Chapter 40: Chapter 40: Thousand year old soul beast
Xiu Ye shook his head from the feeling he felt and headed towards the direction of the presence of the thousand year old soul beast. He took a single step forward and he disappeared from his position, as if he were a blur, and appeared flash jumping from tree branch to tree branch. His right hand hovering over the handle of his sword.
He was like a phantom under the cover of the shades of the trees' leaves, every step he takes he vanishes and reappears in another location but vanishes right after to appear in a far distance.
To other people, they would have think that he used a rare space attribute soul ability that can make him teleport in any direction with a far range, but they'll be wrong as other soul masters with connection and comprehension to the space element would notice that there was no activity of space being disturb around him.
No, these movements akin to teleportation his using is a pure physical movement technique called Flash Steps.
Flash Steps, or Shunpo in japanese, is a movement technique which allows the user to move faster than the eye can follow. As speed is the main factor of the technique, the method is best characterized by how fast one can get from point A to point B in the least amount of steps. Training and skill are what determines how fast a user of Shunpo can move.
However there are variations even within Shunpo, three known ones at least, which only master Hohō practitioners can use.
Xiu Ye, thanks to the memories of Genryūsai Yamamoto and training his body, has achieved the level of a master Hohō practitioner.
Hohō masters are capable of maintaining high speed movements for extended periods of time while using the least amount of steps to achieve those movements. Masters are capable of using advanced steps, which are considerably harder to initiate.
Which was way, within four steps, Xiu Ye was already on top standing of a tree branch looking down on a large animal lazily sleeping on the grass.
It looked like a large lion, at least as large and fit as a bull, but with red skin and its mane was a beautiful orange flaming mane instead of fur.
'A Blazing Demon Lion!' Xiu Ye's eyes widened in surprise. He read about them in the books he had in his storage ring.
Blazing Demon Lions were one of the strongest soul beast races on land.
The head lion of a pack of Blazing Demon Lions was equivalent to a thousand-year or ten thousand year old soul beast. As for the remaining lionesses, every one of them had the cultivation of a hundred-year soul beast at least, if not a thousand-year level. They were able to become so powerful simply because they had very few natural predators in the forest.
Thankfully, ten thousand year old soul beasts aren't allowed in this area.
'Where is the pride?' Xiu Ye's eyes narrowed, he once more used his spiritual power to sense his surroundings.
There was a single true fact about a Blazing Demon Lion, they are never alone even when they have a cultivation age of a hundred thousand years old. This was the reason why they were so fearsome, as they are always grouped together.
However, as Xiu Ye focused more of his spiritual power on sensing his surroundings, he furrowed his brows. There were no other soul beasts around the area except him and the lion.
What was going on? Is this Blazing Demon Lion actually a loner?
Xiu Ye doubled, tripled and quadrupled check his surroundings of 35 diameters and yet, there was no signs of any Blazing Demon Lionesses or even any soul beasts in general.
This situation has never actually happened before in the books he'd read, just what was going on?
Bending his knees over to crouch, Xiu Ye decided to observed the sleeping beast in its natural habitat for a while.
The Blazing Demon Lion had its eyes close, air coming in and out of its black nostrils, and wispa white clouds of steam constantly rising under its body as it slowly burns the ground.
It looked, peaceful.
It continued chilling in place for several minutes.
Xiu Ye let out a long sigh and shook his head. 'No, I can't do it, I can't kill a defenseless animal like that. Attacking in self-defense is different than killing a sleeping being, no matter if it'll help make me grow stronger. Ah whatever, I'll just find another thousand year old soul beast.'
Xiu Ye stood up, turned around and flashed stepped away in a random direction as he left the still sleeping lion alone in its spot.
Unknown to him however, one of the Blazing Demon Lion's eyelid had now opened, revealing a red fire that covered its sockets instead of an eyeball.
The lion's eye remained opened for a while, showing complete serenity and calm, completely unlike the aggressive nature of Blazing Demon Lions, before it once more shut itself back to sleep.
Five steps later, Xiu Ye was 100 meters away from his former location and stopped on another tree branch. Whether it was due to pure coincidence or his luck, but he had finally found another thousand year old soul beast and it was directly below him.
