Chapter 800: The fifth day of the development trial (part 12)
Chapter 800: The fifth day of the development trial (part 12)
"Those eyes, I really can’t stand them!", shouted the bear, after their initial clash back when his sudden and unnatural change managed to take Guardian by surprise, since she used to use herself as the measure and she obviously didn’t grow so strong in a single go when she surpassed her limits, the bear had never been able to wound the lynx.
He on the other hand received many other slashes from Guardian’s claws which left a lot of smaller scars on his body, not to mention that as the time went by, the bear not only became unable to threaten Guardian’s life anymore, but if he delved too much into the forest, he would be at the risk of drying under her claws and fangs.
Long story short, the bear couldn’t stand being looked down upon by the lynx, the difference is that before he was already in a crazed state so his attitude didn’t differ much when being looked at like that by Guardian, but he had become "rational" so it was really noticeable when he threw a tantrum now.
"Rooaar!", the bear changed from standing tall on his legs to be on all fours to then charge towards Guardian while roaring, his heavy body combined with his powerful muscles made it so that the bear left deep marks on the ground every time he took a step.
"Humph!", the lynx coldly snorted at the increase in speed that the bear gained after changing to move on all fours, which indeed made their speed to be on par again, with a bit of running and a couple of leaps she clashed with the bear head on.
"Clang!", those two’s claws produced metallic sounds and sparks upon colliding, still with a solider stance on the ground, the bear managed to cut down the stalemate shorter and push Guardian back a larger distance as a result of their clash.
"Grrrr!", that being said, while the bear had an obvious advantage in terms of brute force and he could equal Guardian’s movement speed, she was way more agile than the bear, so the very second the lynx’s feet reached the ground, she darted towards the bear before he had a chance to solidify his stance after their previous exchange of attacks.
With an elegant leap, Guardian jumped over the bear’s body slashing his back with her claws.
"Rooaar!", feeling the pain of the lynx’s razor-sharp claws cutting through his hide, the bear roared as he tried to get ahold of Guardian with his paws in order to smack her against the ground.
"Boooom!", unfortunately he missed the agile lynx and his paws ended up making a crater on the ground instead.
"Tsk!", the bear clicked his tongue but didn’t stop his attack, instead he jumped frontwards aiming to crush Guardian where she stood as of current, of course the lynx once again showed her nimbleness and jumped backwards to avoid the bear.
"The very first thing I did when I obtained wisdom was think on how to counter that damn annoying maneuverability of yours!", shouted the bear.
This time he added a little extra "surprise" to his attack, he of course failed to crush Guardian and instead created a crater on the ground, but then the bear pierced his claws into the soil and pushed them frontwards throwing a large amount of dirt and rocks at the lynx who was midair as of current.
"Boooom!", the bear used so much strength that a loud explosion accompanied the large amount of dirt and rocks he threw at Guardian, at the same time, the bear charged into the dust veil, he had created himself.
’Let’s see you dodge this time!’, thought the bear, as he aimed his paws at the general position in which Guardian was when she was engulfed by the dirt and rocks, he threw her way, only for a sudden sensation of danger to invade the bear alongside Guardian’s voice which reached him the next second.
"Did you not listen to Aster’s words, in most cases those who believe they are cunning are just fools who think too highly of themselves", said the lynx who despite having her eyes closed which prevented the dust from reaching them and had also held her breath, perfectly dodged the bear’s claws to then use her own claws to slash at the bear’s neck.
The bear’s eyes contracted like needles, he couldn’t dodge and he couldn’t retrieve his arms in time, what’s more, when Guardian dodged his attack, she landed on the ground and then used it as support to leap so she would reach him before he could put distance between each other as he had charged at her as well and was in no position to change direction abruptly.
In other words, he had underestimated the lynx’s senses and that mistake was enough for Guardian to take his life, since the bear was a hundred percent sure that her claws will rip his neck to shreds, it wasn’t the bear’s fault this time, at least not completely.
