Chapter 53: Danger in a Forest

A/N: Hey everyone. Here's a chapter for Monday! Hope you all enjoy! And thanks again for everyone here and your support! I really appreciate it.

Chapter 53: 

We reached the transport array before the assassins managed to break through the defensive formation. I could tell because I could still hear them bashing against it, and feel the tremors they caused running through the underground.

“What is this?” Xing Yaling asked, her voice wary and guarded as she took in the transport chamber.

“A transport array,” Pan Song said, pulling me over to the center of the array before letting me go. I tried my best not to fall over and pay attention. “It can take us off this island. I just need a moment, and we have to choose where to go.”

“How many options?” I asked, hissing out a breath before remembering my healing pills. I still had two more, so I took one, hoping it would help. I wasn’t sure if it could deal with things like this, but now didn’t seem like the time to worry about waste. Taking out a pill, I quickly swallowed it. “And can we make sure they can’t follow behind us?”

“There are two destinations,” Pan Song said, and I could practically hear the wince in his voice. That wasn’t great. “And the rock you put on the array should block the other side once we transport. But just in case, we should try and destroy the array there as well.”

“I will take care of that,” Xing Yaling said, her white spear appearing in her hand out of nowhere. Huh, she must have some kind of spatial ring or something to store it. I hadn’t even noticed she’d put it away. “Now get us out of here.”

Pan Song nodded and worked with his formation plate. “Give me just one moment. I’m picking the furthest one from here, which hopefully means there will be no one on the other side. But there’s a coin flip’s chance that we might run into people working with your attackers.”

I grimaced and readied myself as best as I could. White symbols started to float out of the formation around us and began to circle.

I almost used Foxtail Clone again, just for the tail boost, but got the feeling that letting my clone die would keep me from re-using it again so soon. This left me with very limited options. Just really Crystalizing Beam and Earth Constructs as offensive options, as my unaugmented foxfire wasn’t really Qi effective without cultivating them first or without external fuel.

Another shockwave rang out from the tunnel, and this time, the voices calling out got louder. 

Damn, they must have broken through. I spun to face the tunnel, raising a hand in case they reached us in time.

Thankfully, they weren’t fast enough. The sounds of their footsteps grew louder rapidly, but the white symbols spinning around us reached maximum speed before they even reached the chamber. 

“No!” was all I heard from the attackers before the world shifted.

The teleportation lasted longer this time. It felt like, for a moment, I was hanging in a void. Then, like before, we dropped a couple of inches and appeared somewhere new. But this time I was still feeling a bit dizzy, and I felt the world start to tip over.

A hand reached out and steadied me. It was a small, slender hand that made me shiver from how cold it felt even through my robes.

“T-thanks—woah!” I started to say, only to yelp as that same hand gripped my arm tight and pulled me off my feet. I heard the sound of rock shattering, followed by ice cracking.

As I tried to get my bearings, the world spinning around me, I found myself yanked to the side again. That was followed by something flying past me and shouting coming from somewhere. Lots and lots of shouting, I realized, coming from all around us!

“Who is that!”

“Doesn’t matter! Get them!”

“Ha, look at that beauty. Come here, little girl, and let this daddy show you a good time!!”

Xing Yaling pulled me again and pushed me behind a tree. She straightened and spun her spear in a graceful vertical circle as Pan Song leapt towards us, dodging balls of fire aimed at him. They just barely grazed over his head, and I tried to push myself up to help.

Then Xing Yaling slashed up with her spear, the tip trailing the ground for a split second. Spears of ice grew out of the ground, following the path of her strike like a wave. They grew taller the further they went, turning into pillars of ice as they rushed forward.

The people attacking us, men dressed in three distinct styles—one oddly familiar, mostly black with black bandanas covering their faces—tried to either avoid it or block it with their own attacks. Many failed to do either. Those hit by the full force of the ice turned blue from just the touch of the pillars before they were sent flying.

Most who tried to block and attack back had their weapons explode into shards before they suffered the same fate. Only a few managed to get by unscathed, but even those were forced back by her single technique.

