Chapter 150: The Badger Strikes

By the time Benton found the eighth wave, he still hadn’t gotten any notifications indicating advancements from his sect members. He was beginning to get worried. There was absolutely nothing he could do about whatever was going on with his disciples, though.

Well, that conclusion wasn’t one hundred percent true. Instead of taking care of the beasts currently within range of his spiritual sense, he could Quickstep back to the village and check on things, but such an action risked him not being able to find the wave again. It also meant abandoning any pretense of leaving his sect members to do the job themselves.

Benton sighed. Being a parent or grandparent or sect leader was difficult. He wanted what was best for the kids, and the optimal outcome was for them to learn how to deal with challenging tasks on their own so that, when they were adults and didn’t have anyone to clean up their messes, they’d be that much less likely to encounter a calamity they couldn’t handle.

In order for them to truly succeed against a challenge, however, there had to be a chance of disaster. They needed the freedom to fail.

Getting hurt or not killing a beast or any number of ills was a fine outcome. Low moments taught great lessons.

But.

He wanted them to grow to become fine outstanding adults, and they couldn’t do that if they died. What did it matter if they learned every lesson to the utmost if they weren’t able to reach adulthood. They needed safety. To that end, he should invent bubble wrap and keep them ensconced in it so that no one and nothing could ever hurt them.

They needed safety. They needed freedom. The two ideals were direct opposites of each other.

It was the ultimate conundrum of parenthood. Every time one’s kids stepped out of the house, they faced every risk in the world. Kidnappers. Car accidents. Bullying. Bad choices. Drugs and alcohol.

Keep them inside, and they never learn to deal with the small dangers and how to make good choices, or any choices. Let them go, and maybe they face something they’re not equipped to deal with.

Ugh.

Thankfully, none of his kids or grandkids had ever had anything actually horrible happen to them, but he and Evelyn were well aware of the risks. Many a night was spent sleepless until they heard the last of the kids return.



The cultivation world was even more brutal than Earth. Sure, his disciples had better tools to deal with danger, like superhuman abilities, but the dangers were commensurate. A rank seven beast could tear through the entire village, and there was not a thing any of them, not even the supremely talented twins, would be able to do a thing about it.

Which left Benton with a huge choice—continue on as planned or return to the village?

Ye Zan’s heart pounded so hard that he was surprised its thumping wasn’t visible on the outside of his robe. The very first thing standing between the rank six badger and its objective, Jin LiJuan and the bag of spirit coins, was him, little old hadn’t even quite reached the sixth minor realm of Qi Gathering him.

He was about to die. It was inevitable.

That was okay, though. If the delay, however brief, his death caused the beast in reaching the bag gave his sect mates time organize a proper defense, his action could possibly save the entire village from being destroyed.

It was a fitting end for Ye Zan. A good end. An heroic end.

Benton Quickstepped to the location of the rank eight beasts.

In the end, he’d made the same decision that he and Evelyn had made almost every time they’d faced a similar situation. Unless whatever activity the kids were facing put them in an inordinate amount of danger or greatly increased the likelihood of them choosing to do something incredibly idiotic, the two had felt that allowing their children to live a full live, even if there were some small risk, was more important than keeping them utterly safe.

Of course, there was always a small voice in the back of Benton’s mind that, if the inconceivable did happen, his reasoning would be cold comfort. Luckily, he’d never had to face those particular consequences. The worst that had ever happened was the youngest staying out too late, falling asleep at the wheel, and getting in an accident. The car had been totaled, but the child, other than cuts and bruises and just being shaken up, had been fine.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

For the current circumstances, his best judgement was that facing strong beasts without him was something that cultivators needed to be able to do, and thus the level of danger wasn’t inordinate. He just really, really hoped that reasoning didn’t come back to haunt him.

Regardless, he’d made his decision. It was time to focus on the task in front of him.

He was on top of a large hill about a half mile ahead of the eighth wave. Normally, he’d have thought the distance, which would have made it hard to even see the beasts with unenhanced eyes, was pretty far, but mid realm Golden Core equivalent beasts moved fast. If his reflexes hadn’t been similarly enhanced, he wouldn’t have been able to react in time.

His opening move was to lay down a field of high gravity around the creatures. Which worked. Some. The beasts definitely slowed.