’He used dirt to block both Guardian’s sight and smelling sense, and the sound caused by him breaking the ground as well as the rocks clashing in the air to interfere with her hearing, for a change the bear was actually smart, enough to not let out a peep after he had started his attack at least’, thought Aster.
If the bear had shouted his triumphant monologue after having thrown the dirt and rocks at Guardian, he would have been a victim of the classic "villains die because they talk too much", since the bear’s voice would have given the lynx an idea of his general position even while her senses were being jammed, however the bear didn’t.
So, you might wonder how did Guardian perfectly dodge the bear’s attack which he had been thinking on since he recovered his rationality and the answer is the bear’s fault.
Aster has concluded that the lynx’s trigger for evolution were experiences with a strong impact, it didn’t matter if they were positive or negative so long as they left a strong impression in Guardian.
She surpassed the limits of an animal after experiencing both being called "Guardian" by a friend as in that human leader which till the end didn’t try to harm her and also being called the same but with hatred the second time by the humans that tried to raid the nests of the animal races during that all-out war.
After that, there was only one instance in which Guardian failed the duty she had taken upon herself which was maintaining balance in the forest, because there was one race which was basically completely exterminated, the bear race, there was only one survivor so there won’t be any continuation to them and that survivor was also the one who slaughtered all the other bears.
And the symbol of that failure was the scar she received during their first confrontation, which is a bit misleading as it would lead one to believe that Guardian resented receiving a wound from the bear since there was no other evidence of, she ever receiving a heavy attack from an enemy on her body.
But that’s not true, Guardian might have outstood from her peers since she was a little lynx, but until she grew up to become a king candidate she experienced defeat at the claws of others many times, it’s just that they were never overwhelming defeats even against older and larger opponents, so it’s not like the bear was the first to ever wound her.
Therefore, for the lynx, that scar’s importance wasn’t the fact that she received it from an enemy, but the situation that led to said fight, in other words the fact that she couldn’t discern the real intentions of that young bear whose hatred blinded him.
And through chance, fate or a mere coincidence, the wound she received was really close to one of her eyes, a few extra millimeters and she could have lost it, which gave birth to a certain idea in the lynx’s mind "I shouldn’t rely mainly on my eyes anymore".
With that mind and after having listened to humans complain time after time about how they could have easily slaughtered animals with their eyes closed if they at least had access to their "spirit sense", the lynx spent years training trying to obtain that ability which the humans mentioned and seemed to rely on so much, she moved with her eyes closed, blocked her ears with some plants and even discarded her smelling sense by breathing through her mouth.
But she only managed to heighten her normal senses instead, it wasn’t her fault as all the previous was "physical" focused training, it was thanks to the bear that Guardian attained her goal, he kept causing trouble during the first dozen of years after his change and while the lynx drove him away every time, there was a period of time between the bear’s arrival, she learning about it and she reaching the area where the bear was, sometimes days had to pass and during that time the bear caused a lot of destruction.
That’s what lead to the northern border of the forest border specially the northwestern area to be abandoned, since the bear killed every animal that he saw back then, anyway it was that situation which ultimately helped Guardian had her second advance, one that was completely focused in the mind unlike the first one which balanced both mind and body.
One day the bear nearly died because after his arrival to the forest just as he was preparing to cause as much destruction as possible, he was suddenly attacked by Guardian, this was around only two hours after he entered the forest and this situation kept repeating from that point onwards, which led the bear to stop going to the forest at all after some time, until Aster and the others arrived at this place.
What happened is that Guardian, after feeling anger and frustration over not arriving in time to drive the bear away, developed an extra sense to know when the bear was coming, so the moment she noticed, she started moving in that direction and that’s why the bear could no longer do as he pleased, Guardian was faster and also more agile than him, not to mention that the forest was her territory so she would always arrive at her destination before him.
Well, the lynx used to believe that she had failed to obtain the ability mentioned by humans since this extra "sense" she got, only worked on the bear, that’s why she had to make those rounds around the forest to see that everything was right, which took her years.
Until Aster and the others arrived, where she had a second reaction one that felt both more threatening than the bear’s one, but also friendly and that’s when she learned the reality of her extra sense.
