Hunting
Of course, Commander Jeong noticed the change in me as well when we met again.
"You look different from yesterday."
Even though my realm had fallen back from Foundation Establishment mid-stage to the early stage after I broke through the bottleneck in a single day, something about me seemed to catch her eye.
So I saw no reason to lie.
"I had a little insight."
She stared at me for a moment, then turned back and led the way again, speaking as she walked.
"Breaking through the bottleneck between early and mid-stage of Qi Refining with insight alone would be difficult. Seeing as you used a Concentration Soul Pill soon after entering the bottleneck, I suppose you've been diligently piling up contribution points all this time. I, on the other hand, wasted mine on something pointless because of someone yesterday."
People always judged others by their own standards. I had told her the truth—that I had broken through the bottleneck purely through insight—but she couldn't accept it because it differed from what she knew.
I gave a quiet snort and answered her at once.
"If you hadn't come looking for me, Commander, you could have saved those precious contribution points. That's a pity."
She stopped in her tracks all of a sudden and looked back at me.
"You've only reached Qi Refining mid-stage, and already your arrogance reaches the heavens? Don't you realize that if you keep getting on my nerves, you'll only make things more dangerous for yourself?"
But unlike what she said, my arrogance had not come from reaching Qi Refining mid-stage. I had merely broken the chains of slavery and recovered the self I had always possessed.
"Would making me dangerous improve your mood that much, Commander? If you want to feel better, shouldn't you be hunting the great demon beast this time? Aren't I necessary for killing it?"
Seeing my attitude change so completely in the span of a single day, she narrowed her eyes.
"Have you found yourself a strong backer in the meantime?"
Even so, I answered her calmly.
"I've simply come to trust myself more than others."
For a moment the corners of her mouth twitched. Then, without another word, she turned and led the way again. For some reason, even after we left the Hyeondo Sect's protective formation behind, she kept on walking.
So I asked her at once.
"Peach Blossom Grotto must be fairly close to our Hyeondo Sect?"
She replied in a steady voice.
"If we walk, it'll take about two days. But if I pick up speed, you won't be able to keep up, so I can't get us there any faster than this."
As I listened, I felt that something was odd.
"If it's that far, wouldn't it be better to ride a flying artifact?"
At my question, she gave me a completely unexpected answer.
"A flying artifact? I don't have one. And the contribution points I had painstakingly saved up have all already been spent because of someone."
Her answer wasn't really strange. After all, she hadn't originally been a disciple of Hyeondo Sect; she had been a guest elder who wandered the world as a loose cultivator before entering the sect.
Like a wanderer from the martial world, it was only natural that she didn't have much to her name.
Still, unlike her—who had no decent flying artifact despite being at Foundation Establishment—I, even at Qi Refining early-stage, already had two.
One was Silver Light Disc, which had belonged to the mountain cultivator Jin Myeong. The other was Wood Horse, handed to me by another senior martial sister I had crossed paths with.
"I happen to have a flying artifact. We should use that. In return, let's deduct the four days you'd otherwise spend walking there and back from the ten days you promised me."
At my words, she looked intrigued and continued at once.
"Having a flying artifact already, huh? It seems you really do have a backer. Fine, I'll take off two days. I don't mind walking there and back like this."
As I had already sensed before, she seemed to hate parting with anything willingly. I gave up on the frustrating conversation with her and simply nodded.
Then I pulled Wood Horse from my storage pouch and tossed it out, and in an instant its body swelled in size.
Its appearance was a little rough and crude, but its sturdy frame and the ability to run through the sky made it a fairly useful beast. Thanks to it, I would be able to cut the time I had promised Jeong by two days, which pleased me greatly as well.
The moment I smiled faintly and climbed onto its back, I heard the rustle of fabric, and then Jeong's voice came from behind me.
"I'll tell you where Peach Blossom Grotto is on the way. We can set off now."
I patted Wood Horse's neck and set it moving. As it began to race through the air, a small exclamation escaped from her, as if she were marveling at its motion.
"This is nothing compared to mere Wind and Cloud Art... and it doesn't even consume any spiritual energy on its own..."
Jeong seemed to be greatly taken with the flying artifact. Considering that cultivators were creatures driven only by greed, this was a dangerous state of affairs.
But instead of showing caution toward her, I spoke to her as though nothing was amiss.
"What kind of great demon beast are we hunting?"
The great demon beast she wanted was clearly something valuable, and I was making it known that she needed me in order to kill it.
Naturally, her attention shifted elsewhere.
"A wolf. One with fire affinity. Wolf demon beasts are the most common of all demon beasts, so it shouldn't be hard to find one."
A great wolf demon beast, then. Of course, I had never even seen an ordinary demon beast yet, much less a great one, but by contrast I had hunted plenty of ordinary wolves. I could roughly imagine how the hunt would proceed.
"So I'll be dealing with its underlings, then?"
In truth, my fellow disciples of Hyeondo Sect had said I would be used as bait for killing the great demon beast.
At the time, I had also thought they were right.
But when I recalled her condition—"once you reach Qi Refining mid-stage"—and the hunting habits of wolves, I could naturally tell what role I was truly meant to play.
