Spirit Grade Demon Beast

<<<Shin Akagawa>>>

The group was taking another small break along the way as they would take another day to reach Ancient Orchid City, Shin was currently talking with Ning'er as they ate a lunchbox a little distance from the other.

"Have you had any chance to talk with Ziyun?"

Asking that Shin continued to eat as he looked forward to the group, much to his surprise Nie Li and Ziyun were seated together talking and as far as he could see Nie Li seemed to have some feelings for the girls.

"I tried but every time I get near her I end up not being able to speak with her.."

Ning'er looked down with sadness as she thought back to her friend and how her feelings were the only reason why they weren't able to talk again.

"S I said before, if you want my help I'm here. I can arrange a meeting between you two."

Shaking her head she felt thankful at his suggestion but still refused. She had to do this alone, if she couldn't even get the courage to see her previous mistakes and apologize then how would she have the face to keep being by Shin's side.

'I'll apologize soon!' Thinking that she lifted her hands with newfound spirit and resolution.

Smiling at her action he laughed lightly getting her attention as she lightly hit his shoulder with a pout.

Hearing some loud voices coming from the font he turned his attention only to see the group make a circle as Nie Li and another guy were inside of it, from the look of it he could guess they were about to fight each other but what Shin surprised was the other guy cultivation was at the Third Star of the Bronze rank.

'Oh? Even against him he still is confident, then let's see what you'll do.'

Till now Shin has yet to see Nie Li fighting abilities but his gut feeling told him that he couldn't underestimate him.

"Nie Li is going to fight that senior… Should we stop it?"

Hearing Ning'er question he gave a smile as he shook his head.

"Isn't this interesting? Nie Li seems confident and I think we all are interested in his fighting abilities so since he dared to challenge him why should we stop him? Obviously if that guy tries something rash I'll intervene but I think even Linjian will intervene in that case."

Standing up they moved to a closer better place to see the fight, the two were talking about something before Nie Li rushed forward swinging his right fist at the white robbed guy. Dodging his strike the guy had a smirk on his face as he placed his body at the right of Nie Li's, stopping his feet Nie Li repositioned his feet before swinging his whole arm horizontally as it connected with the guy's abdomen making him lose his breath and kneel on the ground.

'So he did learn martial arts, with his knowledge he was already valuable but if he has even talent for martial arts then in the future he may even rise to a great position in Glory City.'

Looking at the group he saw Ziyun look at Nie Li strike with a smile on her face.

'If the two have a great relationship then Nie Li may really be the second coming of Ye Mo…' Thinking that he couldn't help but find the situation amusing, he wasn't interest in taking control over Glory City as he had plans to go take back his own city from the Demon beast as soon as he grew stronger but if he had a good relationship with the future city lord than that would be a great thing in itself.

As he was thinking that the fight continued as the guy tried to kick Nie Li head but in a fluid single movement Nie Li was able to both dodge and counter his kick launching the guy flying to the ground.

'At this moment he is close to becoming a first start Bronze rank but he has enough strength to fight off a weak three star… Isn't that comparable to me?'

Shin was able to jump ranks because of the Body technique and the Seizing Moon cultivation Technique but Nie Li seemed to be able to jump rank simply with his control over his body and knowledge of martial arts, with just that Shin had to admit that he was currently beneath Nie Li.

While Shin was occupied with his thoughts, the white robbed guy moved his soul force as he attacked Nie Li's soul realm directly. For a Demon Spiritualist the soul realm was the most important place in their body but also the biggest weaknesses, if an higher ranked Demon Spiritualist were to attack a lower ranked Demon Spiritualist directly at best that person would be crippled and would have to give up in cultivation at worst it could result in death.

Seeing that Shin moved his own soul force but as he was thinking of something else his reaction time was delayed as the white robbed guy soul force entered Nie Li's. If Shin were to cut off the flow right now both parties would suffer greatly so the only thing left to do was to hope that Nie Li was able to overcome this alone.

