Cultivation System: Elder Edition

Chapter 463

Songs of Survival (X)

Xi Zhao gasped for breath as his eyes snapped open. He immediately summoned a sword into his hand and readied it to strike, but there was nobody around him. Rather, he couldn't even tell what was around him for a moment before he poured Qi into his eyes.

Scanning the immediate surroundings, he noted that he was in some sort of a forest; looking up, he saw an arching hole that was likely of his making as he barreled through the branches of the trees and landed here.

His mind flashed back to his Master grabbing him and then standing up in front of that giant... thing. It wasn't an explosion so much as it was death itself blowing into a trumpet. And yet, his Master stood unyielding and somehow managed to protect them.

Then the aftershock came and seemed to scatter all three of them. He remained conscious just long enough to coat his body in a sheen of Sword Qi before he found himself swallowed by darkness.

Just as he recognized he wasn't in immediate danger, his breath seemed to escape his lungs as his knees gave out. Pain burst from his ribs and overwhelmed him to the point he nearly passed out yet again. Grabbing at his side, he inspected his body only to find an absolute wreck; there were at least a couple of dozen broken bones, quite a few of his meridian pathways were either cracked or damaged to the point they were unusable, and even his dantian was swirling in chaotic energy as his body tried to use Qi that wasn't there to fix itself.

Coughing, a spattering of blood flew out as he finally took a slightly deeper breath, panting afterwards.

Grunting, he reached into his spatial ring and fetched a couple of healing pills, swallowing them and slowly sitting down to cultivate. Though he wanted to activate Surging Spirit Art, he had nowhere near enough Qi for it. It would have simply backfired and likely shattered his dantian in the process.

At the very least, it was quiet--deathly so, in fact. There wasn't a sound to be heard: not the hemming of the birds, not the swaying of the branches and leaves under the wind, absolute nothing.

In fact, even his groans seemed to barely travel, as though swallowed up by the trunks of the nearby trees. As the pain began to dull--or, more likely, his mind began growing more accustomed to it--he also began to recognize how unnatural it was.

He tried to quieten himself as much as possible--there were only so many reasons no sounds could be heard. Either there was an array covering the entire place that was muting it... or nothing that lived here dared make a sound for one reason or another. Rather than guessing, he leaned on his Master's advice--to always err on the side of caution.

Stumbling around for a bit, he found a tree trunk that was a bit concave, as though cradling him, though he never let go of his sword or dropped his Divine Sense.

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He managed to slowly recover just enough Qi to start using Surging Spirit Art. The moment he did, he felt a sense of relief wash over him--as though someone had applied cooling salve to all his broken and shattered body parts within. The sensation of pain truly began to dull and numb, as he focused most of the energy on repairing meridians to prevent any long-term consequences.

Gritting his teeth, he endured the rather uncomfortable feeling as his bones began to mend, fusing back together as the cracks were patched.

He paused rather suddenly and, as if possessed, he struck to the side, making almost no sound in the process. Xi Zhao immediately felt his sword strike something; a glance revealed it was a person... but not quite. A shawl covered their face, though the eyes that peeked through were... dull.

The body hung on his sword for a moment as two arms tried reaching out toward him, but as he twisted the blade, they stopped, dropping by the figure's side. What little light was in those eyes disappeared--but he didn't drop his guard. Instead, he sent a shimmer of Qi through his sword, intending to immolate the body.

As soon as he did, however, the shawl flew off and an unhinged jaw tore through with a scream that left him near deaf. The arms awoke and lurched toward him, but it was too late; the smidgen of Qi burst from the tip of his sword and imploded from within the person, with the body beginning to crack and slowly disintegrate, a beyond-maddened look in its eyes.

Xi Zhao gasped as his frown deepened, with him immediately shuffling away as the scream was akin to the sound of the calling bell. Even if it was not meant for anyone, everyone would have heard it.

As he moved through the dark, he kept his footsteps muffled; however, as he hadn't yet recovered fully, he reopened some of the healed wounds and even cracked a few of the mending bones. Ignoring the pain and his body's calls to stop and rest, he crossed almost four hundred yards of distance, but, oddly, the scenery barely changed.

The only difference was that there wasn't a gaping hole above him showing where he came through.

There was only a thick canopy of the swarming trees and the darkness that did not seem to know the concept of light. He sharpened his Divine Sense even more and noticed an eerie pattern; they hid in the deep recesses of shadows, even deeper than the 'ordinary' darkness of the forest.

Their hearts did not beat, their lungs did not breathe, and there was no blood coursing through their veins. They were hollow husks, like puppets, almost. But Xi Zhao was certain that they were once alive--there were signs. On some, their flesh had markings of old wounds and scars; they all seemed to have either all or most of the organs, and, eerily, they did not decay.

It was as though they were suspended in stasis, neither dead nor alive, not functioning and yet not rotting.

... walking corpses, most likely.

Xi Zhao's frown deepened further, recognizing another thing--he had to stop cultivating Qi in this place. Though it was minute, he felt it, the trace of Death Qi. No matter the amount, it was akin to inviting literal death into one's soul. As it was just a minute trace, he was able to purge it, but taking in any more...

He inspected his spatial ring and nearly groaned in frustration; he had just shy of a thousand mid-grade Spirit Stones. Even without Master's art to only extract the most pure Qi, if he chose to take in even the diluted parts of the stone, it was just barely enough to recover about three dantian's worth of his reserves. Just the pure part would be barely a half of one.

He didn't know where he was or what this was and had no way out. On top of that, he couldn't cultivate, which meant he couldn't recover, and he had to stay alert practically non-stop, as he could be ambushed by one of those things rather easily since they barely give off any trace of energy.

This, he sighed inwardly. Will be a bit annoying.

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