Chapter 77
The picturesque scenery of an attractive woman slowly walking towards a huge monster with two heads is making the entire onlooker feel uneasy. With the woman's confident stride everyone's heart is on their throats and her footsteps are like the sound of everyone's heartbeat.
Each step she takes is like her walking towards the jaws of death, little by little she inches towards her doom. Everyone can now picture her smashed body adding to the already gory scenery of her surroundings.
Roar!
The beast roared in anger as if it was insulted by the action of the female mortal walking towards it. But deep inside its core, it suddenly feels a tinge of fear. It didn't know why but it knows that the woman is not that simple.
"I hope this one would last longer," Phoenix muttered as she held both the sword hilt on both sides while extended her arms.
Although she just said it in a small voice the beast actually heard her with its sharp senses and the words that Phoenix said really irritate the beast king. But one thing that registered in its mind is that the woman may have already killed some beast king before coming here.
But it still doubts what it hears as there is a chance that the woman is just bluffing. Then feeling insulted and angered the beast roared and immediately rushed in for the attack. Seeing the fast movement of the beast, Phoenix's eyes brighten in delight.
"It would seem that this one is not a pushover. I need to go all out then." She said under her breath as she suddenly disappears from where she stood.
The beast king was alarmed when it saw this. If it was before and someone would tell it that a mortal can move like a shadow it would just roll its eyes in incredulity. But right now it's different as it clearly saw this happen with its own eyes.
With vigilance, the beast stopped its movements, and immediately spread its spiritual sense. No matter how fast Phoenix's movements are it was still caught by the beast king's spiritual sense. But before it could react, she is already under it.
With a bad premonition, the beast immediately moved back, but then it suddenly felt something tearing through its body.
Grrrahhh!!!
The beast shouted in pain.
Just a couple of feet away from the beast stood Phoenix holding two arms-length glowing blades. This weapon was designed by Shin Jiao to be used by the Shadow Squad in close combat. As it can only use mana as its energy, it is a perfect weapon for the girls.
The beast began to thrash around wildly as it felt the pain on its body. Phoenix, on the other hand, evaded and attack again and again making the beast's long snake body riddled with wounds. Whenever the beast would charge its spiritual Qi to conjure an attack, Phoenix would interrupt it by attacking any parts of its body. The thing that the beast could not understand is how those thin short glowing blades can penetrate its Qi field and even its thick skin. And no matter how hard it tries to exert spiritual pressure on the mortal she seems to be unaffected by it.
Seeing the situation the cultivators had a look of disbelief in their eyes, they could not understand how could a mere mortal fight against a beast king.
"I guess it's time to end this," Phoenix said as she squinted her eyes as she scrutinized the beast king.
She then retracts one of the swords on her hand and using that hand extended a palm towards the beast. Seeing her action the beast became cautious as it already experienced the fighting prowess of the mortal.
Then everyone clearly felt it as the spiritual Qi in the surroundings became agitated. As Phoenix sucked in the natural energy of flame it rapidly condensed in front of her palm. A tiny circular blue flame suddenly began to grow bigger and bigger, and then in a blink of an eye, it became fist-sized.
With intense concentration, Phoenix's forehead is now covered in sweat as her face paled. Right now she is feeling that almost 50% of her strength has been siphoned by the concentrated fireball which she conjures.
This fireball is one of her experimental spells, which uses a high concentration of fire elements. Right now she didn't know how powerful it would be because it's just a derivation of a normal fireball spell. Still, she is confident that it is enough to at least wound the beast king.
The beast king upon seeing this was dumbfounded and was not able to react immediately. But according to its size, the tiny fireball it is seeing is not enough to injure its thick hide. The beast king is rather fearful of the short blades that Phoenix uses than the blue fireball.
But then suddenly it feels something was off as the fireball now gives off a dreadful feeling. Because of this, the beast king woke up from its stupor and grabs this opportunity to rush forward while the mortal woman is still forming the spell. And while rushing, it started to quickly form a huge fireball of its own.
At this time, Phoenix is too engrossed in the sensation of the new spell that she forgot she is fighting a beast king. When she realized that she is unable to control the fireball she cast anymore, she panics and immediately launched it forward.
Like a cannonball, it moves through the air directly towards the rushing beast king. Seeing the tiny fireball the beast king's two heads smirked at the same time and also released its huge fire spell.
Everyone in the area ducked on the ground, others who still have shield artifacts raised it up to brace themselves from the impending explosion. Those with raised shield clearly saw what happened next.
The tiny and huge fireballs collide with each other, but instead of an explosion, the tiny blue fireball passed through the huge one and the most amazing thing happened. The tiny blue fireball actually absorbed a huge amount of flame from the large fireball which then immediately shows a vortex-like movement as it rapidly rotates while flying, making it grew a little bigger.
Seeing the situation the beast king's smirk was turned into shock. It didn't expect that its most powerful move would be subdued just like that. Then it immediately acted and evaded the tiny blue fireball. Seeing its trajectory the beast king felt relieved but grew smug as it actually noticed the woman not evading.
Although the fireball it threw grew small by a bit, it is still powerful enough to obliterate her mortal body. But before it could rejoice in the woman's misfortune it clearly saw the woman's sinister smile. Then a sudden deadly premonition grew in its heart, so it quickly looks at the blue fireball. And its eyes grew wide in disbelief, but it was too late.
Boom!
Both fireballs exploded on their intended targets, making two huge mushroom clouds. As the dust died down everyone was astonished on what they saw.
The beast king was torn in half with half of its body burned to a crisp, and half lied dead on the ground bleeding profusely.
