Chapter XIV: Beast Lures V
Shizukana Gake
Heian Kingdom
The Great Plateau
Month of the Pangolin 4, 172 ,328 DE
As I duck back behind the metal door frame, thee bullet pass through the space where head was an instant before. After his shots miss, the Martial Warrior does not continue wasting his ammunition. The only sound coming from the room are the clashes between my swords and the weapons of the soldier Cultivators. My swords and the soldier Cultivators seem to be caught in a deadlock.
Since becoming a Triune, my developing awareness has expanded far beyond my five physical senses, and the sensitivity of the my Mind and Soul to Power is rapidly becoming its core. Through my Mind and Soul's perceptions of Power, in most situations, I can learn far more than I ever could with my physical senses. They are not infallible, but when combined with my physical senses, they provide a superior image of my surroundings. Even with the Yuan Qi leaking form the Beast Lures, I can follow the general flow of the battle and positions of the combatants that I cannot see. Other than the two Cultivators killed at the start, no one else has died. I do not sense so much as any injuries on the others. Despite their confidence or arrogance, fighting against armed Cultivators seems to be more difficult for my swords than fighting against weaponless Demonic Beasts. Like me, the Martial Warrior seems to be waiting for a good opportunity to act.
Threads of Yuan Q and Soul Power lash out from a bracer on the arm of the Martial Warrior and attach themselves to five of the soldier Cultivators. After a moment, similar threads sprout from four of the attached patterns on the four Cultivators. The threads connect to the four other Cultivators, whose attached patterns sprout threads that connect them into interconnected groups of five. The exception being the extra three Cultivators who from an interconnected group of three. All five groups remain connected to the Martial Warrior.
As their Bodies swell slightly, the strength and speed of the soldier Cultivators jumps up by several levels, and their blocks start send my sword flying halfway across the room.
*The doing something weird to boost their Bodies. You should turn into a fluffy kitty before we go in.*
Vorn frowns, but he activates his Bear Transformation. As his clothing disappears into his storage device, his Body swell and grows. A short muzzle grows out of his face. Thick, red fur sprouts from his overly hairy skin, and the length of his hair and bear shrinks. The entire transformation takes barely a second. With his new size, the large broadsword and battle-axe look more like a short sword and a hatchet in his stubby fingered, clawed hands.
Once more, I drawn out my Great Wolf essence from the ball of Trinity in my Core Realm, but do not trigger the transformation into my true form. Strength a Power flood my Body, Mind, and Soul to the point I feel almost ready to burst from the strain, but I keep myself under tight rein.
*Let's go!*
Bending low, I dash toward the Martial Warrior, and Vorn charges at the soldier Cultivator like a runaway bull. Without any spoken commands, five of the soldier Cultivators move to back up the Martial Warrior. Eight of the turn toward Vorn, and the other ten stay focused on my swords. Does the Martial Warrior see my swords as more of a threat then Vorn or myself?
While the Martial Warrior slams a new magazine into the pistol, he aims it at me. Form shields of Trinity around my knives, I cross them between the Martial Warrior and myself, but as he pulls the trigger, the sigils on the gun's barrel flare.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
As I charge forward, the bullets arc in flight. I move my knives just enough to intercept the four bullets, but as each one hammers into the Trinity shields, fracture lines appear. With the shields fragmenting into streamers or Trinity, I dive and roll.
Boom! Boom!
The first bullet misses, but the second cuts a furrow into my ass. Coming out of my roll, I slash the Martial Warrior's ankles with my knives, but he jumps backward. Before I fully regain my feet, the soldier Cultivators attack me from the right, and I slip into their midst. Even with the shot-bending sigils on his gun's barrel, the Martial Warrior hesitates to fire at me.
Using Trinity to strengthen my skin, I take advantage of the soldier Cultivator. Tracking their movements with my awareness, I move just enough to not take direct strikes from their weapons. As their swords and axes slice into me, leaving behind minor wounds, the flow of Trinity activates the dormant potential of my Bloodline in bits and pieces. I really need to strengthen my Mind and Soul, but I cannot pass up an opportunity like this one. With The focused bloodlust of the solders, a few minutes of battle will provide more growth than a month of sparring with Vorn. Beast, especially Great Beasts, grow the fastest through battle.
After a few moments, Vorn's head snap's around to look at me. He glares at me for an instant and unleashes a brutal flurry of attacks in front of himself. With his fifth strike, his axe sinks deeply into the soldier's shoulder, and the human collapses to the ground. As the weapons of the other soldiers barely get through Vorn's thick fur, he releases and irritated snarl and turns on another soldier.
While the Martial Warrior watches the fight, his expression slowly changes. From smug satisfaction, a frown slowly turns down corners of his lips, and after a few more moments, rage twist his features into ferocious mask. Sheathing his pistol, he draws a broadsword. Without any spoken commands, the soldiers follow the orders given through their far talker patterns and move to leave room for the Martial Warrior He springs into the gap, and the strength and speed of his first slash forces me to block. My crossed knives catch Martial Warrior's sword, but the forces behind the blow slams my hand back into my face.
