperately struggling to embrace the Eternal Fox technique, knowing he was dying.

  A bruised heart skittered as a flood of healing Qi kept it going for another handful of beats. Just long enough for Alex to wheeze another desperate breath from bruised and leaking lungs, forcing the healing surge of Qi to keep his heart going for another painful series of beats.

  Endless moments of agony that transcended mere pain. And for all that he suffered, for all that he was so mindless with pain he couldn’t think coherently, a fierce part of his soul snarled at the thought of surrendering this fight, of giving in to the gentle call of the River of Souls, for all that he could hear the lapping of its waters against the shores of his soul once more, the splash of tiny waves against the pagoda’s hull.

  A surprised part of Alex’s soul looked up as most of him struggled just to breathe, gaping in awe at the bemused features of Inspector WiFu, who was gazing back at Alex with the strangest sort of smile, his silver-green eyes twinkling underneath his wide brimmed hat, as if he held a thousand secrets within his skull that would surely spell the doom of all the shady characters he and his trusty Ruidian had outfoxed together, nearly a thousand years ago, in a life Alex had never quite lived.

  “Oh, you did live it, Alex, somewhere within the millennium you spent hovering between transcendence and oblivion. And what wild adventures we shared, in that life you begged me to erase from your memory. And as a final gift to you, I did just that.”

  What are you talking about? Alex thought in confused wonder, unable even to speak, his dying breaths choking off at that very moment, even as a flash of a beautiful kitsune girl gazing at him with a brilliant smile filled his heart with sudden fierce joy.

  Flashes of a solemn ceremony. A pristine wedding dress the color of jade.

  Laughter and tears and the cries of children. A life joyous and complete, both devotees of their patron god.

  A horrific fire that had consumed half the city.

  The ugly laughter of the hate-filled man behind it all.

  And how they had made him pay, chasing the would-be usurper of a throne throughout the city, cutting down his pawns one by one, he and WiFu racing to solve their most perilous case yet, as the fate of a nation hung in the balance.

  Until justice was met, swift and sure, WiFu tearing that infernal cultivator’s soul free from the coil of existence for all time, as well as an entire corrupt council of cronies and cohorts, even as the city continued to burn.

  Medals and commendations had been theirs once the fires were out, from a prince who swore to honor the Fox’s memory for all time.

  The pair of them had stood silent and bowed, WiFu taking a single silver coin in payment as was always his wont, before the pair shocked the court who had never truly believed WiFu a god until he and Alex walked as one into the central ceremonial pyre that suddenly blazed with gold, Silver Fox returning to the heavens, his disciple to the River of Souls, Alex begging his master only to let him forget that bittersweet life.

  A promise WiFu had always kept.

  And did once more as Alex gasped at the memory in sheer, awful surprise, blood-filled lungs abruptly discharging pooling death in ragged wheezing coughs as a shaken Alex, who had been about to slip into the river of rebirth and renewal once more, fought with renewed vigor just to breathe.

  Eyes blinking in desperation to catch flickering memory, seeing no trace of a sadly-smiling inspector as he desperately gazed for any sort of salvation from his agony, his rekindled mind suddenly alighting on the desperate message blinking in his interface, realizing he was being a complete and utter fool.

  You have successfully killed a Greater Spirit Bull. Experience earned! Quantize growth?

  Yes! Alex all but screamed in his mind, pouring every ounce of his soul not in embracing the Dual Path purification technique, for all that he would heal at a thousand-fold his normal healing rate, not even his Golden Realms Meridian Restoration Technique that had led his feet to the first steps of body cultivation. Instead, he directly embraced the Eternal Fox. And for all that he knew it was more a Qi-based body cultivation skill than it was a meditative technique, he didn’t let it stop him from pouring every ounce of his soul into the flow of Qi and cellular repair that was the essence of that divine body technique. He could almost imagine WiFu’s approving smile as he bridged the insurmountable gaps between Body and Qi cultivation, as only a disciple of a trickster god who broke all the rules possibly could.

  And that wasn’t the only rule he would bend, intuitively sensing that if he played his cards right, healed his injuries from least to greatest, the internal Qi pressures would both stabilize him and rapidly increase the potency of his healing towards the end.

  And one heartbeat bled into the next as numerous deadly injuries healed at a miraculous pace. Three pounds of lost biomatter per thousand hours of cultivation, each pound translating to the shifting of shattered bone back to true, and the miraculously speedy repair of ruptured organs. Alex was filled with the furious certainty that he was going to make it before the flood of experience abruptly ended, his heart abruptly lurching as the final handful of crucial repairs deferred to the very end, as he had instinctively sought to outsmart the flow of life and Qi itself, were suddenly striking him with inconceivable pain once more.

  His blood pressure began to spike as adrenal cascades used moments before to brilliant effect were now out of control with the thousand-fold decreased healing pace, and Alex knew he was only seconds from blacking out, perhaps stroking out, which would pull him completely out of his Eternal Fox restoration technique and turn what should have been a brilliant, hyper-efficient success into unexpected folly.

  For that too was the province of the Fox. Sometimes wise fools stumbled, and stumbled badly, in their embrace of the unorthodox, forgetting that the established paths through life and its myriad disciplines were well-traveled for a reason.

  Alex, heart now hammering as his vision began to fade, swore to himself that he would never shortcut his healing again.

  But desperate promises to gods who had already slipped from memory would do him no good.

  He had to be just as brilliant as his patron.

  And sometimes that meant no more than appreciating all the pieces on the broken board of his life.

  Gazing with the last of his fading sight, he embraced madness, crashing back into a world of ruptured flesh, surrounded by caustic bile and gore once more even as his own heart lurched and spasmed in his chest.

  With the last flickering embers of awareness, he embraced the caustic sting he was still not utterly immune to, almost welcoming that spic
y pain as he claimed his prize, his dying grin widening at the furious scream he heard

  “No! My prize. My prize of battle and its treasures are gone!”

  Alex blinked back into his ring, crashing to the floor of his Qi garden, but not before grasping hold of that which he needed above all else.

  You have claimed Greater Spirit Beast Core. Do you wish to claim its potency?

  Yes! Alex screamed, his rapidly skipping heart returning to its normal beat once more as hideously sweet energies crackled through his frame, all his claimed Light Qi bathing his cells with healing energy once more, and in a flash of insight, having already forgotten his personal promise to be more careful with his healing, he used some of the wild Dark Qi released from the beast core that would doom so many cultivators with no Dual Path technique to work in tandem with the Light Qi, knowing Dark Qi was as much about change, movement, and transformation as it was the province of entropy and decay. It only sped up what was already occurring. And though all living things aged, and his injured cells would be aging a thousand-fold for this single hour, so too his restoration technique was now working more efficiently than ever.

  Critical success!

  Insight gained! The Eternal Fox body restoration technique is now Rank 4!

  And Alex couldn’t help laughing as he took a sweet, pain-free breath of air at last, knowing he was playing the Wise Fool to the hilt, and not caring in the least.

  His breakthrough meant that, should he ever teach this technique to others, they would be able to use what they thought of as toxic impurities to speed their own healing, injured cells aging at only double the normal rate, until they healed once more.

  Even if he had just risked death a second time for the sake of that breakthrough.

  His mentor would be proud.

  It was only after Alex had finished frantically transcribing and refining his flashes of insight into his body cultivation manual, feeling a warm glow of pride to know that he actually had a technique of his own, even if learned through pure serendipity, that he forced himself to face the bitter uncertainties he knew waited for him outside the ring.