And even then, the gods had taken note, and done their best to destroy them all. He was now certain of it.
He could only hope and pray that the lessons within his cultivation manuals had been what Liu Li had needed to heal her damaged channels and forge meridians strong and true, using the pristine secrets within to ascend to Bronze as powerful as any kitsune, or any other cultivator, could possibly hope to be.
Alex had already gleaned what he could from his prizes, understanding perfectly the lessons of the Void and so many secrets pertaining to Fire, Earth, and Metal Qi between those covers, for all that Shadow had been completely beyond him.
He knew he shouldn’t be surprised by how readily he had grasped such exquisite complexity, for those divine cultivation manuals had been works he and his patron had forged in unison. Or at least, his soul had. But Alex needed more. So much more. He needed to balance not just three but eight Light Qi elements. At least he already knew how to weave unbreakable bonds of Dark Qi that would be the envy of the gods themselves, he dared to think, pristine and perfect with techniques emblazoned upon his mind from his ancient ordeal, the tomes forged by his own spirit and WiFu’s insight, now in the care of Liu Li, his budding mastery of Dark Qi further strengthened by his own uncompromising trials.
But he had to balance such with Light Qi. And for that, he needed access to as many tomes showing various ways of weaving different Light Qi elements as he could get his hands on, as well as tales and legends regarding the three elements Yidushians, at least, didn’t even acknowledge as being part of their five-element paradigm. Lightning, Air, and Spirit. Only then, and with a heck of a lot of insight, could he hope to transcend all expectations and forge an eight-element cultivation technique that transcended the combined Light Qi strands his Eternal Fox used as a proxy for all other elements. Elegant as that solution was, he didn’t have centuries or countless scores of beast cores to forge each Bronze cord that he would need while taking the slow, cautious route.
Eternal Fox Unified Cultivation Technique was an incredibly powerful tool in his arsenal, and his first flickering cord of Dark and Light Qi in constant quantized flux might have been a profound achievement, but he understood all too well its most significant limitations. If he were to ascend in years and not centuries, he needed to focus on forging an Eight Element Dual Path Cultivation Technique and ascending up the ranks of Bronze as fast as he could, while still allowing for a cultivation base that would be the envy of the Heavens themselves.
But such concerns only flickered upon the most peripheral edges of his mind.
At that moment, his heart and soul were focused intently on riding the surging storm of Four Realm spiritual energy for all he was worth, like a desperate surfer riding the most glorious of waves for far too long before eventually crashing upon the shoals of his own exhaustion.
It was only when his furious focus was broken by the desperate cries of women and children in peril that he came back to himself, the spinning ground crashing up to meet him as he saw just a flash of a desperate battle a hundred or so yards back from the main road.
Finesse check success! You are appropriately oriented! Bullrush successfully used to teleport to the ground rising up to meet you with minimal inertia!
You have taken one Light Wound with your fall from the heavens!
Storm Flight Rank 3 achieved! Breakthrough made! You may now travel along ley lines as fast as a phoenix, whether or not foul weather manifests, for nothing matches storms of the heart! Multiple experiences riding along magical conveyances channeling the energies of Heaven, Hades, Earth, and Shadow have allowed you to transcend mortal limits! You have within your possession artifacts of all Four Realms. Peripheral channel strain has been minimized!
Alex frowned as the interface messages flashed across his mind’s eye, gone before they could distract, the knowledge instantly implanting itself within in his mind. He hadn’t heard of ley lines before, but could deduce the meaning readily enough. And it certainly made sense why the trade roads overlapped the ribbons of power slicing right through the forest.
As far as Alex could tell, all trade roads were merely merchants, farmers, and countless travelers taking advantage of nature’s handiwork. Perhaps man had no hand in cleaving away thousands upon thousands of miles worth of perfectly straight roads across the face of this realm. Perhaps it was the intense stream of wild energies pouring out from the earth that repelled the foliage so utterly that the soil had been left bare and eventually eroded away, leaving only a pristine ribbon of stone or hardpacked earth that was perfect for travel.
