Cultivation System: Elder Edition

Chapter 470

Death (VII)

Xi Zhao slid back and dodged a clawing strike of a shadow, just barely at that, retaliating with a quick draw and beheading the figure.

Silence returned once more as he gasped for breath, falling to his knees. He looked at the pill in his hand but didn't dare swallow it; he'd already accumulated enough toxins that it would take him months to purify them once he got out. Gritting his teeth, he took up a small part of his remaining Qi and used Surging Spirit Art to close up the two open wounds on his chest, but no more than that.

Slinking down into the shadow, he continued gasping, examining his body even more closely--it was a mess. From head to toe, there were hundreds of small wounds and at least half a dozen somewhat serious ones that, if not handled quickly enough, might become an issue.

Sending out his Divine Sense, he sighed in relief to see nobody and nothing approaching him; the past few days have been an absolute torture, with barely any breaks just to catch his breath. It was an onslaught of shadows striking either openly or secretly, and him desperately trying to spend as little Qi as possible to fight them.

While he did manage to advance his understanding of the sword a great deal, it would not matter if he was unable to leave this place. And, judging by the past few days, that was a tall task.

The entire place was beyond disorienting, with no clear landmarks to navigate, and though he tried climbing the trees to catch the glimpse of the sky... it was impossible.

There was a kind of an array smeared across the canopy of the trees that he would be able to cut through if he poured all his Qi reserves, but that was supposing he had a full dantian--which he didn't. As such, the way he oriented himself was by cutting into the trees, and though that worked for a day or two, he noticed in the past few hours that his marks were appearing on the trees that he did not put them on.

"Dammit," he mumbled into his jaw as he heard the grass sway about forty yards to his left. Taking a deep breath, he endured the scalding pain in his ribs and grabbed the handle of the sword, bleeding into the world of darkness himself.

Not a second later, he bolted out and stabbed to his left, tearing through the shadow that had wound an axe over its head to slam it down. The shadow vanished, but he didn't stop, sparing small bits of Qi to speed himself away.

There were some twenty shadows that were closing in on him; even if he was in his optimal condition, he would have struggled taking on so many of them at once. As he was now, even two were a challenge, three were a cause to run, and anything beyond that meant certain death if he got tangled up with them.

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He ran for about a minute before his lungs gave out on him, forcing him to stop. Every muscle ached, yet he couldn't even spare a small bit of Qi to reinvigorate them. He had just shy of one-tenth of his usual amount and stopped even using it when he attacked, hoping the sheer momentum was enough.

If he didn't find a way out soon, he'd have to resort to popping pills despite toxicity, potentially damaging his foundations beyond repair. It was better than dying, of course, but he would rather not do it if at all possible.

Minutes ticked by as he slowly walked, trying to navigate away from the marks he recognized; the other ones were odd, carved inwardly as he drew the gash from left to right, while a lot of the ones he didn't mark were in the opposite way. Some, however, were exactly as his.

Growing frustrated, he paused as he felt he'd been encircled--how they tracked him so perfectly... he didn't know. It was beyond annoying, however. Knowing that he couldn't run, he popped one last Qi-replenishing pill and bit into it; any more than this would lead to immediate backlash, but the amount he managed to recover was so miniscule it was barely enough for one ordinary martial art.

It wasn't that Lao Shun's pills were of low quality, but that Master's methods simply led to all of them having insanely pure Qi.

The first attack came from his back, forcing him to bend sideways and stab backwards in the same motion; as the smoke dissipated behind him, he spun in place and cut straight across, ending yet another. Without missing a beat, he leapt against the nearest tree and somersaulted backwards over two shadows that had attacked in concert, both stretching out their swords in a stabbing motion. He landed just behind them and beheaded both.

He had to spend a small amount of Qi, as most of these movements would have undoubtedly opened up his wounds if he wasn't holding them forcibly closed.

With another attack incoming, he ducked and rolled forward, grabbing the jutting root of the tree and vaulting over it, creating some distance before suddenly jerking to the right, cutting with his sword. There was nothing there for a moment before the shadow spilled out from the void like blood, vanishing soon after in the plumes of smoke.

He was a touch too late to evade, and an arrow shot directly through his left shoulder, leaving open a hole the size of a finger. It began to bleed profusely, though, luckily, the arrow had missed the bone at least.

Stumbling, he just barely kept his footing as he rolled forward, dodging the swing of a sword that seemed to come from nowhere. His eyelids grew heavier as he just barely managed to close the bleeding wound, but not before a good chunk flowed out.

Grunting, he stood back up and swung in a full circle, destroying two figures in the process. Gasping for breath, his eyesight kept faltering as what little Qi he had left wasn't even enough to bolster his sight enough to see in the dark.

In his haze, a sword came directly at his throat, with him noticing it just a few inches away, barely managing to twist his neck enough that it just nicked him rather than cut him. He fell backwards and stumbled over the root, planting firmly onto the ground.

Beyond exhausted, he urged whatever little Qi he had into his sword--one last hurrah, for whatever it mattered.

But, before he could, he saw something distinctly familiar--twilight-colored tendrils shooting out of the ground and grabbing just over ten shadows at once, rooting them in place before seemingly 'eating them' until they were nothing.

"Big Brother Zhao!!" A tender, familiar voice was like a rainfall after a year's drought; he craned his head to the side just enough to see little Feng's face emerge from the darkness, worried and anxious. "Please don't die! B-Brother Rayce, what do we do? He doesn't look good!"

"... I, I'm fine," he mumbled as he closed his eyes. "I just need to sleep for a while..."

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