Unlike with the previous wave in which the gravity had still pretty much incapacitated the beasts, these were able to fight through the field and remain on their feet, still moving forward.

That was okay, though. He didn’t need to stop them. He didn’t even really need to slow them because he had another ace in the hole—Time Manipulation.

The technique was a qi hog, but with over five and a half million qi available, all of it supercharged by a Concept, he could afford it.

To his perception, it felt like he continued to move at regular speed, but the beasts might as well have stopped. What gave away that it was him that had sped up was that everything else moved as if through molasses. The leaves blown by the wind. An arrow after it left his bow. All moved in slow motion. He could have easily walked to the arrow and redirected it or even pulled it out of the air altogether.

Bullet time. Cool.



Soon, eleven arrows were headed down range. He canceled the Time Manipulation technique, and the missiles suddenly accelerated to full speed, each slamming into a different beast.

Incredibly, three of the creatures survived the first hit—a wolf, a red fox, and a crocodile. All were injured, of course, but each had somehow survived, an unprecedented occurrence when he used his primary attach technique. The increase in toughness from ranks seven to eight was no joke.

The fox had been quick enough to move its head, so the arrow caught it with only a glancing blow, leaving it staggered and bloody but still functional. The crocodile’s armored skin had protected it enough to prevent lethal damage, but Benton was positive another strike in the same location would end it.

The wolf, though, should have already died. Its head was mostly gone, replaced by a bloody mass of bone fragments and unidentifiable tissues. It appeared to still be alive due to sheer willpower alone.

Upon closer examination, Benton discovered something else about the beast, something he’d rather not have known. It was pregnant. He sensed a very tiny, barely perceptible, rank one entity alive inside it.

Killing spirit beasts was one thing. They represented a clear and present danger to his sect. Killing cubs was something else entirely.

There was no way the wolf mama could survive its wounds, though, and it was clearly suffering. Maybe he should put it out of its misery. But doing that would surely end the baby as well.

Screw it. Both would very likely die in the next few minutes, but if she and her baby had any chance, he would leave them to it.

With the other two beasts injured and the increased gravity field still active, they moved slowly enough for him not to have any problem hitting them each with another arrow, which, as he suspected, was enough to put both of them down.

With the wave over, he Quickstepped in the direction of the mountain peak, searching for the rank nines.

The badger rushed toward the consumable qi. There were now four humans in the way as a new one had jumped down between it and its goal.

No matter. The new one was just as weak as the others and would be just as easily killed. A jump and a swipe of its claw was all it would take to tear the human’s throat out. It barely would need to pause.

The badger had spent years and years and years killing beasts and consuming cores to reach near the peak of rank six. The amount of qi contained at the source was enough to propel it multiple ranks. It had never seen so much concentrated in an accessible place. The amount rivaled what was held in the core of…

Best not to even complete that thought.

It dashed forward, claws ready.

Ye Zan tensed as he tried to anticipate where to move his spear.

The badger was like nothing he’d ever seen. It moved so fast. The only thing he’d ever seen that came close to its speed was Master.

The only possible way to save himself would be to time his defense perfectly. As the beast moved to what he believed to be leaping distance, Ye Zan chose to bring his spear to the right, guessing that was the direction the badger would pick.

The beast went left.

An arrow raced toward it.



Senior Sister.

He had a chance.

The badger twisted in the air, and the missile sailed right past it, not even making contact.

That was it. He was dead.

There was no one else who had a chance to—

Senior Brother flashed in front of him, falling from above faster than one of Senior Sister’s arrows.

His Momentum. Yang Ru had converted it into speed.

Being in the air, the badger had limited options to dodge, but Yang Ru was a Master of the spear. His thrust was aimed at center mass. The beast didn’t stand a chance and was knocked back several feet.

Ye Zan stared at it, the instrument he’d been so sure was about to deliver his death. Its tan fur with black streaks was now marred with a spot of red.

Unfortunately, Senior Brother had either not gathered enough Momentum or had converted too much of it to quicken his movements because the strike was not lethal. Far from it. The spear tip had barely drawn blood.

“Stop woolgathering!” Senior Brother yelled. “This fight has barely started.”

Ye Zan let out a breath. True. And he was still alive, hopefully to remain that way to see the beast dead.