11.2 Dragons and Bears

Atop a thorned black vine that curled between a gnarled tree root, a rat bit at some gray mushrooms.

Psst!

The mushrooms sprayed a green mist at the rat that immediately fell off the gnarled root, clawing at its eyes.

“Kaaaa!” A snake darted out of an inky puddle.

The rat tried to jump but was swallowed whole before it could.

The snake went still, sticking its tongue out a few times as it savored its prey.

BANG!

A boot crushed the snake, the ground exploded and the figure disappeared in an instant.

Where the snake once was, there was now a small crater. The inky water seeped out of the puddle and into the new recess.

Rumble…

The water started to ripple.

The ground started shaking.

Trees began swaying violently.

BOOOOM!

A curved black wall of scales shot through the forest.

Trees were thrown high into the air and waves of inky water were thrown across the forest.

The black wall didn’t disappear like the figure had.

The black wall of scales continued rushing past, slowly getting shorter until finally, it had passed.

The forest returned to silence.

A small valley had been formed that seemed to stretch endlessly on both sides…

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

“HAHAHA!!! HAVING TROUBLE KEEPING UP!!!” Satheon boomed with laughter as he shot through the forest.

CRASH!

Satheon ignored some of the small trees, smashing straight through them without slowing down, slamming his foot down like a meteor and propelling himself forward like a cannonball hurtling through the forest.

“KSSSRAAAAAAAAA!!!!”

An ear piercing screech deathened the forest, drawing out all sound and making even Satheon’s vision blur.

“Ha-ha-ha-haa!” Satheon laughed happily at the flood dragons screaming. “The screams of a loser never cease to make me laugh!”

“KSSSSSSS!!! RHAAAAAAAAA!!!!”

The flood dragon’s half hiss half roar seemed trying to argue with Satheon, but he laughed it off and continued running without looking back.

Further behind, in the flood dragon’s blind spot, cycling a genuine stealth technique, Sirius managed to just keep up by using a movement technique. She wasn’t some monster like Satheon who used nothing but pure physical ability to sprint.

Still, the extended chase was leaving Sirius Qi reserves in question. Still, she controlled her breathing and shot forward after Satheon and the flood dragon.

“HWAAAAAR—”

The flood dragon leaned its head back, its throat beginning to glow with light.

“Hoho!” Satheon felt the stir of qi behind him and strained his smile even wider.

“Hup!” Sirius leapt at the flood dragon’s head from her position, raising her sword up high and charging it with Spirit Qi as she executed a heavy sword technique.

BOOM!

The flood dragon’s head was thrown to the side and it whipped its head around to face Sirius.

BGGGGGGZZZZZZZZZZUUUUUU!!!!

A beam of white light shot from the flood dragon’s mouth, overshadowing the sky and making the gray forest seem pitch black in comparison.

Satheon glanced back.

“I’m good!” Sirius’s voice sounded out from somewhere. She had used her dedicated stealth technique the moment she felt her blade strike a mass of hastily gathered hardened Qi. She evidently hadn’t been able to strike faster than the beast’s natural instincts and reflexes.

Satheon snorted and continued sprinting.

The flood dragon looked around, turning its head in the air before it eventually made a loud huff and continued chasing after Satheon.

The strategy Satheon and Sirius came up with was simple.

Since Sirius had learned a dedicated stealth technique, but wouldn’t be able to keep up without using up her Spirit Qi on movement techniques, Satheon would take the lead in being the bait. Sirius would then have the leisure to gather Spirit Qi as she used it while staying in the flood dragon’s blind spot.

If something happened and the flood dragon tried something, then Sirius could make a distraction from the blind spot, keeping them both in relative safety.

Unfortunately, the beast wasn’t stupid. The flood dragon knew it was being baited, its eyes flicked away from Satheon, betraying their intelligence as it scrutinised the surroundings, searching for traps and the small creature that had kept attacking it then disappearing.

So far, despite even Satheon taking some cursory blows at the beast, neither him nor Sirius had dealt any major damage. At least, they hadn’t caused anything as bad as the Iron Back Crocodile’s death blows, which themselves seemed like rather shallow wounds despite their size.

Taking a risk to glance back, even Satheon lost his smile after a while. He had underestimated a beast halfway to becoming a flood dragon. At close to 900 meters long the flood dragon was approaching the strength of the early Golden Core realm.

…

In the distance, it was useless for the flood dragon to find threats with its eyes. Faust’s first order of business was to set up a concealment formation around the area he and Phalecia were working.

It wasn’t a very good trap if the enemy could see it coming from miles away.

Faust stood atop the large black rock that protruded up from the forest. He watched the flood dragon rampage through the forest, leaving a deep gash through it like an empty river.

Faust looked back down to the area within the concealment.

This was Phalecia’s first mission outside the sect and it showed. Her movements were the slow meticulous ones of a coddled alchemist. Still, her efforts were concentrating the Wood Qi into the area.

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Inspecting his own work, Faust double checked the concealment formation and the nodes which would change to transform it into a bewilderment formation that could trap the flood dragon here.

The Qi Amplification formation was an incredibly simple one, just a few pre-made formation flags placed with telekinesis.

“Huuu…” Faust exhaled, pushing his hands down with his breathing.

With one hand movement, Faust controlled some Spirit Qi and shot it towards where Satheon and Sirius should be, signaling them to start luring the flood dragon over.

In the next hand movement, Faust began using hand signs for spell casting.

Almost as soon as he started, the Wood Qi around Faust began vibrating in anticipation for the massive fire spell Faust was preparing.

Fire Qi also began gathering, transforming from the Solar Qi that blanketed the world under the sun.

Faust was forced to double his efforts and concentration as some of the Wood Qi began transforming into Fire Qi prematurely. He also pushed the Earth Qi down further to prevent it from transforming the Fire Qi into ash and Earth Qi later.

As Faust began his casting, Phalecia felt her efforts become vain as the Qi became excited and uncooperative. She looked over to see Faust with his eyes closed, making various hand signs.

Spellcraft… Phalecia thought. It was often ignored for being flawed in multiple aspects. For starters, since you were controlling the Qi around you and in the environment, you couldn’t move much while spellcasting without incredible experience. For cultivators whose battles happened in the blink of an eye, such a restriction alone was quite taxing.

Spellcraft was also difficult to learn, heavily based on Qi mechanics and Qi interactions and non written or spoken language. All of those were math heavy subjects which scared the average strength chasing cultivator in the same manner as horror stories told to children.

Lastly, Spellcraft simply took a long time. In the same time it took to cast a single spell, multiple techniques could have been used no matter how quickly the hand seals or chants for Spellcraft were done or said.

Yet despite all the downsides, Spellcraft remained relevant for a single reason.