Chu shook his head at the announcement and I sat there in surprise. Not only did the creature have a legendary bloodline that had somehow synergistically mixed with its racial traits, making it far stronger than it should have been, but it was also a much higher level than we had faced before, as the lioness I managed to kill was only middle level three. The rat queen was technically at that level, but they weren’t warriors, nor did she fight us. ‘Maybe we can negotiate with it for some fruit. I’m sure we have something it wants.’ I said, trying to find a way to avoid combat.
‘We have already tried to do so.’ said Mishana. ‘Not all of those that were injured here were harmed by the primates. One of us died trying to take the fruit as it slept, and another while trying to negotiate trade. We were just blessed to escape.’ I focused my senses on the island, extending my sight, and saw a piece of orange cloth covered in blood near the snake’s resting head.
‘Or, it didn’t want to leave the tree and risk someone stealing the fruit while it was away.’ said Chu, and Mishana nodded. ‘If it’s protecting the tree, then we can attack from a distance. Either it will have to leave the tree to fight back, or it will be open to attack.’
I didn’t really want to fight the creature, partly because the we were essentially home invaders, but it had killed two of the monks without even demanding they leave or attempting a non-lethal attack, so I didn’t feel that bad about killing it as well. ‘It’s about five li from there.’ I said, adding to the discussion. ‘I doubt my talismans have more than a li of range if you want all of them to hit. That means that we will need to either be on the island or swimming near the island to attack, and I don’t want to be in the water when fighting a water snake. We would be at a serious disadvantage.’
Mishana nodded. ‘Then what did you have in mind?’
I thought for a few seconds before responding. ‘I have a way to produce a level four barrier to protect me against its attack, and my sword is level three, so it should be able to do a bit of damage. I think I should be the main one to attack. The rest of you should stay back and distract it or protect the ones that will be attacking it, should it decide to try and eliminate them. I know Buddhism says that you shouldn’t take a life, but you should be able to distract it and use binding techniques without violating your tenets.’ It probably also tells them not to steal, which one of the dead monks tried to do, but now wasn’t the time to mention that.
Mishana nodded. ‘Very well. We will follow your plan.’
I nodded and pulled out my seal plate. I put two of the flags in my boots, tied two to my wrists, under my robe sleeves, and put up my hair as best I could, using the last flag as a hair pen, tying it into place with a ribbon I borrowed from Chu. I then removed the earth, water, and wood token disks from the seal plate. ‘Do any of you have an earth, water, or wood root?’
Chu nodded. ‘I have an average Water root.’ he said.
‘I have a master wood root.’ said Mishana, ‘though I only train with it and haven’t learned any special techniques for it.’
Another monk spoke up. ‘I have an average Earth root, though I also only train with it.’
I nodded and handed the others their corresponding disks. ‘Just inject a bit of qi into that, then carry it on you. As long as you live, it will allow my seal plate to use your root as if you are helping with the barrier.’
Mishana did so and felt the connection form, letting him connect to the plate. ‘Interesting. It is a five elements barrier which uses the tokens to borrow another’s spirit root and reinforced the barrier. Quite an interesting design.’
I nodded. ‘My dao companion made it for me. Maybe after the battle I can let you see it.’ He nodded and put the token into his belt. I went to where the disciples were waiting and told them that, when the fighting started, I wanted them to run to the edge of the lake and do their best to attack the snake with talismans. I knew that the mid to late level two talismans would only annoy it, and that many might miss, but if the snake was distracted in battle it would be easier for me to fight.
After returning to the monks I told them I was ready, and put the seal plate into the chest of my robe, activating it. A five colored barrier formed around my body before the colors merged together into a shifting rainbow pattern. The barrier was currently middle level four in strength, but would decrease over time, so I would need to hurry if I wanted to avoid injury.
I jumped on my sword and flew at the snake as fast as I could. It looked up and hissed and I coated the blade in metal qi. Just as I got to it I jumped off of the blade and over the snake’s head and the sword slammed into its forehead. Several scales were knocked loose and there was a small amount of blood coming from the wound, but overall it took little damage. I had my sword return to me as the snake hissed even louder and lunged at me. I jumped upwards, sneakily using the flight technique to gain more speed, and barely managed to get out of the way, then landed on its head, between the two small antlers it was starting to grow. I caught my sword and stabbed downward as hard as I could. Once again, only a few scales were loosened and little blood left the snake.
The snake reacted by jerking its head upwards and I was unable hold on, flying into the air. Before I could adjust my trajectory the snake leapt into the air and hit me with its tail, sending me flying into the lake. I skimmed the surface a few times like a smooth stone, then sunk into the water. While the attack hadn’t injured me due to the barrier, it had surprised me enough that I wasn’t able to react in time.
