For the next three days Musa, Lily and Mark flew around the surrounding mountain ranges while scouting for signs of a potential beast tide. Most of the other students kept cultivating or practicing their combat techniques while Leo and Alice ran around the forests, hunting deer and feasting to no end. He showed her ways the ‘regular mortals’ hunted, laid traps as well as the basics of cooking, but the last part was completely redundant.
Alice was an alchemist and a very talented one at that. She picked up the few tricks of cooking Leo knew in a day and soon began suggesting new ideas to him what made the youth feel confused, perplexed and ashamed at the same time. He practiced Jamie’s teachings for years while, according to his own understanding, perfecting the cooking skills until they became probably his greatest asset or at least a skill set the other students in the academy didn’t possess.
Since Leo couldn’t compete with his peers in combat, to not speak of rune crafting or alchemy, he kind of consoled himself he was better at least in something. But Alice ruthlessly destroyed the illusion, although she didn’t do it on purpose.
The only positive was that she wasn’t as invested in the cooking process as Leo and mostly theorized about the subject, thus his ego wasn’t completely destroyed and he was still the cook around here. Of course, he cooked only for the two of them and sometimes for Musa, but the rest still looked at him with contempt and sometimes jealousy because of the Alice’s friendly attitude, of course.
When three days later the leaders were done with the investigation, the squad returned to Dzhurun to teleport back to the academy. Most were disappointed at the lack of action, but Leo felt like he could go like this for months. Somewhat it felt like the time he spent with Anna in Dreadlands, except this time he was the one who taught hunting to the girl.
To Alice this was the most fun vacation she had in her life. In fact, this was what she dreamt of from the time they listened to Leo’s stories in the King’s kitchen.
“Looks like the beast tides aren’t that bad!” She said with a wide smile before the teleportation was initiated, “I can’t wait until the next deployment!”
After the familiar white light blinded everyone for a split moment and the students regained their vision right after, Alice, similar to the rest, paled in shock. The academy’s teleportation square was in chaos – students with blood marks rushing everywhere, some being carried away on stretchers, everyone shouting, giving and receiving orders at the same time. It was as if the academy was at war and this was the doorstep of a field hospital.
“Move!” Elder Ulano’s bark reminded the squad this was the reality.
Leo and the rest stepped off the platform and Musa arrived next to the elder in an instant. He said, “Musa’s squad reporting from Taipaq! There were no suspicious activities. We’ve ...”
“Ok, you’ll …” Elder intended to give an order without listening to the end of the report, but was interrupted by a flash of light indicating the arrival of another squad.
This time Leo’s jaw literally dropped. Seven people arrived, all of them covered in blood from head to toe, including the three at the Nascent soul stage. Two of the group, Kevin and Harold, looking worn out and miserable, carried a stretcher where lie remains of someone unrecognizable, but the pile of limbs and pieces of flesh made Leo think there lie more than one person. While the two youths had multiple crudely bandaged wounds, the other two non-Nascent souls stage guys in the group were even missing a limb each.
“What the f*ck!” Dante, one of Leo’s squad members murmured, “That’s Diego’s squad! They’re the f*cking strongest bunch!”
“Just what the hell happened …” His friend Hiro asked a rhetorical question.
“Musa, your orders!” Elder Ulano turned to Musa the moment Kevin and the rest stepped off the platform, “You’re to go to Zhetikara and help with the cleanup. Get back when you’re done.”
Apart from the destination, the orders were vague, but apparently Musa didn’t need more details. He beckoned to his group and few moments later they teleported again.
Before Leo’s vision adjusted, he felt a hot and dry gust of wind hit his face. Turns out this place was in a completely different region compared to Dzhurun, in fact, it seemed they arrived in the middle of a desert.
“Which way to Zhetikara?” Musa asked the person who was likely the leader of the guards stationed around the platform.
“South-east.” He plainly said pointing his spear the way he and his colleagues were currently staring at. Obviously they’ve seen the injured arrive from there and were anxious for not being able to provide an actual help.
“Move!” Musa commanded and this time the squad moved at the triple the pace they used to have.
Leo even hid the Cleaver in the amulet in order to not tire himself too much on the way since he had no clue how far the city was and he was positive they’ll have to fight upon reaching the destination.
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There was no real road and the squad traversed sandy dunes until the sunset when the ground turned more and more solid and batches of dry grass indicated the desert was finally left behind. When the stars began to light up in the sky, the group saw the first palm trees and soon the first buildings of Zhetikara.
The suburbs at north-east side they arrived from looked undisturbed and seemed normal except for the lack of people on the streets. The small clay shacks were obviously home to the poor people of the city, but even though the buildings here were damaged by the sun and wind, there were no signs of external artificial damage.
Suddenly Leo felt a fain feeling of unease and at the same time Musa stopped the squad. He, Lily and Mark rose high above the rooftops, observed the surroundings and had a quick discussion.
A moment later they returned and Musa said, “Split! Reconvene after we’re done! Leo, you’re on your own!”
