DC 74

Unless something goes wrong, next post should be the end of this little subplot (did you see what I did there)

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Exploiting the momentary stillness that spawned from the awkward confusion, Feng Jiao forcefully recalled all of the fire essence he had circulating through his body back to his dantian. As soon as he was sure that it was reasonably safe, Feng Jiao squeezed out the last vestiges of wood essence he’d preserved, pumping it into his surroundings to expedite the growth of all the seeds he’d tossed around the creature and himself. 

Very quickly, small leaves and stems started popping up through the surrounding landscape. Colored slightly yellow due to the pink moonlight hitting their fresh green epidermis, the weeds managed to grow even more voraciously due to the upheaval of soil. Feng Jiao and the creature had practically plowed the portion of the field where they fought, giving birth to the perfect environment for the tenacious plants to expand to their hearts’ content.

Feng Jiao, in a moment of inspiration, pushed his will through his rapidly expanding spiritual sense. After taxing his mental strength, he managed to convince a large portion of the weeds to grow around and onto the creature itself, ensuring its paws and legs, both things that were now visible through Feng Jiao’s spiritual sense. 

Six legs, sharp claws, and very muscular. This was the information Feng Jiao managed to solicit through his spiritual connection to the weeds. Unfortunately, Feng Jiao was not able to see colors or shape through his spiritual sense. Unlike humans, plants evolved to have different senses than humans, including several that humans were unable to perceive. His connection was able to feed him density, texture, and moisture, though not in the same way a human would interpret. For example, he could tell the creature was slightly slimy and didn’t have fur. Whether or not it had a leathery exterior or scales, though, he couldn’t tell. 

Even that was better than most cultivators would be able to perceive, only possible because Feng Jiao had learned the different ‘brain waves’, for lack of a better term, that plants use to think and communicate. Of course, Feng Jiao didn’t realize that other humans would have to meditate for countless years, waiting for a bout of enlightenment or lucky chance, until they could perceive these signals and translate them to human-like signals for their interpretation. 

Although a lot of things happened at once, the key words there were at once. All of this happened as quickly as it takes for a thought to travel. Still suffering from the momentary confusion of a human pointing a broom at it, the creature hadn’t managed to realize what was going on until it was already fastened to the earth by several tendrils of woven together weeds. The plants braiding themselves came as a pleasant surprise to Feng Jiao, who had used an enormous amount of his will and energy just to convince them to bind the creature.

“Now!” Feng Jiao yelled as he mustered all of his energy to swing his broom while at the same time maintaining the rapid growth of the plants around him. It wouldn’t be long until his wooden dantian bottomed out and he wanted to take as much advantage of the situation as possible.

What he didnt realize, however, was that his shout was useless. Although the creature had been shocked by the broom, and so had everyone else really, it had never stopped Xin Lee from looking for an opening. He’d spend the whole time watching their short but intense scuffle feeling useless and anxious, waiting for the chance to fire his arrows once again.

Even before the plants had snared their unsuspecting victim, Xin Lee had fired off three arrows in almost as many heartbeats. Thanks to Feng Jiao’s positioning, and the timely appearance of his living ropes, all three arrows managed to strike true. Three fleshy thumps sounded across the clearing as each arrow slammed into the creature, followed by a louder thump when Feng Jiao’s spear made it to the creature’s head.

Enraged and injured, the beast snapped out of its confusion quickly. The broom went from cute to threatening and the humans were suddenly not so fun to play with. Using its innate ability, the creature drained the vitality out of its bindings, causing them to wither and fall over, while leaping forward and slamming into Feng Jiao so hard that he went flying through the air with an audible crack of bones breaking.

Without following up the attack, the beast whirled and sprinted toward Xin Lee’s perch in a blur of movement. Within seconds, the creature had cleared the field and arrived at the shack, expending much energy in its rage, before gnawing away at the building's foundations. 

