Qi Like Tar

Paike jogged up to the meeting point, his staff laid over his shoulders.

He hadn't taken much time to examine it since he had recovered it, but on the way he probed it with his qi. The aspect didn't feel any different from what he remembered, but as he touched it, the qi embedded in the staff wriggled, almost as if it was welcoming him back.

Honestly, that slithering feeling made him a little uncomfortable. It was like holding a snake, hoping it wouldn't bite. He did his best to ignore it as it didn't seem to have any functional changes.

From what he heard, this staff was still decades away from developing into a full awakened spirit weapon. So he didn't think it was that. Still, the contact was unsettling enough that he honestly hoped this wasn't the sign of the personality emerging.

Everyone else was waiting for him in the clearing, but none seemed too annoyed that he was a few minutes late.

The notice that class was still canceled until further notice remained up. So he was reassured that their expedition was good to go. That had been his expectation. If they thought there was a chance that the class would be back today, they would have worded the note differently.

Guan Li looked like his mind was still far away. Paike assumed he was still thinking about their ideas. Now that he had a few minutes of distance, he was able to recognize how ridiculous that whole thing was. Still, even as he moved his qi in a few of the patterns they worked out for him, he could feel the difference.

His shield formed faster and with less wasted energy. The other techniques were also benefiting from the improvements.

Slowing as he walked up, Paike had to force himself to stop running small experiments with the ambient qi around him.

That all eight of them were needed to attempt this mission told him how much risk the sect thought whoever would be undertaking this mission would be assuming.

After the greetings were out of the way, that train of thought led him to ask Li Feng to start explaining more about what they were getting into as they moved out.

"It was actually something that Wu Chen first noted. Do you want to explain it?" Li Feng asked the alchemist.

Wu Chen's eyes didn't leave the trail in front of his feet as he shook his head. "No. No, thank you. You can explain."

Li Feng shrugged. It made sense to Paike that he speak for the group. While this might have been Wu Chen's idea, it was Li Feng who actually knew everyone. Or at least had brought the group together.

He didn't actually know if Li Feng really knew who Mi Lixain or Zhang Shuying were. But Paike had only seen Wu Chen for the first time a couple of days ago, and while he had seen Xia Jun several times, he had never actually talked to the boy. Li Feng was the natural choice.

"So I think I mentioned that we were going after some alchemical resources?" Li Feng confirmed, looking back to make sure everyone was on the same page. He received a round of nods.

"Good. Well, we are looking for the venom sacks of the bloodjade ant. It is a common spirit beast formally classified as Formica sanguijada by imperial scholars. You may have heard of them."

Paike had, in fact, heard of the bloodjade ants. They were a menace everywhere they were located. While they were common, they were also valuable and dangerous. Despite being common targets for hunting due to their numerous alchemical processes, they reproduced so rapidly that overhunting rarely became a problem.

That, in turn, made it so there were numerous corpses for alchemists to experiment with, which in turn only made them in more demand.

Their rapid reproduction wasn't the only thing that made them dangerous. They had a special gland that sprayed poison from their rear, giving them a wide-area ranged attack. Something that wasn't very common among spirit beasts. Especially in the numbers they would gather in.

While that poison sack was valuable, it was also delicate. It needed to be harvested within a minute of the ant dying, or else the acid in the poison ate through the dead flesh and spoiled other parts of the ant. On top of that, the corpses couldn't be too damaged or disturbed before harvesting. Also, the death of one ant always drew others that wanted to bring their dead back to the colony.

Eight suddenly didn't feel like enough people for the expedition.

Li Feng continued with his explanation. "The colony is still relatively small. One of the inner disciples discovered it recently when it was young. It is scheduled for extermination by the end of the week, as it is too close to the sect to allow for it to grow. During the time the extermination force is being assembled, the sect is letting it be harvested."

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"How small is relatively small?" Mi Lixian asked, sounding a little nervous.

"It shouldn't be more than a few hundred." Li Feng answered. Paike heard a few of them swallow nervously.

That was small. The oldest nest recorded was in the millions before it was cleaned by an eighth realm cultivator. The records claimed that a fifth realm had died to it before the local duchess decided to take care of it herself.

It was long enough ago that the records were more myth in some ways, but she had been famous enough that the story had survived as one of her many great deeds. Between that and the regular outbreaks of bloodjade ants every few decades, much of this was common knowledge.

Their goal, it appeared, would be to locate a solitary ant and kill it. Then they would need to keep the swarm off Wu Chen long enough for him to finish his work. They would be paid in sect points for each successfully retrieved sack. So they would hopefully be able to retrieve more than one. But Paike would consider even one a win.

