Chapter 13 – The Chase and Victory?
The Saintess stored the Cores inside a small pouch that she hung around Aiko's neck.
"I will also give you this." She placed a small pebble on her hand, it radiated warmth and shined slightly.
Aiko tilted her head. She didn't know what kind of rock this was, but she wanted a few hundred of them so she could make a floor out of it in her Den.
"This Spirit stone will allow you to cultivate faster, but for you, it only gathers the ambient Energy around you for you to use." She explained. 'It also tracks your position for my research purposes, I don't believe I can't find anything about this strange situation!' She smiled kindly at Aiko.
Aiko took the warm stone, she quite liked it and with the help of the Fairy, it was placed inside the pouch.
The Saintess' eyes sharpened. "You should run, more people are coming." She warned this little Beast.
Aiko nodded the second the Saintess finished before running off. She was low on stamina and unable to use her abilities to their full potential, but it was good enough to use a bit of [Shadow Walk].
...
"Saintess." The girl cupped her hands in greeting, yet there was no politeness in her voice, only vile poison. "I never imagined you would be able to contract with a Beast." She shook her head, gesturing to her little slaves to chase that little Beast.
"I would've never imagined you would collude with Demonic Sects." The Saintess shook her head.
"Colluding?" She laughed heartily. "It's only a matter of view, they provided Cultivation resources that our sect didn't and they only wanted a bit of information. No matter how you look at it, it's no different than our Sect's bulletin." She shook her head at this stupid Saintess.
'You say that, but you only did those things because you were jealous of me.' The Saintess sighed, she knew that her Senior Sister was enamoured with the Senior Brother that she trained with, but unfortunately, he didn't like Senior Sister and as such Senior Sister funnelled all her emotions at her.
Normally she wouldn't be her Senior Sisters match, but they willingly stepped inside this forest making everything much easier. Her blood boiled and a sculpture of a Frozen Phoenix roared above her head signalling the start of their battle.
...
Aiko ran with the Darkness. She felt danger behind her so she didn't dare to slow down or look around. She would rely on her senses and Darkness to get out of this. Her loot was overall... quite good, no, very good. That single piece of meat kicked her up to Level 36, settling her with speed in the middle layer of the 8th Stage Foundation Establishment. If she could use her sprint she would easily topple 9th Stage.
*Swish*
Using her senses, she dodged an arrow brushing past her. It would be a bad idea to drag the chase out in the scarce forest, she would have to run into the dense part to lose them.
*Swish*
Another arrow brushed past her. This one was a lot closer, sending shivers down her spine. She couldn't be hit by this arrow, or she would surely die with her meagre Health!
"Chase it! It's up ahead!" The scout shouted at his fellow simps.
"Get it! Don't let it get away!" Another shouted with crooked eyes.
"For the Saintess!" Shouted the last guy with a blissful expression.
While they chased her, it didn't seem like they were faster than her. However, it could also be possible that they just wanted to tire her out to capture her, which wasn't good. She didn't want to die or be captured. While she entertained the thought of being a pet and being fed each and every day something extremely tasty... She also realized that they would make her do things that she wouldn't necessarily like.
She jumped behind another tree as an arrow flew past her. Judging by the rate of fire, the archer only had a couple of arrows and was recovering them in the process, so he avoided hitting rocks or trees. It could also mean that the tip was coated in something.
They were delirious talking about how the 'Saintess' would step on them and whip them. It disgusted her, but since she couldn't talk, she couldn't tell them to shut up.
...
"Fuck... why do you have so much energy." The 'Saintess' vomited blood.
"You have simply picked the wrong target Senior Sister." The Saintess shook her head.
Her bloodline, if used correctly, allowed her to suppress an enemy's Inner Energy, dropping their Cultivation and usable Qi. The Senior Sister with a higher Cultivation was no exception because she was foolish enough to enter this forest. The forest would suppress Human Cultivators to the peak of Foundation Establishment. Golden Core and Nascent Soul Cultivators had a few tricks up their sleeve, so their overall power wouldn't drop by much. This Senior Sister was the same at the Peak of Golden Core, but after hearing the phoenix cry inside the forest she dropped all the way back to the Low-Middle of Foundation Establishment.
"You can regret your decisions in the grave Senior Sister." The Saintess said gently.
The fake Saintess laughed. "Did you know that those guys have poisonous arrows? They will make your beast suffer from the gentlest touch!" She laughed like a maniac. "And we both know you would never choose the normal contract to bind yourself to the Beast! In other words, you will suffer the same as your Beast! Slowly corroded by poison, writhing in p-AAAAAAAAAAA." She laughed with glee, until the Saintess cut off her arms and legs with a Special [Martial Arts] skill that created 'V'-shaped sword wounds.
That means if She practised it enough that she was able to cut someone's arms and legs off at the same time, which was what just happened. Moreover, she was so proficient with this Technique that she was able to imbue it with her freezing flames, cauterizing the wounds, and not letting her die easily.
The fake Saintess screamed as she was slowly cut apart by her.
"It matters not what you do." The Saintess shook her head. "What matters is that all of you will die!"