I started swimming for the surface in order to get out of the snake’s native environment, but was quickly surrounded by other water snakes. None of these seemed to be over level two or have a dragon bloodline, but the three meter peak level two ones did like to wrap themselves around my arms and legs in an attempt to drag me down. As I struggled to pull myself free of the numerous spirit beasts at my level, I failed to see the giant shadow that was flying at me like a torpedo. Suddenly the snakes on my arms and legs loosened themselves and swam away.
I thought I had managed to shake them off for about a second before a pair of thirty centimeter antlers on a giant head slammed into me, sending me flying backwards into an underwater rock. The giant came at me again, but this time I was prepared somewhat. Just as it reached me I thrust forward with my sword, wrapped in metal qi. Rather than allow itself to be stabbed in the nose, the flood dragon simply opened its mouth and grabbed my arm, biting down, its head large enough to hold both my forearm and blade. It shook its head several times, slamming me into the rock repeatedly, and I could tell that the barrier was weakening. It would soon reach initial level four and if it dropped any further than that the snake would be able to penetrate it. There was a fairly large difference between barriers of different levels, not just the amount of energy that went into it, so if it became too weak the barrier would undergo a qualitative change in the wrong direction for my safety.
Knowing that none of my normal level two attacks would work, I used the only attack I knew that might breach its attack. I formed a ball of metal qi in my hand, shot it towards the back of the snake’s throat, then detonated it. The snake immediately opened its mouth and roared, and I stored my sword. I then threw another ball of exploding qi into its mouth before using small amounts of exploding qi to quickly push me back towards the surface. Without the barrier protecting me from the backlash I likely would have damaged myself by doing that, but I was able to pull it off due to my situation.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The snake decided to prevent attacks against its mouth while counter attacking, and gathered a massive amount of water qi into the back of its throat. Just as I reached the surface, it released its attack and a Dragon Roar powered by water qi hit me, throwing me hard enough that I flew over a li before landing behind the other disciples, who were now standing at the shore, holding talismans. The battle had taken less than a minute so far, so they barely had time to reach this point.
After hitting the ground I rolled another twenty meters before coming to a stop. I checked the barrier and noticed that it was now at peak level three. Just that one attack had severely weakened the barrier. I could also feel that one of my ribs was cracked and spit up a bit of blood, having received some damage to my stomach when the attack hit it. Surprisingly, the Dragon Roar ability was able to partially break through a barrier a realm higher than it while significantly weakening that barrier.
I was about to pull out my medical kit and take some pills when the massive flood dragon burst from the water and onto the shore. The disciples fled from the immediate area to avoid being crushed, and it crawled straight for me, faster than I thought a beast of that size could crawl. I jumped to the side and barely avoided it, but it quickly looped around for another pass. Several barriers appeared in front of it, courtesy of the monks, but all of them were quickly shattered, only slightly slowing it. I knew that I had severely annoyed it with my last attack, and that it would try its best to kill me.
I was about to use Flight to go into the air, where I hoped it wouldn’t be able to follow, when I heard Chu from thirty meters away speak. “Stone Spike” he said, and several stones shot out from the ground, hitting the snake in the belly. While it didn’t manage to penetrate, the sheer speed of the impact ripped several scales loose. Several disciples fired metal talismans at it, but as none of them hit the area with missing scales, all of the attacks merely hit the surface and did no damage.
I quickly flew into the air, and the flood dragon leapt at me, but I managed to barely reach high enough that I was beyond its range. It stared at me, a look of hatred on its face and an aura of malice leaking from its body as it released its qi to try and suppress me. I had felt this malice before, only more weakly, from the demonic talismans, but with the barrier’s help I was able to resist. At the snake’s level, though, this was bordering on a proper killing intent, something I had only read descriptions of. From what I had read, by mixing killing intent into your attacks they would do more damage, as well as leave a qi residue that would slow the healing process. It could also be formed into attacks by itself, and qualified as its own spirit root in some ways, one which any human could learn to produce. Of course, the only people that used killing intent for self cultivation were demonic cultivators, who strengthened it thorough murder, but it was an option for those without spiritual roots.
Without the ability to reach me at this height, the snake realized it needed to use a long range attack. It started gathering water qi into the back of its throat again. I knew that the damage I had done to its throat would limit the number of such attacks, as would the extreme quantity of qi needed for it, but I couldn’t risk trying to wear it out. At the shield’s current strength I knew that the barrier would shatter and let a significant portion of the attack through if it hit, so I started emptying my soul sea into the seal plate to reinforce it. I knew it likely wouldn’t be enough, but if I was lucky I could get it past the level four threshold and withstand a single attack from the flood dragon. I could also try to dodge the attack, but at the speed it traveled it would be extremely difficult to dodge.