For a second, he wondered why cultivators didn’t simply cycle the intense, chaotic streams of energy radiating from the road itself before registering the continual stream of Dark Qi mixed with other forms of spiritual energy. It might be just fine for him, and apparently harmless for anyone walking along the road, but no doubt it was not the best place for most cultivators to draw in the spiritual energy all around them, especially when pristine woodland spiritual energy could be embraced and channeled within the lush forests on either side of the road. And it seemed that, save for the ley line itself, the woods suffered no injury from the wild storm of Qi marking the intersection point of multiple realms, as the lush, overhanging forest canopy sheltering travelers from the brilliant noonday sun and the ever-present perfectly ripe fruit did attest.
Chaotic thoughts flickering through his mind in a heartbeat, he shook away his momentary daze and focused on the desperate cries just as short distance away.
Note: your peripheral channels are suffering Mild Strain. You presently have 5 out of a temporary maximum of 13 Qi points that you may access until peripheral channels have been restored. Note: one Pristine Unified Cord has been forged. Exhaustion will no longer result once Qi Pool reaches 0. Peripheral meridian channel damage will continue to accrue.
Alex winced even as he raced toward the desperate cries. Bronze Rank 1 or no, he still had absolutely no desire to drain his peripheral reserves to zero. Besides his recent enlightenment that Adderstrike was so deadly because it relied on internal Qi, and thus was extremely hard for an opponent to spot and counter with active defenses, his own Eternal Fox technique absolutely required an intact peripheral network.
Much to his chagrin, his Silver-tier Storm Flight skill had also tapped into his meridian network, just like Adderstrike and Bullrush did, for all that he was properly accessing the flow of Qi all around him, channeling it through his one forged channel, which was the norm for all cultivators. He assumed it was because he had access to techniques so far out of his league, abilities that would normally require a practitioner to reach Silver, that a significant strain was being put on his peripheral channels, just as if he had been pushing himself too hard, using internal techniques.
At least he could use his Silver Swan finishing move without risk of meridian damage while in the midst of a storm, rare as that was, and he sensed that the peripheral channel strain of Storm Flight would now be minimized for him with his increase in skill rank, so long as he had artifacts of the appropriate realms stored in his ring and traveled along a ley line.
But that breakthrough would do nothing to restore his meridians right now.
The one thing he utterly lacked were Bronze-ranked Qi attacks using one or more elements that, though far easier for gifted foes to counter, wouldn’t strain or drain his limited Qi Pool reserves.
Then his racing thoughts stilled as he beheld the situation before him, the air ringing with the din and cry of battle, guttural roars and agonized shrieks a cacophonous counterpoint to the clash of bronze and steel.
A train of massive wagons filled to bursting with corn, grain, and ripe fruit spilling forth from several imperfectly tied hemp sacks had ground to a halt. Massive oxen-sized horses neighed in frightened panic as half a dozen frightened-looking spearmen desperately fought for their lives against twice that number of hard-eyed bandits. All of them wore similar armor; open-faced helms and lamellar armor of bron
ze or toughened rawhide. The standard armor worn throughout Cuijing Principality, that to Alex looked so very much like the armaments worn during the warring states period in ancient China, back on Earth. Besides greater numbers, the raiders were additionally equipped with either saber-like dao, or axes, along with scutum-like shields that gave them fantastic protection when they charged the cavern guards in unison.
Behind the desperately defending spearmen were a half dozen men and women on the wagons anxiously cranking back their crossbows as their wide, frantic eyes took in the desperate scene below.
If Alex had thought the savages anything other than slavers, the slave collars he saw on the belt of the giant man radiating a cultivator’s strength behind the others left absolutely no doubt. And if he didn’t do something within the next few seconds, the guardsmen would be corpses and the women and children shrieking from the wagons would be slaves in short order.
But Alex was no fool. He knew better than to charge in without at least trying to take the measure of the obvious leader of this band of cutthroats, Alex’s eyes immediately locking on his target, taking a few precious heartbeats to learn all he could, before it was too late.
