Feng Li stood amidst broken and butchered corpses of dark green monsters. Green blood oozed from the corpses snaking around his feet and gathering in a crater behind him. The blood formed a green pond in the crater. His chest rose up and down constantly and sweat matted his bright red hair to his skull and forehead.
Since the moment he teleported to the survival grounds, life, and death battles were the only thing he knew and understood. One moment he fought large monsters a few stages above him in level, the next moment he fought against floods of enemies. Although the trials only updated one's points at the end of every seven days, he felt that few people could match his killing spree.
Quickly, he picked up all the bones of the creatures along with their cores and tied them in a makeshift bundle made from coarse brown leaves he found on the forest floor a few kilometers south. He dragged his spoils of war to a cave he dug out himself. His workspace. Aside from his insane levels of physical and cultivation talents. Feng Li was similarly gifted in the Artificing Field. He hoped to gather as many points as possible through fighting and crafting artifacts. There had to be some bonus for using all relevant skills.
He dug his cave through the west side of a large mountain that towered over the large trees littered with moss and fungi along their bark. The injuries he sustained through the battle made the walk to his cave long and arduous. It took him an hour to traverse the hundred-kilometer distance to it.
An odd sensation swept through him once he reached the dark mouth of his cave. He couldn't place it. But it was weird like someone scratched the surface of the veins in his heart. He stopped moving and focused. The cave had been his home for a few days and this was the first time he felt that sensation. And as a cultivator, he knew to trust his gut instincts.
Torn between two choices, he gritted his teeth and entered the cave. He crafted a few artifacts prior, one that guaranteed his safety on the seventh day. The first beast tide. Leaving them would be a humongous mistake on his part. He wouldn't have the time to create another set in the coming two days.
He disappeared through the darkness, entering the dark wet cave he called home. Using some qi, he created a will-o'-wisp to light up the environment. A dark reddish glow engulfed the darkness. Every crooked corner of the cavern became visible.
He walked along the hall and reached the first intersection. He turned left to where his stash was. The sensation got stronger the closer he got to it. To the point where it wasn't subtle anymore. It was like the blaring of a banshee in pain, slamming into all four corners of his Mindscape.
Run!
The first and only thought that rushed to the forefront of his mind. In a burst of fabulous bright red qi, Feng Li tore right through the walls of the cave. He heard a shrill cackle behind him. No. A choir of cackles. There was more than one.
Run!
The thought didn't disappear. He couldn't sense their qi but he knew whoever infiltrated his temporary abode had sinister plans. His inability to sense the other party's cultivation meant they were far stronger than him. Fighting was a useless endeavor. He gathered more Phoenix Qi and channeled them to his feet, bursting into another bout of sound-shattering speed.
He needed more.
"Where are you going?"
Dread clung to his heart as a newborn baby did to its mother's breast. It wouldn't let go. He didn't even know if he wanted the dread to leave. A young man dressed in all gold appeared next to him, keeping up with his speed. With a bright smile, the man turned to him, "Your Craftsmanship is pretty amazing."
Feng Li didn't bother listening to him and flared his qi once more. He pushed past the speed of sound and triumphed over it a hundred times over. The entire world around him blurred. His eyes only focused in front. He left a trail of Flame that burned everything in its pathway.
He didn't know what the gold-dressed man wanted but he knew it was nothing good. Else his senses wouldn't have warned him.
"I only want to chat," the echo of the man's words reached him after a while.
He left the man in the dust. Relief suddenly swam over him. Did he lose him? He wanted to slow down to catch his breath but stopped himself from doing that. Losing an expert of the man's caliber wouldn't be ea-
A punch struck squarely against his left cheek from absolutely nowhere. He only felt a burst of soul-splitting pain and the sudden loss of control of his body and his limbs. His body crashed through piles upon piles of trees, restructuring mother nature's beautiful design.
He had no time to bring his mind up to speed. A cold hand wrapped around his throat and flung him high up into the air. He tried focusing his eyes to see what was going on, only to be met with an elbow that tore right through the center of his stomach. He spat out the food he ate last night in a gush of whitish goo. All the air gathered in his lungs escaped in one second.
"Running away when I grace you with my presence?"
Feng Li churned his qi to his palms and shot out a bellowing bright red flame toward the man in gold just before he slammed into the ground. He used a movement technique called the Phoenix Flame Dance. A technique that specialized in the concept of moving as if one were flame, light, and explosive. His feet lit up in glowing red, and like a spring his body squeezed into the ground. Instead of letting all the energy smack first onto the ground, he redirected it into himself, shooting himself in the distance like a shooting star. A trail of glowing red was left behind.
The man in gold, Jinwu Xiaodan, a scion of the Great Golden Crow Clan, swiped away the blast of Flame as if it were nothing more than a nuisance. He scoffed. With a light tap of his feet, he turned into a golden beam that chased after Feng Li. Not even a second passed and he overtook him. He spread out his right hand forward. Five balls of Flame danced around his fingertips.
"Dance of the Sun: Special Sun Canon," he whispered to the Heavens.
And on command, bright golden light crackled in the sky. The small balls dancing around his fingertips morphed into five large balls of flame that burned away the wind and the blue color from the skies. Everything was draped in brilliant gold.
Feng Li felt the Dao heed the man in gold's core. His heart thumped once he felt the insane amount of power held within the Flaming balls. Had it been any other flame, he wouldn't have panicked. But the one before him was special. He couldn't tackle that flame even if he wanted, his cultivation level limited that possibility. The chief in his village once told him of the two types of Supreme flames that constantly battled for dominance in the wider world, Phoenix Flame, and Golden Flame.
"Flap of the Phoenix Wing!"
A single bright red flaming feather formed behind him. Its bright red radiance clashed against the gold of Jinwu Xiaodan's golden flame. And lost. Feng Li wasn't concerned with winning the battle. He wanted an escape path. And he found it.
Flap Of The Phoenix Wing was a technique created by an ancient cornered Phoenix during a great battle. One of its wings was destroyed beyond conceptual existence. It could no longer regenerate it. When an attack that treated to wipe out a quarter of an Expanse, instinct, and fear fueled its creativity, giving birth to a movement technique unlike any other. With a single Flap of its Wing, The Phoenix Pierced through the Dao's boundaries, breaking past the chains of reality and non-reality. It escaped the attack and its aura was nowhere to be seen. It passed on this technique to its descendants, making it one of the prized techniques of the Phoenix Clan, but a few Chaos Cycles ago the technique was lost. Its first appearance after a long time was with Feng Li.
In a burst of speeds that eclipsed the talents of the Saint Realm, Feng Li zipped backward, leaving Jinwu Xiaodan gawking. Feng Li managed to survive exchanges with him as a mere Nascent Soul expert. What was the meaning of that? He wasn't going to let the little rat escape him once more.
He wasn't trying to kill the little fella. He just wanted him to work under him as an Artificer and Craftsman after witnessing his work. Now, he wasn't going to take the disrespect and let him see the next day in these trials.
Going full out, Jinwu Xiaodan summoned the phantom of his Heavenly Palace. Like most geniuses, he had a total of nine magnificent floors. Each floor was intricately decorated with runes and symbols of the sun, spreading out from the bottom floor right to the top in a fantastic display of golden light. A Flaming hot aura of death descended in the hundred-kilometer radius, confining it all in a bubble.
Feng Li panicked.