Chapter 54: A Desperate Fight

A/N: Hey everyone! Here's another chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 54: 

I chucked several more of my early-stage Rank 1 cores out as fast as I could. Each one had a ball of foxfire attached to it, and once they were close enough, I had them ignite to burn as rapidly as possible, turning all the Qi in the cores into flame and force. 

That amount of firepower was enough to seriously hurt even Mid-stage Qi-Gatherers. And that seemed to be the level of strength the remaining 6 attackers were all at—which was startling given how many of them there were.

Our enemies, having seen what my attacks could do, were forced back by my onslaught of explosive cores. Or forced to meet my attacks with equal force to block them. But that was it. They were only being forced back, forced to respect the power of my attacks. None of them was letting the cores get close enough to do any major damage. It kept them from unleashing too much damage to our defensive formation, but it wouldn’t last forever.

I only had so many cores, despite the big pouch given to me by Xing Yaling.

I grimaced as another explosion of flame and force did nothing but force my targets to retreat. Each core wasted like that was like a countdown to our defeat. Pan Song was helping with his own attack formations now that our defense was set up, sending out whips of flame along with his Myriad Hand formation to make it even harder for them to send out their own attacks. But he didn’t have nearly enough firepower to make up for it when I ran out of cores. 

And Xing Yaling was on one knee, holding her stomach in pain. Damn it! At this rate, we were going to be whittled down. I needed to do more.

Trying to split my focus, in between tossing out cores, I reached for my bag of stronger cores with my right hand. It hurt a lot because of the crystal stabbed into my palm, but I fought through the pain to clumsily open the pouch and pour the contents onto the ground. Taking a brief look at where they fell, I started creating more balls of foxfire and sent them to stick to the cores and begin to burn them.

This took a lot of focus from me with how many I was making. It was enough that my throwing was getting clumsier, and I started to miss more. In return, that let our enemy send more attacks back towards our shield. The most notable was a particularly large wind blade that slashed into the semi-transparent barrier, making the ground shake and leaving a crack in the shield.

Damn! I needed to focus! If only I had learned to cultivate normally. Then my Mind stat would have been higher and—wait! Mind stat! I had a way to increase that. I’d almost forgotten about the technique in all the confusion and because of the forced cooldown. 

I focused on the feeling of activating the Skill, trying to figure out if I could use it again yet. And… Yes! I could!

Right away, I activated the Skill, causing a tail to grow out of my back. It made things seem to sharpen. My attempts to direct my foxfire while keeping track of our attackers and throwing cores at them got easier. Not by a crazy amount, but enough to sure up my aim again.

One of our attackers, a man with boar-like tusks and a heavy axe, seemed to have gotten careless during my brief period of faltering aim. He stood out from behind a tree, hefting his axe, which glowed a bright green. He was probably powering up a powerful attack, but he’d stop for too long.

I grinned and whipped three early-stage cores right at him at my fastest speed.

His piggy eyes widened, and he chopped down with his axe as the cores reached him. There was an explosion of fire once more, and I saw his body get sent flying while burning with my blue flames. Unfortunately, he didn’t look like he was dead, as he started to roll when he landed, and his Qi surged to force the flames away.

But even with my extra focus, I couldn’t spend too much time thinking about that. Instead, I refocused on the other attackers, even as I created more foxfire to descend on the cores at my feet to grow in strength to use for later.

“Do you have any more ideas?” Pan Song asked as he smashed a tree a cat-like beast man was hiding behind, before barraging him with whips of fire. The man snarled and met the whips with blades of wind from his saber. “Because at this rate… I don’t think we are going to make it.”

“I’m thinking,” I said back, grimacing as I really didn’t have any ideas for how to win this. My improved multitasking didn’t change the fact that I was still going to run out of cores. Nor did it change just how reliant and powerful our attackers were. And our enemies were already acting more cautiously again, further complicating things. Maybe we could—oh no!

I bit back a curse as one of our attackers—one of the wolf men I’d burned before but was already healed again—realized the major flaw of my little technique. Sending out a small but fast blade of Qi—it looked wind-aligned—he intercepted one of my thrown cores. It destroyed the foxfire attached to it, able to interact with my semi-incorporeal flames. With the flame destroyed, it turned the thrown core into basically a rock. 

A non-threat. It was why I’d originally only planned on using this wasteful technique for surprise attacks or last resorts. Not drawn out engagements where the more obvious counters could be realized.

Damn. I palmed three cores at once and tossed them all at the man, hoping to take him out before he said anything or his fellows noticed. But he met my cores with attacks of his own, three more small Qi blades that sliced through each of my cores, rendering them harmless before they got close enough to ignite.

Damn.

Worse, I could see his fellows notice what he was doing. That meant that throwing any more of my early-stage cores, which I’d already thrown more than half of, would just be a waste. And it also meant that the pressure I was putting on them was now lowered a lot.

