Leaving A Legacy

As the horde of corrupted beasts charged towards them, Ren, Subo, and Hua smoothly stepped into their planned positions. While travelling, they had already shared information on their abilities and how best they might cooperate. Since Hua and Ren were very familiar with each other, it would be up to Subo to adapt. He was the most knowledgeable on demonic beasts, and it was best left to him to decide for himself what a situation would require.

Hua was best suited for defeating single powerhouses in duels, whereas Ren was best utilized in controlling large numbers and supporting his companions. While they could both switch roles if needed, it wouldn’t be playing to their advantages. Since their earliest days fighting together against the beast tides in the outer sect, they had played similar roles, and it was with assured movements that they began their attacks.

Hua threw out a number of talismans that landed around the edges of the horde, pushing them together towards him. A second set of talismans ruptured the ground before him, further hampering advance. The corrupted piglet beasts at the front stumbled and fell only to be trampled by those behind without any regard. A third and final set of talismans grew hedges of thorns along his sides to prevent Hua from being surrounded and overrun. That was all the time he had to prepare as he hefted his giant heavy sword and began his attack.

Subo had judged that he could best aid on the frontlines and charged in, dealing devastating punches with shimmering fists. He gave Hua plenty of room and created a second front to stem the tide of beasts with his own body. Ren thought the beasts would ignore him and spill around him when he began chanting. The steady rhythmic chant drove the demonic beasts wild, and they redirected to attack the monk.

Meanwhile, Ren hadn’t stayed idle either. He had summoned his sword storing scabbard artifact and drew 54 flying swords made from the Mutating Bamboo Sword plant. It wasn’t the limit of his ability, but Ren judged that he needed to conserve strength for this fight because the mother pig hadn’t stopped spewing more demonic offspring for an instant. Dozens of new lesser beasts joined the fight constantly.

It was in Ren’s best interests to finish the fight as quickly as possible. This was because if Ren had a flaw in his combat ability, it would be the lack of reserves of qi. He only had slightly above normal levels of qi in his dantian compared to most cultivators. The problem was further exacerbated by his present circumstances. Surrounded by demonic qi, he couldn’t draw in more qi to replenish his reserves without risking corruption.

For his chosen style of fighting, Ren used an inordinately large number of techniques together. They guzzled his limited qi, which limited the duration of his ability to fight greatly. Controlling a 108 flying swords with his Turning Seasons Sword Array Technique, calculating their paths with Serene Pool Mind arts, predicting the foe’s movements and adapting his attacks with Heavenly Trajectories were all huge drains on his qi. Ren also interspersed it with use of his sensory and movement techniques, the Sky Piercing Divine Sense and Mountain Bounding Step, an improvement of his earlier earth striding leap.

The stairs of ascension had contributed greatly to the increased concentration of qi in his spiritual sea, and that had alleviated the problem significantly, nearly doubling the time he could fight. It also presented Ren with the option of doubling his power instead of the duration. But this advantage was offset by the increased usage of qi as he kept adding more techniques to his collection.

What couldn’t be denied was the devastation Ren could deal while he had the qi! Even holding back the remaining swords in reserve, When he launched his blistering multi-pronged attack, the tide of beasts melted like snow under the summer sun. Like the changing of seasons, Ren moved from a devastating opening to a persistent and unending rain of attacks, the lesser beasts dying helplessly before him. So great was the effect that Hua and Subo were briefly left with nothing to do before the next wave of attackers arrived.

Unlike Subo, Hua was prepared for the opening and advanced towards the colossal pig to try and cut off the source. His sword launched slashes of qi that cut open his path. Subo didn’t hesitate for long and advanced close behind, his chanting not wavering for a single instant.

Ren didn’t let up his attack but pulled out a mid-grade spirit stone and began to absorb small wisps of qi to slow the rapid drain of his reserves. The qi felt odd and unrefined in his meridians, but it was a pragmatic move. He acknowledged it wasn’t a proper solution to his limited qi reserves and was more like burning money to increase his ability. Ren had felt guilty about it at the start but not for long. After all, his wealth was part of his power!

It was the fruit of all that time and effort he spent growing herbs, forging weapons, and dealing with clients. With those spirit stones plugging the drain a little, he could last even longer in a critical fight. He didn’t often need to use this method but never hesitated when it was necessary.

With Ren alone holding back most of the tide of lesser beasts, Hua and Subo advanced implacably. Almost as if it detected its doom approaching, the pig let out another squeal and began moving sideways. Ren was only confused for an instant until he realized its aim. He shouted out a warning to his companions.

“It’s heading for that vent of demonic qi!”

But it was too late. The pig was close to the vent from the start, and they couldn’t prevent it from sticking its snout, or whatever passed for its snout, into the vent. Ren couldn’t see what it was doing, but it wasn’t hard to predict what happened next.

