In front of the giant octopus and crab were several long-necked beasts staring in their direction. They were giant birds with threatening presences. Their eyes focused on the cooking food instead of the two spirit beasts who planned on defending it.
‘Take food.’
‘Easy food.’
‘Get food.’
And they started running towards the cooking fishes. Their speed was quick and their long legs carried dangerously sharp talons on the edge of their feet. Hard steel-like beaks with long slobbery tongues hanging out their mouths. It was obvious that they were carnivorous birds from the way they greedily eyed the fishes. Nothing else was on their mind except the tantalizing smell of the slowly cooking meat.
Quon stepped up first and floated in front of the herd of desert birds. He used all eight of his tentacles like whips and slapped every large bird that he flew past. Each bird he slapped with his tentacles squawked out in horrible pain and almost instantly dropped to the sand, unable to move a single inch from the terrible pain. Quon’s speed was fast enough to keep up with the flightless birds so, they couldn’t outrun him and try to ignore him over the cooking food. But they did try exactly that and ignore him over the food. Their brains didn’t take in that other members of their herd were being taken out and instead only focused on the delicious smelling meat.
Bird brains in the truest sense of the word. Xiurong powerfully stood in front of the ones that managed to get past Quon. She didn’t plan on letting a single bird live that intended to come past her. And from what she could see, every single one of them were planning that exact thing. They didn’t even acknowledge her presence with a glance as they ran towards her.
‘Dumb birds.’ She clicked.
Xiurong grew her right claw and took a simple swing at the row of birds trying speed past her. Each bird was caught in her gigantic claw and split apart. The next row of spirit beasts coming were smacked away with their bones crushes. None of them stood a chance against her. Neither individually nor grouped up together. But they never even entertained the thought of fighting Xiurong.
Their mind was on one thing since the start and Xiurong had her limits despite her mighty strength. She wasn’t quite as quick as the birds. Some of the birds managed to use the corpses of their fallen group members as platforms to jump over Xiurong’s claws. A few of them even managed to hop on her claw and jump completely over her head to head towards the food. It enraged her that some got past her but she couldn’t very well turn around and chase after them. Even more would break through, she would just have to leave it to the child.
‘Go away!’ Ni Xong yelled as he uppercutted a bird far away.
He stood in his boxing stance and focused on each bird heading in his direction. A strong straight to the body that sent a bird flying into the distance. A follow up corkscrew punch to another beast that blew it away in a spiral. His fists were like an infinite onslaught of attacks as each attack came with another attack behind it. They all flowed seamlessly and none of the attacks looked out of place. An unlimited combo attack! This was Ni Xong’s martial art gifted to him by Jing!
Hundred Shattering Fists! An unranked martial art that teaches through pictures rather than words like normal human manuals. Perfect for spirit beasts who cannot read the human language! The focus of this Fist Art was an unrelenting speedy assault with utmost brutality. Those who manage to master this technique will have the strength to blast away oceans with their fists. One negative effect of this martial art was shown to be that the user’s fists may suddenly combust into flames once one trains it to the advanced stage. It’s stated that the creators of the manual hold no responsibility to those that may burn their fists into ash from practicing this martial art in very small letters near that chapter.
Ni Xong wouldn’t have to worry about that for a long while though. He was at the initial stage, 2 stages below advanced and 1 stage away from elementary, which was the starting stage for any martial art. As of now, his only focus was improving the fluidity, strength, and speed of his arms. Elementary stage was learning how to follow up his punches with more punches. Hundreds of different types of punches were shown in the chapter for those at the initial stage.
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Ni Xong was exhibiting most of those punches on every spirit beast that got past Xiurong. Each of his punches took the flightless birds out in a single hit in most cases, but when one wasn’t enough to take it out, a second one would come out lightning quick to finish it for good. The longer he kept his assault up, the faster his fists would become. If a single punch previously took a second to throw out, as he was now, he could throw out 3 punches every second. This would continually increase the longer he kept his body moving and his arms punching.