As the flood dragon finished gathering qi for the attack a series of golden bell shaped barriers formed around me, each one just slightly larger than the last. When they stopped forming I counted seventeen of them. I found where the monks were gathered, eyes closed to concentrate as much as possible on the barriers, and nodded in thanks.
The beam struck the first barrier, instantly shattering it, and one of the level one monks below collapsed from the backlash of having his barrier so easily destroyed. Several more barriers shattered only milliseconds apart, leading to even more monks collapsing, and the attack reached the first of the level two barriers. These were able to delay it for maybe a hundred milliseconds before they shattered, but I could see that with each barrier it destroyed the attack lost a small fraction of its power. By the time it hit the innermost barrier, the one Mishana had created, it had lost almost half of its strength. This barrier was able to delay it for almost a quarter of a second, long enough for even a mortal to notice, before collapsing and allowing it to hit my barrier.
I focused all of my intent on the barrier and cracks started to form in it. While the beam was weakening, the barrier was weakening more quickly. As the cracks reached the size where it would start allowing the attack to partially break through, the beam suddenly stopped and the snake roared in anger. The part of the attack that had already been launched expended itself on the barrier, and the last of the barrier shattered. What was left of the beam hit me, throwing me backwards and ripping off a good bit of my skin, even the remnants being a level three attack.
I hit the ground another hundred meters away and rolled a few times before stopping, and the ground quickly became soaked with my blood. I managed to force myself to keep going, and pulled a blood and a skin pill from the medical kit, both high grade, and swallowed them. I collapsed back on the ground and used the last of my strength to enhance and circulate the medicinal effect of the pills, and felt the skin on my front half start to regrow and my veins start to refill. I rolled onto my back to keep the dirt out of my wound, and focused everything on the injuries, feeling the dirt slowly get pushed out of the wound.
Nearby the flood dragon flailed at the others, but they managed to keep their distance. The talisman in Shingua’s hand burned to ash and the stones in the snake’s stomach partially receded into the ground, any that weren’t lodged into its flesh well enough falling out. When she had noticed that it was focusing on attacking Kev to the point that it left itself open, she located the spot on its stomach where Chu’s attack had left a gap in its armor and targeted it with one of the talismans Randy had given them.
Now that the rocks were no longer holding it in place, it turned towards Shingua, identifying her as the biggest threat. It could have moved before, but doing so would have meant tearing itself away, likely injuring it more.
When it was about to move another disciple called out “Stone Spike” and a different set of rocks stabbed into the flood dragon, this time going even deeper. The flood dragon roared in anger and tried to move forward only to hear another disciple call out the name of that cursed technique.
A considerable amount of blood was pouring out of the flood dragon now, the three attacks having caused serious damage, and it started to look tired. After trying to keep its head up for a few seconds so it could continue to fight, it collapsed on the ground. This time, when the spells ended and the stones were free to move it didn’t charge again. ‘So, once again you humans have come to kill and pillage, and even I, the strongest in the realm, was unable to stop you.’ It said, addressing everyone present. ‘A curse upon you. My all of your food spoil before you can eat it, may you live in constant fear of predators, and may you never know satisfaction when mating.’
Mishana stepped forward and held up a hand. ‘Amitabha, this humble one does not understand your enmity towards us. What have we done to deserve such hatred? The Buddha said…’
‘I spit on your Buddha.’ said the flood dragon to him, its intent full of impotent rage. ‘It was followers of this Buddha that killed my parents, believing the fruit of our sacred tree was theirs for the taking. They said that we were evil for refusing to share, and that we must be sent to some ‘western paradise’ where we would be able to repent of our sin. What sin? All we did was defend our home and sacred tree from bandits who saw us as obstacles in their path.’
Mishana hung his head in shame. ‘Those Buddhists were not from my sect. They were likely from a far different branch, one that focuses on hunting evil rather than pursuing the good.’
‘Do you think I care about your petty ideological differences? You both came to steal our sacred fruit and even when I killed some of you to scare you away, something even the dumbest of beasts can understand, you simply found more of your kind to attack us. Well, now you won. I will die soon, and you can take my corpse with you as a trophy, and tell your people about the powerful demon you valiantly killed. One that was only trying to defend herself, her people, and her sacred tree. Then you can once again slaughter my tribe, allowing only a few of us to barely escape.’ She closed her eyes before using the last of her strength to finish her statement. ‘And when you are finished you can take the fruit of our sacred tree and gorge yourself on it, growing more powerful from your slaughter of the innocent. That is why I pray to whatever deities that may exist that one day a powerful beast shall do the same to you, so that you will know the pain you’ve caused.’ With that, the last of her qi was used. She had lost too much blood to live without qi, so when it was used up her heart couldn’t continue beating, and she passed away.
