Cultivation Nerd

The snowstorm grew heavier, making everything more difficult to see. As the air grew colder, I began taking deeper breaths.

I glanced back at the broken wall and then returned my gaze to the shadows of the monstrous beasts. Though I couldn't sense each monstrous beast since they were all so close together, it felt like a tidal wave of Qi charging toward us.

There were over a thousand monstrous beasts, at least. I couldn't handle even two of them at once without facing grave danger. With this many it was beyond dangerous, and there was no wall to hide behind anymore.

I turned and ran behind the wall, planning to use the opening the boar had left as a choke point against the monstrous beast army. This way, they shouldn't be able to use their numbers as effectively.

As they approached, I finally got a better look at them. It was a cascade of monstrous beasts, each more terrifying than the last. Many predators among them had a natural killer intent oozing out, and in such huge numbers, it sent a chill down my spine.

I looked at the Body Tempering warriors on the ground with me. They looked scared, but thankfully, no one had frozen in fear. It seemed the training they had undergone this month had kept them confident.

Most of the monstrous beasts charging were smaller than the boar I fought before but were still much larger than most normal animals. On closer inspection, they looked like mutated animals: a horse-sized wolf with devil-like horns, two-headed bears, zebras with vampire-like teeth, and more.

Due to the snowstorm, even as the monstrous beasts activated my traps, such as arrays that shot out flashbangs or generated pillars of fire, these traps were not as effective as they would have been otherwise.

As they approached, the traps did not inflict as many casualties as I had hoped. The beasts were barely injured or inconvenienced by them.

The old man turned my way, and I ordered, "Manage the soldiers atop the wall for now. I will deal with any monstrous beasts that come through the opening."

Usually, the better choice might have been to have the governor down here. He had higher cultivation than me, but he was still an old man who might not have the stamina to fight as long as I could. Also, I needed him as a trump card in case a strong enemy came so he could deal a few heavy blows.

Also, I trusted no one other than myself with the duty of defending the opening in the wall. If Song Song had been here, I might have entrusted this to her, but for now, this was the best I could do. I had the most lethal skill set needed to handle this. I knew the weaknesses of monstrous beasts better than anyone here, even though they each had a copy of my monstrous beast encyclopedia.

Some monstrous beasts were too big and durable to fall for my traps. They eventually approached the crack in the wall, charging toward it with as many as could fit through the opening.

As soon as they crossed the invisible line that was the broken wall, I charged at them, my mind focused on coming up with different ways to kill them. I aimed at their general weak points: eyes, mouths, and for creatures with big nostrils, their noses.

The first few monstrous beasts fell quickly, slashes piercing their eyes and turning their brains into mush. They dropped dead where the wall used to be, forming new walls of flesh.

But I was under no illusion that this would work for long. I jumped atop the corpses of the big, monstrous beasts I had killed and saw the field of attackers running through my traps. Many died, and many survived.

With a thought, the marble walls shone brightly. Many of my arrays were weakened during the snowstorm, especially the flashbangs and the arrays involving heat. But the snowstorm didn't benefit me either.

"Ice Array, activate!" I muttered under my breath, and there was a sudden chill in the area on the outer part of the wall.

Unlike the others, this array had a considerable boost. Within a split second, it froze the snow, turning it into ice and transforming the field outside the wall into a glacial environment. The monstrous beasts charging slipped and fell onto the ice with a resounding bang.

It looked pretty comical as some truck-sized monstrous beasts tried standing up, only to slip and fall again. This one move halted the entire monstrous beast army from charging at the opening in the wall as they struggled to approach in general.

This was more effective than I had assumed.

But there was no time to laugh at my enemies falling down. It was only a matter of time before they did something about it or got used to moving on ice. Instead, I concentrated on my next move, closing my eyes and sending Qi inside of me in preparation.

While my cultivation might not have advanced much over the last month and a half, it didn't mean I hadn't improved. The monstrous beasts had made a mistake waiting so long to attack, and by the end of this battle, they would learn that lesson the hard way.

During these months, I went from a Qi Gathering Cultivator new to having Qi to someone who trained with it every day. This past month, my focus was on improving my Qi and learning how to use my techniques in tandem. A whole month of scheming how to best kill monstrous beasts had given me plenty of time to come up with some wild ideas.

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I first used the Dancing Jade Armor Technique to create a pair of green boots. Then, I used Falling Moon Claw to create two stationary invisible slashes that rotated like chainsaws and attached to the bottoms of my feet like Qi. I kept the power low so they wouldn't cut my armor.

It was a complicated technique, something I had thought about but never put into practice before. It was one of those ideas inspired by using Falling Moon Claw to cut apples really well. Practicing it was pretty fun.

With the boots ready, I stepped onto the ice, and there was the sound of something grinding. At first, I had difficulty adjusting, but thankfully, as a cultivator, I had better balance than anyone from Earth. Even on my first try, I got it down quickly and skated through the ice at breakneck speed.

This was a battle, and I should have been serious, and I was. But something about using new techniques brought a smile to my face.

As soon as I got close to an ostrich-like monstrous beast with three legs, I cut off its head as it tried to stand up. I grabbed its head mid-air and threw it at a flying monstrous beast to knock it off balance.

