“Xiao Xing you don’t need to watch me tonight, but I will be indisposed, I really need to cultivate and then sleep.”
Xu Xing looked up from her bowl and gave a quiet yip before returning to it. Smiling at her, Xu Long made himself comfortable and got straight to it. Almost immediately he noticed that cultivating helped with his hunger pains, not negating them by any means, but it helped, so he settled in for a long night of mostly cultivating, interspersed with the amount of sleep his body deemed necessary.
It turned out that, absent a sleep inducing poison, Xu Long did not need a whole lot of sleep as long as he cultivated diligently, which seemed to aid both his lack of food and lack of sleep as a byproduct of the qi he was taking in and the energy derived from it. He awoke feeling rested at what was certainly late into the night, possibly many hours from dawn, judging by the temperature and the distinctly nocturnal noises of the forest. Xu Long could feel Xu Xing sitting further down the branch, her head upturned towards the sky through a break in the tree branches and a trickle of what was almost certainly stellar qi flowing into her eyes.
In no great rush to risk his life in the much more dangerous nocturnal environment of the Endless Forest for no good reason, Xu Long dismissed getting back to traveling and returned to his cultivation at least until Xu Xing could no longer access the stars.
Hours later Xu Long felt Xu Xing crawl onto his lap and deduced that dawn was approaching, stretching his back and neck he picked up a disgruntled spirit fox from her recently found comfortable resting place and put her into the front of his robes.
“Sorry Xiao Xing, I’ve got to get on the move.”
Not getting a reply but feeling her settle into her usual sleeping position in his robes, Xu Long gave her a pet on the head and then started his journey to the forest floor. By the time he made it down he had already determined his orientation from the nearby moss he could detect, so he hit the ground running and got straight on the move.
After quite a few hours of travel, Xu Long had to admit that his enthusiasm for the journey was certainly waning with his growing hunger and the monotony of the journey. A monotony that was about to be shattered as Xu Long stopped dead in his tracks when he heard a deep roar in the distance ahead of him. That was certainly no enraged Earth Boar, in fact Xu Long was fairly certain that he knew exactly what spirit beast produced that roar, because he had heard a similar, albeit far more powerful version of it all those years ago and it was etched into his memory.
It seemed that Xaio Xing was no longer dead to the world now that she wasn’t sleeping off a night of constant vigilance so that Xu Long didn’t fall out of a tree, she stirred from her slumber when Xu Long stopped his run and then became more vigilant when a second roar was echoed through the forest. The second roar didn’t appear to be any louder than the first so Xu Long deduced that at least the beast wasn’t making a beeline for them.
He looked down at the small spirit fox in the front of his robes. “This is most likely a spirit bear of some variety, Xiao Xing.” As soon as he said that he felt her tense up and go completely rigid, then she let out quite the angry yip. Xu Long nodded at her and then pet her in an effort to calm her down.
“I was going to fight it anyway Xiao Xing, but there is something I need to make clear. Don’t expect me to go out of my way to fight every bear we encounter and especially don’t expect me to kill bears that are weaker than I am, they are not responsible for the actions of your mother’s killer any more than you are responsible for the actions of other spirit foxes.”
He felt her stare up at him for a good while, almost as if she could see through his blindfold to his eyes underneath, until finally she acquiesced with a small nod before turning her attention back to their current obstacle on their journey.
When he was sure that the little fox was pacified, Xu Long took off in the direction of the roaring beast, while he wasn’t willing to wage a vendetta fueled war against all spirit bears for Xu Xing, this one in particular seemed to be spoiling for a fight with anyone in the vicinity and Xu Long was more than happy to oblige. By the time the third roar rang out they were much closer to the source, so Xu Long slowed down a little, lest he barge into the middle of a situation he didn’t want to be in the middle of.
As he got his first glimpse of the bear, he was somewhat surprised, he expected maybe some spirit beast was challenging this bear by encroaching in its territory or some other forest creature drama. Instead, as far as Xu Long could tell from this distance, the bear in question was just standing in a clearing in the forest roaring at the sky as if goading any and all challengers to approach. Who was Xu Long to argue.
He started walking towards the clearing with slow and careful steps, the moment he came into view of the spirit bear it locked onto him immediately, Xu Long unsheathed his sword to let the bear know what he was here for. As he got closer to the bear that had temporarily halted it’s roaring challenge and was now sizing up Xu Long, he got a clearer feeling for his next challenge, the qi that was flowing through the bear was very reminiscent of a lot of the foliage in this forest, it was to the point that Xu Long could have missed it entirely where it sleeping peacefully instead of announcing to the entire forest that it was here. Xu Long continued to advance and his perception of his opponent became clearer and clearer, by the time the bear came into sharp relief he could see that this spirit bear was unusual indeed.