With every passing second, Xin Lee’s footing became worse and worse. Although he had an escape plan in mind, it wouldn’t work out if the creature could sustain the speed it had used to close the gap just then. In addition, Xin Lee felt that he had to wait until the last possible minute to attempt to escape to the ring in the center. Naturally, this is because the moment Feng Jiao went flying, the three able bodied boys left the safety of the torch ring to go drag him back. 

Although they’d be able to move faster with the three of them carrying Feng Jiao, it would be best if Xin Lee could give them as much of a head start as possible. He kept trying to fire arrows at the creature, but without bindings holding it still every arrow missed. Every now and then, the monster would pause and seemingly shudder, but it was back to moving before the arrows could ever reach their mark. Xin Lee hoped it was his tranquilizer taking effect, but without knowing what kind of monster hid behind the dark mist, there was no way of knowing how it would process the sleeping poison.

Before he realized it, his quiver was empty and the roof of the shack he stood upon was sagging heavily. Looking up, he saw that Feng Jiao and company were almost to relative safety and began to prepare his trump card. 

Although his father was the first famous Beast Tamer of his family, they’d been doing the job for over ten generations. After finding an ancient heritage site, his many-greats grandfather had taken it upon himself to revitalize their techniques and build his own clan, eventually leading to Xin Lee’s generation. Within the heritage was not only Beast Taming techniques, but also regular essence techniques and hallowed arts.

The only reason his clan hadn’t gotten much more popular was that most of these techniques were non-combat related, such as the one he prepared then. As with most of the techniques located within the ruins where his family’s heritage was found, the technique did not have a name associated with it. 

Hallowed techniques, fueled by essence rather than Qi, with an external effect were very rare. It was difficult to get the essence to perform an intended function before dissipating before the Condensation stage, so whenever a powerful one popped up, it was note worth. Try as he might, however, Xin Lee had never been able to locate any mention of his technique, or any of the family’s heritage techniques for that matter, in history books or archives. As such, he’d taken to calling it Scramble.

After biding his time, Xin Lee leapt from the building as it collapsed on top of the enraged creature, employing his technique the moment he hit the ground running. The technique utilized and mobilized the essence in a way that interacted with the ground around the user, working best with earth attributed Qi, or essence if cultivator hadn’t yet condensed any, but could work with any attribute at the end of the day. 

Every contact point his body made with the ground enabled him to better fine tune the technique and propel himself forward faster. For this reason, he’d taken his shoes off while waiting for the building to collapse. Every time his barefoot slapped against the ground, his speed was increased just a little bit until it reached its maximum, roughly twice as fast as Weiwu De’s adrenaline-fueled sprint earlier. 

Looking over his shoulder, Xin Lee realized it wasn’t going to be fast enough to get him to the torch line as the beast was gaining on him at a reasonable pace. Gritting his teeth, Xin Lee threw his pride out of the window and leaned forward.

By this point, Feng Jiao and company had made it back into the torches, half of which were lit in order to have enough torch time to make it to the morning. He sat in the center of the area, circulating his fire essence through his meridian in order to take advantage of its strange healing property, one he hadn’t managed to ask Aideen about yet, in order to mend his torn muscle and stop his internal bleeding. As soon as he was sure that the healing process was under way, he opened his eyes to a queer sight. 

All of the boys within the ring were staring out at the creature, which was running at max speed and rapidly regaining its senses, as it chased after Xin Lee. The first thing they noticed wasn’t that Xin Lee was somehow able to keep a lead on the beast. Nor did they notice that the plants around the beast were shriveling as it passed them, which continuously sent shivers down it’s spine. They didn’t even notice when Feng Jiao managed to stand himself up despite his seemingly severe injuries.

No. They were all watching with wide eyes and even wider mouths as Xin Lee barreled toward them on all four like an animal. Xin Lee hadn’t explained to them that the technique worked better when there were more contact points with the earth, including his hands, so every one of them was stuck wondering if the boy was actually a wolf wearing human skin. He ran so efficiently on all four, it almost seemed like his natural state to them!