I gave a small wince as I retracted my sight from James’ lab. While I found it nice that he had successfully realized his dream of creating a nine-tails mutation, it did not look in any way pleasant for the kitsune to lose her tail in order to make it happen. That said, I could already imagine Tsubaki studying the research results in order to apply the same change to her divine body.
While she definitely didn’t have the same sense of aesthetics that James had, she already had nine tails. Given her pragmatic tendencies, I could see her wanting to get extra performance out of her tails. That and Dana would probably talk about how awesome it was until she gave in…
Either way, I turned my gaze to Lorek next. While Deckan certainly had the ability to produce an interesting reaction when the militant golems made their moves, Lorek by far had the most potential to grow. With the new time dilation around Lorek and Spica, they had experienced twenty-five years of history in the sixth months that I had given Tsubaki.
For many worlds, that would not offer much of a change from their normal life. There was only so much that could typically happen in twenty-five years, after all. New technologies could be created, but rarely would there be something that changed the foundation of a society.
Such was the case with Spica. Although they had grown more stable over the twenty-five years, they had only made minimal advancements in technology, focusing on defensive measures against star beasts.
On the other hand, Lorek had far more territory to explore than any other world. Even after so long, they had only explored a tiny fraction of their world when the time dilation began. Now, with it having been in place for so long, they were making great strides. Cultivators were beginning to ascend to the ranks of ‘Immortal’, or Nova Merge, more and more.
With the increase of individual power, they were able to explore more of their own land without needing to fear the star beasts as heavily. Although there were certainly beasts at a higher realm than that, the difference of a single realm could be overcome with numbers.
Only people like Jana were considered to be truly invincible in the current age, as she enjoyed the benefit of an amplified ki pool due to being a ‘first generation’ cultivator within the system as well as the person with the highest cultivation. As I turned to look at her, I was quite surprised. Her cultivation was no longer at the level of Void Giant, but had increased to the Devouring Darkness level, just one realm shy of achieving divinity through cultivation.
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“Just a little further ahead, and we’ll set up our camp for the night.” A dwarven man shouted from the front of a large group, walking through the hills of Lorek. This was one of the numerous expeditions being sent out in the hopes of both retrieving the lost heritage of the ‘ancient civilization’, as well as reclaiming the land.
The population in Lorek was in no danger of a decline like in the past. After all, people without a home to sleep in could always be relocated to other worlds with little issue. Especially those with little talent in cultivation.
However, with the strange flow of time that had begun affecting their people, this became less of a viable option. While not entirely impossible, having to wait twenty-five days for a regular transfer was entirely different from just once a day or every two days. As such, people began to consider expanding their territory more seriously.
Furthermore… nobody enjoyed the idea of their world being dominated by monsters. Though it had been shown that they could never fully remove these creatures from their planet, as they would spawn anew after a certain period of time, they could at least claim the land to isolate the territory where the monsters would appear.
Such was the goal of this caravan. In order to expand their territory, they brought along a number of specialized cultivators, as well as expert combatants.The dwarf, Dan Gou, was one of the world’s foremost cultivators in the path of the Sword. The weapon at his side was as much a powerful tool as it was a manifestation of his own beliefs.
When lesser star beasts appeared, he would simply wave his hand, a stream of sword light shooting from his palm to cleave through the enemy. Only when a creature appeared at the same stage as himself did he deem it fit to draw his beloved weapon. Once he did so, his power would surge.
His strength was what had earned him the position as the leader of the caravan, though this responsibility came with very few real perks. If they managed to find an ancient city, he would have the right to choose a single resource to claim for himself before the rest were divided among the people.
Still, he was not in this role for the glory, nor for the rewards. His only desire was to hunt, with everything else taking a secondary position in his mind.
As the large group reached the top of the next hill, Dan lifted his hand to signal for everyone to stop. “Formation masters, get to work.”
It was standard practice whenever they made camp for the formation masters of their group to immediately set up wards to protect against ambushes. Meanwhile, the builders would erect temporary structures that could be used to protect themselves from the elements.
It was Dan’s job to make sure that they were able to do this without being interrupted by external dangers. With that in mind, he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it out at a moment’s notice. Unlike a normal blade, Dan had infused a part of his cultivation path into the weapon. In doing so, it had gained a special quality, which made him name the sword Star Drinker.
This sword was capable of increasing its own power by defeating enemies. However, enemies had to possess a strength comparable to the wielder in order to count for this trait to activate. If the enemy was weaker than the wielder, there was the chance that the trait might instead weaken the blade permanently. This was why Dan never drew his sword against unworthy foes.
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As his eyes scanned the surroundings, he felt a disturbance within his spiritual senses. The way of the sword that he cultivated was one of both spiritual energy and ki, so it was natural for his spirit to be more honed than a normal cultivator. However, he couldn’t quite place where this sensation was coming from. It was like a prickle across his skin, a warning of danger that extended from every direction.
Feeling true danger for the first time in so long only made the man excited, gripping his sword in anticipation and awaiting the enemy that would appear before him. However, such an enemy never came, even when they were done setting up their camp for the night. As he was feeling disappointed, a deafening crash spread through the air above them, causing Dan to immediately direct his gaze skyward.