“Winter Blossoms,” Xing Yaling whispered from beside us as she pressed the bottom of her spear to the ground and twisted it.

Ice cold Qi radiated off of her, and a surge of energy rushed through all the ice her technique created. Flower blossoms started budding all over her ice. Some of the people—who looked familiar for some reason, especially one man with a big nose and dark clothes—noticed the blossoms and either ran or used what looked like defensive techniques.

But more missed or ignored them and tried rushing us.

“Awaken,” Xing Yaling said, and all her blossoms glowed with a blue light. 

It happened in a split second, and in the next, the blossoms all exploded, their petals flying everywhere, shredding flesh, shattering defenses, and demolishing the tents and other things that these people had set up around the transport array.

“Whoa,” I said, taking in the sight. 

“We have to go,” Xing Yaling said hurriedly as she ran off from the clearing around the formation into the forest. “If they are with those who tried to ambush me, then this won’t keep them all down. Hurry!”

“What?” I asked, but she was already rushing off. 

I forced myself to stand, still a bit wobbly, and rushed after her into the forest as well.

“Are you okay?” Pan Song asked beside me as I got my balance.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said, steadying myself as we ran. “Let’s hurry up. Who knows how many more of these people are around here?”

Pan Song nodded and rushed forward. He used a movement technique that was similar to my burst step, sending himself rushing forward at great speed. I followed right after, using Burst Step to keep up.

As I rushed through the forest, a scream—no, a roar—rang out from behind. It was followed by several more after. They sounded unfortunately familiar, like a mix between a mad beast and a person.

So that’s what she meant. It was probably like the ones who attacked her before. They were transforming into those grotesque beast-like hybrids. And from what Xing Yaling said, this technique of theirs might let them heal and come after us right away.

Just great.

I burst stepped again, rushing forward to catch up to run side by side with Pan Song. Then we both rushed forward even faster, finally catching up with Xing Yaling, who’d put her spear away again. Her long white hair fluttered behind her as she ran, probably holding back to keep from leaving us behind. Ice appeared beneath her feet each time they touched the ground, and it seemed to let her skate across the uneven ground of the forest.

“Any idea where we are?” I asked our group aloud. I didn’t recognize anything familiar about this place, as it just seemed like a forest to me.

“We should be somewhere far south of the trial grounds,” Pan Song said, his voice a bit strained as he struggled to maintain our speed. “Possibly closer to the Great Southern Forest. But that was all I could figure out before we were forced to transport.”

“Any idea on what we should do?” I asked, mainly hoping Xing Yaling had something. Because as far as I knew, neither Pan Song nor I had any way out of this… Well, admittedly, that wasn’t quite true for me. I could use Earth Wader and disappear into the ground. But I could only do that by myself, so it was a last resort.

No one replied. Pan Song was focused on keeping up, and Xing Yaling didn’t have an answer either. I could still hear shouts and what sounded like people rushing through the underbrush behind us. They were already coming after us, and from the sounds of it, they were fast. We wouldn’t be able to outrun them at this pace.

“They're gonna catch up at this rate,” I said, taking a look behind me and seeing movement in the distance. Damn it. “I think we’re going to have to fight.”

“My Qi is nearly depleted,” Xing Yaling said, her voice soft. “And I am injured. If we can’t defeat them, I will have to leave you both behind.”

I grimaced at that, and part of me wanted to be mad. We’d saved her after all, and now she was saying she was going to abandon us. But I suppose I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to sink with us if we were doomed anyway.

“Do you have any spirit beast cores?” I asked, racking my brain for any more ideas. But that was the only thing I could think of. Everything else was too Qi-rich, and if she was nearing her end, she probably didn’t have any spirit stones on her either.

She replied by tapping the pouch at her hip. Another pouch popped out—a large one—and she threw it back towards me. I caught it a bit clumsily, using my left hand, but brightened immediately when I confirmed what was inside. That was a lot of spirit beast cores.

