CHAPTER 14: SNAKE MONSTER

Xueling and Yu Tian soared above the treetops on a qi-infused flying sword.

Yu Tian gripped her waist tightly from behind, his eyes fixed on the ground below.

Flying was quite fascinating, he thought to himself. He wondered if he could do this too by injecting qi into his own sword like she was doing.

He turned to her and asked, "Why are you using a sword? Can’t Foundation Establishment cultivators fly by themselves?"

"Although people at the Foundation Establishment realm can fly, it’s just a gimmick," she explained. "Using it for sustained flight isn’t efficient at all, and one would run out of energy before they could go far. True flight is only possible in the Core Formation realm, where qi emission is stabilized and refined due to the core."

He nodded his head. That made sense, he had guessed as much.

"Take a left here," Yu Tian said, and she followed his directions.

Before long, they reached a clearing.

From above, they could see the Starfall Blossom glowing softly in the distance. Only problem - a massive snake had coiled itself around the precious flower.

"It’s a peak level three monster," Xueling observed.

Yu Tian thought to himself that monsters were graded in levels, each level equal to a human realm. Body Refining was level one, Qi Gathering was level two, Foundation Establishment was level three, Core Formation level four, and so on.

Within those levels, there were also four subdivisions: early, mid, late, and peak. Early corresponded with the first three layers of a realm, mid was from the fourth to sixth layer, late consisted of layers seven through nine, and peak was the tenth layer.

One would think this wasn’t a big problem. After all, both Xueling and the monster were at the peak of the Foundation Establishment realm. But this was far from the case. Generally, monsters were much physically stronger than humans.

Thus, in the same level, the monster was more likely to win.

He wondered what her thoughts were. Would she give up or still fight?

"What do we do now?" he asked.

"What do we do?" she echoed his question. "Of course we fight and take what we came here for."

He smiled at this response. Well, he had expected something similar from her.

They slowly began losing altitude.

"The monster seems to be shedding its skin. Looks like it’s quite old," she said.

"It’s said that snake monsters can live for quite a long time. When they’re old, they shed their skin and experience ’rebirth,’ regaining their vitality." She paused, studying the creature below. "It seems quite intelligent - it’s probably waiting for when its ’rebirth’ is complete to consume the flower and advance to level four."

"Isn’t it said to be most violent when it’s shedding?" Yu Tian asked.

"That’s right," she confirmed.

"Scared?" she asked, turning her head to glance at him.

"Why would I be? I’m not the one fighting anyway," he said.

"And here I thought you were a gentleman," she teased.

"I still am. I’ll cheer you on from the sidelines," he said with a smile.

"Well, thanks," she said, landing at the edge of the clearing where Yu Tian stepped down and she rushed toward the monster.

...

Su Xueling stood before the monster, her sword held ready. She thought to herself that this was a nice chance to show off her power after recovering.

"Bring it on, little snake," she said, gesturing with her finger.

The snake monster seemed taunted by her words and roared to the sky, then charged toward her. She readied her sword to protect herself, watching how the monster rushed at her.

She thought to herself that the monster was still too easy to read, even after awakening intelligence - it had still fallen for her taunts.

As the two were about to clash, the monster bringing its head forward and her holding out her sword in defense ready to counterattack, she heard a voice echo in her mind.

"~Don’t be fooled. It’s attacking with its tail."

Her expression stiffened as she recognized the voice - it was Yu Tian.

As the monster’s head was about to clash with her, instead of blocking with her sword and instantly counterattacking like she had planned to, she did a backflip instead.

As she landed on the ground, she saw the monster’s tail sweep through where she had been just moments ago. It was really just as he had said. She had been careless. It seemed the monster was much more intelligent than she had thought.

But how did Yu Tian realize something even she couldn’t? No point in worrying about it now - that information had saved her. She needed to attack now.

"~Incoming attack from underground," Yu Tian’s voice came again.

She instantly jumped high up.

Just as she did, the monster’s tail burst through beneath the ground, reaching toward her before falling short. Floating on her sword, she thought to herself that the monster’s intelligence was really high, even coming up with such a method.

"~Attack now before it can retrieve its tail," Yu Tian said.

She smiled, flying at full speed toward the monster.

After the monster’s plan had failed, it was trying to quickly retract its tail from the ground. Xueling thought to herself that at the moment, the monster was just a sitting target.

She jumped from her flying sword, catching it with her hand and diving toward the monster. Dropping from above with her sword ready, she clashed with the monster’s huge head.

As the two collided, sparks formed at the point of contact.

"So tough," she thought, jumping back.

As she landed on the ground, she thought to herself that the monster’s scales were really hard, she couldn’t deal any genuine damage like this.

"~Jump to the left, then instantly counterattack with infused qi," Yu Tian said.

After his correct predictions, she had come to trust him without asking any questions. She jumped to the left just as instructed, and the monster’s tail that was still underground broke through the earth, sending dirt and rocks flying everywhere. It seemed after being unable to pull out in time, it had decided to just break through the earth.

Xueling didn’t wait even a second before charging at the tail, infusing her sword with qi, then... she sliced right through the monster’s tail.

...

Author’s Corner

qi-infused flying sword : not to be confused with an actual flying sword. This means that the sword is flying. There are swords that are actually known as flying swords. They’re used by body refining peak and qi gathering cultivators to fly. They can also be used in battle as they can fly with little qi.