Chapter 63: Large Battle and Plans

A/N: Hey everyone! Hope you've had a good week so far. Here's another chapter for you to enjoy!

Chapter 63:

“Fall!” I shouted, bringing my glowing silver sword down in a heavy slash against a jackal-like beast-man. 

He blocked my blow with his axe, the wooden half of his weapon reinforced by Qi, chipping only slightly against my Metallic Razor Slash. With a surge of strength as Qi exploded out of him, he pushed me back, sending me stumbling off balance despite my best efforts.

Annoying, but to be expected given everything we’d seen so far with the beast men. Each and every one of them was at the Mid-Stage of Qi-Gathering thanks to whatever transformation technique they used. That technique also seemed to bolster their strength the most. Enough so that my immense strength from my spirit beast cultivation and passive Skills, which made me stronger than new Mid-Stage Qi-Gatherers, still wasn’t enough to overpower them.

If I’d been alone, I would have been in a world of hurt. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone.

The jackal man growled and moved to take advantage of my opening. He lunged with his axe raised, but was stopped when Lin rushed him from the side and swung her metal cudgel. There was a loud clang of metal on metal as the jackal man shifted to block, skidding backwards only slightly despite the viciousness of Lin’s blow.

Like me, Lin’s normal strength advantage was not enough compared to the beast man. The jackal man only looked annoyed as he lashed out with his axe, which glowed a sickly green light. Lin was forced to back off as she parried the vicious swings of his weapon.

The jackal man snarled in satisfaction, his muscles bulging and the green of his axe growing with every swing. I rushed to help, parrying what blows I could, and getting my own hits in when I could. I only left shallow wounds on his body that healed quickly, but Lin and I were distracting him.

Jianfeng took advantage of this and moved behind the jackal man in a burst of speed and wind. Lighter green Qi swirled and danced along his blade as he raised it high and aimed for the jackal man’s neck. 

But the jackal man was perspective and turned at the last moment with an arm raised. That let me leave a shallow cut on his other arm, but kept Jianfeng from taking his head. Instead, he only managed a shallow cut in the beast man’s neck before his blade was halted by the flesh of the beast man’s arm. 

“Weakling scum!” the jackal man roared into the air, sending out a burst of Qi and force strong enough to send us all skidding away. “Fight me like a man, you cowards! Instead of swarming me like rats!”

He bit at the air before spinning to face Jianfeng. As the Jackel man did, I could see the deep wounds Jianfeng had cut into the man’s neck and arm already healing. Steam rose from those wounds, and the blood flowing out of them had already stopped. The wound I left on his arm was already gone as well.

I grimaced at the sight. That incredible healing factor made it really hard to take one of these guys out. Anything but a definitive killing blow barely did anything. Combined with their strength, it was little wonder why our group of nearly one hundred fighters was having such a pitched battle with a force a little more than a third of our size.

All around us, a similar scene played out as our allied forces fought with the enemy, separated just far enough for us to fight without getting in each other's way. The enemies' brutish savage fighters, all with an assortment of animal features—some more twisted and mutated than others—fighting against our more coordinated but often weaker forces. On both sides, casualties had already occurred, as bloodied bodies were ignored amongst the clash of steel and the rush of fighters. But it was the side that didn’t have absurd healing factors that took the brunt of it. 

Off in the distance, large flames battled a sludge-like darkness. Sun Xia had forced Hei Li and his new form away from the rest of us, while Zhao Wei and Zhu Xiang must have done the same with the other two Late-stage fighters. That left us, weaker cultivators, to decide this battle amongst ourselves. 

At least, until one of our side's stronger cultivators finished their battles. I just hope it would be ours and we would last until then.

The jackal man snarled and rushed after Jianfeng, swinging his axe in a renewed frenzy. Jianfeng ducked and weaved, not willing to even try to parry the immense strength behind each blow. Lin rushed to help, harassing the jackal man with her own strikes as her body radiated Qi.

I moved to help as well, but this time I decided to try something else. Something to take advantage of the fact that the jackal man was happy to let small wounds get through, since he healed so fast.

Conjuring up foxfire, I channeled it through my sword as I used Burst Step to rejoin the fight. We re-engaged in our deadly dance, Jianfeng and Lin slashing and smashing with all their might. Meanwhile, I focused on only leaving shallow cuts, something the jackal man seemed happy to let me do. 

It let me tag him with several balls of foxfire at once. First two. Then four. Then eight. With my reserves still flush from earlier, I did not need to hold back at all. 

Each wound I inflicted disappeared in moments, but each ball of foxfire stuck to his body would hopefully signal the jackal man’s doom. Though as I applied more of them, I realized that the formation above that dimmed the sun was going to be a problem for me. Even at their dimmest, my foxfire was still far more noticeable than before. 

We would have to keep up the pressure to ensure he didn’t notice or didn’t have time to try and get rid of them. Thankfully, that was not too difficult with three on one. He didn’t notice even once I tagged him with my twentieth ball of foxfire, and that’s when I made my move.

With a thought, I made all twenty balls drain at their maximum amount. Qi rushed into my reserves in an instant.