Soul Sight skill check made! Critical success!
A sudden flash of spiritual insight, and Alex was sickened by how well he could now read his opponent, knowing that if he studied this man for any length of time, his insights would become profound, even as he was forced to wade into this man’s foul psyche with his own.
Alex clenched his jaw and forced himself to do just that, having no doubt he’d need every edge he could get.
“Cut those fools down! Show no mercy!” roared the giant bearded man radiating a powerful Bronze cultivator’s strength and wielding a pair of axes, for all that he seemed happy to let his underlings take all the risks. The vile slaver’s lips widened to show blackened teeth as he beheld a particularly lush looking girl gazing at the frantic battle before their wagons with a look of sheer horror, a young infant held protectively to her generous breasts.
The leader of this band of cutthroats caught her gaze. He mimed throttling her infant and thrust his hips at her, his meaning utterly clear.
She paled and screamed, soft brown eyes glittering in sudden hate.
He met her grin with his own. “It will be good breaking you with whip and collar, wench! Tell me which man is yours,” he said, pointing at the desperate battle with his left-hand axe glittering with potent runes. “I shall make sure to keep him alive until I’ve ravished you to a broken husk, then I’ll cut off his head so he may watch me take you for as many nights as it takes to bleed you dry before I discard your broken corpse like all the others I’ve claimed before you!”
A boast so vile and shocking it froze the defenders.
The slaver chuckled coldly as yet another victim was cut down. Just as he had intended. “Soon it will be time to claim the prizes of war!” he roared, before his smirk turned to a wide-eyed look of furious disbelief when Alex made his presence known.
“A Ruidian hunter! They dare to interfere? Cut him down, fools! Cut him down now!”
The slavers were well trained, over half their number leaving the furious melee with the desperate defenders, their victory all but a foregone conclusion.
The head slaver Fu Shen, his name now clearly sensed upon the ether, felt an odd sensation crawling up the back of his throat as the young hunter’s ice blue eyes captured his own for a single heartbeat, a shimmering fangtian ji suddenly appearing in the youth’s hand before cleaving through the air with chilling speed. The Ruidian never shifted his gaze as Fu Shen’s men roared and charged as one, all of them suddenly blinking in consternation as their foe seemed to disappear before their eyes.
Fu Shen furrowed his brow, a single silent command sending his infernal familiar to do his bidding. There was a cost, but it was a powerful trump card to make sure this strange abomination fell before Fu Shen’s might, just like everyone else who had ever dared to cross him.
A decision he felt all the better for when first one, then another, and yet another of his men collapsed in dying heaps as the Ruidian’s deadly polearm cut into their ranks from behind in veritable explosions of blood and gore. Within heartbeats, half his men were shrieking for cleaved limbs, or silent save for fountains of blood spurting from neck stumps before Fu Shen could take more than a half dozen lurching steps back.
Expert shield rams were countered with lazy dodges and sweeping kicks that sent his men crashing to the ground in dazed heaps before the Ruidian’s deadly ji whistled through the air, effortlessly cleaving open their skulls. Swings both wild and calculated were skillfully parried by a polearm shaft that showed no sign of nicks or warping as their foe expertly used his two handed leverage to wind his weapon around their helpless parries before tearing out throats or using the weapon’s crescent axe heads to yank back reinforced shields before ramming forward with the razor sharp point, blasting through open-faced helmets and sending yet another pair of slavers crashing to the ground in their final death spasms.
The Ruidian was clearly a master of his weapon, combining what the infernal cultivator recognized as not one but several martial systems into one deadly, unified whole, winding thrusts knocking aside desperate defenses before tearing bloody holes in his men. Vicious straight kicks, perfectly timed, sent his soldiers crashing to the ground with sickening snaps as legs bent the wrong way, leaving the broken fools in such shrieking agony they almost welcomed the death coming for them just moments later, that dreadful fangtian ji whistling through the air with such terrible force and fury that Fu Shen couldn’t help but imagine the power of a roaring waterfall raining metal shrapnel, tearing his men to shreds.