Its body was covered in bark very reminiscent of the surrounding trees and Xu Long could see qi flowing from the bear into what he presumed were vines that were snaking from the bear, through the grass and foliage of the clearing, and heading in Xu Long’s direction. The control that the bear had over its qi, while not all that impressive to Xu Long, was far and away more advanced than the crude qi manipulation he saw from the Earth Boar, this was certainly going to be a more interesting fight.
Xu Long continued to approach the spirit bear as if he hadn’t noticed the vines that were spread throughout the clearing and were still advancing slowly towards him. The bear itself was stationary, no doubt this was why it was issuing blanket challenges to the denizens of the forest, it was clearly hunting via this trap of a clearing. The closer he came to the clearing proper and the more the bear seemed certain that he was oblivious to its vines, the more the vines that were spread behind the bear started making their way in Xu Long’s direction.
When Xu Long finally stepped foot in the clearing the trap he was expecting didn’t materialize, clearly this spirit bear was a patient one, so he continued. Acting as if he was oblivious, Xu Long walked into the clearing showing what he hoped was a believable amount of wariness at the bear's strange behavior of standing completely still and staring at him. Honestly, this bear had a lot to learn about trapping humans, even if Xu Long couldn’t feel the bear's vines in his surroundings, the fact that this whole situation was incredibly suspect and obviously a trap of some kind was plain as day.
As he progressed even further into the clearing and closer to the bear, he began to wonder if he was wrong about what was happening. There must be something else going on for this spirit bear to allow him to close the gap between them so much. Xu Long got the answer to his question almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, when the vines that had been surrounding him as he advanced all shot forth simultaneously, the tips looking like spears, and there were quite a few of them.
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Xu Long smiled at his opponent and got to work, his sword moved with practiced grace as he danced through the vine spears, dodging most and deflecting the most troublesome into others. He felt like he was sparring with Old Wu again, there was something about facing a spear that just felt nostalgic to him even though it had literally been maybe a day or two since he had last sparred with the old man.
That being said, these vine spears were incredibly rudimentary, he was sure that the spirit bear had minimal control over the vines, only enough to pick a target and stab forth. It was clear that the bear relied on quantity over quality, he felt like he could just as easily breeze through them if there were twice as many. Which as it turned out was fortunate, as more and more vines were converging on Xu Long as he fought, he allowed it, this fight was at least proving to be more entertaining than the boar, even if it wasn’t the challenge he was hoping for.
As the vines that were converging on him drew closer, Xu Long realized that they were not there to join in as more spears, they were there to entangle him while he was distracted with the spears. He had to smile, this bear was more intelligent than he gave it credit for. Being deprived of movement was a serious debilitation for Xu Long, if he allowed the bear to have its way this would cease to be a challenge and turn into a serious life or death struggle. Xu Long was not so brash and confident that he would willingly volunteer for such a situation, especially considering he was merely three days out of the valley.
All these thoughts flashed through Xu Long’s head before he made a move to hamper the trap within the trap, such as they were. He transitioned a deflection of multiple spear vines into a spin of his body and the whipping of his sword through an arc that had his sword slicing cleanly through the grass and foliage around his feet, which happen to include quite a few creeping vines. His immediate vicinity clear of vines, Xu Long, growing tired of the mundane fighting style of the vine spears, decided to bring the bear into this fight and see what else it had in its repertoire. He charged at the spirit bear.
When Xu Long finally decided to stop playing around and get serious the spirit bear reacted quite surprised, for all Xu Long was impressed with its intelligence, it was clearly at an early level of cultivation and thus whatever intelligence it had developed would obviously be limited. Thus it did not understand that its prey had not been in a desperate struggle with its vines, but had been enjoying a somewhat entertaining fight, however, it could hardly be blamed for not understanding the motives of humans, especially outlier humans like Xu Long.
His charge at the bear did not take long considering how close the bear allowed him to advance when he was walking into its trap. A few casual swings of his sword to either side as he ran was enough to deal with the vines that were both actually in a position to stop him and whose aim was true. As he was closing in on the spirit bear he saw something he hadn’t seen from the bear before, it actually moved, and quite a bit as well. It got on its two hind legs and roared for the first time during their actual fight, it was quite clear that it intended to slam the insolent human that was approaching it. Even though Xu Long could see what the bear intended, his mind was more focused on trying to find a weakness in the bear's bark armor, which was now very clear to Xu Long, given his proximity. That clarity however had revealed that it was very all encompassing due to multiple overlapping layers, even the usual uncovered spots like the eyes were difficult to access.