Under the surprised gaze of everyone Nie Li stood still as the soul energy of the white robbed guy was integrated in his soul realm, with an explosion of soul force an azure aura surrounded Nie Li as he opened his eyes with a wide smile.

'He broke through the Bronze rank!'

The white robbed guy sensing danger tried to take back his soul force but in a vicious move he cut off cleanly his flow of soul energy taking inside his soul realm even more soul energy.

'I was wrong, that guy is going to be better than Ye Mo…'

After that the fight ended as the white robbed guy could only walk back while coughing blood and his soul realm lightly injured, the group dispersed after that as Linjian made them resume their walk toward their destination.

Finally reaching the place after a day of walking the group was met with the sight of a ruined and abandoned city as vines grew on the walls and the streets were nothing more than dirt with some smooth stones here and there.

'This is almost like what happened to Fire Lotus City.'

Out of the entire group only two people were hit the greatest from this sight, one was Shin who remembered the city he left behind while the other was Nie Li who already lived the destruction of his city in his previous life.

"Finally, we've reached the Ancient Orchid City Ruins!" Saying so Linjian took out a map of the city that he was able to get his hand on. Placing the map on the ground the five silver rank, Nie Li and Shin got closer as they observed it.

"According to the map we have two routes we can take, one is by walking around the walls to get inside the city faster while the other is to get toward these houses that I suspect are the commoner section of the city!"

Looking at the map Shin admired the size of this city, even while only looking at this worn out map he could tell that in its prime this city was a power that not even Glory City could contend with.

"What do you think?" Looking at Nie Li, Linjian asked as everyone got a little surprised that out of everyone he would ask for his opinion first, Shin already knew that the reason why he was able to join was because of his knowledge about the city so he wasn't that surprised.

"I think if we go search the commoner side that would be a big mistake! We are not the first ones to come here so those houses would have probably have been already emptied and searched several times. In the city the wealthiest have always been the noble family and the city lord family so I think we should search for their houses and search there."

As he finished speaking Shen Yue spoke up with a snort.

"The whole city territory is hundreds of kilometers wide and most places have been destroyed, how are we supposed to know where the big families lived?"

Ignoring his question Linjian continued to look at Nie Li as he motioned for him to continue.

"It's easy to find where the big families lived as they had the biggest buildings along with big courtyards, so we just have to find the place where the buildings are more sparse in the map."

Pointing at a place in the map Linjian frowned.

"This place has already been searched by other groups and the treasures have all been taken already…"

Hearing that Shen Yue snorted coldly as he laughed at Nie Li.

"You think that what you think hasn't already been thought by the other noble families from Glory City?"

Feeling irritated by his continuing interruptions, Nie Li turned to Shen Yue.

"If you're so smart, why don't you tell us where we should search?"

Even Linjian was already feeling fed up, so he also snapped at Shen Yue.

"Just shut up if you don't have anything good to say!"

Shen Yue bit the inside of his cheek, stopping himself from saying anything else as he tightened his fist in rage.

"As I was saying, while these places are good, they aren't the only ones. If we look up north of these buildings there are three empty places."

Nodding at Nie Li words Linjian tried to look at the three places as he thought back to what they were.

"Of the three one is a training ground, the other is an empty fort and the last one is unknown what it was used for as it's now a simple forest filled with trees and weeds."

Nie Li nodded at his words as he pointed toward the fort.

"This should probably be a fort used to hide the commoners during the attack while we may find something if we dug up the place the most suspicious place is this training ground, if we think where they would hide a secret treasure trove then they would choose an inconspicuous place like this training ground!"

Nodding at his words it was decided that they would head toward the training ground first, Shin during this talk took the time to memorize the map in silence.

"What are you thinking? Do you disagree with Nie Li?"

Hearing Ning'er question he turned to the girl as he smiled, even after spending not so much with the girl he couldn't already hide anything from her, he didn't know if it was a good thing or bad.

