Chapter 19:
Battle
MOVING SWIFTLY, Mo Tianliao tossed the cat onto a nearby treetop and preemptively hurled nine wooden spikes to break the woman’s protective barrier before she could deploy any magical artifacts.
Startled, the woman couldn’t react in time. The man quickly pulled her aside to dodge the attack, and nine wooden spikes struck the ground where they had been standing earlier. Before they could regain their footing, Mo Tianliao threw a round wooden orb which gave off black smoke at them.
The burly man summoned his blade and cleaved the orb in two—only for two large vats’ worth of oil to gush forth and douse them both. The orb had a spatial array spell engraved in it!
Mo Tianliao had refined this oil from the oilseed trees on the back mountain. It was a highly flammable natural odor neutralizer, making it ideal for grilling mutton.
“Oh no!” the woman shrieked. She was all too familiar with this move. No doubt their opponent would follow this up with an even more vicious one. She quickly formed a hand seal to create a water barrier.
Sure enough, before she could even complete the seal, a fireball formed from spiritual energy hurtled toward them—but it fizzled out quickly when it hit the water barrier. This woman had a dual attribute of water and fire, and a physical constitution that made her an ideal vessel for cultivation. She had once been a plaything given to Mo Tianliao by one of the demonic sects, but she ended up being used by Mo Tianliao as a fire stoker and water sprinkler for many years. Vessels like her progressed slowly in their cultivation, but after three hundred years, she had reached the peak of the foundation establishment stage—her spiritual energy-infused water could put out the fireball formed out of Mo Tianliao’s fire spiritual energy easily enough.
There was a considerable gap between the spiritual energy of those at the foundation establishment stage and those at the qi-refining stage. Theoretically speaking, Mo Tianliao fighting these two was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot with its arms. But with his divine soul, he could still use certain high-level spells. He just wouldn’t have much spiritual energy to draw on, although killing people beyond his current level was still within his means.
He threw three more small fireballs at them, but the duo successfully avoided them. Then, the burly man charged at Mo Tianliao while infusing his broadsword with earth-element spiritual energy. At his level, he wasn’t afraid of a mere qi-refining cultivator.
Mo Tianliao stepped aside to dodge the blow, and the broadsword slammed heavily into the ground, splitting it open and sending up a billowing cloud of sand that surged toward him.
Mo Tianliao sprang up, but he didn’t have enough spiritual energy to stay in the air, so when the fissure reached his feet, he rolled clumsily on the ground and used the momentum to kick a small orb into the fissure.
The burly man let out a mocking laugh at this sorry attempt at acrobatics, but just as he was about to deliver a fatal blow, countless iron pellets shot forth with such tremendous force that they pierced through his protective shields and buried themselves in his flesh.
The burly man screamed in pain as his spiritual energy surged violently, and he stomped heavily on the ground, cracking the earth beneath him. The two halves of the first orb sank into the cracks and the earth-element spiritual energy shattered them, destroying the spatial array within and unleashing an explosion of the iron pellets compressed inside.
A shower of iron pellets rained down upon them.
Seeing the situation deteriorating, the female cultivator hiding off to the side pulled out the jade hairpin in her hair and transformed it into a longsword. She drew two half circles with the sword to create two towering water pillars, sending one toward Mo Tianliao and the other at her senior.
The water slowed the momentum of the iron pellets and cleared them to the side. Meanwhile, Mo Tianliao tapped the ground with his feet and summoned the closest tree with his wood-element spiritual energy. It rose from the earth and lifted him up to evade the water.
The burly man was now both enraged and bleeding from multiple pellet wounds. “The wooden spikes!” he shouted to remind his junior to use her newly purchased magical artifacts.
Remembering those spikes she’d drawn but not used earlier, the woman flung them at Mo Tianliao. Propelled by water-element spiritual energy, the spikes were an unstoppable force.
Mo Tianliao first formed a hand seal and drew a talisman that reduced the fire-element spiritual energy in the wooden spikes. Then, he spun in the air and caught two of them with his bare hands. The force of the power drove him back a few steps, but he steadied himself and, without so much as a pause, hurled the spikes back—now enveloped in a layer of green flame.
The two demonic cultivators caught the spikes with their hands without thinking much of it—they’d forgotten all about the oil on their clothes. The fabric and their hair instantly caught fire. The woman quickly summoned the stream water nearby with a water-element spell to put out the fire, only to realize to her horror that water couldn’t put out these flames.
Mo Tianliao caught his breath and frowned. Two more auras had appeared in the vicinity. Instead of pressing the attack, he quickly retreated to the tree Pawpaw was hiding in. If something felt off to him, he’d make a run for it with his cat.