The Ruidian had painted the verdant grass all around them an arterial shade of crimson, the smell of blood and gore a thick miasma in the air.
Fu Shen suddenly recognized that awful sour taste in the back of his throat, the painful hammering in his chest.
What he felt was fear.
For the first time since he left the corrupted academy filled with jaded monks and cultivators who had set him upon his path of blood and darkest glory, after teaching him everything he knew.
He had done everything right. Sending his master half his profits and any slave with a lick of cultivation talent, avoiding fortified towns, preying upon the weakest villages who had no choice but to send their wagons guarded by no more than a double handful of men.
And sometimes far less.
Those were the times Fu Shen savored most of all.
And for successful hauls of grain and collared women and children, his men would each earn rights to savor at least one of the farm-wives forever accompanying their husbands, foolish enough to think their training was a match for Fu Shen’s own.
And everything had been going as perfectly as the sweetest blood dream imaginable.
Until now.
His breath was coming in wheezing gasps he refused to call terror as the defending spearmen, courage renewed, beat back his own men. But Fu Shen knew his fellow slavers were more than capable of regrouping and tearing through the defender’s desperate final stand within seconds.
Were it not for the blue-eyed demon who had flashed Fu Shen a single icy smile like a deadly promise before spinning around with a spine-chilling roar, freezing his men in mortal terror, which led to three of them suffering mild spear gashes from desperate defenders that would have meant absolutely nothing, if not for the blond-haired demon cleaving open the head of first one, then a second loyal soldier, just as easily as Fu Shen himself had once smashed open blood fruit during the days he had trained back at his master’s monastery.
But when the Ruidian spun around, covered in a brilliant crimson patina of blood and flashing Fu Shen the same dark, bloodthirsty smile he had practiced in the mirror so often himself, the Bronze slaver suddenly understood what his mind had stubbornly refused to accept.
A foolish error that had cost him most of his men, never mind the impossi
bility.
This Ruidian could cultivate.
The dearly paid for blood charms that would diffuse the rare jeweled Ruidian’s strange magics were useless against one that fought as a true body cultivator.
The Ruidian smiled, not even taking his eyes off Fu Shen when two of his men roared and charged as one.
He abruptly slammed back with the butt end of his polearm, not even bothering to look in the direction of Fu Shen’s ambushing men as the spiked end of the shimmering fangtian ji plunged into a startled Piglet’s mouth, shattering all his teeth before blasting right through the back of his skull.
It was a chilling sight. Almost as if the Ruidian could sense everyone on the battlefield without even looking their way.
And the cold smile that grew even wider the moment that realization struck Fu Shen…
Almost as if the abomination was reading his very mind.
Fu Shen clenched his teeth. Piglet had always been too eager to attack, never keeping his shield raised with the discipline of a Legion soldier. A mistake that had just cost the fool his life. And how the Ruidian had measured his opponent so well, deducing their weaknesses in heartbeats, when it had taken Fu Shen many sessions to understand the strengths and weaknesses of his own men…
Fu Shen shook away the cold fingers of dread slithering about his spine with a bloodcurdling roar, sending a silent command to his familiar as he charged forward with his own pair of axes.
He was a fool to have let fear claim him for even a moment. He knew the art of reading his opponent, and his axes were death. Best of all, his Rusted Mountain body cultivation technique meant that any opponent’s strikes would damage him no worse than his foes chipping away at a mountain. And he had never been so foolish as to leave his back exposed to anyone.
Best of all, the bastard’s polearm was now firmly embedded in Piglet, and Five-Ox was about to cut him down. And no matter how well he had mastered his weapon, the Ruidian, who certainly could be no more than a basic cultivator with a few malformed channels open, thanks only to a dozen generations of Ruidian harlots filling their wombs with the seed of the chosen people, was no match for Five-Ox and Fu Shen working together.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior's Oath: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 4 Page 14