There, thousands of kilometers above the ground, the clouds suddenly scattered. A massive figure appeared above the caravan, its descent alone casting such a huge sound. At this distance, it was no surprise that Dan was unable to sense what level this beast was at, but he knew that it would not be a weak foe. And, the more he looked at it, the more his sense of danger confirmed his guess.
The creature was over a thousand meters long, looking like a whale with ribbed armor and a vicious turtle-like head. Its jaws snapped at the air, trying to catch something, and Dan focused his sight to the extreme in an attempt to see what was there. Even in doing so, he could only catch the faintest flicker of a figure, unable to make out any further details.
“Do we have eyes up there!?” He shouted urgently, his gaze never leaving that distant battle. If that creature were to fall, the impact of its body alone would send tremors across the horizon. If it happened to land near their camp, only the most swift among them would be able to escape alive.
One of the scouts, an ursa with a long spyglass, looked into the sky. “It’s a dwarven woman with blue hair.” He called out, watching the battle through his scope.
Hearing that, Dan’s eyes went wide. Looking more closely, he could see the clouds starting to move back in an unnatural manner. At first, it seemed as if it was simply the wind bringing them back, but now they were clearly being driven by some force.
These clouds turned into numerous shapes, ranging from serpents to spears or even bladed weapons, all piercing towards the massive beast. Just from this alone, Dan was able to identify the person fighting above. The most powerful cultivator of the planet was in a difficult battle, and was unable to quickly finish off her opponent.
“Do we have any water cultivators!?” Dan shouted, glancing around urgently at his caravan. If they possessed someone with the power of water, they might not be able to provide any direct assistance to Jana, but they could at least offer her more tools to use in her fight.
However, he was met with silence. The path of water was one that pursued ki and nature as one, and was one of the more difficult paths to tread without proper guidance. This made Jana a true anomaly in that she had managed to reach her current height without a master to guide her from above.
Gritting his teeth, Dan glanced towards the sky with a look of regret. He longed to join that battle as well, but knew that it was not meant to be. If he were to intrude on a fight of that level, he would only be in the way. “Pack up camp. We’re leaving, and we won’t stop until their fight is either finished or beyond the horizon.”
Such a command was clearly difficult for the caravan to accept, but it was also one that had been given for their own safety. If that beast dropped and they had not left the area, they may well die themselves. Leaving was the only way to ensure their own safety, and allow Jana to fight with her full power such that she did not have to concern herself with those below her.
In truth, Jana had never even noticed the caravan’s presence. She had no room to give such considerations in her current battle. The opponent, as much as she hated to admit it, was of a realm beyond her. A realm she didn’t know if she could even reach. Had it not been for her amplified energy, she was certain that she would not be the monster’s match.
As it was, though, she had managed to hold it off in an unfavorable environment, one where she had little moisture to draw upon. Seeing as both herself and her foe were creatures with pure energy bodies, she could not even draw on the power of blood to further increase her strength.
Every time her palm landed on the thick hide of the beast, its head would turn at a bizarre angle to snap towards her. Its body would shroud itself in golden starlight, mitigating the damage that she could inflict. However, she maintained her calm, as this was the way of water. Not a single rush to destroy the enemy, but countless raindrops to tear open a great ravine.
Each strike she gave contained just a small trace of her energy, and the monster was not so intelligent as to remove these traces as they accrued. All it knew how to do was to consume and seek out new targets. Although its strength was almost immeasurable, this gave Jana hope.
In order to fight this beast without allowing it to perceive the eventual danger, she never struck the same place twice. Each of her attacks were calculated, her movements flowing to evade the beast’s devouring maw. She had long since determined that the ‘path’ this creature had received was a path related to eating, and did not want to risk her own energy becoming the target of such a power.
However, as the number of her attacks increased, Jana instead became more and more worried. In order to complete her strategy, she had to place herself in mortal danger. The last place she had to strike in order to link every previous attack was the lightning-fast head of the beast. With one simple mistake, she would be consumed, unsure if she would be able to release her power within the creature’s mouth.
Is this the end? She thought, her mind starting to calm. She thought back to her old love, and the master that had guided them. For so long she had waited to meet them again in the afterlife, and yet her wish was never fulfilled. She was unable to take her own life which had been saved by the two of them, for doing so would be to throw aside their final moments.
In a way, she welcomed this. She welcomed such fierce battles because they could bring her closer to her loved ones. Thus, after overcoming her concerns, her mind became terrifyingly calm. Her body seemed to sway, appearing in front of the massive beast, her form barely a flea when compared to her foe.
She waited as it watched her, before a sense of threat appeared. While the head had yet to move, she dashed upwards, the afterimage left behind consumed as a shadow engulfed her former position.
Jana let out a faint sigh, realizing that she had managed to escape death again. Her hand was already placed on the tip of the creature’s snout, and her eyes closed peacefully. “Art of flowing water, ten thousand currents divide.”
Her energy spread from the head of the creature and back into its body. As soon as it touched the imprint left by one of her other strikes, that imprint would expand, causing it to interact with other imprints in a similar manner. Thousands upon thousands of palm prints lit up like veins across the creature’s body, before pulsing inwards.
The light faded from the eyes of the massive beast as it hovered in place, gold specks floating away from its body. It was dissolving before her eyes, but Jana felt no sense of joy at her victory. Even when a message appeared to congratulate her for killing a divine monster as a mortal, she did not consider it more than the simple workings of a grand system.