It was a giant bear over three meters tall and covered in light brown fur. This bear has a pair of large claws and glistening yellow eyes. Its large jaw filled with sharp teeth bit down on the head of a unknown soul beast with a sickening crunch, the dead soul beast was undefinable because only blood and bones were all it was left after its head was eaten.
It was on all four and hunched over as it ate its meal while hiding among the shrubbery and large tall trees, trying to avoid other predators in the entire from trying to steal its game. Even so, with all the sounds it made as it ate and smell of blood surrounding the area, the soul beast was doing a half-assed job in hiding.
But it was because it was only eating a quick snack before it waddles away back to its bear cave.
Xiu Ye slowly moved his body to a crouching position, feeling indifferent of the entire scene of the soul beast eating another as he eyed it silently.
With two thousand year of blood and war in his mind, how could this law of the jungle scene from a animal discovery channel affect him? He was numb from the gore and blood.
Xiu Ye already knew what kind of soul beast he was facing against, it was a thousand year old Crystal Bear!
Even in ancient times it would be exceedingly rare. It is a mutated from the same species as the Dark Gold Dreadclaw Bear. Only, its mutation made it far weaker than the Dark Gold Dreadclaw Bear. Although it is weaker than the Dark Gold Dreadclaw Bear, the Crystal Bear possess a special ability. Every single one of its attacks will cause its opponent's body to crystallize by a fraction, stacking until its opponent eventually shatters from its subsequent attack.
The Crystal Bear's skin is as hard as copper and its bones are as hard as iron.
Only with strong soul power and a quick removal of the crystallized areas will one be able to avoid massive losses from a Crystal Bear. The Crystal Bear also has a weakness; it lacks ranged combat abilities and the neck is its weakness.
...It was over in a flash.
Xiu Ye jumped down from the tree branch, his right hand glowed a cyan color simultaneously drawing out his sword, and appeared stranding by the right side of the large figure of the Crystal Bear with his sword out and down.
The Crimson Yang Sword glowed an intense orange red color, with steam rising from its edge for a moment before it stopped. Blood dripping down its long red edge all the way to its point, giving it a more darker color, then down to the ground like a droplet of tear. It looked demonic sword. But what's more peculiar about it was the numerous cyan blue circuit lines running down from the blade's blade ridge to its point.
Silence. Silence covered the entire forest area around.
Then, a sliced sound resounded around as the head of the Crystal Bear started to move down. Blood spraying everywhere to the ground.
The Crystal Bear's head was separated from its body!
Xiu Ye decapitated a thousand year old Crystal Bear with a single sword slice again!
But that was only because it had its guard lowered, as it was in the middle of its meal, and it wasn't able to react to the movement speed of Xiu Ye's ambush.
As for its thick skin and bones? The blade was of high quality capable of easily slicing through steel, much harder than copper, add with it being reinforced and its edge heated with enough fire power to cauterized a ten thousand years old soul beast's flesh. All in all, the Crystal Bear didn't stood a chance.
Even still, Xiu Ye slightly panted heavily, he poured a lot of soul power into the Crimson Yang Sword than he should have. He overestimated the danger of the Crystal Bear. Though he was still at 85% of his soul power reserve, he was just slightly winded from pouring soul power with extreme control into his sword and protected his body from being crystalized by the Crystal Bear's soul power.
A bright white ball appeared out of the Crystal Bear's carcass and entered in Xiu Ye's body. That made his Thunder Hammer entering the 400 years old cultivation at the least.
Xiu Ye let out a sigh, he needs 6 thousand years old soul beasts or 60 hundred year old soul beasts. He was already in this spirit ascension platform for forty minutes now. He still needs to go to the Blacksmith's Association to get his badge later afternoon, which is a few hours from now.
Even though he wasn't really in a rush, Xiu Ye did not want to continue staying in Spirit Pagoda.
'But how do I gather and kill 6 thousand year old or 60 hundred year old soul beasts?' Xiu Ye thought hard of a plan. As he turned towards the body of the Crystal Bear....
A wide smug grin stretched apart Xiu Ye's lips.
'I have the perfect fucking idea!'
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