Chapter 6

After a little run for fifteen minutes, we came close to the illusory wall.

The wall appeared even more impressive and oppressive the closer you were to it.

Near the base there was a lump of coal. Or at least that was the way it looked. It may be some animal that was trying to cross the wall. It already happened many times in the past.

This wall here is the reason we could charge ahead towards the lower section of the mountain to escape the pursue of that lizard.

It serves as a protection to those that have a lower cultivation, but if you try to leave the mountain after reaching a certain threshold, it becomes a cage.

The animals' sense immediately if they are approaching the wall and stop their tracks, as it happened with the lizard.

And those that don't stop end up like this specimen in front of us. Charred to the point of becoming charcoal. This is a easy method of gaining a core of good quality as the wall just damage the flesh.

The bad thing about this wall is that once we get to to the limit we will be trapped in here. With no opportunity of going down the mountain alive unless you could overpower the wall or whatever it is controlling it.

The little fox already made its choice, me on the other hand...

Let's just say that it would not be a good experience the journey to get to the top of the mountain, but the outside world is also full of uncertainty.

So, for now, I'm refraining from making decisions about this matter.

We collected the core and started running towards a more advantageous terrain.

The wall itself is a mechanism of protection towards weak beigns, but it also serves as a mechanism of competition among the residents of the middle section. As there is no shortage of beast in this section, there is also no shortage of prey, and every once a couple of days there are beast raming into the wall trying to escape.

And every time something tries to escape from the middle section the wall would lit up and show the exact location of the obliterated being. Thus there would be a estampede every time it happens.

All the beast that are nearby would try to see if they could get anything out of the corpse. Hoping that the one who ramed into the wall was some high level beast.

If the loot left was enough high level, then the beast would start an all out war. More like a battle royale in which the last beast standing gets the loot.

If its some low level loot, then the beast would wait until a oponent good enough to loot appears and then starts a battle royale.

The battle royale occurs every time a beast dies because of the wall, just that the process in which it occurs can be different depending on the situation.

So, here we are now, searching for a place far enough form the corpse hoping that no beast comes in our way.

We are also searching for some hidding spots in case something unexpected happens.

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In the end something did happen, we ran into a panther shaped beast.

It attacked us in a frenzy maybe thinking that we have some valuable possession, or maybe sensing the core that we obtained earlier.

Whichever reason it has doesn't matter, we are now foes trying to extiguish the life of the opponent.

The panther didn't waste any time and tried to go directly towards my hearth.

Evading while not nowing footwork is harder than one would think, but with the years, I tried to develop some techniques.

It's still rude on its edges, but it lets me dodge atacks with relative ease.

While dodging, I chaneled qi into my hands to form a weapon.

Normaly I try to go with a greatsword, but with the panter being in such a close distance, I ultimately decided for a pair of daggers.

The strike that the panter threw send me stagering backwards. The force behind that attack was big. With a great deal of murderous intent behind it.

Wasting no more time, the second I stabilized myself I began the offensive.

Throwing slash after slash, the panther began to back away. It tryed to attack me too, but i didn't gave it any chance to do so.

The fight itself was becoming boring with the panther not knowing how to respond to my attacks.

In the end, I choose to observe the movements of the panther when its life was on the line.

The movements of the dagger became more frantic and sharper, and the panther was forced to move with better precision.

This let me see an even more impresive set of moves. How to leap backwards, how to evade just in the nick of time, how to try to slash its oponents with its claws, this kind of things became even more precise and clean.

Unfortunately, the beast would not stay this concentrated for a long time, as its stamina dimnishes, the presicion of its movements would do so too.

So, for now lets enjoy this rare moment, a high speed fight with relatively low difficulty.

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In the end, the panther did end up enduring for a good amount of time. The fight ended up lasting for full ten minutes.

I was a mess, with scratches all over the body.

When the beast understood that it didn't have any hope of leving the battlefield alive, it started to attack with no regards to it life.

The battle in that moment went up in difficulty by a large margin. The beast started to go for attacks even when the daggers would wound up its body severely, so I needed to stop my atacks midway.

I ended up winning anyways with some light wounds in my body, but the nost important part of this fight were the insights I obtained.