A monsters head rolled off its shoulders and plopped down to the ground. A silver-haired man was standing to the side with a sword over his shoulder. The night had passed and the female’s fever had gone down, he had moved out to gather up some larger leaves. He managed to make a makeshift bed for the girl so that she didn’t need to sleep on the cold rocky floor and placed a large boulder at the entrance of the cave so that no strange creature would wonder in. He ripped up his self regenerating robe to make a blanket, but that left him bare-chested yet again.
*I’m going to catch a cold like this…*
He came across a scouting party composed of some goblins and hobgoblins which he promptly sliced apart. He decided to pay them a visit, maybe there would be something that would explain the situation at that goblin encampment. He was a bit apprehensive about leaving the woman back in the cave, but she should be okay for the time being. The monsters didn’t really show any good tracking abilities, they didn’t even find them after a whole night had passed.
“I guess it’s time to slay some goblins.”
He vanished from the spot and appeared up on one of the tall trees. He started jumping onto the thick branches, heading towards the enemy headquarters. He noticed a pattern in how the monsters operated in this ‘training ground’, they tended to react to noises and started attacking you the moment you got into their line of sight. Well, at least the more stupid ones did the ones above the core formation and with special classes had some intelligence to them. The goblin chieftain, for instance, didn’t chase after him and the girl leaving it up to his followers instead.
*Well, maybe its a boss monster and needs a special trigger to aggro?*
He started thinking about the monsters as MMORPG mobs, that had a limited range and wouldn’t chase you after you got out of it. Maybe someone from earth was reincarnated here and he made this place to work as a game? This would probably be something that he would do if he got bored enough with time.
Matt came to a stop, he was back at the front gate of the goblin encampment. The small green skins were leaning up against their makeshift gate, sleeping on the job with some rusty looking spears. He scanned the area again, wondering if something stronger than a goblin chieftain would be in here.
*Well, I guess I can let loose here…*
He formed a fist and raised it up, delivering a blow to his peck looking as it turned to golden metal at the moment of the impact. The enemies he would be facing shouldn’t be able to pierce his metal-like skin so he could test out his techniques without worrying. He nodded to himself and took out his sword, forming a thin layer of lightning energy around the bladed part for added sharpness. He jumped up, causing the large wooden branch to snap in the process. Lightning energies gathered around his frame and expanded as he activated his newest Heavenly Lightning Terrain technique.
The sleeping sentry didn’t even react before he got bisected by the energy sword, the downward slice forming a fissure on the ground as the wind pressure and lightning energies continued on, crashing into the large wooden gate. The makeshift doorway burst open, many large splinters raining down and delivering some residual damage to the unsuspecting goblins inside.
Matt heard some kind of horn being sounded, large amounts of green midgets poured out of holes in the ground and from the large wooden shacks in the surrounding area. They were greeted by electrical discharges the moment they entered Zhang Dong’s lightning terrain. The technique was less powerful due to the Qi dissipating properties of this area but it still worked as intended passively delivering damage to the invaders while Matt delivered the finishing strikes with his sword.
He was constantly aiming for their necks or hearts, each strike meant death for one of the green attackers even the more powerful hobgoblins couldn’t do anything against this human intruder. It was more or less a one-sided massacre, blood spraying everywhere but soon dissipating into nothingness along with the summoned monsters. The goblin chieftain was sitting in his makeshift throne, looking at the human attacker while gnawing on some kind of bone.
Soon enough though, he roared out in fury the scream causing Matt to halt his actions momentarily. He had taken out most of the hobgoblins and shaman goblins in the vicinity, maybe this was enough to trigger this mini-boss to action?
“Oh, are you approaching me?”
The monster’s small beady eyes went red and it snorted something in an unknown language at the human, Matt kind of imagined what his reply was. The goblin chieftain was about the same height as Zhang Dong, he had some strange tribal tattoos all over its green skin. There was a big gash from his left eyebrow going up to his lip, letting you see some of his teeth as it hadn’t healed fully. The monster was carrying a huge bladed weapon, it looked like a slightly elongated cleaver with a hooked part on the tip.
The monster kicked itself off the ground, quickly closing the distance between itself and the attacker. Some smaller goblins that were in the way got trampled and turned into meat paste instantly. Matt didn’t feel like evading as he took the attack head-on, the ground trembling under his feet as the monster’s cleaver collided with his sword. Matt didn’t budge a muscle as his feet remained firmly planted on the rocky ground, the monster gnashing his teeth at the human in front and then giving out another outcry.
“Ugh, your breath stinks.”
The goblin chief tried using a bite attack but it was unsuccessful as he received a punch to his face instead, the monster’s nose was now indented as he flew backward and crashed into a wooden shack. More goblins appeared to back up their leader, but they weren’t much use after getting sliced up by the enemy’s blade.