Unsure about how to proceed, Xu Long decided to take the path he usually did when a plan eluded him, he would wing it, and trust his instincts. First things first was to deal with the fact that the bear had reared itself up on its hind legs ready to try and crush him, it took him but a brief moment to decide on a course of action, he charged right into the bear that stood towering over him. As he closed the gap with great speed, he noticed the brief hesitation of the bear, a little confused at the charge at its intimidating form, Xu Long seized on that moment and slid under the legs of the towering spirit bear slashing his sword at the right leg of the bear as he went past.
The results were as he expected, a deep gouge was left in the bark armor of the spirit bear, but Xu Long could feel the qi of the bear converging on its leg, no doubt to heal the damage done to the bark. The bear was still on its hind legs but Xu Long did not think it would stay that way for long, turning its body in such a state would be ponderously slow and awkward. Hoping to take advantage of the situation the bear had found itself in, Xu Long, while still sliding, he placed his free hand flat on the ground and kicked his legs off the ground reversing his momentum and getting himself off the ground and back on his feet with a one-handed somersault. He quickly leveraged his new momentum that was back in the direction of the bear to thrust his sword at the gash in the bark armor that was slowly healing itself, his aim struck true and the bear roared in pain as his sword entered its back leg.
The spirit bear immediately dropped forward and appeared to be quite incensed that it had been injured as its roar caused all of the vines that had been trying and failing to catch up with Xu Long to suddenly speed up noticeably. The leg injury had proved to Xu Long that he could breach the admittedly tough bark armor, but also that it would be a hassle to do so on a more vital area of the bear's body, especially considering the extra thickness that he sensed in areas like the chest and neck. Thus he pivoted to a new idea he had when he had stabbed the leg of the bear.
Xu Long started making his way to the front of the bear that seemed to be entirely concentrating on its vines, which while faster and presumably more deadly, had not suddenly become more skillfully manipulated or much harder to deal with. When he had made it about three quarters of the distance to the head of the bear, as he was dodging and deflecting the thrusts of the vine spears, he plucked one of the spears as it careened past him and neatly sliced the vine at the point that it became rigid. With no idea how long the rigidity would last now that it was detached, Xu Long quickly threw the vine spear through the two left legs of the bear and into the bleeding hole on the inside of the rear right leg.
The result he was hoping for materialized immediately, the bear's head lurched in his direction and it let out a deafening roar right at him, this was a mistake. Xu Long, waiting for this moment, thrust his sword with practiced speed and precision into the roof of the mouth of the roaring spirit bear before quickly retracting it lest he lose an arm, or even more devastating…his sword.
The effect was near instantaneous, the roar that the bear was in the middle of seemed caught in its throat, almost like it had evaporated and the bear itself seemed almost frozen in place, the vine spears that were attacking him seemed to lose their intent and simply carried the momentum of whichever way they were moving previously onwards, the qi that was driving them slowly dissipating. Xu Long stood there, swatting away a few of the vine spears that were already on target and thus still headed his way, as he watched as the consequences of what had just happened seemed to slowly start affecting the frozen spirit bear, the stability of its footing started giving out and it swayed minutely a few times before finally collapsing to the ground.
Xu Long watched as the qi of the spirit bear started dissipating slowly and was surprised to see the surrounding vegetation soaking it up with apparent glee. He looked down at Xu Xing who was staring at the dead spirit bear.
“I get the feeling that this won’t be a clearing in the near future.”
There was no response, and she continued to stare. So he tried a different track.
“Not as satisfying as you thought it would be?”
That got her attention and she looked up at him. Taking that as an affirmative Xu Long continued.
“I understand Xiao Xing, the one directly responsible for your mother’s death died with her and whoever it was that forced her to flee with you is for all intents and purposes untouchable until the both of us are far stronger than we are now, that must make you feel rather powerless.” Xu Xing made a small growl and looked back at the dead spirit bear.
“Hold on to that feeling Xiao Xing, right now we are both very powerless and if we want that to change it is going to take a long time and the will to never give up, to always strive to reach those heights that will allow us to walk where we please and bow to no one.”
Feeling something change in his small spirit fox companion’s demeanor he smiled at her and after a moment she gave out a resounding yip.