The flying beast was a crow-like creature with three red eyes, the size of an eagle. It barely felt my throw but still turned toward me and got lower, likely more troubled by the snowstorm than my attack. But it didn't matter. This gave me enough time to get close, jump, and stab it through the neck. The tip of my blade emerged on the other side, dripping with blood as the monstrous beast made a gurgling caw-like sound.

Just like that, I butchered more monstrous beasts. The low visibility helped me move about and use assassination tactics. Monstrous beasts had a harder time sensing Qi because, unlike humans, they were not trained for it. Human and monstrous beast Qi felt the same when it came down to it, so most wouldn't be able to tell whether I was a friend or foe before it was too late.

Of course, I wasn't the only one taking advantage of the situation. The governor and clan leaders were shooting Qi beams at the disadvantaged, flying monstrous beasts. At the same time, the Body Tempering warriors threw spears at those struggling to get up.

Even the Body Tempering cultivators were doing decent damage thanks to their spears being dipped in a handmade poison that the governor, clan leaders, and I had worked hard to make. While I had little knowledge of poisons and wouldn't consider myself skilled in the field, I had read many interesting things on the library's second and third floors. Poisons were one of the many fields of knowledge I had dabbled in.

As it seemed like another massacre, I sensed a Qi signature approaching at breakneck speed. It couldn't have been another human since I was the only one here. Without hesitation, I turned around and slashed before I could even see the monstrous beast.

However, I cut only through the air, as the monstrous beast was already airborne. It looked like a thin humanoid lizard with dark claws and three fingers on its feet and hands. Those claws had a dusting of ice on them, and there were holes in the ice it had been coming from, so it was safe to assume it had used its claws to grab onto and move through the ice.

Its hand turned into a blur, and I barely raised a dagger in time to defend. A metallic clanking sound rang out, and I was pushed back. In a split second, I had used my dagger to defend against it clawing at my face and lost sight of it. When I lowered my arm, it was already gone.

Thankfully, while I couldn't see it, I could still sense its presence. I turned around and raised my daggers to defend my vitals, but I still ended up with a piercing pain in my shoulder. Three deep claw marks oozed blood.

It was overwhelmingly faster than me. In a split-second decision, I decided not to continue fighting it. I could already foresee myself bleeding out on the ice and dying.

So, I jumped back and started skating backward, using my Qi senses to avoid stumbling. But the monstrous beast gave chase, moving so fast it was just a blur. The snowstorm did not help my visibility at all.

Falling Moon Claw!

I imbued Qi into my daggers and swung them wildly, sending a barrage of slashes where I could sense the monstrous beast. While it did slow down, it somehow blitzed through all my slashes, dodging them effortlessly.

This guy was the definition of a speed blitz. How the hell was he moving so fast on slippery ice?

Once again, I tried manipulating the slashes to corner it from all angles. But the lizard-like monstrous beast moved through them all and finally caught up to me. Within seconds, dozens of slashes appeared along my forearms and a few on my thighs as I tried to defend myself.

Dancing Jade Armor!

A greenish hue surrounded me, and the monstrous beast could no longer get through my defenses. However, keeping this technique up while using the skates was hard.

If I lost even an ounce of concentration, all my techniques would crumble simultaneously, and I would be in serious trouble. The skating technique required a lot of focus to maintain.

As I kept backing off and got closer to the wall, I tried sending flying slashes at the lizard-like monstrous beast. It seemed wholly concentrated on dodging my attacks. Perhaps that was why it reacted a bit too late when a crimson beam of Qi hit its shoulder, courtesy of one of the clan leaders. The monstrous beast seemed surprised.

"Bad move, little buddy," I said. That split second of distraction cost the lizard-like monstrous beast dearly, as a flying invisible slash was enough to sever its leg.

While I could afford to make mistakes, all my moves were lethal to him, so he could afford none. But I didn't stop there and went for the decapitation. Before my knives could touch its skin, it blitzed me again and appeared beside me.

I barely tilted my head to the side as it missed hitting my left artery, leaving only a tiny cut on my jaw.

What?

That was when I noticed its leg was back to normal. I was initially confused until I saw the leg I had cut off was on the icy ground, covered in a dusting of snow.

"Regeneration? You are crazy fast and can heal. That is quite a dangerous combination," I said.

While the regeneration was fast, its Qi had dropped significantly. That must have taken a lot out of it. Damn, I doubt it would fall for the same trick again.

"To regenerate bone, flesh, and nerves so easily. If we weren't in the middle of a battlefield, I would love to discover how your body works," I admitted.

What a shame I had to kill this creature. Unlike most cultivators here, I could see how some monstrous beasts could be intelligent beings with whom we might work. But I wasn't blind to reality and knew my view was skewed.

We consumed each other as food and resources. We couldn't work together with those dynamic, intelligent beings or not. Still, I would have loved to talk with an intelligent monstrous beast and discover how they saw the world.

Were we monsters to them? Or just feisty food?

"It really is a shame. But I am too weak to follow my whims and wishes. With enough power, I could make my own rules."

After saying that, I finally backed off enough and entered the town grounds through the broken part of the wall, with the lizard-like monstrous beast still giving chase.

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