Zou Tian stepped out of the light and into Shadow. As he anticipated, the badger began moving as soon as he’d fully entered the alley.
It was decision time. Would it go for his throat or the coins? With the creature’s extreme speed, especially compared to him, he only had time to defend against one, and the wrong call would mean disaster for him and maybe for the rest of the village. For Wan Ai.
Making the right call, on the other hand, didn’t guarantee success. It just gave the defenders a chance.
The badger was hurt, and a hurt animal tended to act according to its instincts. Which meant it would go for the throat, right? That tactic was the fastest way to kill its enemy. A basic swipe with the claws to the neck was simple and reflexive, a move the badger had probably known since soon after being born.
The other logical choice was to go for the coins. It already proved to be focused on them, heading straight for Jin LiJuan earlier. And it had appeared to be ready to attack Senior Brother who held some in his hand.
From what Master had told them about spirit beasts, their existence was brutal. Literally dog eat dog. They had to kill to advance or die to become that path to advancement for others.
Given a creature who’d survived long enough to reach near the peak of the sixth rank, what could drive its motivations more than the desire to get stronger? And Zou Tian was carrying fifty thousand qi in an easy to consume bundle of five coins. The only thing that could possibly be more enticing to the badger would have been if they had been Shadow aspected instead of Earth.
The decision boiled down to what would govern the creature’s next action—a reversion to its time as a simple animal or its want and need to advance?
The badger was about to leap. Zou Tian had to make his decision.
He swung the long pole of the pike horizontally at waist level, the flat of the half-moon blade pointed toward where he expected the beast to be.
If the badger went high for the throat, the pike would miss it by a mile. At worst, he had a fifty-fifty chance of being right. Though, hopefully, his intelligence and analytical reasoning moved the needle to being in his favor.
Those traits seemed small to hang the fate of his life on.
If he’d guessed wrong, he was about to be in a world of hurt, and he’d just have to hope that his friends could rescue him in time.
The pike swung. The badger leaped.
The flat of the blade connected with the beast. Zou Tian put all his muscle into the keeping the weapon moving in a long arc, carrying the creature with it.
He shifted his body. Ten degrees. Twenty. Forty-five. Ninety.
Using every ounce of his strength and every bit of control he’d gained over his body through intense physical training, he halted the pike’s swing.
The badger continued flying. Out of Shadow. Into the sunlight.
It landed, fully visible, in front of the semi-circle of sect members.
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Kang Lin did not feel like she’d truly pulled her weight in the defense of the village so far. She’d did what she was obligated to do. Followed orders. Stabbed what she could. Faced danger.
She simply wasn’t as powerful as her allies.
Compared to Yang Xiu who could anticipate target’s movements and shoot arrow after arrow at the attacking beasts and Yang Ru who could convert his Momentum into an absurdly powerful strike and, after a recent epiphany, even speed his attacks making him that much more likely to land a hit, her abilities were more than a little lackluster.
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She could hit beasts with forked lightning. Yay. Sometimes, her hits even singed the beasts’ fur.
If, you know, someone like Yang Xiu had already caused enough damage for Kang Lin to get past the creature’s qi shield.
Naturally, therefore, she hung back as the badger landed, letting the other, more powerful cultivators take their shots.
Even though the badger had a wood shaft sticking out of its midsection, it was still quick and agile. Yang Xiu’s rain of arrows all missed. And Yang Ru did not have any Momentum built up, so he had nothing to convert to either speed or power. He, too, was unable to land a hit on the beast.
Kang Lin’s combat strength might have been a little lacking in her estimation, but there was nothing wrong with either her observation skills or her intellect. As the badger flopped around dodging attacks, she noticed something important, something that might just be the key to bringing it down.
With the twins having each taken a turn, it was time for a group effort. Ye Zan nodded to Kang Lin as he flanked the creature. As soon as he got into position, he thrust his spear, which the badger easily dodged. At the same time, though, Yang Ru did the same.
His strike, too, was dodged.
Kang Lin hadn’t been completely idle while the badger flew toward them and while the twins took their respective shots.
Besides observing, she’d built up quite a charge of Lightning.
The arrows that were created by the fletchers in the village and the ones Master purchased were made mostly of wood. The only metal part was a tiny tip. And wood was a horrible conductor for Lightning aspected qi.
Yang Xiu, however, was pulling out all the stops in trying to kill the sixth rank beast that had penetrated the wall. She wasn’t using locally made arrows or even the ones created by crafters in Sixth Flawless Flowing City.
The arrows she’d chosen to shoot at the badger were her pride and joy, the arrows that Master had gifted her. Each was top heaven grade, perfectly straight and with an arrowhead that was sharper than sharp. And more crucially for Kang Lin’s purposes, each had a metal tip that sheathed a couple of inches of the wood shaft.
She just happened to notice that the very tip of the sheath of the arrow stuck out of the badger and extended just past the skin, just past its qi shield, open to the air.
The thing about Lightning was that, when it decided where it wanted to go, it was quite difficult to dodge, no matter how agile one was, and the badger had a small lightning rod sticking out of its stomach. All Kang Lin had to do was fire off a forked bolt from the tip of her spear, and the rest happened naturally.
No matter how much the badger twisted and tried to evade, it had no chance. Her qi sought that little piece of metal with the dedication of Yang Ru avoiding an awkward conversation.
The Lightning struck true.
Best of all, two facts became very important. One, the metal sheath provided a path for the Lightning to travel. Two, the metal extended from outside the badger’s qi shield to inside the qi shield.
Nearly one hundred percent of the qi Kang Lin had used on the strike was transferred inside the beast’s already injured body. Even though it neared the equivalent peak of Foundation Establishment, it had no defense against so much destructive energy detonating inside its body.
The creature practically exploded from the inside out.
All the defenders stopped, stunned. Assuming they didn’t decide to resort to the highly dangerous explosive, they had expected a long fight of attrition, wearing the beast down over time with multiple small wounds. All anticipated many injuries and having to consume healing pills to stay in the fight.
Instead, it was all over. One strike, one kill as Yang Xiu would say.
The sect members didn’t stay stunned for long. Instead, they started cheering.
“Great job, Kang Lin!” Ye Zan said.
“Way to go, sister!” Yang Xiu called.
Yang Ru turned to them, his expression as angry as Kang Lin had ever seen him. “What are you all doing? Stop this at once!”
His objection stunned her. All the defenders were recognizing her contribution, her one moment of competence, of glory, and he couldn’t even give her face. It upset her more than she would have liked.
Kang Lin known many, many young masters who couldn’t stomach a cultivator of a lower talent doing anything better than them, but Yang Ru had seemed not to care about the distance between their spiritual roots. She couldn’t believe that she’d actually trusted him. How could she be so stupid?
“Meditate now!” he yelled. “Congratulate later!”
Oh.
She blushed. He’d just wanted them to focus on consolidating their gains as quickly as possible. As they should. As expected from one of Master’s two genius disciples.
She’d maligned him unfairly, even if just in her mind. That was not okay. Whether they were just friends or they had the possibility of becoming more, it was important to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Trust was important, and slowly over time, he was earning hers.
Kang Lin resolved to remember that in the future, but first, she had to meditate.