Ma Qianle could feel the power of the qi enhancing pill flowing through his meridians.  His reaction time had increased significantly, as had his raw strength.  He felt as though spells that were challenging at the best of times would come easily to him now.  Quickly, he activated a defensive talisman and dodged to one side as Laosan and Laosi charged at him.

The two men had shed their human form as they ran to attack Ma Qianle.  They now took the shape of two enormous bears.  They were covered with thick black hair everywhere save their chests, where there were v-shaped patches of almost pearly white.  They were half again the size of the black bears Ma Qianle had seen in zoos in the past.  Demonic qi was radiating off of them in waves

'Shit!' he thought.  'How the hell am I supposed to fight these things!'  Ghosts and corpse soldiers were one thing.  They were at least human sized for the most part, and even with the larger ones he knew spells that were designed to damage yin creatures.  Nothing he had learned in his training prepared him to face down even a single bear demon, much less the two that were now coming at him.

It came as a relief when a silver blade slashed across the back of one of the two.  Ruan Ye had barely taken any time at all to recover from the spell backlash caused by kicking over the altar.  The bear bellowed in pain and rage and turned to confront Ruan Ye.  There was a bleeding gash on its back, but much of the force of the blow had been softened by the thick fur and the unnatural toughness of the bear demon's skin.

One bear distracted for the time being, Ma Qianle was left to deal with the second one on his own.  He dodged first one direction and then the other, trying to use the natural terrain of the cavern to keep the bear away from him.  He was completely at a loss as to how to fight it.  How were you even supposed to subdue a bear without a weapon?  You couldn't get one in an arm lock.  Attempting to punch it unconscious would probably result in a hand broken against the demon's hard skull if he were lucky, and a hand bitten off completely if he wasn't.

'What do I have in the pouch?' Ma Qianle thought, desperately trying to think up a solution.  Most of the items he had been given were consumables, like various pills and elixirs, or utility items, like the shining pearl he had used to light his way through the cave system.  The Impermanents he had trained with, and by extension Luo Lingxin, knew he wasn't extensively trained in any form of traditional weaponry, so they hadn't included any obvious weapons.  Even most of the few items he had that were offensive in nature were intended to fight dead things, not living ones.

Before he had the chance to come up with anything, Ma Qianle felt an impact against his back and he was flying through the air, into the wall of the cavern.  He coughed as the impact forced the air from his lungs, and his head was ringing, but he didn't have the time to sit there while he caught his breath.  He could feel the chill air seeping in through the holes in his clothing where the bear's claws had torn through.  The defensive talisman he had used was the only reason his back didn't have a set of holes to match.  The amount of damage the talisman could deflect was limited, however, and Ma Qianle could tell that it wouldn't stand up to another blow like that.

~

Ruan Ye kept one eye on Ma Qianle as he fought with his own bear.  He saw as the bear chased Ma Qianle, saw as it reached out the enormous paw that sent him flying, but said nothing.  There was no point in shouting out a warning.  There was nothing either of them could have done to stop the blow from falling, and Ma Qianle could ill afford the distraction of someone calling out to him.  Still, he was worried. It came as a relief when he saw Ma Qianle stagger upright and shake his head as if to clear away stars from his vision.

'I need more time,' he thought.  The bears were nothing that Ruan Ye couldn't handle on his own, but the presence of Ma Qianle complicated things.  If he were able to fully release his power as Keeper the bears would be subdued within seconds, but a mortal, even a Mortal Agent, couldn't withstand that sort of qi any more than a demon could.  So here he was, doing this the hard way.

Ruan Ye landed a blow on the bear that staggered it momentarily, and he took the moment to assess the situation in the room.  Laosan — or was it Laosi? — was riddled with sword wounds, but still fighting.  Ruan Ye estimated that he would be dead within minutes, but by that time Laosi — or was it Laosan? — would have long since caught Ma Qianle and turned him into nothing more than a pile of bloody meat.  Lao'er was still recovering from the backlash which, as the caster of the spells that had been broken, had hit him much more strongly than it had Ruan Ye.  The fourth bear demon had not yet returned, but with the noise they were making he couldn't be far off.

He looked round for something, anything Ma Qianle could use to hold out against the bear.  It didn't take long for him to spot it.

"Ma Qianle!" Ruan Ye shouted, as he fended off an enraged lunge from the bloodied bear in front of him.  Ma Qianle, who had been running along the cavern wall, dodging from one stone formation to the next, looked up at him.  "Above you, one zhang — " no, Ma Qianle was a modern mortal.  That wasn't right.  " — three meters ahead."

~

Ma Qianle looked where Ruan Ye had indicated.  At first, he couldn't find what Ruan Ye wanted him to see there, but then he realized that the dark shadow high up on the wall was a hole.  'Does he want me to hide in there?' Ma Qianle asked himself.  Bears could climb too.  They could almost certainly climb better than he could.  But could one as huge as the two bear demons fit in the hole after him?