The effect on the jackal man became apparent quickly, too. His steps faltered, letting Jianfeng get a deeper slash into his arm as he blocked a swing of Lin’s cudgel. 

“What’s this?” he snarled, his Qi flaring and fighting against my drain. 

But that left him distracted enough for Jianfeng to get another good slash in, cutting deep into his arm that he used to protect his neck. At the same time, Lin managed to bash his leg with her cudgel, a crack ringing out. 

I grinned at the sight and moved to join in as well. But the jackal man snarled, and his Qi flared again. The draining diminished, and I tried to force it and fight against his resistance. If I could just—

A searing pain came from near my stomach. My steps faltered, and my concentration slipped.

The jackal man snarled, his sickly green Qi exploding out of him as he swung his axe in a wide arc. Several blades of Qi shot out, forcing Lin and Jianfeng back. 

One came for me as well, and I just managed to bring my sword up in time, empowered with Metallic Razor Slash to parry the attack away. Even then, the strength of the attack rang through my arms and sent me skidding back.

I grimaced as I felt all the foxfire I’d tagged the jackal man with disappear as his Qi surged once more. Damn. I hadn’t even replenished all the Qi I spent on those. 

I placed a hand on my stomach as I watched the jackal man warily. He hadn’t seemed to recognize me as the one who had affected him, and instead was staring hatefully between Jianfeng and Lin. He snarled once more before making a decision and going after Jianfeng. It seemed he didn’t want to turn his back on the fastest of us.

I held back for another moment as Lin and Jianfeng tried to hold the jackal man off. As I did, I tried to think of what else I could do to help, as apparently the strain I’d felt from draining and using so much Qi before hadn’t healed. At least not completely. I needed something else, because I didn’t think we could win if things kept at this rate.

Damn. 

I thought about it for another short moment before deciding on a new plan of action. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it, as that would force my friends to bear the brunt of the fighting. So with a Burst Step, I joined back in.

Once again, I didn’t manage to do much damage as I joined the fight. Despite my strength, I hadn’t been fighting for nearly as long as either Jianfeng or Lin. Even with my Swordsmanship Skill, I still had a long way to go. And that wasn’t helped by the fact that my focus was split. But that was fine, as I would hopefully be able to do more with what I had planned.

So I mainly acted as a distraction, pulling some of the pressure off of my friends, while I focused on a particular image. Back before the trial, I wouldn’t have been able to do this, especially not in such a dangerous life-or-death battle. But the bonus to my Mind stat given to me by my tail helped a lot, allowing me to create a concrete image in my mind while still focused enough not to get killed by the jackal man.

Once the image was set in my mind, I waited for my chance as I continued to battle the jackal man. I just needed an opening and—there!

Jianfeng dodged another of the jackal man’s strikes. At the same time, Lin moved to hammer his head in with her metal cudgel. The jackal man met the cudgel with his free hand, which was encased in his Qi. Both of his feet were set on the floor as he braced himself, swinging his axe and sending out a blade of Qi to ward Jianfeng and me off.

I activated Earth Constructs right after avoiding the attack. With my concrete image in mind, and trying my best to force more Qi into it, I formed my construct right under the man.

Sharp teeth exploded out of the ground first. In jaws big enough to cut even the jackal man’s oversized torso apart, they snapped up around both his legs, digging into flesh and locking him in place for a moment. 

The jackal man snarled and raised his axe. His muscles bludgeon, and already I could see my construct strain. But I had expected that. Despite how much it looked like a metal bear trap, the construct was still only made out of hardened rock. And even if it had been made with metal, it would probably not have been enough.

But what about magical crystal?

Crystallizing Beam shot out of my already raised hand, hitting not the Jackal man who could resist but my own construct. Perhaps because of the nature of my construct, or because both were from my Qi, the transformation happened even faster than I expected. 

Almost instantly, the construct turned into purple crystal. A much stronger purple crystal that spread down into the ground, anchoring my construct further.

The jackal man swung his axe down and into my bear trap with a vicious snarl. The glowing, sickly green axe smashed into the crystal, but only broke off a couple of teeth as the rest of the construct remained latched to his body. He swung his axe again, even harder this time, but still couldn’t fully free himself, even as crystal shattered.

That was his undoing as Lin and Jianfeng were not idle.

With a loud shout, Lin rushed at the jackal man from his side. She swung with furious strength, her body practically exploding with Qi as her robes whipped around her. The jackal man managed to block with his glowing hand again, but he grunted in pain and struggled to push her away and keep chopping at the construct trapping him. He lost all ability to free himself when Jianfeng attacked with another wind-enhanced strike.

The jackal man was forced to use his axe to block, but anchored in place as he was, and with his other hand busy, he could only do so clumsily. So much so that the skilled Jianfeng managed to knock his axe aside and send a horizontal slash straight at his neck.

The sword cut into flesh and hit bone. But then it stopped, stuck in the spine. 

Despite all our advantages, Jianfeng could not cut all the way through the man’s neck in a single blow. The jackal man snarled and tried to lash out with his axe. However, as tenacious as he was, and as unsettling as his attempts to still fight back were, it wasn’t enough.