*I feel like I could keel these trash mobs faster if I had a second sword…*
He picked up a goblin sword from the ground, it used to belong to one of the hobgoblin warriors so it was a bit better than the rest. He went into a stance, holding one of the swords higher and the other one lower. This felt a bit awkward, the monsters dashed at him but he just started dancing around them quickly slicing the weaker monsters apart. This did indeed make him kill the monsters faster, but he felt that he lost some measure of control and his defense suffered as he had to pay attention to his second sword as well now.
*Maybe it will be better if I put a third one into my mouth…*
He looked at another sword that was on the ground, the handle was just wrapped up with something and didn’t look sanitary at all.
*Ehh… think I’ll pass…*
He threw the borrowed sword at one of the goblins impaling it to a wall and then heard a monster roaring. This was the Chief that burst out, swinging his blade at Matt. He looked slightly different, he was now a head taller and all red. Muscles bulging and an angry face as he tried to overpower his attacker once more.
*Is this the second phase?*
Matt glanced at the monster, but it was still in the late stage, it had the berserker prefix added though. He was slightly more powerful and faster, but not nearly enough to bring this cultivator down. He sparred with the goblin Chief for a while, using the creature as a training dummy. He didn’t have anyone to spar with back in the Zhang Clan, so this would be a good training session. But after a while, he found the monster’s attacks to be quite sluggish and easy to evade or parry. It was more brawn than brains so the pattern was quite easy to get used to, so soon enough he delivered the finisher sending the beast’s head up into the air.
There were still some monsters left though, so he used this chance to test his another attack out. He placed his palms together making it look like he was praying, his Heavenly Lightning Terrain technique started closing up decreasing in size and gathering around him. The lightning energies inside the terrain started acting up though, becoming more random and chaotic. The Qi started getting compressed more and more while the enemy goblins charged at him. The moment they closed in on him, he separated his palms making a ‘T’ like pose with his palms pointing upwards.
The energies burst out with an explosion of lightning energy, everything outside where he was standing lit up like a Christmas tree and was surrounded by bright blue energy. The goblin silhouettes vanished within the energy dome that was formed, quickly dissolving into fine particles as he delivered a wide-area attack. After the energies dissipated, he was standing on a little podium of ground, everything within a wide radius was blasted into nothingness. There was a large hole around him now, some burnt up hatchets and other broken items. Anything past that was blown back as well, he destroyed the upper encampment of the goblins in one attack not leaving much behind in the process.
“Wait…”
In his battle excitement he forgot that he wanted to search this place for clues, he scratched his cheek while looking around the desolated area wondering if anything of value was left behind.
“Well… luckily no one saw that…”
He started going around the place, managing to find the boss monsters hatchet weapon that was of a high earth grade. He also managed to find a fan type weapon suited for wind elemental users, this made him think back to the lady that he saved, this probably belonged to her. He was glad that it survived his explosion. He didn’t find much more of note besides that, the goblins were all dead now. He even went into one of their burrows, but most of the tunnels had collapsed after his qi explosion. He didn’t really want to dig through the debris, and the fan weapon made him think about the sleeping woman that he didn’t want to leave there for more than he had to.
*Time to go back, there were some fruits on the way here, I’ll get them for that girl, she might be hungry.*
After being here for a week, he started thinking that his clan members were probably in another area altogether. This was probably a place to test the party leaders, making them fight without having an army to back them up.
*Though, still wonder what those guys are up to… nothing left but to move forward.*
He thought to himself while going back to his temporary state of residence.
Back in the cave, Feng Liena was dreaming about her childhood, she was running around with a ball in her hand tossing it at her father who did the same in return. She was smiling wide, hugging on her daddy while enjoying her day to day life. But then things changed, she was taken away the scenery changing. She was now ten years old, a woman was screaming at her making her do various exercises, shouting that she had to get strong for the clan.
The Feng Clan was a Matriarchal one, this meant that the ones on top were all women and they didn’t allow men into the upper echelon. After a woman from the Feng clan got married to someone outside a deal was made, every female offspring was to be sent back to the clan after they reached the age of five. This was a favorable agreement for both parties as regular patriarchal clans preferred offsprings of the male gender, so they were okay with sending the females back while receiving the boys in return.
The girls were trained hard, causing them to be rough and rigid. The Feng clan didn’t really care about having their cultivators be very womanly, as power was the driving force. This was also the cause of their appearance, most of the girls didn’t want to be treated like jade-like beauties. Thus they produced the more tanned gyaru look, to mixed reactions of other people around them. They also tended to be quite tomboyish and aggressive.
Feng Liena opened up her eyes slowly, she felt quite refreshed for some reason. She remembered that she was captured by some monsters, but the rest was a blur. When she opened up her eyes she saw a large man above her, he was bare-chested and reaching out with his hand to do something. She reached out to him, placing her hands on the man’s cheeks. The silver-haired man had a strange expression, that quickly turned to shock as the female cultivator gripped those cheeks with all her strength and delivered a headbutt straight to his face.
“The hell do you think you’re doing!”