Meanwhile, Phoenix can be seen sitting in the middle of a crater with a force shield coming from her bracers. But her face is already pale because of the overuse of her mana. But she felt happy in her heart to be able to test out the extent of her ability. Then before she could do something, she felt overwhelming energy suddenly invaded her mind. Although the energy is strong yet as it flows through her head towards her whole body she felt a cooling sensation and all the fatigue in her body were washed away.
"I… my strength went up to another stage. But this… this energy…" Phoenix thought in amazement.
Then she suddenly noticed that the energy is coming from the beast king ahead. She then remembers one of the words her teacher has said, though it's not part of the teaching while they were kids. The teacher told them that one way to get stronger fast is to kill stronger monsters. Although the teacher just said that casually in class since Phoenix's mind has been opened, her memory is as clear as day and can remember everything.
A few seconds later, Phoenix's expression turned serious. It seems that she has reached a crucial point in her absorption of energy. She actually reached the 5th level of being a Mage, now she can be considered as a Novice mage. But from there she didn't know what to do next as she didn't have any knowledge about this anymore.
Still, she is happy as she can feel that her strength has been elevated. And one more thing that made her happy, it seems that she can feel her life span is not that of a mortal anymore. With the increase of her strength, Phoenix's appearance also changed. She is like a cultivator, who reached the spirit refining realm.
"Wow!" Phoenix heard someone from behind her exclaimed.
When she turns her head she saw Xi Jung with a dumbfounded look on his face. The aura covering her body right now is like the aura of a cultivator but it's different. This signifies that she is not a mortal anymore.
"Hey, we need to move and hunt the other beast king. That way, we can clear this place the sooner the better." Phoenix said not minding the astonished gaze she receives from her Dao companion.
But deep in her heart, she is happy to be praised by him.
Xi Jung woke up from his stupor and nods his head. The two then quickly disappear from the place along with the beast carcass that Phoenix killed as it was taken away by Xi Jung. As he is the only cultivator in the group Shin Jiao gave him a spatial ring he got from Lemy's small world.
"Damn, I could not believe that a mortal can do that."
"She may not be a mortal. She is maybe hiding her cultivation."
"Both of them are too fast. Those are artifacts on their bodies' right? If we can catch them and get those artifacts then our gains would be huge."
"Are you stupid or something? Your greedy nature would get you killed you know."
The cultivators who have to survive began to talk to each other, some admire what had happened while others made plans against Phoenix and Xi Jung. But the two never mind this as those people are just low-level cultivators and would not pose a threat to them.
"That woman… she… she looks like… No that's impossible. She is already gone. But how could she look like her?" the man in the infant soul realm lying on the ground said to himself with a confused expression.
When Xi Jung caught the man from his fall, Xi Jung just laid him on the ground. Not long later he regained his consciousness and saw Phoenix defeating the beast king. Then when he scanned her with his spiritual sense, he was stupefied. The face he saw was clearly from someone he knows, someone whom he holds dearly.
The Shadow Squad at this time grew in strength not only Phoenix reached the Novice level, but the rest of the members also reached it too. They noticed that whenever they can kill a higher level beast they can feel strong energy entering their minds. They didn't notice this before but they realized that once their mind was opened by Shin Jiao and they began to absorb mana, everything has changed.
The lower level beast didn't give them this kind of sensation as all they can feel is the normal rotation of mana in their bodies, but it is different when they are able to eliminate stronger beasts.
Now in the battlefield, there is a rumor that starts to spread and that rumor is about a group of mortal women killing off hundreds of level 4 beast kings. Many cultivators tried to team up with them, but the women are too fast and would just disappear after killing their targets.
Hence the rumor of the Rampaging Mortals in the battlefield began.
Everything is chaotic and gruesome as many cultivators and beast are bathed in their blood. The death rate increased especially on the side of the beasts. With the loss of many beast kings, the cultivators were able to decimate almost half of the beast tide.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, many cultivators have already arrived. This is the second wave of cultivators which was sent as the council thinks that there may be a chance that the advance army is not enough to stop the wave of beast tide.
Now everyone is waiting for the advance team to retreat and they would regroup, and then attack. But right now they have been waiting for a long time.
"Hey, what's going on? Did the advance team get wiped out?"
"Maybe, it has been an hour since the planned retreat, but no one has ever returned yet."
"Damn… the beast tide is really scary. I can't believe that we are going to face those strong beasts."
"Hey, don't talk nonsense. The advance team has a lot of infant soul realm cultivators. It is impossible for them to fall just like that."
Discussions started as the cultivators waited and waited and then began to get bored, but someone suddenly shouted.
"Everyone Look Up there! There is something flying towards us."
When all the cultivators lifted their eyes, they saw a tiny figure from afar flying at a high speed towards them. Everyone suddenly felt the pressure as the figure grew bigger as it drew closer. Then not long later they saw a huge beast covered in black mist. The beast suddenly stopped at the top of the wall and turns its gaze towards the cultivators below.
"Haha! Puny humans, I Fen Hu will show you the immensity of the heavens." The beast named Fen Hu shouted as it suddenly emits a powerful suppressive aura towards the cultivators down below.
With this aura all of them fell to the ground, many who are have low cultivation level immediately died on the spot. When the gold core realm and infant soul realm cultivator saw this they immediately sent their attacks towards the beast.
As the multiple glowing artifacts attack the beast, a sneer appears on its shadowy face. Then with a flick of its large arm, a huge shock wave sent all the artifacts tumbling down and others missed the beast. Then without a single word, it suddenly dives down and smashed the ground.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A huge explosion erupted followed by a huge shock wave breaking the ground and its surroundings. This move from the beast claimed many cultivators' lives and also broke the balance between the cultivators and the advancing beast tide.
Then from the sky, three powerful cultivators suddenly appear looking at the devastation ahead.
"Are we already too late?"