I cursed and focused on my enhanced foxfire burning and growing at my feet. Focusing all my effort on them, I raised eight of them at once, each one twice the size of my fist. They brimmed with power I struggled to hold onto, but that was fine as I wouldn’t need to contain them much longer.

With a thought, I sent out the foxfire, targeting four of the beast-like men with two each. Two of the men tried to take care of the foxfire like they did the cores. One sent out small balls of flame while the other thin but fast streams of water.

That was a mistake on their part. These enhanced balls of foxfire couldn’t be snuffed out so easily. Instead, the enhanced flames consumed the balls of flame and turned the streams of water into explosions of steam. Then they hit their targets, consuming them each in two bursts of bright blue flames.

One screamed in agony as his chest was consumed in fire. It burned so badly that muscles and bones began to become visible. The other activated a defensive technique that covered his body in water that came from the air. The moment my balls of fire met the technique, the water armor exploded into scorching steam. The man cursed loudly and backed away as he conjured more water to extinguish the fires still burning away at his defenses.

The other balls of foxfire were, unfortunately, not as effective. They forced the other two targets back a bit, making them use more powerful attacks to destroy them. But it was only a temporary setback, just like everything else.

I created more foxfire, sending them to what was left of the cores I’d dropped to make more enhanced flames.

But even as I did that, and pointed one hand at the wolf man who’d figured out my technique and fired off a crystalizing beam, my hope for all this continued to plummet. Even relying on spirit beast cores to burn and enhance them, my foxfire still cost Qi. I would run out eventually. And at the rate things were going, once that happened, we’d be screwed.

Maybe if I’d had the time to tag them with foxfire earlier, I could drain them and replenish myself. But I didn’t think it was possible now. Not when I needed to focus on suppressing them. And even if I didn’t need to focus on that, it was unlikely that I would manage to drain enough Qi to matter. Either I would have to go slow and not get enough, or I’d only get one chance to drain a lot, but that would take time to tag them and be a one-time thing.

But there had to be another way, right? We couldn’t lose after coming so far.

I turned to look at Xing Yaling, who was now forcing herself back up on her feet. Looking away from the enemy, she met my hopeful gaze, but her eyes looked sad.

I grimaced. She could see the writing on the wall, like I could. And given that look, she didn’t think she had the ability to make up for Pan Song and my lack of strength. She was going to leave us because she thought that was the only chance any of us had left. Just like she’d said earlier.

Which meant that I could either leave at the same time or die with Pan Song. Damn it.

Our staring contest only lasted a split second before it was broken by the sound of attacks crashing into the barrier. I cursed and sent more enhanced foxfire out, hating everything that was happening. Damn it.

I racked my brain for any idea—anything that I could do or ask Xing Yaling to help with. But I couldn’t think of anything. We were cornered, and the enemy was too strong. In fact, shit! One of the few enemies on the ground, a man with lizard scales on his face, seemed to be getting up. I’d thought I’d killed him early with my cores, but his body was bulging and seemed to be healing, if in a grotesque manner.

Shit. Were there more like that?

I turned to look, but thankfully, none of the other two dead were doing that. But that still threatened to increase the number attacking our failing defensive array. I couldn’t have that, so I sent a ball of enhanced foxfire at him.

The lizard man screeched as the ball hit him and engulfed him in flames. But I didn’t get to celebrate as more attacks hit the barrier, cracking it further. Shit… Think… Think… Wait! I have it!

“Xing Yaling!” I called out, turning back to look at her and seeing her still holding her stomach with a pained look on her face. “If you can, please take Pan Song with you. For at least as long as you can to give him a chance to escape.”

“What?” Pan Song asked, startled as he turned to me. “What do you—”

“There’s no time,” I said, turning to him and deliberately glancing at the ground. “I have my own methods of escape. If I can hold them off, then maybe you two can escape. Then I can try to leave on my own.”

Pan Song looked at me incredulously for a moment before his eyes widened. He looked down at the ground, making it clear that he understood what I was saying.

“But even still, they could—”

“There’s no time,” I said, cutting off his protest and turning back to Xing Yaling. I kept part of my attention on her, while the other half continued to create foxfire, burned cores to make them stronger, and sent them out to hunt our attackers. “Please. Yaling! One person should be manageable, right?”

She looked into my eyes for what felt like a long moment, but must have just been a second. Then she sighed and shook her head. My heart dropped at the sight. No… Damn it, please… This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“You owe your lives to me for this,” Xing Yaling said, opening her eyes again and giving me a fierce look.

“What?” I asked, not understanding what she meant. But she didn’t elaborate. 

Instead, she stepped forward towards our attackers, using her spear to support her weight. Blood flowed freely from her wounds, but Qi was starting to gather all around her, making our surroundings freezing cold.

“I will haunt you if I don’t wake, Li Lan,” Xing Yaling said, her voice partially muted as winds started whipping fiercely around us. Ice cold winds that seem to cut straight to my bones. “And if either of you speaks to anyone about what you see here, we will all end up dead.”

