Chapter 23 #2
Bullrush! You have successfully avoided Fatal Swipe!
Bullrush chained three times! You have successfully pivoted behind your foe!
Storm Strike!
Lightning Blast!
You have temporarily stunned your—
Your foe has critically struck you!
“Let’s get it on!” Alex roared, flashing a fierce hot smile as his fangtian ji whipped through the air with the howling force and fury of the storm crackling with lightning’s fury.
Lightning that chained from his cleaving blow, tearing right through its flank into a forking explosion of blue-white bolts that crackled through his foe.
A foe that should have crashed to the ground, its heart fried by lightning.
A foe that instead twisted around so fast that Alex barely had the heartbeat he needed to register, locking gazes with predatory hunger that made it clear that it had been holding back.
The Gold-tier predator had been HOLDING BACK its abilities, Quickness now the equal of the highest rungs of human Silver—Rank 5. Perhaps it was even Rank 6, which was normally beyond any cultivator who hadn’t achieved a Gold core. But seeing as how this WAS a Gold-tier greater spirit beast…
It was more than fast enough to catch the abdomen of the foolish disciple who dared to challenge it. Ripping past fangtian ji, rupturing skin and plunging into muscle.
An instant away from tearing pink intestines free, had Alex not managed to blink away, a rustle in the trees and a choked-off scream answered by a demonic roar as the massive spirit tiger glared into the foliage above the fruit-filled maze, licked its claw, and smiled with the malice of the vilest of cultivators as it sauntered over to Kuaisu and prepared to dig in.
“No, please… Wu! Help me!”
“Kuaisu!”
Wu Xien desperately launched himself forward, taking bubbling gasps from blood-speckled lips as he stumbled toward the tiger that would surely spell his doom… when fresh screams rang through the air.
Screams emanating from the wild-eyed Ruidian who dared to fight even with a perforated intestine, paying a horrid price in pain for his daring.
You have strained your injury! Medium Wound fails to stabilize! You have suffered additional blood loss! (Vitality save prevents intestines from spilling forth!)
Doom Strike!
You have dared to channel Black Lightning! Your foe has suffered 1 Serious Wound!
Vitality check penalized! You have suffered one additional Medium Wound!
Alex was nearly stunned with pain almost the equal of the tiger’s when Wu Xien stiffened with a directive the man had no ability to resist, darting forward to claim both Tang and Kuaisu and stumble over to the entrance at a speed beyond any he had ever managed before even as a wild-eyed Ya Ling reached desperate arms to grab the still-bleeding and slowly dying Kuaisu, followed by a sobbing Tang, forced to suffer such agony with his intestines spilling as he was pushed through and all but dumped on the ice-cold cushion of a howling snowstorm beyond…
And last of all was Wu Xien, struggling up the rope with Ya Ling’s frantic help as terror froze them both on the rope, the air filled with a killing aura so intense that Ya Ling was on the verge of collapsing and crashing right down to her doom.
Before the air exploded with black lightning once more and the furious howls of a wounded Gold.
YOU have successfully dodged Fatal Swipe!
You have been momentarily stunned by Suppressing Roar!
Quickness check: success!
It was all Alex could do to Spring Leap for the uppermost branches as the fearsome Gold below roared its fury, shocking Alex with injuries he could do nothing save suffer through, even as he cycled the potent Dark Qi energy all about in a desperate bid to heal what he could in the moments he had before the terrible vessel of destruction came for him once more.
For despite its enormous size, the Spirit Tiger was every bit as agile as he was.
Yet somehow, despite the peril and spiritual pressure seeking to consume him, to drown him in the depths of despair, Alex was forever a single leap ahead as his communion with the lush jungle grove increased with every desperate leap before wood was shattered to kindling and fury.
With every drop of sweat and blood to soak those mystical trees that were as much dream as real, making Alex’s sacrifice all the more sacred.
All the more profound.
You have successfully dodged Doom Pounce!
Spring Leap—enhanced quickness avoids Deadly Swipe!
You have accessed: Dark Beast Core.
Power healing engaged!
The forest acknowledges your sacrifice.
You are now one with this grove!
Yet for all that Alex had given up on anything save survival as he led the furious beast ever deeper into its own sanctuary, doing all he could to make sure his battle mates had successfully fled, it wasn’t panic or terror that motivated him.