No one else felt the need to talk for a while as their group ran down the mountain. It took a couple hours of travel, but soon they stopped at the top of a valley.

Looking down the slope and over to the other side, Piake could see what they were getting into.

The nest was made from most of the trees in the valley, which had been cut down by the bites of each horse-sized spirit beast ant. The valley was almost entirely clear-cut but for a small stand of trees blocking the only easy entrance. The valley was steep enough that it couldn't be casually accessed from the sides.

A cultivator could easily clamber down, but it would take a bit of focus, and they wouldn't be able to just run like it was flat ground. That would make an assault from there more difficult for a larger group.

Paike didn't even envy the extermination team that was being assembled. Undoubtedly, the sect would be using this as a learning opportunity. So the team wouldn't be a few elders and core disciples, but rather a lot of inner sect disciples that would be pushed hard to wipe them all out.

Luckily, that wasn't his task.

Seeing their problem brought everyone out of the competitive mood that had hung over them for most of the trip, and they all retreated a bit further away to plan.

***

They found their first scout a little ways out of the valley. It had been agreed that there was no way they would be venturing into the ants' home. That was just asking to be overwhelmed and eaten.

No, the ants were clearly running out of resources. They were having to venture further afield to find food or building materials. So trying to ambush one of these was the best idea. They would need to kill it quickly and cleanly, before it could receive help. And then they would need to fight the rest off before fleeing as soon as they could.

They had worked out a rough plan and a few signals they would use to communicate quickly.

The lone ant was snapping at a tree with its pincers. After a handful of bites, the tree trunk, as thick as Paike's torso, was almost entirely severed. That was when they struck.

Mi Lixian's song softly spread out. She claimed it was to reduce communication. The hope was it could prevent the ant from calling for reinforcements. However, it was supposed to work better on sound. None of them actually knew how the ants communicated, but they didn't make any noise. Mi Lixian claimed that it also worked by confusing the mind, even disrupting enemy hand signals. It just wasn't as effective.

Despite that being their opening move, the first actual attack came from the bow of Zhang Shuing. Her arrow buried itself in the beast's eye. From the other side, Xia Jun ran in.

He stopped well out of reach of the ant and pointed his spear at the ant's head. A bolt of lightning arced from him and scattered over the ant's carapace, causing the ant to flinch and stumble as its limbs contacted.

Paike felt his sister's qi fill him with warmth and strength as he charged the ant head-on, his staff held ready.

Next to him dashed Li Feng, his sword held to the side, ready to slice.

They reached their target together. Paike channeled qi through the staff, using it as an extension of his body to form a shield at the limits of his reach. The shield held the jaws apart long enough for Li Feng to get underneath and cut into its front leg, before the beast was able to overpower the qi construct.

As the shield broke, Paike got to witness something he hadn't expected. Nothing had broken his shield so fast, or in such a crushing way.

Normally it just faded when it was broken. But breaking it wasn't something he had tested since he had left the qi in his dantian spinning. Just like when he let go of the shield intentionally, the spinning stopped. But instead of being in one piece, the shield was in several.

This time there was no one direction the shield needed to go in, so it went in several. The shards of qi radiated out in the same plane the shield was held in. Most of that was into the sky and the dirt. However, enough of it was to the sides that it shredded the mandibles that had just broken it.

Paike was very glad he was far away from the shield. He was lucky that it had broken now. He would have to be careful of how each shield was positioned in the future to avoid losing any limbs or injuring his allies if they were overpowered.

It proved unnecessary for Li Feng to sever any more of the limbs or Xia Jun to shock it again. Though Zhang Shuying did get a second arrow into its compound eyes. The missing limb, mangled face, and lightning coursing through it proved distraction enough for their plan to work.

Guan Li landed just behind its head and drove a shadow through the weak point right behind its neck. Normally this stop was very hard to get to. Still, with their numbers and power, they just needed an opening and someone quick enough to take advantage of it. Guan Li fit that description perfectly.

He rode the beast's now limp body to the ground and hopped off lightly. Despite the wide smile on his face, Guan Li remembered the plan. He was the closest thing they had to a scout. So once he had confirmed the ant was dead, he ran off into the forest to see if he could give them any warning.

The rest of them fanned out in the trees while Wu Chen got to work. There was just enough time for Paike's racing heart to slow.

Then the sound of crashing trees heralded Guan Li's quick return.

"They are coming!"

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