8 Fierce Figh

As he felt the energy being absorbed through his martial spirit, Edward was thoroughly confused. His martial spirit was absorbing the blood of the wolf, and transferring it into his body, so he could use it to cultivate, which would drastically improve his cultivation speed. But then again, he had heard that some martial spirits had a special ability, but his martial spirit seemed to be special. When his martial spirit had absorbed some of the blood of the wolf, it started to wither pretty quickly, and Edward's cultivation was soaring at the moment. When the blood of the wolf had been completely absorbed, Edward had managed to reach the peak of the 2nd rank of the body-tempering realm.

But he couldn't just absorb the blood of demonic beasts and see his cultivation soar since the blood itself was incompatible with his body. And because of that he needed to make the strength his, and consolidate his cultivation, stabilizing it. But it would still be a great help, since it would be faster to consolidate his cultivation every now and then when he absorbed blood, instead of just cultivating normally, and the side effects wouldn't really show that much if he didn't go overboard, but of course Edward only noticed parts of this information.

When he noticed how he had managed to advance so much in his cultivation doing something so simple, Edward was really happy. He looked towards his martial spirit in awe for a little bit, and he noticed that something had changed with the air it was giving off. But he didn't know what it was, so he just stopped thinking about it. Sinc he had killed the demonic wolf and absorbed all of its blood, Edward decided to head off again. But this time he wanted to meet something that was more challenging.

Now that his cultivation had advanced a bit once more, he was even stronger than he was when he killed the wolf. There was no use in trying to get a meal out of this wolf either as it had been withered completely. Heading off again, Edward decided to head deeper into the forest this time. He quickly started using his Gale Step as he traversed the forest. On the way, he managed to see some demonic beasts, but they were all at least at the mid-grade, which wasn't something Edward could handle.

But after a while, he managed to find some more prey, this time though, there were two demonic beasts, and they both had the strength of the 3rd rank of the body-tempering realm. But Edward still had confidence in his victory, even if it would prove to be tough. These two demonic beasts were called Mad Cows, and even though they sound lame, they were actually quite dangerous, and two of them would normally be something that you would run away from when you had the same cultivation as Edward, but he wasn't scared at all.

And even though he knew it was stupid, he let them sense his presence. This was because he wanted to test his limits, and he wanted to see if he could take them both on, and if he couldn't he was very confident in his speed, so he didn't think he had a real chance of dying. When the both of them noticed him, they both looked enraged as this puny human in front of them had trespassed on their territory, and he even had a weapon with him!

Edward didn't just let them attack him this time, as he needed to take this fight seriously, so he was the one to make the first move. When Edward performed his Gale Step, his legs kicked up winds as he went flying towards them, the two cows were a bit dumbfounded since they had assumed the human was going to run, but seeing him run up to them, one of them broke away from the other. It was trying to get behind Edward in an effort to surround him.

When Edward saw this he just let it happen, he was going for an instant kill anyways! When he was only a bit away from the Mad Cow, it snorted as its eyes started to glow red. It kicked hard into the ground, making it tremble as it rushed ahead. This stomp managed to throw Edward off his course as he didn't expect it, it was blatant how little battle experience he had. As he stumbled, the Cow saw its opportunity to strike and went straight for Edward's ribs, the cow behind him, also started to charge at him.

Edward almost lost his composure as he quickly made use of the wind around him to propel him to the side of the incoming cow, barely dodging its attack. And as he now had an advantageous position, Edward kicked out with his Leg of the Tempest as he didn't have time to draw his sword. This kick hit the cow right in its side, making it crash right into its brethren in front of it. Edward used the rebound force to spin around and land gently on the ground. This had been way too close! And the battle wasn't over yet, but seeing as how the cows were fumbling around on the ground, Edward quickly drew his sword and attacked, he made use of the wind to make his strike as fast and swift as possible, denying one of the cows the possibility to react before it was beheaded.

The other cow wasn't down yet though and seeing its brethren dying right in front of its eyes. It instantly went mad as it attacked fiercely, Edward was caught off guard, and received most of the blow right in his guts, he had managed to divert some of the force using his Gale Step, but he was still hit pretty badly. This attack sent Edward flying straight into one of the trees in the surroundings, injuring him severely. The cow that was still alive was the one who had received the kick to its side, and it had a little trouble moving properly, as the kick from earlier had injured it pretty badly.

Edward stood up from underneath the tree, biting his lower lip as he withstood the immense pain radiating from his abdomen. He cursed himself silently as he had underestimated these cows. But not anymore, now he was going to go all out! He started to get into position as he readied himself to make the killing move of the wind sword. The cow, seeing his stance, got pissed off and started to charge at him yet again. But this time, it was going all out as well, suppressing its injuries to kill this human in front of it!

As the cow got closer, the wind around Edward started to get unsettled as it slightly howled, readying itself for what was about to happen. When the cow was within five meters of him, Edward slashed out with his sword! Accompanying this sword was all of Edward's strength, as well as the wind in the air around him, it condensed itself and coated Edward's sword as the slash pierced through the air towards the cow. When the cow saw this move, its eyes were instantly filled with fear, it regretted disturbing this human in front of it! But it was too late to stop now!

The cow didn't even get the time to regret as it was slashed down the middle of its body, splitting it into two parts, this was only possible because of the force the cow had exerted itself, Edward didn't have the strength to split the mad cow in half by himself.

After having used this sword strike, Edward sat down as he felt really dizzy, this move was something that only people in the 4rth rank of the body-tempering realm was supposed to be able to do. But Edward had done it in the 2nd realm, and this was because of his talent. But due to this trike, as well as his injuries, Edward could barely move at the moment!

The move that Edward had just executed was the killing move of the sword of wind, and it was called the air-piercing sword. This was because the main point of this sword wasn't the fact that it became incredibly sharp, that was only a bonus, the real point of this sword was to reduce the air resistance to the minimum, and then slashing with absolute swiftness. This made the sword extremely fast and deadly, albeit simple. But simple wasn't always a bad thing, and just because it was simple didn't mean it was easy.

Since he couldn't really move his body at the moment, Edward quickly made his way towards the corpses of the mad cows. He needed to quickly absorb their blood with his martial spirit if it was possible, otherwise, he would be doomed out here, even if it meant that his cultivation needed to be unstable for a while, Edward didn't dare risk his life for such a stupid reason. He needed to quickly heal his wounds so he could get out of here.

Because right now, his life was in huge risk. If he didn't get rid of the blood in the corpses bodies, other demonic beasts would get attracted to the scent of it, which would be catastrophic considering how he couldn't even move right now, this was the second reason he needed to do this, because even if demonic beasts weren't attracted to the scent of blood, they would find him sooner or later since he couldn't move, and at that point, he wouldn't be able to fight back at all.

Therefore he released his martial spirit, as he slowly inched closer...