“Die!” Jianfeng shouted as Qi burst from him and swung his sword from inside the jackal man’s neck. 

Flesh cut and tore. The jackal man’s head went sailing away, still snarling as it spun in the air. The jackal man’s axe still nearly got Jianfeng in the arm, but a quick back-step allowed him to dodge the blow while Lin reared back and smashed apart the body that flailed in its death throes.

And just like that, the incredibly hard-to-kill jackal man was headless with half his torso smashed apart, while the rest of his body was still held in a large crystal bear trap.

I let out a tired breath, but didn’t relax my guard as I directed my attention to the fighting still around us. The massive battle had ended up split up into a bunch of smaller battles, with a decent amount of space between our people and their chosen enemies. Steel met steel, elemental Qi constructs soared and crashed, and shouts of men and women fighting for their lives rang out.

In many of these fights, things did not go nearly as well for our side as with our fight. Even just from a glance, more than one of our allies was cut down even as their fellows tried to take down the too-powerful beast men.

Amongst all of this, my attention was drawn to a familiar white hair girl who decided to take on three of the beast men herself. She was helped by Pan Song, who’d set up his formations near her and sent his whips of fire at the enemy when he could. Xing Yaling kept too much pressure on the beast men she was fighting for them to spare the attention to attack him.

Despite all that, however, it was clear she still wasn’t at full power. She didn’t flinch or show obvious signs of discomfort. But she didn’t use any of her ice techniques, and she was still far slower than compared to the other Late-stage Qi-Gatherers.

I was tempted to help her, but held myself back. Not as strong as she could be, she was still one of the strongest people on our side and could take care of herself. There were other people who could use our help.

Yet, as I looked around to find said people, I couldn’t help but spare a moment to look towards the fighting in the distance. Where the Late-Stage Qi-Gatherers were. Sun Xia and her flames were still battling Hei Li and his dark ooze, which was still being bolstered by the dark formation around us. Said formation seemed to be bolstering the other two Late-Stage fighters as well now. Neither Zhao Wei nor Zhu Xiang had won yet, despite how dominant Zhao Wei had been before, and dark pillars were oozing down from the sky in their direction as well.

Part of me couldn’t help but want to help with those battles. It was an arrogant thought, but I couldn’t help it. I hated not being able to truly matter in this battle because of the tyranny of rank. And just from glancing around, I wasn’t sure if we could turn the tide enough to matter, as many of the beast men seemed far stronger than the one we fought.

Yet, what could I do about that? It wasn’t as if…

Wait a minute!

Something I should have realized a lot faster suddenly came to me. Maybe there was something we could do. Well, not me specifically, but I could help at least. As long as Pan Song can do it.

“Lan,” Jianfeng called, flinging the blood off his blade. He gestured with his head to a familiar group of mercenaries that were having some trouble with two beast men. “We should go help. Are you alright?”

“Yes…” I said, nodding but unable to keep from looking over at Pan Song. “But, do you think we can do something else instead. I think I might have a way for us to help with the greater battle between the Late-Stage Cultivators."

“What do you mean?” Jianfeng asked, a frown on his face as he followed my gaze. He tilted his head for a moment before his eyes widened and he looked up. 

“What do you think?” I asked as Lin walked over. She had heard as well, and was glancing back between Jianfeng, the sky, and Pan Song before her eyes widened, too.

“Only one way to know for sure,” Lin said before she started walking in his direction. Jianfeng and I did the same. “But we should help Xing Yaling deal with her enemies first. Give us room to speak and not have to worry about being stabbed in the back.”

“Yes,” Jianfeng said, a stern look on his face as he readied his sword.

“Of course,” I said, preparing myself as well. “Should I do the same thing I did to the jackal man to the lion-looking one?”

“Yes, that works,” Jianfeng said before we all rushed over.

With the plan in hand, and Xing Yaling already putting them on the back foot, our entrance into the fight went quite well. I managed to ensnare one of the enemies, and Jianfeng and Lin got two big hits in on him. The lion-like man managed to stay alive when a massive lion phantom rose from his back and sent them flying. But that moment of holding down the lion man let Xing Yaling get a decisive blow. 

Her pure white spear took him in the eye, and ice exploded out of his head. 

One of the other beast men—a leopard-like man—snarled in rage at that and tried to attack her from behind. He was fast. But Jianfeng, Lin, and I were ready and attacked him all at once, slowing him down enough for Xing Yaling to stab him in the heart. 

Ice exploded out of the man’s chest. And it looked like he might be finished as well. But the last beast man, one with a beak and feathers, exploded into a powerful gale that forced Xing Yaling away. Before any of us could do more, the bird woman appeared beside her comrade and grabbed him by the shoulders. Then, letting out one last screech of anger, she retreated with him in a blur into the air, using some kind of technique.

“Thank you,” Xing Yaling said, nodding at us and taking a moment to breathe when it was obvious the two were not coming back. I could just make out their landing on the other side of the battlefield.

“No problem,” I said with a grin before spinning and facing Pan Song, who’d run up to us. “Now, Pan Song, what can you do about the formation above us?”