Silas and Red quickly gathered what little they had taken out of their spatial rings at night and started to follow Kai.
"Kai, do you know the way?" Silas asked, not sure if Kai was given these memories or not.
"Yep, first we're heading to Silverscale Marsh. Am I right?" Kai asked.
"Yea, you're right," Silas said. He would have to get used to this. Having someone with some of his memories was an odd feeling.
"Hey, one of you two wouldn't happen to have a spatial artifact, would you?" Kai asked.
"No, sorry. I didn't think about that," Silas answered honestly.
"Damn, that sucks. I'll just have to find a cultivator to kill and take theirs," Kai said nonchalantly.
"Hey, you do know you can't just kill any random cultivator. That's not how we are going to act," Silas said, hoping he hadn't just spawned a crazed beast that cared nothing about humans.
"Of course I know that. I'm somewhat based on your personality, after all. But being out here in the wilderness for as long as we are going to be, we're bound to run into a bad apple or two," Kai explained his reasoning.
"Well, I guess you're not wrong about that," Silas said, happy that Kai seemed to have at least a semblance of human morals.
---
After traveling quickly over the rough terrain for 12 hours, they finally made it to Silverscale Marsh.
It was a mist-filled marsh where the ground was soft, and one had to watch their step to not sink in suddenly. It got its name from the silverscale serpents that filled its waters. They were small but quick snakes that liked to ambush their prey. (Small is relative in this world. Large snakes can be hundreds, if not thousands, of meters long.)
"Kai, don't do anything to help me. Remember that I'm here to temper myself," Silas sent to both Kai and Red. Since they were his beast companions, he could naturally communicate directly with their souls as long as they weren't too far apart.
Silas even discovered that, with the help of the system, he could communicate with Kai regardless of the distance, as well as always locate him. He could tell which direction Kai was in and roughly how far.
"You got it, boss. I'll just stand around anytime something happens," Kai said as he jumped from branch to branch, clearly acting as if he was in a playground, not a deadly marsh.
"Don't just do nothing. Since you're here, your job is to protect Red," Silas said. While Red was a Late Mortal qi and body cultivator, him being just a regular common beast — and a raven at that — meant that his combat abilities were next to none. Until he ranked up to a Transcendent lifeform, he would need the protection of his brothers.
"Yea, I guess First Brother would need protecting. He's even weaker than you," Kai said with a smirk and a small laugh.
Red just rolled his eyes. There was nothing he could say. Not only was Kai right, but he was a divine beast. It was natural for him to look down on others' talent and strength.
"Actually, Red, you ride on Kai while we're in the marsh. Kai, will you come down here and make yourself big enough for Red to stand on?" Silas said.
"Alright, no problem," Kai said as he hopped down to the ground and suddenly grew to the size of a large dog. Being a Transcendent level fiendgod, he could naturally change his size to a limited degree. As a naturally small rat, he could easily grow to the size of a large car. While a human, upon reaching Transcendent, could grow even bigger, making themselves as tall as a giraffe. But while they did increase in size, their strength didn't grow with them, so other than small creatures like Kai, most humans and beasts would just fight at their regular size.
After Red hopped on Kai's back, they entered the mist-filled marsh.
"Bang!" It wasn't long before the first silverscale serpent found their next target. The only problem? They didn't attack the large human Silas — they attacked the large rat, Kai.
But fortunately for Kai, he was both a divine beast and an early maintain body cultivator, so the serpent's teeth just broke off against his fur.
Kai then enlarged his claw, reached out, and grabbed the large snake — roughly 10 meters in length — by the skull.
"If they attack me, I can kill them, though, right?" Kai asked for confirmation, not wanting to mess up Silas's training.
"Yea, go ahead. It's a mid Mortal beast anyway. I'm looking for an early Transcendent," Silas said.
Kai then used a small hint of his claw dao — the lesser dao of grasping — and squeezed.
"Crunch!" The snake's skull was immediately squished.
'Damn,' Silas thought. To be able to just break a mid Mortal body refiner's skull with just the grasp of his hand… Kai's claw dao was stronger than it sounded.