It was an ice-cold fury the equal of the most bitter seas.
A roiling calculation as he peered past the deadly Golden glow that scalded the senses, to measure and understand as best he could the furious streams of potent animalistic fury radiating both the wild savagery of woodland predators and the fluid grace of liquid perfection that was this recently broken through Gold-tier monster.
And just as Alex suffered his most perilous exchange yet, throat coming so close to being torn open in a spray of blood, the slicing of Gold-ranked claw against Silver-tier Draconically enhanced flesh still enough to send blood drenching the forest anew…
It all suddenly clicked.
Sensing the subtle hot flare of furious blazing Qi through meridians far more powerful, and subtle, than any crude beast of countless other shadow realms or deep wooden glades.
Clicked as he breathed in time to the rustling susurrations of the leaves all around him.
Now just an extension of the forest.
The tiger glared at Alex with a cold, all-too-human grin as it licked fresh crimson drops off its claws once more, making a promise as a gurgling Alex gritted his teeth and engaged in power healing as best he could.
“You will die now, mortal.”
“Bring it, motherfucker!”
A promise Alex had every intention of keeping.
“Alex, we’re all free! Please get out now, while you can!”
The tiger laughed, eyes twinkling with such malice that Alex felt nothing but dread, knowing what it must mean.
“There is no escape. You know that, don’t you, mortal?” The tiger’s grin grew. “Not for them… and not for you.”
Alex forced a laugh even as he choked back a scream, enduring his forced healing, sensing to his dismay that his closest companions could sense every word exchanged by Alex and his final opponent. “You’re right. There’s no escape from our destiny… so let me show you yours.”
“That you would dare!” The tiger roared and charged, eyes wild with the scent of Alex’s blood that he had already shed in such copious amounts, yet no more as Alex darted from one branch to another as fast as thought, frustrating the tiger to no end as Alex’s smile grew.
Grew as furious claws and snapping teeth found it ever harder to score the flesh of the prey the spirit beast yearned so desperately to finish, the tiger growing increasingly frustrated as he crashed about the forest as clumsily as a galleon caught in a storm that rocked both mast and till.
A storm of Water laced with Steel and fury, Wind and Dark Qi.
A storm that lit up the increasingly damaged grove with white-blue flashes of Lightning as the tiger’s furious roars slowly turned into gurgling snarls.
Smoke flowed from singed and blackened fur.
An ancient, terrible predator that had put down countless opponents over who knew how many decades.
A beast that had been trapped here in a greenhouse in the middle of this winter certainly had no reason to think that death by the sea would be its eventual doom.
Yet when brilliant arcs of lightning became crackling ribbons of death, carving fresh tracks of ruin upon both it and its assailants’ flesh; when once-effective roars earned only mocking laughter, no matter the blood leaking freely from the prey’s nose and ears; when one’s foe began step-sliding away from what would have been absolutely devastating blows, as if they could sense your very flow of spiritual energy…
It was time go. Attack with everything you have!
Alex blinked, truly surprised to see the Gold-tier monster perform such a deadly feint. Whipping around to rip out Alex’s eyes… and actually managing to rip open his cornea.
But the giant tiger didn’t escape unscathed.
Like a galleon so eager to take on a privateer that it was purposely led to perilous shallows more than capable of shredding any hull, the tiger looked almost comically surprised to find itself hurtling back through the air, spinning like a ragdoll, wearing an expression that would have been comical, even to Alex, had his foe not come so close to killing him already.
Alex lurched to the loamy forest floor, desperately doing his utmost to engage in power-healing while not losing himself in the aftermath of a Sage’s Insight.
Avalanche! You have successfully struck and stunned a Gold-tier Greater Spirit Beast!
You now understand the devastating potency of Earth better than you ever have before!
Avalanche has hit Rank 5!
Adept-tier perk automatically chosen: One with the Storm.
A desperate Alex pushed away the agony of a ripped-open eye, the furious exultation of transcendence along Peril’s Path. All his focus was on seizing this sudden opportunity. Flickering through the sea of forest green faster than he ever had before. For he now truly was one with the sea.
Such that when a momentarily stunned ascended beast went skipping over verdant waves of rippling green, it was to smash against hull-shearing shoals repeatedly.