16 Aftermath, Resolution, A New Seed

Yun opened her eyes to a starry void, looking out on an unfamiliar space with no beginning and no end she began to panic. She had no concept of anything outside of her planet, no idea where she was. A single star kept brightly twinkling, drawing her attention as it grew more and more. A spiritual space began to envelop her mind, calming her and directing her attention away from the endless space and towards this twinkle.

"Young child, you must learn a great many things if you are to fulfill your destiny. In the past years I have tried to look into your future and failed repeatedly. Some great burden lay upon the stars, sealing off your fate from all who watch and hope for salvation. I know not if this is due to the great enemies of all righteous souls or if this is some fate borne by your blood. The only thing i know, young one, is that you have need of a great deal of help. I cannot give you everything you need, but perhaps our fates are truly intertwined."

"You have chosen a spear as your weapon, and with that I can help you little by little. I can provide you with my learnings and experience with the spear. This will help you grow and become much more confident in battle, but it will be up to you to make best use of it. For now I give you this small part of my soul in hopes that you can obtain the power you need to survive what is to come. Go now, awake before the beast you've slain attracts a greater calamity."

With this the twinkling light began to fade, but a smaller light flew steadily between her eyes and implanted itself there, slowly melting into her mind. She didn't feel any different, but she did begin to fade out of this starry space.

Opening her eyes slowly, Yun looked around and nearly jumped to see the Dragon Lizard's face right next to her. The dream she'd had began to fade from her mind as she recalled what happened in her duel to the death with this enormous creature. As she started to calm herself back down Yun also realized that her spear was still inside the lizard, and to retrieve it she would have to step inside its mouth. Slowly climbing over the head that was lying sideways on the ground against the tree, she lowered herself down inside the mouth of the lizard to find her spear.

Moments later she saw the shaft of the spear sticking out near the throat and reached out to grab it. Planting her foot against the roof of the mouth Yun pulled hard, slowly removing the spear from the spine of the great beast. With a sickening noise the spear came loose from the bone and rested once again in her palm. The weight and feel of the spear felt different though, like she had a different sort of connection to it. Distracted, she struck out in an arching slash with her spear and was delighted to feel that her sudden strike was more than twice as powerful as before.

As she was marveling about her new ability the lizard whose mouth she was standing in split apart and slid down along the angle of her strike, revealing a clean and perfect cut all the way through bone and muscle and tissue. Staring in awe at this she suddenly noticed what looked like a skeletal hand sticking out of the center of the beast.

Upon closer inspection she realized this was an area of the stomach and the hand was grasped around a small bracelet with delicate markings across the surface. Intrigued, Yun stepped upon the meat and bones to get close enough to pluck this grim treasure with the tip of her spear. On receiving it she sighed to herself and also moved forward to retrieve the Neidan from the beast's core. This would not only provide proof of her kill, but was also a valuable alchemy ingredient containing a Small Success Neidan Forging level of Heavenly Qi. Trading it in for sect resources was an ideal use for it in her hands. Thinking back to the bracelet she had just retrieved from the corpse she also remembered that many items of good quality could be more than they seemed, she had learned that you should always run your spiritual energy over them to find out. The shock of what she discovered nearly caused her to be killed.

Feeling that she was in danger she lashed out her spear and retreated quickly from the source of the feeling. As her spear bent under the force of the swing it whipped out at the apex and collided with a large heavy shield that stopped it after being gashed halfway through. On the other side of the shield was an intelligent face of a lizard glaring at her in surprise and anger. This was a Volvaka!

Suppressing her own feeling of surprise she quickly retracted her spear and took a wide two handed stance, ready to react to the slightest change as she slipped the bracelet over her own wrist. The Volvaka hissed menacingly at her before dropping his shield and bringing out a pair of wicked looking curved axes. After a moment of readiness he launched himself forward at her, the axes swinging down from either side of his large body. She knew she couldn't compete in strength at her age and cultivation with this brute, he was easily three times the size of her youthful and petite form, but she could compete in speed and agility.

Taking a leap back to the highest point on the Dragon Lizard's body she lashed out with her spear at full extension for the Volvaka warrior's hand, intending to take it off and create an advantage. Surprise flashed across its face again as it grit its teeth tightly and forcefully redirected both axes with a twist of its body to join together and resist her strike. As the spear collided with the cross of the axes an intense sound wave spread out, blowing back hair and leaves, and the entire region of forest became deathly silent as the Volvaka was knocked back off the lizard's corpse by the strike's force.

Landing on the ground and sliding back a few meters to a stop, the Volvaka looked up just in time to see Yun charging him, spear at the ready for another strike. As she began to reach out with the spear for what was going to be another sweeping attack, the Volvaka brought his axes up to brace for it, but before the strike could be swung she had shifted her feet and used both hands to stab her spear out in a straight thrust for his heart.

Surprise once again covered the Volvaka's face as her spear cleanly ran through its heart, but before it could even die she had twisted the spear to ensure her success and withdrew it with a flick, removing the blood from the blade.

Yun looked on in mild shock as her body moved so adeptly, fluidly attacking and feinting strikes that she never knew. She felt like her body was acting under another will, but she could feel that at some level it was her controlling her body with much more finesse than she had before. Some sort of combat ability she was unfamiliar with.

As the shock faded she began to realize that maybe the dream she'd had in the starry space was real. Had that expert given her his great amount of experience in wielding a spear? Quickly she put the spear down and, remembering the treasure she had obtained before, inspected it once again with her spiritual energy to be sure.