What? I was so confused as to what she was saying. But before I could even try to ask anything, Xing Yaling raised her spear like a staff.

“Frozen Ichor of the Blessed Divine. Rise from shards and cast these lands in winter!”

And then everything became a blizzard. My entire world became nothing but white and cold. A bird seemed to screech in the distance, and I heard many things crack and shatter. But I could barely pay attention to that. I curled up into myself, wrapping my fox tail around me for warmth, even as it felt like I would never be warm again.

Then, just as suddenly as it had happened, it stopped.

Even as I shivered, the cold winds that felt like they were cutting into my bones dispersed. In their place came much warmer air that almost felt hot because of the dichotomy. The snow that had seemed to fall all around us disappeared as well, leaving almost no trace of its presence beside some damp spots on the ground.

“W-what the hell was t-that?” I asked, turning to look at Xing Yaling. 

But she just stood where she was before, one hand by her side while her other held onto her spear planted into the ground butt first. She stayed incredibly still for a long moment, the only parts of her moving were strands of her long snow white hair being pulled by the dying wind. Snowflakes danced along with her hair, sparkling in the sun. Then she turned to look at me, her eyes half-lidded as she stared at me.

It felt like she was looking into my very soul and trying to judge something. But I had no idea what she was looking for. And before I could say anything else, she fell forward.

I rushed forward to catch her, wincing at how cold her whole body felt. It was enough that I almost flinched and let her go. But I forced myself not to and held on.

“Li Lan,” Pan Song said from beside me, rushing over. “Look!”

Keeping my hold on the fallen girl, I spun to look at Pan Song to see him pointing. I followed his finger, and it took me a long second to realize what I was looking at.

It was our attackers. Or what remained of them. 

I hadn’t realized it at first, as they were no longer people, all dead to the last. Even then, they were barely corpses, as it looked like their entire bodies had been turned to ice and then cracked apart into pieces. I could make out some heads along the ground, along what might have been a shattered arm, and some torsos missing everything else.

The rest of their bodies had already melted, just like the rest of the ice and snow that had appeared from nowhere. Each large piece of ice—that had once been a person—was floating in a puddle of water, and was dissolving before our eyes.

“Holy shit,” I said when I fully understood everything. 

She’d… She’d completely wiped them out. Just like that, it was all over. Except…

I looked back down at the girl in my arms. She still felt freezing cold, and I could see her wounds were still bleeding. I didn’t know how tough she was, but she’d need to be looked at soon. At the very least, we needed to get her and us to safety.

“She destroyed my formation too…” Pan Song said, now looking around us in disbelief. Following his gaze, I saw puddles and small shards of ice where his formation flags had been before.

“No time to worry about that,” I said, drawing his attention back to me. I gestured to the girl in my arms. “We need to get to safety and tend to her wounds.”

“R-right,” Pan Song said, walking over as I picked up Xing Yaling in a princess carry. 

I winced a bit when I accidentally tried to hold onto her with my right hand. That damn crystal. I couldn’t wait to get that out of me. But first, we needed to get out of here before more of whoever these people are come and find us.

“Let’s go,” I said, once I was sure I had a firm hold.

Pan Song nodded, and the two of us rushed off, going in a slightly different direction than we’d been fleeing before. We started off slow, as I had to get used to carrying Xing Yaling and wanted a moment to examine her.

Her eyes were closed, but her face was slightly scrunched, with her discomfort clear despite her being passed out. Her wounds were still bleeding, too, from what little I could tell, and her breathing was far shallower than I would have liked.

“Pan Song, can you try feeding her a healing pill?” I asked, moving closer to my friend. “After that, I should be okay going at full speed while carrying her.”

“Of course,” Pan Song said as he moved closer while pulling out his pill bottle.

As he did, I couldn’t help but think about the one pill left in my bottle. I was pretty sure the one Pan Song was feeding her was his last too. So between the three of us, we likely only had one more low-quality healing pill, as Xing Yaling probably would have taken hers if she had any. 

There was still a chance she still had some in her spatial pouch, but if she had, she likely would have said something before she… did whatever she’d done. It was clearly a powerful technique, but one that took a lot out of her. And apparently shouldn’t be talked about to anyone.

Why? I had some guesses, but they were random and mainly based on what I’d expect from an Xianxia story. So, probably better not to guess and just take her at her word.

“She’s swallowed it,” Pan Song said after a moment, drawing my attention back to the girl in my arms.

“Alright, then let’s go,” I said, shifting her slightly to make sure I had the best hold on her. Then I used Burst Step and we were off. A peek behind me still showed no pursuers, but I didn’t know how long that would last. 

Hopefully long enough for us to get somewhere safe and hide our trail. Otherwise, without Xing Yaling, our next encounter with these would be assassin’s would go far worse than this.