The pores all over its body grew impossibly wider until he couldn’t see a patch of skin, only darkness. The piglets it began producing were twice as large as ordinary wild boars now, and they emitted even more foul qi than before. Their numbers were increasing even faster, and the two on the frontlines began to be pushed back. As they desperately fought to hold their ground, Ren pulled out 27 more swords and provided support.

His qi was already down to half, and the mid-grade stone was also significantly drained. Ren felt his gut clench at the thought of burning a 100 spirit stones for this one fight but didn’t hesitate to pull out a second to keep it ready. With his swords no longer able to slay a lesser beast in a single blow, he had to implement more disabling strikes instead.

He also recognized that his ability to predict their movements was failing because they didn’t follow any patterns he recognized. Ren was forced to recalculate using the information he had gleaned in the duration of this fight. Constantly calculating and refining his sword arrays was one of Ren’s most effective ways to reduce the wastage of qi. The cost of his mental techniques was still less than his sword manipulation techniques.

Ren began to launch his improved attacks and reduced the pressure on his companions. Not remaining idle, they too had begun to draw on their hidden reserves to face the increased threat. Subo was glowing to his senses, and a second, larger qi construct overlapped his body. His punches were still slaying multiple beasts at a time despite their improved strength.

Hua was also gathering power for his devastating strike that Ren had learned to fear. Just then Ren noticed something about his surroundings. From his vantage point at the backlines, he could see something his companions couldn’t, busy as they were fighting for their lives. The quantity of demonic qi around them was falling sharply.

‘That corrupted pig is absorbing it all to increase its power! But wait…’

Ren remembered how Subo had told them the great effort it took to reverse the damage caused by demonic qi. The qi-intensive methods the monks administered would slowly burn away the corruption. And if left untreated, the demonic qi wouldn’t just kill the land for years; it could even begin to increase in concentration by converting natural qi!

“This pig is doing this laborious repair work on our behalf! Subo, Hua, don’t kill that mother beast just yet!” When Ren came to that conclusion, he called out to his companions.

The two of them paused for the slightest second and began to adjust their strategy. Hua, he knew, would follow his advice on the battlefield, but Subo had been a bit of an unknown. He was a recent friend that Ren had only interacted with on one other occasion in the past. Ren felt grateful for the level of trust displayed. He shouted his reasoning to them and let them decide their next steps.

He detected a short conversation between the two and saw Hua nod. With their new plan agreed to, the three of them continued their desperate struggle in order to prolong the fight. The two on the frontline were picking up wounds that penetrated their defensive techniques. Ren, on the other hand, was down to less than a third of his qi and had just started to draw on his second mid-grade spirit stone when his meridians began to feel like they were being sliced.

The foreign qi from the spirit stones was beginning to damage his qi pathways. It was the downside of not refining the qi first and using it directly from the spirit stone. If he continued to push further, he could permanently damage his meridians and cripple himself. Ren reluctantly pulled back on his attacks to conserve more qi. The pressure increased on all of them, and a few of the pigs broke free from the front and attacked him. Ren repositioned without any techniques while he sent out some swords to slay them, but the brief lapse in attention was causing additional negative changes.

Yet despite their risks, it was starting to pay off. The area was almost devoid of demonic qi and felt like Ren was taking a breath of fresh air after holding it all this while. He still didn’t dare to draw in any qi, but it definitely indicated the end was in sight!

Unfortunately he wasn’t the only one to grasp that. The demonic pig withdrew its head from the vent, which had been exhausted, emitting only a few small puffs of demonic qi. With that last burst of demonic qi, the pig stopped producing offspring and circulated a vast amount of qi around its midpoint.

With a sickening squelch, its front half separated from its rear half in a grotesque display. The disgusting sight of spraying fluid and writhing flesh was burned into Ren’s memory. None of them had expected it to split in half, but Subo, who was more used to reacting to such scenarios, recovered fastest. He moved to attack the back half, which was sprouting eyes since it was closest to him.

Ren didn’t have much time to look around as he realized the front half was floundering in his direction. With less than a quarter of his qi, he didn’t have many options available to him. He pulled back all his flying swords and hurled them at the fleshy monstrosity. He knew the swords were individually too weak to do much damage other than blind it.

It wasn’t an instinct or anything, but he knew based on his rational judgment that the other two wouldn’t reach him before the demonic beast did, occupied as they were by the back half. Ren just sacrificed his sword array to buy time to charge his own final attack. The lone flying sword hovered in front of him as he desperately funneled every last scrap of qi into his strongest offensive technique, which Ren was still in the process of completing.

The beast had recovered from blindness by growing tens of eyes and was charging towards him like a landslide. The maddened creature was willing to give its final breath to force Ren to join it in death.

With only a few heartbeats of time left to him, he launched his self-made finishing move from his divination-based series of attacks, leaving him completely drained of qi. Perhaps it was the desperation of knowing that if this final attack failed, he would meet death; Ren subconsciously shouted the name he’d given his move, willing it to work with every fiber of his being.

“Fated Fall !!!”

And promptly lost control over it almost as soon as he launched it.