He leaned back and stretched, closing his eyes in sweetest contentment for just a heartbeat, not even realizing he had fallen into an exhausted slumber.
He lurched back up with a hiss, gently-placed blanked flipped off his body, bolting into a state of panicked wakefulness as Hao Yin broke the night with her scream.
A panicked Alex bolted upright, fangtian ji instantly summoned to his hands, wearing no other armor save his sparring outfit, eyes rapidly scanning the darkness.
There!
Shadow foes flooding in from a tiny woodland trail cutting through the thick underbrush in the far side of the clearing. Making their presence known with a flood of bellows and cries. Scores of blazing red eyes in the darkness.
He saw death heading their way.
24
Alex snapped around, gazing at a confusedly blinking Hao Chan being shaken awake by her cousin as Hao Lin shivered, eyes wide with terror and confusion in equal measure. “No. They shouldn’t be here. None of them should be here!”
“What are you talking about?” Alex hissed at the boy, but he already knew. Had sensed it when they had been making their almost magical journey of the past three weeks. How the flood of Heaven and Earth energy had flowed through them. Changing them. And perhaps it had affected Hao Lin more than even he had given the boy credit for, for all that the child hadn’t aged a day.
He knew the boy had somehow sensed the clearings blessed by kindest fate every night, assuring them safety and security Alex knew he had no right to expect, yet was always grateful for.
But the flood of beasts before them showed the lie in false assumptions, the arrogance of taking anything about these terrible and beautiful woodlands for granted.
Trouble had found them in the form of rampaging spirit boars, led by a massive fire-eyed alpha boar, a greater spirit beast much like the one that had almost killed him once before.
Alex quickly pulled from storage a handful of broad-headed spears and the lamellar armor he and Hao Chan had sparred in so often, even with their unarmed fighting style, to prepare her for real combat. Yet her competence with the armor aside, they had never gotten around to pouring more than a handful of hours into spear practice in the entire month that had stretched for years to Alex’s mind.
And what a fool he had been not to emphasize that part of their training so much more than he had, grateful that at least Hao Chan and her cousin could strike the apples he would toss with both accuracy and power while keeping their balance, even from the wagon bed.
Just in case they were ever attacked, like they were about to be right now.
He could only hope the minimal training and their own growing martial acumen would be enough.
And he didn’t have a moment to lose, focusing on the threat before them, his fangtian ji replaced with the heaviest of the boar spears in his ring, the wicked spear head razor sharp and already covered with venom, Alex having learned his lesson with the massive bull they had fought what now felt like years ago.
But before he could get a lock on his opponents, Hao Chan had grabbed his shoulder, refusing to even hear a word he said until he had donned his own protection.
And the howling hoard was racing across the clearing.
“Quit being so stubborn! Lift your hands and straighten your neck! You need this armor, and it will take only a second to don!”
But Alex raised his hand in refusal. He didn’t speak, didn’t dare lose focus for a second, every ounce of his attention and focus on the creature before him as a furious Hao Chan muttering about stupid idiots quickly donned her own hauberk and helm, grabbed up one of the boar spears, and braced herself to repel any boars that dared to leap for the wagon roof.
Every iota of his attention was on the massive beast leading the charge.
The other boars could crash into the steel-reinforced wagon pulled by the oxen-sized horses Hao Lin had the wit to free in the panicked moments leading to now before scurrying back up and taking the third smallest and lightest spear for himself.
But if the boar king hit the carriage dead on, it would topple over, and then it would quickly be over.
Even if they could survive the Greater Spirit Beast, the horde of wild spirit boar swarming at its side would gore them to death in seconds.
The massive monster roared his challenge, Alex’s bones rattling with the cry, heart slowing as he stretched his breathing, desperate to make the connection between him and his foe.
Noting the rhythmic stride of the charging monster taking great ragged puffs of air.
Chest, rising and falling.
A storm of Qi and power, ready to strike.
Swirling in brilliant patterns of fury and need.
The creature channeling its massive fount of Qi as pure wild intent, heightening its strength as it embraced that mad chaos that was its essence.
The flood of brilliant fire and steel flowing between its core and heart suddenly blazed in Alex’s mind.
Sweaty hands tightened the grip on his boar spear.
Lips flooding with the deadly gift of his ring.
Heart now pounding with terror as well as exhilaration, head bobbing in time to the massive boar’s stride. To the pulses of Qi flooding through his foe.
“Wait, where’s Yin?”
And Hao Yin could suddenly be heard screaming. No longer with them. Alex hissed, hearing the pounding, knowing what had happened.
“Get back here right now! Father’s locked the door! You’re not getting inside!”
Hao Chan quickly raced to the side, but it was too late to pull her back up in time.
“Hide under the wagon! It’s your only hope!”
Alex didn’t even know who had screamed the desperate warning, locking gazes with the giant boar whose head was nearly level with Alex’s own.
Alex flashed a madcap grin as his heart pounded a staccato rhythm.
It was time to dance with his old friend once more.
Only this time, he was taking the lead.
Bullrush! Adderstrike!
