I shot to my feet and freed my sword in the same motion; my sheathe fell to the ground; Littlebird shot into the entrance of the maintenance tunnel, flying by me.
A wet wall of flesh and teeth slammed into the entrance a moment later, sealing the way out. Hot saliva splattered onto me as it heaved, stinking breath rolling into the cave. I shaped the Anti-Lightning Herald sword technique, calling for it, and it answered.
My sword cut the exposed flesh inside of the monster. Red hot blood splattered out and stained my arm, seeping. It almost seemed to bite at me, foreign qi rich in the blood fighting mine.
The monster screamed. I ripped my sword free and staggered backwards.
With a groan and the sound of scraping stone, the monster closed its mouth, pulling free a few loose bricks from the wall in the tunnel. Dirt and blood and spit dripped from its mouth as it stepped back, staring into the tunnel with a gigantic, shining eye.
[Omen Alligator, Middle Third Realm Water/Life Spiritbeast]
The monster’s massive eye blinked. With exposed teeth, it crept back to the tunnel and sniffed.
“It followed me this far?” I asked. “Or is this a different one?”
I stabbed at it from the safety of the tunnel. My sword glanced off its scales, deflected by the qi infusing its flesh. Its mouth had been weak. The rest of its body wasnt.
I staggered back. It tried to bite the entrance again, but it was too big to fit. The Omen Alligator took two steps away from the entrance… and sat down. I pressed myself against the back wall.
I couldn’t cut the monster.
It had stepped into the Middle Third Realm. The Third Realm was composed of three tempers; it had tempered at least its body, and possibly its mind, judging by its intelligence.
The body temper, which involved reinforcing a set of Four Meridians to match the element of a Path and reinforced Dantian, greatly reduced the ability to harm a cultivator or spirit-beast. I would need to overpower its qi or deplete its dantian. And in the Third Realm, its reserves would be massive. None of my stats expanded the amount of qi I had, and I had no ranged attacks to strike it.
I was stuck here.
“Are you alright?” I asked Littlebird. I didn’t turn away from the Omen Alligator.
Littlebird landed on my shoulder and screamed a set of chirps toward the Alligator. The Alligator let a low growl roll out of its throat. I leaned down, picked up my scabbard, and headed up the tiny set of stairs that led to the top of the canopy above the Stormwall Road.
Very slowly, I leaned over the man sized hole that led down to the alligator.
It snapped up instantly, jaw shutting only a few feet below the hole before it fell back to the ground with a thud, where growled. The alligator jumped and thrashed below me. I stepped back. It couldn’t jump high enough to reach me. Definitely Mind and Body temper.
I turned the other way and investigated how far the tunnel went. It took a few minutes to reach the end. Someone or something had carved this place out of the dirt, and it ended abruptly in the dark. I turned back.
Would the Alligator leave eventually? Had it followed me all the way here, or was this a second one?
Could I get away if I landed?
Yes, but it would catch up again. I needed to deal with it. Or get something else to deal with it.
I could jump down, activating [Death’s Descent,] but I doubted it had the damage to kill or seriously injure the monster in one blow. If I hadn’t already injured it, I could use [One Cut, One kill.] I leaned over the hole again, staring at the Alligator. It stopped jumping for me. Instead it squinted menacingly. There was a dribble of spit and blood leaking from its mouth; the inside of its body wasn’t as reinforced as the outside.
Trying to stab into its open mouth seemed unwise.
“Let’s wait.” I told Littlebird, who flapped his wings over the edge, chirping loudly at the Alligator. “It wont just sit around here waiting for a meal forever, right?”
I could afford to wait half a day. I did just eat. Maybe it had been attracted by the smell of food. I eyed the raw meat sitting to the side of the alligator. It seemed completely disinterested in that meat; it wanted me. The alligator’s tail slapped the ground as it stared up at me.
It couldn’t just wait there for days, could it?
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Rainshadow Long held up a hand to forestall his subordinate’s advance. The Stormwall road curved ahead of them, stabbing through the mountain. It was impossible to see what laid ahead.
Long sensed danger. His cultivator’s intuition rarely failed him. Neither did his senses. Half way into the Third Realm, refined of Body and Spirit, he could smell, of all things, cooked meat. The smell was minuscule, fighting against the rain and mud and turned earth. But it was there.
“Do you smell that?” Long said. He spoke loudly to be heard over the rain and through the opaque black veil that covered his face. His Thunderfists were dressed similarly, flowing robes ready to resist the ever-present weather of the Stormwall.
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One of the Thunderfists leaned forward visibly, head bobbing as they tried to perceive what Long did.
“Rain?” The man asked, turning to Long.
Long slapped the man.
“If you have nothing intelligent to say, be quiet.”
Years of living surrounded by uneducated bandits nearly made him long to return the military. Its Captains almost all came from Noble families or martial schools; people of respect and pedigree.
“Someone is camped ahead. It could be Feng Sai or another Scion. I do not know how they crossed the destroyed bridge, but it is unimportant. Enter formation and prepare to fight.”
The Thunderfists moved ahead of him, four soldiers in a line. Two remained behind him, guarding his flank. It wasn’t the most effecient way to use his own fighting power. But the men would act as shields. Who knew what dirty tools and cheats the Scion who had killed his Second in command wielded?
They rode forward. The walls pressed in on them like an arena. Like a deathtrap.
The formation stopped as they beheld the Spirit-beast lurking in the tunnel. It turned toward them, blinking, almost docile. Its tail slapped agianst the stone brick of the road with a repetitive thud.