Crouching down, I twist the Martial Warrior's sword to the side, and he pulls his arm back for another strike. Before the strike comes, I half-turn and block the attack of the solider Cultivator behind me. As my shoulder slams into his solar plexus, he staggers back a couple steps, and I slip out of the encirclement.
The soldier Cultivators start to chase after me, but almost immediately, the Martial Warrior issues commands through the far talker pattern. The soldiers stop chasing me and move behind the Martial Warrior. The tendrils of Yuan Qi connecting the five flare, and as their Bodies deflate, returning to their normal bulk, Power flow into the Martial Warrior. While his muscles appear to tighten up, his Body does not swell in the same way as the soldier Cultivators, but as he springs toward me, he moves with more speed than before.
Different Beast have different physical advantages. Some have greater strength, speed, or toughness, but I am very balanced. If anything, my speed stands out just a little. Cultivators are the same, but their Cultivation techniques determine their advantages. Despite his average build, for a Cultivator, this Marital Warrior appears to have practiced a technique that focused on strength.
While the Martial Warrior rains down attacks, I defend. As I parry his attacks, knocking them out of position, my joints feel like I am trying to stop a charging Ferocious Cow. Keeping my parries to the minimum deflection I need to move just enough to not get hit, I let force of the Martial Warrior's attacks wash through my muscles and bones. The results in stimulating the still latent potential in my Body might be even than taking the blows from the soldier Cultivators.
*When are you going to stop fucking around? If you keep this up, we'll have a half-assed Beast Wave to deal with.* With two more Cultivators lying dead at his feet, Vorn's scent drips with anger.
*We already have one to deal with. Those Beast Kings lurking below the Escarpment won't just go away.*
Almost as though he noticed my Mind was focused on something other than him, the Martial Warrior burst into a lunge at twice the speed he has been moving. Even though I manage to partially deflect the attack, it still tears through my lower left abdomen.
The pain catches me off-guard, and I momentarily lose control over the Trinity flowing through me. My Body rapidly begins to change it form, but I do not change into my true form. I retain a bipedal, somewhat human-like body, but my head takes on the shape of my true form. As my leather clothes come apart at the seams, my height shoots up to nearly three meters, and thick, black fur sprouts from my skin. My fingernails thicken, becoming claw-like, and my feet change into the shape of my true form. The wound in side has already stopped bleeding and begins to heal at a noticeable pace.
It feels like the strength and speed of my Body almost equal those of my true form, but my true form cannot heal at the pace that this form does. Is it the result of having nearly the full Power of my true form, while my overall mass being so much less?
Spitting out words in a language I do not know, the Martial Warrior jumps back four or five meters. The battle pauses, and all the humans in the room stare at me with shocked expressions.
I let out a sigh that sounds like a growl. *They've seen too much. Kill them all.*
Sensing Vorn quickly cut down two more Cultivators, I spring at the Martial Warrior. He slashes at my arm with his sword, but he barely gets through my and skin. The thick muscles in my right forearm stop his blade. With my other hand, I drive one of my knives through the Martial Warrior's forearm, but with a silent snarl, he jerks his arm away from the blade.
The Martial Warrior leaps backward, and the soldiers scramble to stay behind him. The Yuan Qi links between the soldiers and the Martial Warrior's bracer grow thicker and turn red. As a faint bloody scent emanates from the Yuan Qi, the Martial Warrior's Body swells up like the soldiers' bodies had previously.
The feel of the Yuan Qi in the Martial Warrior changes. Reddish light encases his sword, and the blade appears to split five copies of itself. Each of the reddish light copies radiates Yuan Qi with the same feel, and the scent of rotting blood fills the air. From the feel and appearance of the light blades, they should be what Cultivator's call sword intent. Some of Old Man Jones' tomes described similar uses of Mana or Trinity called weapon auras. Depending on the strength of the technique and the user, a weapon aura can do as much or more damage than the original weapon.
The Martial Warrior targets my neck with an oblique hack. His movement speed has increased significantly. I barely manage to the blade of his sword in a cross block using both daggers, but the weapon auras break loose. Caught off-guard, I have no chance to dodge, and the blades of Yuan Qi cut through my fur and thick skin, leaving deep gashes in my shoulder and neck.
Behind the Martial Warrior, the soldier Cultivator's visibly age. An expression of grim unwillingness settles on the face of the soldier Cultivator that my Telepathy thread is still attached to. He glares at the back of the Martial Warrior, and memories flash through his Mind.
As I focus on the memories, time slows to a crawl. I see images of human children and teens in classroom. Images of male human children being trained to fight, while female human children watch. The center of all the memories seems to be the same human female as she grows from a toddler to about twelve or thirteen. In the last image, the teenage female looking back, as she is taken away by two middle-aged adult females in matching black and white dresses that give the impression of uniforms.