Find Weakness skill check made!
Poison Spitting skill check failed!
Time flowed oddly in those moments Alex propelled himself through the air, not even hearing his own roar save as a thrum of sound, blending perfectly with the tonal beat of the massive boar whose head bobbed to the rhythm Alex had now sensed with crystalline clarity, deadly spear and owner plunging through the air in the blink of a greater spirit beast’s eye, closing the gap with all the force and fury of his most powerful Adderstrike, frozen in perfect stillness and rigidity with all his momentum behind the blow.
Blasting through the titanic beast’s skull with the force and fury of a charging knight, perfectly braced.
And Alex realized he had miscalculated still, even as an eye socket cracked, orb rupturing into caustic gore Alex was now immune to.
The spear head had been too wide to plunge completely through the beady little bone-reinforced eye socket, no matter the beast’s giant frame. And Alex’s instant of invulnerability also meant he couldn’t relax and direct the mouthful of caustic venom he would have used to completely blind his prey.
But if his goal had been to enrage his titanic foe into a killing fury as the half-blind monster, that might or might not be doomed to die of cerebral hemorrhaging, focused all its killing intent on the human it had flung dozens of feet in the air, then Alex had succeeded admirably.
Temporary invulnerability ended! Scaphoid bone fractured! Adrenaline compensates! Modified -2 penalty to skill checks. Orientation perception check made!
Alex gasped and blinked as starry heavens and earth traded places over and over before quickly realizing his foe had sent him flying through the air in the half-second invulnerability he had, though not quite long enough to stop at least one bone from breaking, sensing that one of his hands was injured.
But it hardly mattered if he didn’t act that very instant, before meeting the ground rapidly racing up to him.
Catching sight
of a rustling tree, he strove to become one with the leaves and branches all but welcoming him just before he fatally crashed at its base, instead flittering from his perch of nothing to the gently swaying leaves, in that moment as light as a leaf himself, stilling the furious pounding of his heart, knowing he should be dead, would be dead, were it not for his Adept-level of skill allowing him to bend the rules of inertia to a ridiculous and profound degree as immovable feet somehow balanced on a swaying leaf.
You have had a breakthrough! Modified Bullrush is now Rank 4 (6)! You may now use this skill without penalty from a range of 5 to 50 feet!
The boar roared from below, its one remaining eye somehow still locked on Alex, and he flashed a cold smile, doing his best to drown out the terrified screams of his friends.
For his Qi Perception blazed so brightly in those moments of sheer terror that he could still make out the flow of fiery Qi through his opponent’s body, blazing so hotly, as if desperately burning through the poisons Alex knew should have brought any mortal beast down.
Glowing so brightly that Alex still knew just where to strike.
The titanic beast roared its fury, hungry to once more battle the cultivator that dared to injure it.
And Alex had no intension of disappointing his foe, even if the fall could kill him.
Long spear summoned!
Bullrush initiated! You have elected to fall with full inertia!
Adderstrike!
Alex howled with terror as much as exhilaration as he raced through the air, knowing if he didn’t tense up at just the right moment…
Now!
He roared, stiffening his limbs, spear only slightly off as his broken thumb bone skewed his blow to just miss the heart as the massive spear tore completely through the mastodon-sized monster.
But lung and liver had both been sliced open and Alex had gained that precious heartbeat of full body invulnerability, being but an extension of his weapon, that allowed them both to avoid snapping as the 18 foot long spear tore completely through the massive creature, Alex’s connection to its form allowing him to sense without seeing the ugly internal wounds as the weapon burst out its underside in a shower of dark spurting blood.
Finesse check failed!
Medium Wound taken!
Quickness check made!
He collapsed to the ground as he immediately pulled his spear back into the ring, reclaiming his weapon and preventing the shaft itself from staving off blood loss, so the frenzied beast would die all the quicker.
But maybe Alex should have left it in place as an anchor as he was flung off once more, this time smashing into a tree trunk before he could focus his Qi to dart through the air, no longer a master of his own weight and inertia.
Fortunately, the abrupt dislodging had only a fraction of the deadly force behind it that the goring toss had, Alex certain he had only cracked a rib at most, though he was dizzy as well, head having crashed against something, quickly wiping the blood out of his eyes as he found his feet and abruptly rolled away as the still-upright monster abruptly pivoted, roaring its fury and crashing head first into the tree trunk Alex had collapsed beside.
Quickness check made!
He abruptly leapt and rolled to the side as the massive boar smashed into the tree trunk, knocking it over with a titanic crash and, much to Alex’s frustration, failing to ram the boar spear still wedged in its bony socket any further.
And Alex somehow knew that if he had not spent the last handful of weeks that stretched forever learning to dodge and weave past Hao Chan’s deadly flurry of spin kicks and strikes, he would have died right there, already knowing that the girl had forged him into a better fighter, perhaps just as profoundly as he had taught her what little grappling and close range fighting he knew.
It was the constant sparring, each testing the other, each learning to read their opponents, counter unexpected attacks, and strike between the beats that had turned them both into far more than they had been before.