Long wondered how many Scions of the Grim Tempest this beast had devoured. The world dimmed as he focused his perception on the qi of the monster. Its cultivation didn’t seem inferior to his own. He smiled beneath his hood, the hunger and greed befitting a cultivator sparking to life inside of him.
The beast’s core would have an incredible value. Enough to fuel his city for months.
“After I sell your core I’ll mount your head to my walls. You’re worth your weight in gold.”
Long tilted his head to the side, trying to figure out which two reinforcements the Spiritbeast had. If it had tempered its Mind, it would be intelligent enough to run away from a group of seven men. That left Spirit and Body. A Spiritbeast wouldn’t be able to call forth a variety of techniques like a cultivator, but in exchange, the techniques ingrained in its very meridians would be much more powerful.
He leaned back in his Waxenmare as the front four Thunderfists dismounted.
For the first time, the Alligator turned to look at them. It’s scales, an ocean blue, glinted off the yellow lights in the darkened tunnel. The Alligator maintained the slick appearence of being wet, as if it were still in the rain. Definitely Water attribute.
“Did you eat any Noble brats recently?” Long asked. His voice echoed in the tunnel between the slap, slap, slap of the Omen Alligator’s tail. The Alligator stared down, almost imperious. “No matter. I’ll find out when we cut open your stomach.”
The Alligator growled as the Thunderfists fanned out, forming a formation with blades extended. When they closed around it, the first technique erupted.
In the closed tunnel, the force of the concussive wave erupted with the sound of an explosion. Dust and debris scattered out as the wave of force-qi slammed into the side of the Alligator and met a flash of blue, water attribute qi. The tempered Body, reinforcing a set of four meridians, created a practical shield that would reinforce and protect the Alligator until its qi bottomed out.
Not as powerful as someone entering the Foundation Establishment realm. Long sneered. The depth of the monster’s Dantian could never hope to match that of seven entire opponents.
With a flash of blue, the Alligator swam forward, swimming through the air. Its jaw opened and shut.
The first man to land a blow was gone. There wasn’t even a scream. Just the wet noise of flesh and bone ripping.
The other three paused their attacks, stepping backwards. One bumped into the wall. The Alligator growled.
“You can’t intimidate a man like that, beast. Attack it again. It can’t use that technique often.” Long said. He flexed his poorly controlled Aura, an effect gained at the tempering of Spirit. It would remind his men that the bigger threat was at their own back. And they knew he wouldn’t tolerate failure.
Thunderfist technique’s erupted as the men stepped forward, concussive blows shocking the side of the Alligator and erupting against waves of blue qi that splashed off the side of the beast as its body tempering defended its flanks. The Alligator flailed, failing to find purchase with its jaws on the cultivators who constantly circled around it.
Long counted the seconds since it used its movement technique. Spiritbeasts techniques were much stronger, but suffered many weaknesses; alongside the limited utility of any Spiritbeast technique, they offered suffered long periods before the beast could use them.
The Alligator flashed blue across its entire body once more. It bit at a Thunderfist who dove out of the way, screaming as the jaw closed on his arm. At the same time, its tail flicked out, slamming a Thunderfist into the brick and killing him. Long felt the man’s qi flicker as his meridians dispersed uncontrolled key into the air.
He was dead.
Only four good fighters remained, including Long.
Long slid from the back of his Waxenmare and drew his sword. His spear was made to fight beasts, but he would need the channeled sword technique to carve through its body tempering.
He watched with hungry intensity as the blue qi that shielded the Alligator from harm began to dim with each clash. He stood far from the fight, waiting for the beast to display any last, desperate tricks. It didn’t. This movement technique and its defensive power seemed to be all it had. A genius would have been able to glean inspiration from the defensive technique of the beast. But Long had no need; he had been taught all he needed from the army.
His own water qi movement technique took shape in his legs and lower body. At the same time, the aura around his arm began to hum
The Spiritbeast dashed again, slamming a Thunderfist cultivator into the wall. It growled in distress. Long could tell its qi reserves were growing pitifully low. There was a rumble of thunder. Qi formed a cloud through Long’s path as he shot forward, riding the storm. His blade was a flash of lightning, glowing through his externalized technique.
It hit the resistance of the alligator’s qi… and continued through it.
The beast roared in pain as the sword carved a gash through its flank. Long smiled wickedly beneath his hood, but his movement technique wasn’t over yet. The black clouds that surrounded his feet flowed to the side. He carried himself over, the blade cutting a line that stretched through the Omen Alligator, severing a leg. It recoiled backward, but was unable to resist.
Long smiled as the protective shield of qi flickered out and died. The alligator rolled back in pain. He could finish it now… but he loved the noise of distress it made.
“I’ll have two teach three entirely new Thunderfists thanks to you.” Long said, taking a derisive look at the Thunderfist missing an arm. He was clutching his own shoulder, crying against the wall. He would likely have to throw that cultivator away. The alligator roared.
Long stabbed into it viciously and repeteadily, thrusts that pierced its scaled side. Between each thrust he mocked it.
“Beasts should just lie down and die. Know your place, as the inferior of humanity.”
Its body was so huge that even after stabbing it a dozen times it still lived. Its blood pooled as it thrashed, trying to balanced on its new leg. Long simply slapped its face away with the flat of his blade when it tried to retaliate, slowly backing down deeper into the tunnel. Eventually the Alligator stopped fighting back, whining and panting miserably. Long stopped, not wanting to bottom out his qi reserved.
Long raised his sword for the finishing blow, completed uninjured. It only cost him three men.