Sen brought his jian down in a casual swing and lopped off the stone boar’s head. His foot lashed out to connect with the body of another. The spirit beast seemed to cave in around his foot, bones snapping and cracking under the pressure, before it was launched toward Falling Leaf. She didn’t even look, choosing instead to take a short step to the side and lash out with those deadly shadow claws she wielded. The claws sheared through the stone hide of the beast and spilled its internal organs onto the ground. As they carved their way through the herd, Sen had the idle thought that any one of these spirit beasts could have killed him when he first left the mountain. Most of the adults were the equivalent of a core formation cultivator. Falling Leaf had been quite a bit stronger than him in those days, but he thought that fighting this many of them would have been precarious for her even with the natural advantages her panther form had provided.
Now, neither of them was even breathing hard. Or, they wouldn’t be if they needed to breathe like mortals anymore. While he didn’t think either of them could go without air indefinitely, he also thought that it would take them a long, long time to suffocate. However, after completing the Six-Fold Body Cultivation, he truly didn’t know his limits. He’d done some testing where and when he could, but it was to the point now that he worried about doing any of that testing close to any mortals. That had been half of the reason for this trip into the deeper wilds. He needed to get a clear sense of what his body could actually do.
The testing had been a bit of a disappointment to him so far. It wasn’t the results that bothered him. He’d been focused almost entirely on purely physical attacks and been thoroughly impressed. The problem was that the testing hadn’t really been pushing his limits. He couldn’t find anything heavy enough to strain his body. Short of trying to lift a mountain, he wasn’t sure what else to try. He’d let himself take blows that he would normally block on reflex. While some of the attacks had hurt, nothing so far had even managed to break his skin. Sen knew that he could injure himself.
He’d finally opened a shallow cut on his own arm just to try to get a sense of what it would take. The answer was that it took a lot. On top of that, the cut healed itself remarkably fast. While he expected some improvement, it was still startling. Enough so that he’d have to hide it from mortals if he could. With this new level of durability and healing, he’d give himself even odds with that devil that nearly killed him. At least, he’d give himself even odds in a one-on-one fight. He wasn’t in a hurry to go battle a horde of devilish beasts by himself. That brought him up short. With everything that’s coming, that might make for good training, thought Sen. He shook that idea off. Without the devil there to keep them on task, it was entirely possible that the horde had dispersed. Plus, it would take a while for anyone to go and check.
He did tuck the idea away as a possible training exercise. Depending on how long the war dragged on, they might need something like that to help break in lower-stage cultivators. They’d need supervision, but there would probably be people who needed a break from the fighting that could lead those expeditions. He would need to reach an agreement with the spiders there. He didn’t want to come into conflict with them if he could avoid it. Although, that did beg the question of which side of the war they would come down on. From his interactions with the cluster that Glimmer of Night had come from, they seemed to be neutral. Then again, that might have been more about their fear of him personally than a desire to stay out of the war. Sen would have to discuss the matter with the transformed spider the next time he saw him.
Of course, that would be happening soon. The other reason he’d come out into the wilds was to collect spirit beast cores. He wanted to get Glimmer of Night to do that same cracking trick he’d used before. Being able to turn a beast core into an elemental bomb with nothing more than a trickle of qi was an incredible advantage. While Sen hoped to bring off his destruction of the Twisted Blade Sect without a single moment of direct combat, he knew that was unlikely. There were too many variables, too many people in a sect, to be able to guarantee that he could kill them all without facing anyone directly. He’d just have to settle for killing most of them without any direct conflict and end the rest the hard way. Having a storage ring stuffed full of cracked cores would make that job much, much easier. Plus, since he couldn’t ever be certain of the exact results of setting off a cracked core, he doubted that anyone else would be able to predict them. It was hard to counter something you couldn’t predict.
Sen was still cutting down the stone boars when he heard a thunderous noise. It took him a moment to realize that it was something racing toward them through the forest. The ground shook beneath him and the sounds of trees snapping and crashing to the ground soon became audible. He glanced over at Falling Leaf who looked almost bored as she wove through the herd like a specter of death. He called out to her.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
He increased his qinggong technique and shot back and forth between the legs, hammering those joints until one of them finally gave out. Sen rolled out of the way as the beast lurched, then launched himself at the other leg on that side of the boar’s body. He drew back his fist and hit the joint in that leg as hard as he could. The hide shattered, and Sen’s fist traveled straight through the flesh and bone beneath. The boar let out an animal scream of agony as it toppled over. With the fight effectively over, Sen lifted the restrictions he’d put on himself. He’d won. There was no reason to drag out the beast’s death. He summoned his jian, reinforced the blade with metal qi, and brought it down on the boar’s neck.
The increased sharpness and durability the metal qi gave the blade let it slice cleanly through, but Sen felt the strain in the metal all the same. He considered the sword and frowned. He’d known the day would come sooner or later, but his raw strength was legitimately more than the metal could endure for long. He’d have to replace it, somehow, before he made his attack on the Twisted Blade Sect. He did not want to be in the middle of a fight and have the sword break on him. He was still frowning at the jian when Falling Leaf appeared, gazing around at all the destruction. She shook her head at him.
“Will you clean up this mess?”
Sen blinked a few times. He supposed he should clean up the mess he’d made.
“I will,” he agreed.
Falling Leaf came over and peered down at the body of the enormous boar. She made a discontented noise.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sen.
Falling Leaf nudged the boar’s head with her foot and said, “They’re no good to eat. They taste like rocks.”