The woman burned for a long time before she realized that water formed from spiritual energy could be used to extinguish the fire. She quickly extinguished the fire on both of them. However, forming water out of pure spiritual energy was extremely draining. The fire died down, but the woman’s face had gone deathly pale.
Just then, a flying sword shot out of nowhere and pierced through the woman’s back.
The woman’s eyes widened and she looked back in disbelief. Two cultivators in azure robes stepped out. One raised his hand, and the flying sword returned to him. Blood gushed from her chest, and she collapsed to the ground.
“Shimei!” the burly man howled.
Mo Tianliao’s eyes narrowed at the sight of these two cultivators from Qingyun Sect. They had been lying in ambush for a quarter of an hour, clearly intending to wait for the two sides to weaken each other before they stepped in to collect the spoils. “My fellow cultivators!” Mo Tianliao shouted out to them promptly. “I’m the personal disciple of Qingtong-zhenren of Woyun Sect. Many thanks for your help!”
As Mo Tianliao expected, the burly man charged at the two Qingyun Sect disciples as soon as those words were out of Mo Tianliao’s mouth. Mo Tianliao leaned against the trunk, quietly regulating his breathing to recover his spiritual energy.
“Meow…” The cat climbed down from the tree and jumped onto his shoulder.
Mo Tianliao turned his head to nuzzle his cheek against the furry little body.
One of the two cultivators in azure was only at the qi-refining stage, so he stood aside to watch the show. The other, however, could command a treasure artifact flying sword, which meant he had a divine soul—a core formation cultivator!
Frowning in thought, Mo Tianliao contemplated his escape plan for when the battle ended.
While core formation and foundation establishment were only one stage apart, there was a whole world of difference separating a high-level cultivator from a low-level one. The power gap was huge. Those like Mo Tianliao, who could kill beyond their level, were few and far between. Most foundation establishment cultivators would be an embarrassingly easy kill for a core formation cultivator.
The qi-refining cultivator standing idly to the side finally noticed the cat on Mo Tianliao’s shoulder. His eyes lit up, and he signaled to the core formation cultivator with his eyes.
“The appearance of these two demonic cultivators in this place is suspicious, and now they’ve died in Woyun Sect’s territory. That does seem to be a problem, doesn’t it?” the core formation cultivator asked hypocritically, putting away his sword.
Mo Tianliao didn’t reply, tucking the cat in his robe. Then he picked up the box of wooden spikes, opened it, and made a show of counting them. “All the magical artifacts and treasures those two were carrying are yours now. I still have something else to attend to, so I shall take my leave.”
“Hey! Wait!” The qi-refining cultivator blocked Mo Tianliao’s way. “I saw a white cat in your arms earlier. May I take a look at it?”
He had just signed a blood pact with the spirit leopard, so his sensitivity toward spirit beasts was still heightened. He could faintly sense that the cat was a spirit beast without a blood pact.
They had originally come here to pay an official visit to Woyun Sect. When they’d heard Mo Tianliao say he was an inner disciple earlier, they’d considered making his acquaintance and having him take them there. But that had all changed when they saw Pawpaw. A spirit beast was so valuable that even if this was Woyun Sect’s territory, killing this cultivator to snatch his spirit beast would be well worth the price.
“Uh…” Mo Tianliao took a step back. “Absolutely not!” As he was still speaking, he shot over forty wooden spikes imbued with a wisp of woodfire toward the core formation cultivator. At the same time, he lunged at the qi-refining cultivator with a flaming fist and knocked him over with a punch.
The core formation cultivator dodged the spikes and sprang into the air, reaching for Mo Tianliao’s chest with a clawlike grasp. Mo Tianliao tossed the cat in the air and prepared to directly receive the blow, but the cultivator suddenly switched direction, grabbed the cat, and started to run away.
A sudden burst of white light flared, and the three of them instinctively shut their eyes. The next moment, the core formation cultivator violently coughed out blood and collapsed heavily to the ground.
Oblivious to what had just happened, Mo Tianliao turned around to see a man in flowing white robes standing gracefully in midair, his spiritual energy surging abundantly around him. With a face like sculpted jade and eyes like glass orbs, he was so impossibly beautiful it was otherworldly.
Shizun!
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MINI EXTRA
Woodworker: Leaving the tutorial village only to immediately face annihilation. Can it get any worse?!
Demonic Cultivator: Bullying a newbie only for him to turn out to be an old geezer. Can it get any worse?!
Core Formation Cultivator: Robbing someone only to encounter their shizun. Can it get any worse?!
Shizun: How dare you bully my scratching post! Die, die, die!