Chapter 188: Explosive Growth
Zou Tian smoothly darted from shadow to shadow, moving ever closer to the four-armed bug-eyed creatures slinging ice shards at him. The cavern provided plenty of cover in the form of rocks growing both from the floor and the ceiling, and each blocked the glowing light from above, giving him ample options for hiding.
He was still one against five, but the environment tilted things in his favor. The question was, though, what did the encounter have to teach him about using his daggers?
Short-bladed weapons were ideal for close in work. He struggled when dueling with trained fighters who used swords or spears. Or bows.
He shuddered. Especially a bow wielded by Senior Sister.
Those spars had taught him to dart in close and strike fast. Which often cost him the match when he was unable to avoid or block attacks. Staying at range, though, only made him lose faster.
He doubted the lesson from the trial was one he’d already taken to heart, so there had to be something he was missing.
Still, moving closer to attack was the only way he could determine to handle the encounter, so that was what he did.
Occasionally, one of the creatures would launch an ice shard but always in a random direction. Zou Tian was too good at stealth to be seen or heard by an opponent given the terrain. By the time he’d drawn near and circled around the group, it was apparent from their throws that the creatures had no idea where he was.
Next came the hard part, though. He couldn’t fight any of them one on one because the ranged weapons of the others would kill him almost instantly as he couldn’t block thrown shards while engaging in melee. A quick backstab followed by darting back into the shadows was a possibility, but he knew nothing about the creatures’ physiology. It was entirely possible that, if he buried his blade deeply into one of them, he might not be able to draw it back out in time.
From experience, he judged the problem to be more likely to occur than not.
Zou Tian was not a Foundation Establishment cultivator. In addition to not being able to externally manipulate qi, he had not yet been gifted a spatial ring. The two daggers were all he had.
First lesson learned from the trial—carry more weapons. A backup dagger and some throwing knives would have been great to have.