Thinking of how wolves hunted in packs, there was no way a great demon beast would wander alone. Since it bore such a grand name, I assumed it would travel with weaker beasts as its subordinates.
And as though to prove that my guess was correct, she nodded and continued.
"You've hunted wolves before, haven't you? That's right. Your job is to cut down the number of its underlings. That way, it won't be able to sacrifice them and run."
It was, indeed, a fairly sound plan for dealing with wolf demon beasts.
So I asked her again.
"And if we come across anything other than wolves, you'll just let it pass?"
"Unless we're going to deal with every demon beast that gathers in Peach Blossom Grotto, we should."
Fortunately, she didn't seem to be the sort of person whose greed knew no bounds, so there didn't appear to be any other complications.
Of course, the beasts led by the great demon beast wouldn't be ordinary wolves either, so I would also have to face wolf demon beasts with Qi Refining-level strength.
Still, I was confident I could handle that much without difficulty. Unlike other cultivators, I possessed something special: martial arts.
＊＊＊
Pink petals filled every visible inch of the world.
And as if pouring in from every unseen corner as well, a sweet fragrance pressed into my nose with relentless force. Peach Blossom Grotto felt like a place cut off from another world entirely.
For a moment I stood there, entranced by the sight, until several bizarre movements caught my eye. A toad as large as a man rustled in the grass beneath the peach trees. Another creature waddled along with a shape that looked as if several bamboo stalks had been bundled together.
And then there was a huge snake gliding between them...
A toad the size of a person and a walking tree were strange enough on their own, but the serpent bothered me far more than either of them.
It did not seem to be an ordinary snake that merely happened to be large. Every time it halted its movement, it vanished from my sight entirely.
Each time that happened, I had to concentrate my vision to catch even the faintest outline of it, and the way it moved reminded me of an assassin using the Silent Rest Technique. Which meant there might well be other beings lurking near us in the same way...
My nerves naturally sharpened, and as I drew my sword, Jeong spoke to me.
"We're only after the wolves. Ignore the others."
I answered her at once.
"What if something comes at us even if we don't go looking for it?"
At that, she gave a slight laugh and continued.
"Demon beasts don't casually pick fights with cultivators. Once they awaken spiritual intelligence, they value survival above all else, just as human cultivators do."
Of course, as she said, the reason most cultivators chose the path of cultivation was longevity.
But I was different. The reason I had begun walking the path of cultivation was the power I could gain by treading it.
And that meant there could be beasts like me among demon beasts as well.
"There will be some whose purpose isn't to live longer, but to grow stronger. To those creatures, our bodies—carrying spiritual energy—would look like delicious food."
"That's unnecessary worry. That's no different from living your life fretting over when the sky will fall."
The moment she spat out those words, acting as though her own thoughts were the laws of the world, I clicked my tongue lightly—when suddenly the grass beneath her steps twisted in a strange direction.
In that instant, my sword cut through the air.
Kak-kak-kak!
A sharp, grating sound burst out as though I had split hard stone. Then a thin line of blood appeared in empty space, and soon crimson drops began to seep out.
"Do you still think that's unnecessary worry?"
Her face hardened at my words, and she quickly swept a hand through the air.
From her fingertips burst a streak of green wind, which skimmed lightly across the empty space where the thin bloodline had been.
Pee-pit!
The hard body of the creature that had been resisting my sword with a harsh screech was severed into pieces by that single strand of wind, then tumbled to the ground.
Thud.
It was a snake demon beast, similar to the one that had just put me on guard. It had tried to target us by remaining invisible when still.
At that moment, Jeong, who was examining the severed snake demon beast's corpse together with me, spoke again.
"Something is coming."
I immediately spread my spiritual sense wide around us, and a terrifying presence rushing toward us from far away made itself known.
At minimum, it was a powerful being at Qi Refining late-stage or above. What's more, its momentum was clearly not friendly.
"How strange. It feels as if we're not the ones out hunting, but the ones being hunted."
After hearing me, Jeong also nodded silently. It was clear that the creature approaching us now—or something even greater than it—had us in its sights.
And then, at last, the beast charging toward us with fierce momentum revealed itself. It was a large bamboo hat, spinning as it flew.
At a glance, it looked like nothing more than some object flung by someone's hand, but the killing intent spilling from within that hat was far beyond the aura one would expect from a mere thing.
The moment I raised my sword toward it, a pair of smooth green limbs shot out from inside the hat and landed on the ground.
Once again, it was the same tree demon beast I had seen before, the one with a body like bundled bamboo. It seemed there was someone here in Peach Blossom Grotto who commanded these common demon beasts.
This time, however, Jeong immediately took out a banner artifact and spoke.
"Demon Slayer's Wooden Spear is part of that creature's body and also a kind of artifact. The moment it grazes you, blood will gush even from a small wound. I'll take that one."
But I did not lower the sword I had been pointing at it. Simply bowing my head and looking for a place to run the moment I sensed my opponent was strong was not something befitting the Heavenly Demon Ak Bi.
"Then I'll just have to make sure it doesn't graze me at all."