"Ehh, so weak. Everyone's so weak," Kai muttered as he quickly wiped his paw on the ground.
'I guess he needs to temper himself as well, and we're just holding him back,' Silas thought.
"Hey, Kai, how about in a couple of days or weeks, you set off on your own adventure? Like you said, we're too weak to travel with you right now," Silas said.
"Nice! That sounds great!" Kai said, starting to get excited.
"I'll travel around with you guys for a little while and make sure you two get in the groove of things, and then, once you're set, I'll take off on my own for a while," Kai said with a nod, liking the sound of that.
"Alright," Silas said.
***
"Bronn, you did well, son," Thorne Ironhide, the leader of this hunting group, said to his son.
"Thanks, Father," Bronn replied.
"We would be going back to the village empty-handed this time if it wasn't for your great shot," Garrick Stonefist said as he patted Bronn on the shoulder.
Bronn just smiled. This was only his third time going out hunting with his father's hunting party, and he had managed to kill the white stag before it could get away. So now everyone in this group, plus their families, would be able to eat for the next day or two. (Remember, the beasts in this world are much larger.)
"I think it's about time Bronn found himself a woman. As a prize for today's haul, why don't we pair him up with my eighth daughter, Brynn?" Rurik Wolfscar said with a laugh. He had been trying to get someone to marry his eighth daughter for years, but he never had any takers.
Thorne frowned at Rurik's statement, but before he could respond and turn the man down, one of the men in the group yelled.
"Attack!"
Thorne quickly looked toward the hunter, who was now thrusting forward with his spear.
"Dammit! It's a Transcendent lifeform! Everyone group up!" Thorne yelled in fear as he rushed to his son's side. He was the highest-ranked warrior in the party, but he was only a Late Mortal in qi cultivation. He stood no chance against the Transcendent black panther that was currently targeting them. He knew they were bound to lose many men here today. He just hoped his first son wasn't one of them.
---
Silas, Red, and Kai had spent the last week inside the Silverscale Marsh, but no matter where they went or how far they traveled, they just couldn't seem to find a Transcendent lifeform.
They were now a day's walk outside the marsh, just calmly walking through the woods, when Silas heard a man yell, "Attack!"
Silas, hearing the fear in the man's voice, hurriedly rushed forward to look over the cliff, and down below him, about a mile away, he could see a group of Mortal warriors being attacked by an early Transcendent lifeform.
"Kai, quickly go help them," Silas said to Kai. This was exactly what he had been looking for, but he couldn't, in good conscience, leave those men to die. He knew he wasn't as fast as the early Transcendent Kai, so he sent him ahead while he and Red continued to rush forward.
---
Thorne fought the beast next to his men with all his strength. So far, they were just able to hold, with only two men having been severely injured so far. But he knew that at least a couple more would be severely injured, with some even dying, before they managed to kill the beast.
Just when he thought he was about to lose another man, he saw a shadow from the corner of his eye.
---
"Bang!" Kai slipped out of the shadow, enlarged his body to the size of a car, and grabbed the black panther by the head.
"Raaawrr!" "Hissss!" The black panther roared and then hissed at Kai.
"Calm down, little kitty," Kai said as he looked down at the large cat that was 10 meters in length.
"Kai quit playing with it and kill it," Silas said as he walked up with Red on his shoulder.
"But… don't you want to fight it?" Kai asked, confused. He had thought he was supposed to capture the beast for his second brother.
Silas laughed, "It's true I want to fight a Transcendent lifeform, but I don't want to fight an already defeated beast." Silas pointed to the large cat that was clearly now shaking in fear.
It was at first furious that it had been grabbed, but the more it struggled, and the more Kai acted as if it wasn't there, the more afraid it was. It was a mighty Fierce Beast and a newly upgraded Transcendent lifeform, but it also knew that there were beasts in the surrounding regions that could kill it with a slap, and it looked like he had just run into one of them.
Kai looked down at the beast with pity and said, "I'll tell you what, little kitty, if you submit to one of these men here, I'll let you live."