And it was the only reason why he was still alive even now.
And even as his mind raced, his body acted, burning through yet more of his Qi reserves as he darted forward, fangtian ji in hand, maneuvering behind the massive beast before lashing out with a cleaving strike intended to tear completely through tendons, yet doing no more than scoring the flesh, so resilient was the spirit beast hide when not met with a Qi-enhanced piercing strike.
Quickness check made!
You have suffered multiple lacerations equivalent to a second Medium Wound!
And again Alex dodged death as the offended rear leg abruptly snapped back in a blow that could have torn his skull off, before blinking forward once more as the roaring monstrosity spun around, only to be met by blinding pain as Alex burst forward and tore through its other eye.
This time blinking inside his ring the instant after he did so.
Waiting only a single heartbeat before blinking out once more, knowing he was gambling with his life if the monstrosity had abruptly jerked back instead of forward and gored him at that precise moment, so dangerous was the game he was playing…
But hundreds upon hundreds of hours of intently reading his opponents and sensing the nature of his enemy’s Qi had paid off.
His timing had been all too right, he found, emerging in a prison of jagged bone that still managed to tear great gouges into him before he dove back inside the ring.
He cried out in pain, wincing at the blood pouring out of multiple wounds.
The wounds the price for what he had dared, jumping into the massive beast, transposing bone but not inertia, abruptly whipped back and forth as if in a car crash, realizing he had been incredibly lucky.
That maneuver could have broken his neck.
And as much as he wanted nothing more than to cultivate his injuries away, he knew he had no time.
Not if he wanted the girls he had invested so much of himself in protecting this past month to survive.
Alex paused only long enough to wrap some of his quickly summoned liniments upon the torn flesh on his shoulders and thighs, a hauberk of lamellar and a fine bronze helm brought to his location inside the ring’s library with an act of will, he was ready in less than a minute.
Time enough to get his bearings, cover wounds so they wouldn’t rub against armor, and don thick boots of rawhide over quilted linen leggings that actually served as damn effective armor for cushioning blows and cuts, even if he wasted no time with trying to dig up bronze greaves that he wasn’t quite sure where they might be hiding in the wagon supplies he had seized, so he couldn’t bring them forth with a single thought.
And an eyeblink later he had re-emerged, his earlier chagrin at how close he had come to killing himself with folly now mollified by a fierce sense of vindication.
For the massive boar that he had struggled so hard to put down, the nightmare beast surviving multiple strikes to the eyes and a spear tearing completely through its body had crashed to the ground at last, a massive gaping Alex-sized crater in the shattered remains of its gore-spattered skull.
You have claimed the remains of your kill. You have claimed Greater Beast Core. You have successfully killed Greater Spirit Boar! Experience earned! Quantize growth?
No!
And Alex ignored the coppery stench of blood and offal, the lingering miasma of chaotic Fire and Metal Qi, sparing only a moment to claim his prize before his eyes darted back towards the wagons, struck by vindication and terror in equal measure.
For the pack of spirit boars were now attacking the carriage with wild abandon.
The death of their leader had not quenched their frenzy.
It had only inflamed it.
And Hao Yin’s cries could be heard as Alex used Bullrush to eat up the distance even as it ate into his own Qi reserves, yet he was fiercely proud to sense they were war cries as the kitsune girl used her spear more accurately than Alex would have given her credit for, actually lancing out and plunging it into the maws of leaping, squealin
g spirit boars far more powerfully and adroitly than she possibly could have before their grueling training had forged her in so many ways.
But what really took Alex’s breath away was Hao Chan as the spirit boars flooded the wagon top.
She moved with a grace both frightful and awe inspiring, whipping and weaving around the monsters, Alex surprised to see her using her spear in perfect combination with her sweeping kicks and spinning strikes, somehow weaving effortlessly around Hao Yin as she weaved and struck.
And Alex could sense in that moment the transformation in his friend, her spinning kicks arcing through the air, sending squealing boars flying through the air, striking not solely with a dancer’s deceptively powerful legs, but with the force and fury of a roaring storm.
In those moments she skirted upon the precipice of life and death, she struck with the power and potency of a tidal wave, communing with the very essence of her martial discipline.
And in those moments Alex saw not one trace of the style he had drilled into her so diligently, recalling only in those moments as he raced for the carriage her odd little smile this past week as she used his own art only for defense. But wait. That wasn’t completely true. His throws and wards she had adapted into her art, adapted so perfectly it was no longer a patchwork of styles, but rather somehow an extension of Silver Swan. As if it had always belonged there. Which made perfect sense as he realized in that moment that she hadn’t been learning his Golden Realms so much as taking in its strengths, and making it her own.
For when she redirected a charging boar with her spear it was as the howling wind blowing a ship off course, and when her arcing crane kick sent the squealing beast flying through the air before being impaled on Alex’s own spear, it was as if the beast had been tossed aside by the waves of the sea.
Very much like her rolls and hip tosses had become, far more fluid and graceful than Alex’s had ever been.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reforged: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 2 Page 31