It’s not that it was dedicated to the bear as she used to believe, it’s just that she had used the bear as her initial measure, so she could only perceive threats on the bear’s level or above and for Guardian, the only being besides supervisors that didn’t show up after the all-out war until now, that could threat her was the bear, also she probably wouldn’t have been able to notice the supervisors anyway, after all even Aster didn’t manage to actively find them if they were hiding themselves, until after the incident with the black shadow, due to him being restricted to the mortal realm.
You can’t call this "spirit sense" of course, spirit sense quite literally allows a cultivator to experience the world through their spirit energy, they send faint amounts of it and everything it touches is mapped and presented into the mind of a cultivator, that’s the simplest way to explain it.
But that also makes sense, since there is no spirit energy in this place and any being here is supposed to be limited to mortal limits, so for Aster this was the version of spirit sense that one could obtain in this place, some sort of enhanced "intuition" focused in a specific aspect, in Guardian’s case was danger.
It worked a bit like Camila’s innate ability of sensing treasures, which worked even at mortal level by the way, though even Immortal grade resources here were different versions which lacked a lot when compared with their counterparts that had grown with spirit energy nurturing them, they were still herbs with medicinal effects which they collected to study, the treasure girl could also detect the metal ores with the least impurities in them with a single glance, she was an invaluable asset for the group.
Anyway, the point is that Guardian having learned of the previous, started training to be able to adjust this extra sense to her liking and with the help of a few girls from the sect that sparred with her, which she enjoyed a lot by the way, she became able to lower it from "bear" threat level, to "wound" threat level as that was as much as the average members of the sect could do against her and we are talking about multiple enemies against one of her.
In other words, the bear’s plan to kill Guardian, was meaningless from the very beginning, so long as he tried to kill her on the spot which was his only option as he only had one shot, but indeed, before Aster’s group arrival, had the bear used this plan of his, while Guardian could have still dodged a fatal wound, she would have been unable to counterattack while in the middle of the dust veil.
’Well, now that she had joined us, we can’t have her grow through negative experiences, that would make a pair of good-hearted girls whom especially like Guardian, sad after all’, jokingly thought Aster referring to Kana and Vivian, as his golden eyes managed to discern most of what was happening within the dust veil, his sight even as a mortal is monstrous.
"Crack!", back to the fight, Guardian slightly frowned the very second her claws entered in contact with the bear’s hide, that wasn’t the sound of the enemy’s bones being ripped apart by her claws, neither was the sound of her claws breaking of course.
Guardian’s claws did land on the bear’s neck, but after piercing through his hard fur and thick skin, they were stopped, her slash resulted in sparks and a sound similar to that of her claws scratching a stone, of course if it was a normal stone Guardian would have left deep clawing marks on it, so this wasn’t that.
Using the impact of Guardian’s attack, the bear jumped backwards coming out of the dust veil, there was a red blood five claw slashing mark on his neck, he wasn’t bleeding though, it was as if the blood was being contained by "something" invisible to the eye.
"Isn’t that the ability of the anaconda, I guess that was a gift from the black shadow supervisor", casually said Aster, the anaconda could harden her scales enough to not have her bones destroyed by Espi’s tail lashes, of course the little wyrm blasted her head away with her full strength in a single go at the end, but there is an important difference here.
The anaconda obtained power by being exposed to whatever the black shadow was doing underground, she wasn’t granted power by the supervisor directly, while the bear on the other hand was, still, the bear’s defense wasn’t as good as the anaconda’s would have been in his situation, because he doesn’t have an external "solid" layer to harden as in scales, which is why while Guardian couldn’t decapitate him as she pretended, she still cut through his defense and left a wound on his neck.
And now, the bear couldn’t stop using this power, until said wound had closed, otherwise he would bleed to death, while the bear’s breathing was ragged due to the really close encounter, he had with death a second ago, he also seemed to have an expecting light in his eyes, at least until he heard a whole bunch of loud sounds echoing through the battlefield.