Before Leo could react, he was left alone in the middle on an empty street and the next gust of wind brought over a thick smell of blood, explaining the reason for his earlier uneasiness. Apparently the beast tide arrived to the city that stood on the border between the desert and the jungle and a huge struggle broke out.
Leo couldn’t quite understand how a pack of beasts could threaten a city defended by cultivators some of whom were surely at the Nascent soul stage. It didn’t make sense, but Kevin’s and his groups condition were still vivid in his memory.
‘I’m on my own, huh?’ Leo sarcastically snickered to himself.
The situation was not something he had to get used to, thus Leo went with the usual routine. He nimbly jumped on the nearest shack, from that to the building next to it, took a look around and marked the tallest building in the neighborhood. Afterwards he rushed there, climbed at the top of it and observed the surroundings.
After reaching the Core formation stage, his eyesight had improved significantly, but no matter what direction he stared, he couldn’t see any beasts or people for that matter. There were few tiny flying figures in the distance, probably a couple miles away, thus after a short consideration Leo chose that direction.
He continued to advance by jumping from one rooftop to another, but after three or four blocks a distant scream attracted Leo’s attention. When he found the spot few moments later, it was already too late. A bunch of monkeys, in the size of a regular baboon, had gotten through a barricaded door and wiped out a large family.
There were six beasts in total, but they were only rank four and Leo quickly dealt with them. The strange thing about them was the crazed manner of fighting – it was as if someone had taken away their natural instincts and replaced it with one drive – to kill people.
After quickly dealing with monkeys, purely out of habit, Leo removed their beast cores and got back on the rooftop. He did consider burying the family, but realized there might be another one in distress that was not wiped out yet.
Either because he was alone or the monkeys really didn’t have any instincts of self preservation left, before midnight Leo met over a dozen more groups of low ranked beasts and wiped out all of them. He knew that these were the ‘small fries’ and his squad was surely fighting more dangerous foes, but there was no way he would complain.
Even though Leo wanted some challenge, there was no one at the Nascent soul stage watching over him and remembering the guys with the missing limbs from Kevin’s group, he decided to take things slow. Theoretically a cultivator at the Core foundation stage can regrow the missing parts of their bodies, but that was a difficult and long process. In addition, it involved a detail knowledge of a human anatomy which Leo lacked.
It all went well, until he got tackled to the ground from the rooftop of a three story building. For an instant it all felt so familiar, except this time he was not as helpless as twelve years ago.
The beast that attacked him was slightly smaller compared to the silver-back ape patriarch and contrary to the patriarch was at least rank six. It even didn’t get dazed after the fall, but immediately got back up and charged at Leo anew. The youth, purely out of habit, got the Cleaver from the amulet and … well … cleaved the ape in halves before even clearly seeing how the beast looked like or what it was, but in the dark of the night it was impossible anyway.
The difference between the puny rank fours and the one at the rank six was enormous though. Leo was killing the smaller monkeys like flies, but this one managed to react to his attack and fell back.
Not far enough though. The tip of the Cleaver horizontally cut its abdomen and the innards spilled on the dusty street, filling it with a disgusting smell. Leo realized he didn’t finish the beast in a single blow and immediately followed with another that it tried to block with one of its hands which inevitably got cut off.
Finally the pain registered in the beast’s brain and it let out a deafening howl and, while Leo considered if it will attract the attention of other cultivators, few more shadows almost silently landed on the street and immediately charged at him while the first beast continued to howl in a terrible agony.
In his short life Leo had fought a plethora of beasts – from wrestling the silver-back ape children to killing greenladers and the huge snake-headed beasts. But he never had to fight several rank six beasts at the same time and in a pitch black darkness at that. While the starry sky provided some light while he was running on the rooftops, the street between the buildings had almost no lighting at all.
‘Sigh … If only my fire element hadn’t mutated …’ Leo complained to himself, ‘I could easily turn my weapon into a flaming torch and kill the bastards in style …’
No matter how strong his own techniques were or how amazing were those of other cultivators, Lyam’s Fire claw had always remained Leo’s favorite. He had considered infusing his own weapon with the lightning Qi, but knowing he could destroy weapons by using lighting, he was weary his own could break that way.
Suddenly Leo got an idea. When the next beast attacked, he hid the Cleaver in the amulet and punched in the beast’s face while releasing a large burst of Qi through the knuckles. The move resulted in an actual discharge of lighting that for a split moment blinded the beast, but the Leo already kicked it in the chest with his good old Lightning kick.
Actually this was nothing new – he frequently used his own techniques from the ‘Lightning’ series, only now infused them with much larger amounts of lightning Qi. The blinding flashes were not the only bonus – after connecting a punch or a kick it had a short numbing or even paralyzing effect, depending on the spot he managed to hit, that considerably slowed the target down.
Unfortunately there was also a downside. Leo’s position now was not only given away by the sound of the brawl – the lightning flashes were clearly visible at the other ends of the street and worked as a beacon, inviting the beasts from over all and they came running like moths into the fire. In no time Leo counted nine opponents, but a couple of them were only at rank five and he managed to dispose of them first.