The lunging beast collided with the flat of the blade. The shock of the impact sent Muchen staggering backwards, thankfully towards the relative safety of his team's position. He managed to extend his arms and force the snarling mutated head away from him. It was still closer than he would like, but he'd managed to create just enough space for the nearby swordsman to take a swipe at it.

The sword hit with a clang, not finding a weak spot nor smashing through the beast's armor, but striking with enough force to dislodge it from Muchen's knife. The monster let its upper body fall to the ground and slithered backward to a safe distance, waiting for its next chance to strike.

Muchen took a few shaky breaths to calm himself, then took a look at the overall situation. The group of four was still doing a fine job keeping the center of the clearing free of monsters. As he watched, Shuchang finished his duel with one of the beasts by stabbing through its open mouth. The spear burst out through the chitin covering the top of its skull and the segments of its body slumped down, one by one.

Shuchang lowered his weapon to let the monster slide free, then looked up and caught Muchen's eye. Gesturing for him to follow, the two of them made their way over to the other side of the formation. There, another swordsman was caught up in a dangerous dance with two of the monsters, using threatening slashes at their vulnerable points to slow them down just enough that he was able to dance out of the way of any serious hits.

Well, mostly. As Muchen and Shuchang arrived the man leaned back away from one of the monsters that had whipped its entire upper body around in an attack. He dodged the hammer blow but was caught by surprise as the legs on that side of the monster's body reached out to grab his arm. The monster levered itself around, bringing its snout down to deliver a fatal bite.

Shuchang interrupted it by bringing his spear around in a home run swing. He wasn't aiming to cause any fatal damage, but the blow struck home with a crack that echoed across the clearing and sent the monster tumbling off to the side.

"We've got this one," Shuchang instructed the man. "Keep the other one busy."

The swordsman responded with a nod before stepping out of the way. Muchen moved in Shuchang's wake as he stepped forward to challenge the downed beast.

That first hit had disoriented the monster for a moment, but it didn't take long to gather its bearings. Its chittering shriek took on a jeering tone as it righted itself and pulled its upper body off the ground in what Muchen was starting to recognize as the monsters' attack stance.

Shuchang didn't waste time. As soon as he stepped within range he began probing its defenses with a series of quick jabs. The monster only dodged perhaps one attack in four, although the light hits skittered harmlessly over its chitin.

"You ready?" Shuchang asked. It seemed he had its measure.

"Ready," Muchen confirmed.

The next stab was lightning quick. The monster, caught off guard by the lulling rhythm of his opening flurry, was far too late to react. Shuchang's spear struck true, digging deep enough into the beast's midsection to control its movement for the next few moments.

If he were alone, the result would be a gruesome stalemate. The spear was great for keeping an opponent at bay and controlling the battlefield, but against something that was hardy enough to shrug off having a foot of metal buried in its guts, finishing the fight was a challenge.

Fortunately, Suchang wasn't alone. Muchen stepped forward as soon as the monster was under control. Again he aimed for the relatively stable target, a few inches above where the spear was stuck in. Again he mobilized his spiritual energy. And again his knife smashed home, this time carving almost the whole way through the monster's body.

Part of Muchen wanted to try and force it the rest of the way. He resisted the impulse, instead wrenching his weapon free and taking a step back, on guard for sneak attacks. The monster was well on its way to dying, and this was no tourney ground, where stylistic flourishes earned points from the judges. This was a battlefield where Muchen's most important goal was to survive.

With their initial charge blunted and their numbers whittled down, the monsters weren't able to bring nearly as much pressure to their formation. Muchen and Shuchang shuttled from side to side, cutting down monsters wherever they went. After what felt like hours but had probably been only a few minutes, the humans stood alone in a clearing covered with the blood and guts of inhuman monstrosities.

Muchen found himself breathing heavily as he stood and surveyed the carnage. Xinyi had trained him with fearsome intensity, but even her enthusiastic instruction couldn't quite replicate the thrill and exertion of a life and death battle. Now that it was over his legs were shaking and he wanted nothing more than to sit down and just ignore the world for a while.

His arm ached. He hadn't noticed during the fight, but the stress of swinging his knife over and over again as hard as he could had taken a toll on his body. He rolled his shoulder. Everything felt like it was still working fine, just a little stressed from overwork.

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Muchen scraped the worst of the gunk off his knife using the tall grass before tying his weapon to his side. He followed the lead of his fellow hunters and grabbed handfuls of grass to scrape the ichor off his skin as best he could. He didn't remember when he got splattered with so much of the stuff. It was disgusting, but all in all it beat the alternative.

Once they'd had a few minutes to clean themselves up, Shuchang called them in for another impromptu meeting.

"Good job everybody," Shuchang said, before nodding to Muchen. "For a merchant, you've got a hell of a right arm."

Muchen smiled at the praise. Nothing about this encounter made him want to earn his living on the battlefield, but it was still nice to have his contribution acknowledged.

