Chapter 13 – The Chase and Victory?

Chapter 13 – The Chase and Victory?

The Saintess stored the Cores inside a small pouch that she hung around Aiko's neck.

"I will also give you this." She placed a small pebble on her hand, it radiated warmth and shined slightly.

Aiko tilted her head. She didn't know what kind of rock this was, but she wanted a few hundred of them so she could make a floor out of it in her Den.

"This Spirit stone will allow you to cultivate faster, but for you, it only gathers the ambient Energy around you for you to use." She explained. 'It also tracks your position for my research purposes, I don't believe I can't find anything about this strange situation!' She smiled kindly at Aiko.

Aiko took the warm stone, she quite liked it and with the help of the Fairy, it was placed inside the pouch.

The Saintess' eyes sharpened. "You should run, more people are coming." She warned this little Beast.

Aiko nodded the second the Saintess finished before running off. She was low on stamina and unable to use her abilities to their full potential, but it was good enough to use a bit of [Shadow Walk].

...

"Saintess." The girl cupped her hands in greeting, yet there was no politeness in her voice, only vile poison. "I never imagined you would be able to contract with a Beast." She shook her head, gesturing to her little slaves to chase that little Beast.

"I would've never imagined you would collude with Demonic Sects." The Saintess shook her head.

"Colluding?" She laughed heartily. "It's only a matter of view, they provided Cultivation resources that our sect didn't and they only wanted a bit of information. No matter how you look at it, it's no different than our Sect's bulletin." She shook her head at this stupid Saintess.

'You say that, but you only did those things because you were jealous of me.' The Saintess sighed, she knew that her Senior Sister was enamoured with the Senior Brother that she trained with, but unfortunately, he didn't like Senior Sister and as such Senior Sister funnelled all her emotions at her.

Normally she wouldn't be her Senior Sisters match, but they willingly stepped inside this forest making everything much easier. Her blood boiled and a sculpture of a Frozen Phoenix roared above her head signalling the start of their battle.

...

Aiko ran with the Darkness. She felt danger behind her so she didn't dare to slow down or look around. She would rely on her senses and Darkness to get out of this. Her loot was overall... quite good, no, very good. That single piece of meat kicked her up to Level 36, settling her with speed in the middle layer of the 8th Stage Foundation Establishment. If she could use her sprint she would easily topple 9th Stage.

*Swish*

Using her senses, she dodged an arrow brushing past her. It would be a bad idea to drag the chase out in the scarce forest, she would have to run into the dense part to lose them.

*Swish*

Another arrow brushed past her. This one was a lot closer, sending shivers down her spine. She couldn't be hit by this arrow, or she would surely die with her meagre Health!

"Chase it! It's up ahead!" The scout shouted at his fellow simps.

"Get it! Don't let it get away!" Another shouted with crooked eyes.

"For the Saintess!" Shouted the last guy with a blissful expression.

...

Aiko arrived in the dense forest, where it was much harder to track her.

"Spread out and find it! We need to poison it at least, but it would be best to bring it back!" The strange-speaking guy said. If one looked closer they would realize that his foundation was unstable, it seemed like he cultivated the same technique as the fake Saintess and so he was much dumber than he was before. He would have realised that they should have set up a Tracking Formation and Soul Chasing Formation to locate her easily. Instead, they were looking around like dumb robots because their brains weren't working properly.

Aiko almost blended with the shadows and was almost invisible to the naked eye. They searched around and once one got closer she used her [Quick Jump] with [Crushing Bite].

*Crunch*

[Level gained.][Level gained.][Level gained.]...

[Level: 40 (2nd Evolution)]

[You can Evolve into [Common] Beast]

[Levelling further will allow you to Evolve into [Uncommon] Beast.]

She ignored the system and hid in the shadows again. They shouted, but she couldn't hear them through the voices of Darkness.

She hid behind a tree and waited for another victim.

...

*Crunch*

[Level gained.][Level gained.][Level gained.]...

She was able to take down most of them, but the last four stuck together, tailing her.

'I'm stronger now, but I was only able to kill them because I was able to catch them off guard. I don't think I will be able to kill them quickly without the element of surprise.'

They tailed her well, forcing her to jump around to hide from arrows. Unfortunately, those bastards retained some of their brain cells and had decided to stick with the archer. He was the most dangerous enemy because of those coated arrows.

She hid in a nearby bush trying to measure the distance. Her current mind was clear and sharp and she was able to decide the angle of attack quickly.

She waited and then dashed towards them. She had only a few more points in Stamina and she had to make good use of them. Using [Quick Jump] she was able to cover great distance for very little Stamina. She used the momentum from her jump and arrived in front of the leftmost guy.

The archer already trained his bow on her. She used [Crushing Bite] on the guy's neck, and with the momentum and her not-so-light weight, she was able to twist his neck, thus hiding from the Archer's arrows.

She jumped down and hid in the medium-sized grass. Those guys were at their flying swords, but some of them had poor control and wobbled up and down. She used that moment to [Quick Jump] at another person. This time the rightmost.

He had a shield and was the wobbliest of them. She crashed into his body as he was trying to bring the shield in front of him to slam her with it, but because he wasn't used to the whole flying thing and because he was dumb from his Cultivation, he didn't manage to block her and suffered a heavy blow to his body.

What was more, because of this impact he brought the shield close to his body, thus shielding Aiko from the Archer again. She impaled him with her fangs and bit his throat when he was stunned by the impact. They both fell, but once he entered the Darkness his eyes abruptly opened and he started screaming.

The others were startled and disorganized, they still thought he was alive from his screams and the last 2 guys (excluding the Archer) rushed to his help.

The Archer tried to warn them as it seemed he was the only one who had more than a couple of brain cells, but it was too late and he exposed himself to attack. Aiko wouldn't leave that be and used [Sprint] with [Quick Jump] to make herself into a bullet.

She swished through the air, using [Crushing Bite] when she was near the Archer, successfully biting him. After hearing another crunch, she used the archer's body to jump to the second last guy, instantly killing him from behind before jumping at the last one who was too shocked to act.

She was savouring her victory while still being glued to the last guy's throat when piercing pain assaulted her side.