The fake Saintess panted in her delirium, smiling like a maniac. "HAHAHA, do you think we won't be able to track your Beast!? We both know you can't help but give people tracking Spirit Stones. You have probably given her one too right?" She laughed again noticing the Saintess's odd expression. "We can track her through the faint signal that we decoded! Nowhere is safe from us!"
The Saintess shook her head her whole body shaking. The fake Saintess laughed in glee.
The Saintess sighed but was interrupted by her. "That's right despair and-"
"I had a higher opinion of you... Senior Sister." She shook her head again and the fake Saintess was confused.
"I indeed give out tracking Spirit Stones, but their main purpose is to gather the Energies of Heaven and Earth. The tracking is just a by-product of increasing the efficiency so that they would gather more while still sustaining themselves." The fake Saintess was confused by her rant.
"As such the normal Spirit Stones have a different 'Code' than my handcrafted ones." The fake Saintess lost her colour.
"Moreover, I have not formed a contract with that Beast yet." The fake Saintess looked lifeless since she knew that Saintesses wouldn't lie lest they would want to decrease their Special Cultivation.
"Which means that you allowed me to survive again. Since if you had such powerful poison on you, it would've been better to use it here and not there, where it was questionable if it's my Beast." She sighed staring at the reality-denying fake Saintess.
"That's-That's impossible! You would never pet a Beast! Moreover, you looked over it so gently!" She denied the possibility that she misjudged her situation, whenever she went to the Beast Peak she would never pet the Beasts! But nobody could truly blame her.
She colluded with Demonic Cultivators, which gave her the 'Great Cultivation Technique'. Her Cultivation increased sharply allowing her to reach the Peak of Golden Core even faster than this young Saintess, but it came at cost... It would erode her mind and make her more prideful about her assumptions and moves. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if she didn't feel inferior towards the True Saintess, as such the erosion was much worse than it was supposed to be, making her clouded, prideful and completely useless...
...
Aiko arrived in the dense forest, where it was much harder to track her.
"Spread out and find it! We need to poison it at least, but it would be best to bring it back!" The strange-speaking guy said. If one looked closer they would realize that his foundation was unstable, it seemed like he cultivated the same technique as the fake Saintess and so he was much dumber than he was before. He would have realised that they should have set up a Tracking Formation and Soul Chasing Formation to locate her easily. Instead, they were looking around like dumb robots because their brains weren't working properly.
Aiko almost blended with the shadows and was almost invisible to the naked eye. They searched around and once one got closer she used her [Quick Jump] with [Crushing Bite].
*Crunch*[Level gained.][Level gained.][Level gained.]...[Level: 40 (2nd Evolution)][You can Evolve into [Common] Beast][Levelling further will allow you to Evolve into [Uncommon] Beast.]
She ignored the system and hid in the shadows again. They shouted, but she couldn't hear them through the voices of Darkness.
She hid behind a tree and waited for another victim.
...
*Crunch*[Level gained.][Level gained.][Level gained.]...
She was able to take down most of them, but the last four stuck together, tailing her.
'I'm stronger now, but I was only able to kill them because I was able to catch them off guard. I don't think I will be able to kill them quickly without the element of surprise.'
They tailed her well, forcing her to jump around to hide from arrows. Unfortunately, those bastards retained some of their brain cells and decided to stick with the archer. He was the most dangerous enemy because of those coated arrows.
She hid in a nearby bush trying to measure the distance. Her current mind was clear and sharp and she was able to decide the angle of attack quickly.
She waited and then dashed towards them. She had only a few more points in Stamina and she had to make good use of them. Using [Quick Jump] she was able to cover a great distance for very little Stamina. She used the momentum from her jump and arrived in front of the leftmost guy.
The Archer had already trained his bow on her. She used [Crushing Bite] on the guy's neck, and with the momentum and her not-so-light weight, she was able to twist his neck, thus hiding from the Archer's arrows.
She jumped down and hid in the medium-sized grass. Those guys were at their flying swords, but some of them had poor control and wobbled up and down. She used that moment to [Quick Jump] at another person. This time the rightmost.
He had a shield and was the wobbliest of them. She crashed into his body as he was trying to bring the shield in front of him to slam her with it, but because he wasn't used to the whole flying thing and because he was dumb from his Cultivation, he didn't manage to block her and suffered a heavy blow to his body.
What was more, because of this impact he brought the shield close to his body, thus shielding Aiko from the Archer again. She impaled him with her fangs and bit his throat when he was stunned by the impact. They both fell, but once he entered the Darkness his eyes abruptly opened and he started screaming.
The others were startled and disorganized, they still thought he was alive from his screams and the last 2 guys (excluding the Archer) rushed to his help.
The Archer tried to warn them as it seemed he was the only one who had more than a couple of brain cells, but it was too late and he exposed himself to attack. Aiko wouldn't leave that be and used [Sprint] with [Quick Jump] to make herself into a bullet.
She swished through the air, using [Crushing Bite] when she was near the Archer, successfully biting him. After hearing another crunch, she used the archer's body to jump to the second last guy, instantly killing him from behind before jumping at the last one who was too shocked to act.
She was savouring her victory while still being glued to the last guy's throat when piercing pain assaulted her side.