My excitement only grew as I inspected what was in there, doing my best to ignore the pain in my right hand. There were plenty of early Rank 1 cores, which I could tell by the size and feel. But there were also mid-stage cores, and what I was pretty sure was a single late-stage core.

“Okay, this will help,” I said, excitement in my voice and a plan starting to form. “We need to keep running while I power up my techniques. I should be able to hit hard enough for a bit to hurt or even kill Mid-stage Qi-Gatherers. When we can’t go any further, the two of us just need to hold them off long enough for Pan Song to set up a defensive formation. He can do that in a dozen seconds, and it should give us some protection. Our defenses should hold long enough for us to either take out our attackers, or at least drive them away long enough for us to do something else.”

“Very well,” was all Xing Yaling said as we continued to run. “You would know better about what the two of you can do.”

Seeing she wasn’t going to say anything else, I started prepping for the coming fight. I began by taking out all the early-stage cores and putting them in the pouches at my hip. Then I tied the new pouch to my sash and pulled out one mid-stage core in particular. This one seemed to be fire-aligned from what I could tell.

Creating foxfire, I attached four of them to the core and started to burn it, creating my more potent foxfire as quickly as I could. The effects of burning a fire-aligned spirit beast core became apparent very quickly, as the flames burned a lot stronger and faster than I’d seen before. The only downside seemed to be that the flames were starting to lose their incorporeal nature. They weren’t burning me just yet, but they certainly felt hot.

Not great, but hopefully the firepower would make up for that.

Since I couldn’t store this core away now, as it was only going to get hotter and might end up burning through cloth, I kept a hold of it in my hand. Unfortunately, that left me with no extra hand to grab some of my early-stage cores, which I planned to use my rapid burn explosive release technique on them like I’d done against Qian Zhi. The crystal in my right hand was really annoying.

But there was nothing I could do about that right now, so I would just have to make as much fire qi enhanced foxfire as I could until the enemy reached us.

Speaking of which…

I glanced over my shoulder to check on our pursuers. I cursed when I saw that they were closer now. They were still in the distance, but even through the trees I could make out the distinct shape of their silhouettes now. There were at least nine of them coming towards us.

“There’s at least nine chasing us,” I said, just in case the others hadn’t checked or seen them yet. “And they're almost here.”

“I see a clearing up to the right up ahead,” Pan Song said, his breath heavy as he seemed to be nearing his limits with maintaining our speed. “We should… Stop there. It will make things easier for my formations.”

“Understood,” Xing Yaling said as we reoriented just a bit to aim for the clearing.

The foxfire burning in my hand reached a critical point, where they were almost too hot for me to hold and probably too powerful for me to keep burning without losing control. So I detached them from the beast core, which was about halfway consumed, and stuck them around my right wrist, away from the burned parts of my arm there.

Before I could make any more enhanced foxfire, we arrived at the clearing, and all came to a halt. Pan Song panted heavily, but started throwing his formation flags immediately. Meanwhile, Xing Yaling spun to face our coming pursuers, and I moved to follow her. 

Seeing our attackers almost here, I cursed and put away the mid-stage core for now. Instead, I took out three early-stage cores and palmed them in my left hand. I even managed to hold one more in my right hand between my index finger and thumb. I wouldn’t be able to throw it, but it was faster than going for my pouch.

Creating more foxfire, I attached them to each of the early-stage cores and got ready to throw. 

I would have liked to use my mid-stage cores for this, too, as that would probably be a hell of a lot more powerful. But mid-stage cores were too energy dense and stable, same with the late-stage core, from what I knew about them. I’d need much more potent foxfire—which would take too much time to cultivate right now—to burn so quickly and have the same effect as with early-stage ones. If I tried it with what I had now, it was likely that I would just waste the cores. 

So I would stick with using those cores as fuel to enhance my foxfire for now. Though only after Pan Song got his array setup, as I needed to focus on defending against the incoming fighters right now.