"We need to hurry back to the first body, then start scouting out beyond it," Shuchang said. "A whole group like that... we either tripped over their nest, or they were digging up some kind of treasure."

Muchen took one last look around the clearing before he fell in line with the rest of the group. The unnatural monsters of the northern wastes were disgusting abominations, but in death they became valuable materials. These fox-centipede hybrids, for example, were covered in light and flexible armor that could resist attacks from low level cultivators.

Muchen didn't want to carve the chitin off of their bodies and strap it to himself for protection, but if the stuff were worked by somebody who knew what they were doing into a proper set of armor, it could be quite valuable. It was hard to abandon the prize sitting in front of him, even if they would try and grab it later.

He consoled himself with thoughts of the bigger score ahead. For Shuchang to drop the idea of harvesting the spoils from the battlefield, the prize must be a juicy one indeed.

Their ground eating lope was quicker than the pace they'd set when first entering the unknown, but wasn't quite up to the speed they'd put on when fleeing from the pack of monsters. Even so, Muchen didn't think it would take more than a few minutes to reach their destination.

Thanks to his diligent efforts at cultivating, Muchen was able to recover and catch his breath even while on the move. He was even able to hold an ordinary conversation without breaking stride.

"What's so special about the nest?" he asked.

"Monsters like that need a special sort of nourishment," Shuchang said. "They gather whatever treasures they find and hoard them in their nest, using the energy they give off to grow stronger."

"What sort of treasure?" Muchen asked. He wasn't too enthusiastic about taking home a material that monsters used to grow into stronger monsters. At the end of the day, though, if there was a market for a good then he was willing to trade in it.

"Could be anything," Shuchang said. "A stronger monster's bones, some kind of spiritual fruit, maybe even a spirit stone."

Muchen raised an eyebrow at that. Every spirit stone mine he'd ever heard of—and they were precious few in number—was the core property of a major sect. Each individual spirit stone was worth a hundred taels of silver or more. A mine represented an unimaginable amount of wealth. The idea that you could just walk around in the northern wastes and pick them up was hard to swallow.

Shuchang laughed upon seeing his skepticism. "There's a reason so many people make these trips into the wastes. You never know what you'll find."

Muchen shrugged and returned his attention to the jog. While the screeching pack of monsters had done a good job of scaring away any little nuisances that might have impeded their progress, there was no telling when other dangers might try to sneak their way back in. Or, for that matter, if some larger monster that saw those fox-centipede things as a good meal might decide to try its luck

A rustle in the undergrowth as they ran by had Muchen's heart in his throat, but was soon revealed to be a small woodland creature fleeing at their approach. The flicker of motion at the edge of his vision was just a tree branch, moving in the wind. It felt like they ran through countless potential ambushes, but in the end they reached the beast's home without having to fight for it.

Muchen's sense of triumph was subsumed by unease as he gazed upon the monstrosity before him. It was a misshapen, lumpy hill, about the height of a man, dark gray in color and covered all over with strange, misshapen lumps. As he drew closer, he saw that it was built out of some kind of clay, its surface still glistening with moisture.

"It's not much to look at, but the prizes are worth the trouble," Shuchang said. He drew a shovel from his pack, before gesturing at a hole, about half the height of a child, carved into the side of the mound. "We'll have to take it apart, unless you want to crawl inside."

Muchen suppressed a shudder. He'd lived a comfortable life so far without crawling into the unlit dens of mutated, magical insects. He had no interest in breaking that streak now. He followed the lead of the rest of the group, pulling his shovel from his pack before setting the rest of what he'd been carrying to the side. He kept his weapon strapped to his side, of course.

He stepped forward and plunged the shovel into the side of the hill. It slid home with a heavy slurp. It got stuck a few inches in, forcing Muchen to put some effort in to drive the blade through the heavy clay. The stuff stuck together as he levered the shovel out, tearing free a scoop of muck. He went to toss it aside, only to find that it was now sticking to his shovel. He took a few steps to the side and scraped the mud off on the ground, then sighed. This was going to be a long day.

Or maybe not. As Muchen went back for his second scoop of muck, a shape came darting out of the tunnel. It was another oversized, mutated insect. This one looked like a silverfish the size of a small child, sticking close to the ground and moving like a flash of lightning. A pair of human-seeming arms stuck out from the middle of its torso, clutching something close to its body as it darted into the open.

Muchen dropped his shovel and drew his knife, ready to defend himself. The monster took one look at the group of them and let out a surprised hiss before it turned and ran away.

Shuchang reacted the fastest. He heaved back and let fly with his spear. It flew straight and true, missing the body of the fleeing insect but crashing through one of its rear legs. The monster let out a screech of pain and stumbled, still moving fast despite being down a leg.

It threw out one of those unnatural arms for balance. The desperate move was enough for it to right itself and pick up speed as it fled. It also revealed a bright blue glow, originating from a fist sized object clutched in its other hand.