Ma Qianle threw himself at the wall and began climbing.  He didn't see any better options.  Despite his best efforts to put as much geology between himself and the bear as possible, it was gaining on him fast.  The larger columns and stalagmites, it ran around or over, and the smaller ones, it simply barrelled straight through.

The minute he began climbing, Ma Qianle could tell that something wasn't right with his shoulder.  When he put his weight on it to pull himself upwards, he could feel a grinding pain in the joint.  'I must have hit it when that thing threw me into the wall.'   Between the adrenaline and the pain all over, he hadn't realized.  Still, boosted by the qi enhancing pill's strengthening of his body, he gritted his teeth through the pain and pulled himself upwards.

Ma Qianle was just pulling his torso up to the lip of the hole when with a roar, the bear leapt into the air and grabbed at his dangling calf with a paw.  He could feel the enormous claws tearing through the cloth of his pants and scraping against the last of the defensive spell on his body.  The spell only lasted for a moment before it failed, and the claws dug deep into Ma Qianle's calf.  They raked down his leg and then caught in his shoe.  The shoe pulled off and the bear fell back to the ground.  Ma Qianle nearly fell down after it, but kept his grip on the stones.

He cried out in pain as he hung there, struggling to pull himself back up and into the hole. His already injured shoulder protested at the abuse, but that pain was nothing compared to the pain in his leg.  The deep wounds burned, throbbed with every beat of his racing heart.  Ma Qianle could feel hot blood soaking into the remains of his pants.  It left trails of sticky heat down his bare foot, dripping to the cavern floor meters below.  But still, he fought to pull himself up.  Because he knew one thing — he had been lucky.  Next time, it would be him falling to the ground, and not just his shoe.

~

After directing Ma Qianle to the hole, Ruan Ye had little attention to spare.  The bear, sensing that it was at a clear disadvantage, fought even more fiercely than it had before.  And so, when Ma Qianle's agonized scream rang through the cave, he was caught off guard.  Ruan Ye looked over just in time to see the bear dropping back down, blood on its claws. 

'I have no more time!'  he thought.  No longer concerned with avoiding the bear's claws and teeth, Ruan Ye darted in close to it.  Taking a blow across his arm, he slipped his sword in and across the bear's throat.  One opponent dealt with, Ruan Ye turned and saw the second bear was preparing to jump at Ma Qianle again.  He made a rapid series of seals with his free hand and shouted an incantation that knocked the bear flat, then leapt over to the wall so fast he was a blur.  He stabbed the bear at the base of the skull, severing its spinal column.

~

Ma Qianle refused to look down and see what was below him as he tried and failed to get up into the cavern.  He didn't want to stare death in the form of an oversized bear in the face, but even more so he didn't want to see the mess that had been made of his leg.  He could hear the bear anyway, claws scraping on stone, resetting for another jump. 'This is it, isn't it?'  he thought.  'I'm gonna die here.  Damn that Lei Guanting and his 'Mortal Agents usually die of old age!'' 

And then he heard Ruan Ye's voice, and a wave of force hit him.  Ma Qianle's head spun, and he could feel his qi rapidly being eroded away by something hot and overwhelming.  He finally lost his grip on the stone and fell.  He prepared himself for a hard landing, but just before his feet hit the ground an arm wound around his waist, then let him down carefully.  He tried putting weight on his injured leg but his knee buckled almost immediately, and Ruan Ye helped him to sit.

"Are you alright?" Ruan Ye asked, a concerned look on his face.  There was blood spattered across his skin and a series of tears in the sleeve of his garments.  Ma Qianle could see tiny sparks of light as the holes gradually closed all on their own.

Ma Qianle scowled.  His entire body was in pain.  "Do I look alright to you?"  He groped at his bag and pulled out a wound closing elixir, which he poured over his leg.  Now that he was finally forced to look at it, he wasn't pleased by what he saw.

"I am sorry,"  Ruan Ye said. "The spell was the only way to deal with the second bear in time."  He pulled his sword from the bear's spine and searched for a clean spot on his clothing to wipe it with.

"You could have cast it before he turned my leg into sliced meat,"  Ma Qianle grumbled.  He hissed as he could feel the elixir working on his wounds.  His qi was recovering, still affected by the enhancement pill, but that spell had dealt a heavy blow.

"I had hoped it would not be necessary,"  Ruan Ye said simply.

A sound from across the cavern caught both of their attention.  Over by the destroyed altar, Lao'er was climbing to his feet.  He laughed a harsh, wheezing laugh that quickly devolved into a bloody, bubbling cough. He wiped blood from his mouth as he advanced on Ruan Ye and Ma Qianle.

Ruan Ye extended a hand to help Ma Qianle up.  "Can you stand?"  he asked.  "We are not yet finished here."

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Apologies again for yet another missed post orz.  Just when I thought I was free from work for a while, some sudden business came up that had me unexpectedly away from home for a couple of days.  I hope you enjoy the long chapter as apology!