"Boooom!", the bear turned looked backwards just to see dozens of fire pillars suddenly raise out of the ground from some familiar areas, to know what was happening we must return in time a couple of minutes, just when the bear was throwing a tantrum over Guardian taunting him.
...
One must give credit when credit is due, the bear actually used himself as a distraction as he gave orders in secret to the dead wolf king before charging at Guardian, so while the bear was drawing attention to himself by causing a ruckus, the dead wolf king was fulfilling said orders.
As in the dead wolf king sneakily jumped into one of the many pit traps, landing on the corpses of some dead animals to avoid being pierced by the spikes or getting stuck to the sticky solution applied at the bottom of the traps.
And then, an interesting sight took place, the dead wolf king jumped from one corpse to another and upon contact, the corpses deflated, while in exchange the wolf king grew a few millimeters taller and more robust, judging by how the dead animals were left as just empty skin, he was taking the bones and probably whatever power the supervisors used to revive them, into his body.
What’s more, the dead wolf king... killed the living animals that were just stuck or had been pierced in non-lethal spots by the spikes, turning them into dead animals which he then killed again, an interesting fact is that only kings and seconds in command had the ability to turn living animals into a part of the dead army and for that they had to kill them directly.
The dead wolf king had chosen one of the pit traps that had the most animals at its bottom and this process also took some time, by the time he was finished, the wolf had grown around a fifth part of his original size larger by taking the bones and power from forty animals.
However, when he proposed himself to continue so that he could fulfill his special purpose, which was being the ultimate weapon of the dead army, an animal that could become even stronger than the bear with the consequence that he would crumble apart after fifteen minutes of reaching that state, the moment he jumped into another pit trap, the thing suddenly exploded in flames.
The wolf managed to react in time and only a small amount of his fur burned, but when he jumped out of the pit trap, he saw that each and every of them had exploded in flames with seconds of difference at most.
What happened is simple, the "sticky" substance that was applied at the bottom of the traps had pine tar mixed in it, courtesy of Mylene, now, due to the angle since Aster was standing on flat ground, he couldn’t see what happened at the bottom of the trap, but he of course noticed when the wolf jumped into it, because his attention was never on the bear to begin with.
There were some fights at which he had no need to pay attention to, like anything in which the little wyrm, Alice, Mira, Mina, Vivian, Nerissa, Agnes, Alexandra, Felicia, Sarina, Valentina or Guardian were participating, as he was sure they had zero chances of getting hurt past some insignificant scratches at most.
Of course, the other girls wouldn’t take any life-threatening wounds not after all the preparations Aster took, but the possibility of getting hurt while killing a whole bunch of enemies at the same time, did exist for them as of current, mostly because they are used to focus in attack power and they didn’t have Alice’s monstrous physique as mortals, which is why Aster’s attention was on the battlefield in general.
"We prepared a way to quickly get rid of the dead animal corpses in the traps, but I didn’t expect to use it earlier, that’s an interesting ability that wolf has", said Aster at the bigger size of the dead wolf king, when he saw the wolf jumping into the pit trap, he gazed at Angela who nodded back at him, the pit traps were built in a way that their bottom would be visible for the girls standing on the walls.
The receptionist girl saw what the wolf did but didn’t interrupt the process because she wanted to gather intel about it, of course the moment she judged the limits of the wolf’s ability, which didn’t take her more than a couple of minutes, she immediately gave the order of lighting up all the pit traps which had animals, be dead or living ones, with flaming arrows.
They were lucky, Mylene had added a few things to make the initial blaze of the composed glue, explosive, so the dead animals died the moment the solution reacted to the increase in temperature, this was a happy coincidence, since not all animals joined the army out of their own will, not only the dead ones, but even among the living ones, a small portion did so because they had no choice.
The dead wolf king gritted his teeth due to anger; he had lost the easy way to grow stronger and this is when we return to the present.
The bear saw the fire in the pit traps engulf all the animals that were at their bottoms and his eyes became bloodshot, everything he did was for naught, he nearly died to make an opening so that the dead wolf king reached his strongest point, the idea was for the two of them to work together and directly kill Guardian, to then follow with that golden eyed creature, but his plan was seen through.