The only downside to this was, it became more taxing on his body and qi as time went on. A martial art that gave strength at the cost of one’s body. Quite common for higher ranked martial arts as good things must come at some price. And Ni Xong was still just a small cub that has not been in this world for that long. His arms were shaking, his body was hurting all over, and he felt like crying because of the pain. They still had quite a few more birds to deal with even though he just wanted to lie down and rest.
Ni Xong’s eyes wandered over to the cultivating Wan Qing and the thought of her getting hurt because of him pained his heart. She may not always be very nice to him but he still cares about her a lot. Enough to withstand this pain his body was going through and continue to fight so that she can stay safe. He gritted his teeth and gave out a cute fierce roar as he gave his all into finishing the rest of these beasts off.
‘Give it your all little one.’ Xiurong supported him.
Her claws smashed into any bird body they could land on. The large birds seemed to excel only in speed and were quite weak when it came to other prospects. They couldn’t handle strong attacks. They didn’t attack with powerful strength. And they weren’t that good in the mental department.
‘Haha! Show em whose boss Xong!’ Quon cheered.
He’s already finished up with the ones in the front. His paralyzing poison was enough to take them down with a single tap of his tentacle. Their only fate was to experience excruciating pain from his poison and hope that they would suffer heart attacks from the pain to put them out of their misery. Quon’s poison lied in stimulating all the pain receptors within a creature’s body to immobilize them for consumption. This poison would stay within the prey’s body for weeks if left untreated. There was no known cure for this poison where Quon came from. But in this world, there were several ways one could cure the poison.
Ni Xong reared his fist back with the last of his strength. He struggled to bring it back all the way but his final enemy was right in front of him. There was no way he could just give up now. His final punch was ready to fire. The little golden panda couldn’t even feel his legs anymore from moving all over the place but they still moved when he needed them to. Ni Xong leapt towards the final bird and punched it straight in its beak. The spirit beast that was close to snatching a red-colored fish in its mouth could only screech loudly as it was launched dozens of meters away.
Ni Xong dropped to the sand below completely exhausted. Xiurong skittled over to him and rubbed her claw on his head.
‘Not as weak as I thought.’ She complimented.
‘Yeah, you were awesome Xong!’ Quon agreed.
‘Thanks...’ He struggled to say before going unconscious.
Xiurong threw the little cub on top of her shell and walked over to the mass of blue butterflies that were encircling Wan Qing. She propped him down next to it and got to work on eating the bodies that littered the desert sand red. As a pregnant crab, she wasn’t eating just for one. She was eating for a couple hundred. Quon helped her a bit by eating some of the birds himself but he was eating for one so he didn’t eat nearly as many as Xiurong did. It would still be helpful for his cultivation if he ate as many as he could stomach.
Spirit beasts passively cultivate through the qi naturally flowing throughout the world. This is why wild beasts tend to seek out places with higher concentration of qi in the air so that they can cultivate even faster. But this wasn’t the only way spirit beasts grew in cultivation. The main way was preying on other spirit beasts and devouring their cores! Every spirit beast grows a beast core when they reach the first stage of cultivation.
As the source of their qi and blood essence, this naturally grown bead was a beast’s most important organ. It was the only organ that could gather qi naturally. It is no surprise that this bead also holds immense value to cultivators either. These beast cores can provide a multitude of benefits if utilized correctly. This was why even the weakest of spirit beasts were valued throughout the cultivating world. A beast core from beast at the first stage would sell enough to allow a poor mortal family to rise into aristocracy in one leap.
Spirit beast are somewhat superior to cultivators in the way they cultivate. They cultivate as both as body and qi cultivators without needing to do anything special besides eating things filled with qi. Their bodies are just made in a way that they progress physically and spiritually at the same time during cultivation. Humans only naturally acquire qi when they cultivate, forcing them to rely on other methods of gaining ways to strengthen their physical bodies.
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Bing’s nose suddenly started twitching before his eyes opened wide.
“Food’s done!” He yelled excitedly.