Our attackers were nearly at the clearing now, giving me a much better chance to take in their appearances. There were nine of them, each one running with a weapon in hand. They also no longer looked like the men I’d seen earlier back at the camp around the transport array. Those men had looked like scruffy men in dirty tunics and trousers, covered in leather or metal armor.

But they had been normal men.

The attackers coming at us now were not. Instead, they resembled the assassins after Xing Yaling back in the tunnels. Not completely, though. They had elongated canines, claws instead of fingernails, faces that protruded like snouts, and some had animal ears sticking out of their heads. They also all looked more muscular than before, and many of their clothes ripped as if they had grown too large for them. But despite all that, their animal features looked like they should be there, instead of being horrible mutations or grafted on limbs.

That didn’t make them much less threatening, however.

I tensed as the enemy finally reached the clearing, some of them snarling at us while brandishing their weapons. I could feel Qi emanating heavily from them all, feeling bestial and bloody. They were also all at least mid-stage of Qi-gathering, I realized, making my stomach drop.

Still, I pulled back my left hand and moved to throw my spirit beast cores.

But Xing Yaling was faster.

She swung her white spear up and sent forward a wave of ice spears. It disrupted the charge of our attackers, forcing them back. But it wasn’t as effective this time, as their weapons didn’t break, and only one man was skewered by the ice.

Still, it was enough to let me go on the attack as well. I made the foxfire stuck to the cores I had started to burn and threw the ones in my left hand.

I aimed all three of the cores at one target before tossing my final core into my left hand and whipping that one at another. My targets noticed right away, slashing out with a saber and an axe at my attacks. But before their attacks hit, I made them go full burn, whipping the foxfire into a frenzy.

They exploded into four balls of flame and force. 

The man I’d targeted with all three was engulfed by the rapidly burning flames. There was a single scream of pain from him before he went silent. The other man was only partially covered by expanding blue flames, screaming in pain as he retreated, holding a burning hand that was starting to show bone. But I didn’t get a chance to celebrate as the rest of the attackers cut through the ice Xing Yaling had conjured.

They rushed forward, beast-like snarls on their lips.

I sent the extremely enhanced balls of foxfire I had on my right wrist forward to meet four of them. At the same time, I reached into my pouches to take out more beast cores. Xing Yaling swung her spear again, creating a wave of icicles that shot forward with immense speed.

The attackers were forced to stop and block her barrage of ice. It made it easier for my foxfire to hit their targets, though even then, only two of my attempts made it. The other two were destroyed by elementally enhanced strikes from the beast-like men.

Still, the two that hit caused my targets to scream and snarl in pain. The foxfire—which had already been twice the size of a fist—grew to be almost as big as their torsos as it engulfed them. Hopefully it would—Damn!

The two that were being burned by my foxfire howled like the wolves they resembled, and Qi exploded from their bodies. It pushed the flames off their bodies after a moment, revealing terribly burned flesh. But they were both still alive and very pissed. Worse, their wound started to steam and seemed to even heal.

Fuck!

They charged forward, along with the rest of the attackers, as Xing Yaling’s barrage came to an end. I reared back to throw more cores, but they were almost upon us. It might be too close. Hopefully, Xing Yaling could—

Xing Yaling gasped, and I could see her falling to a knee from the corner of my eye. She was holding her stomach, where there was a big, bloody gash that was bleeding again. Shit.

Gritting my teeth, I tossed all my cores in front of us, hoping for the best.

But the beast-like men weren’t stupid, and they juked back to avoid my attack. When the foxfire erupted, I only caught one of them, sending him sprawling, clawing at his burning skin. Then they were rushing forward again, too fast for me to react.

A semi-transparent wall appeared just as I raised my hand for a last stand. It appeared so quickly that many of our attackers slammed into it face-first. I would have laughed, but I was too busy reaching for more spirit beast cores.

Because as powerful as that barrier was, it wasn’t going to last long. We needed to attack as fast and hard as we could to take advantage of it; otherwise, we would lose. I just hoped I had the firepower to do it, as Xing Yaling was still struggling to get up.