"I'm more interested in that open space filled with trees and weeds, do you think we can find a chance to check it out alone?"

Ning'er thought for a moment as she shook her head.

"It will be difficult especially since they will surely notice our absence or more like they will notice your absence…"

He had to agree with her, the only way to check it out was to either hope for a moment where they would be separated from the group or have to talk it out with Linjian and check it out with the whole group if they didn't find anything in the first two locations.

It didn't take long for the group to enter the city and start making their way toward the training ground.

<<<Entrance of the City Ruins>>>

While the group was making their way inside the city ruins another group arrived at the entrance.

"Are you sure they are here?"

Of the group there were several men all wearing black robes while three of them wore gray robes, one of the black robed men asked one the grey robed.

"Yes, they are making their way toward the center of the city as we speak."

The black robed man nodded as he looked at his group, he brought with him fourteen people at the start but after the two failed ambushes he only had eleven people with him and of those four were injured, looking at the gray robed man he gritted his teeth.

Both groups were part of the Dark Guild the only difference was the objective for why they were here, Deacon Yun Hua was the leader of the black robed man and he was called there by some people who guarded Young Master Shen Yue of the Sacred family.

'We just wanted to kidnap some young masters and then ask for ransom. How did we end up like this?' Thinking that he couldn't help but tighten his fist as he remembered the young monster of the Akagawa clan who killed three of his men.

Maybe for Glory city it wasn't a big lost but for his group that was limited in both numbers and way to get new members it was a heavy lost and one he would recover only with months or even a whole years, after all since they were part of the Dark Guild they couldn't really go around ask people to join their cause.

"We will proceed with our plans, you are free to do whatever you want."

Saying so the grey robed turned around and left with his other two companions, Yun Hua knew that their full group wasn't only those three but he couldn't care less, at this point he just wanted to smash his feet onto the Young Patriarch head and kill him.

"Let's go!"

<<<Shin Akagawa>>>

After entering the city ruins they've been encountering more and more demon beasts, especially a particular species called the Giant Blue Armed Ape, just like it's name this demon beast was a tall giant ape with incredible agility and a thick fur, they normally hunted in pack and the weakest was at least a five Star Bronze rank.

Until now they killed a dozen of these Demon Beasts but even after walking for almost an entire day they weren't able to make too much progress.

As one of the Giant Ape was jumping from tree branch to tree branch it suddenly got struck by an arrow right in the middle of its brows, after being struck the ape stopped moving as it died in a matter of seconds.

Looking toward the shooter, Linjian saw Nie Li reloading his crossbow.

"Everyone, prepare your crossbows! Brother Nie Li! We'll have to trouble you!"

Saying so he didn't wait for his answer as he rushed in front to kill a couple of the Demon Beast.

Seeing the scene he gave his arrows to Ning'er before taking out his sword.

"Cover me I'll go in front for a little." At his word Ning'er was a little shocked for a moment but soon recovered before nodding to him.

"Be careful…" Saying only that she started loading another arrow on her Crossbow.

Jumping forward Shin didn't immediately engage with some Demon beast instead he went toward one of the demon dead demon beast.

Crouching near it he pointed his finger toward the demon beast forehead as he placed an inscription there, the inscription shone an azure light before engraving itself on the body of the dead demon beast, as the light finished a small thumb sized azure orb could be see sitting on the demon beast forehead, quickly taking it he placed the Demon Spirit inside his spatial ring before making a new set of Inscription.

The previous one was the main inscription used by the Beast Tamer clan when they wanted to capture a demon spirit from a demon beast, Glory City only ever captured the demon spirit of spirit grade demon beast as they didn't know any other way to capture a demon spirit, the Beast Tamer clan instead after centuries of researching developed this special inscription pattern along with the founder of Fire Lotus City making it their most prized treasure.

The second inscription was one of the inscriptions written inside the Blood Lotus Special Technique, as that was a technique that used the blood demon beast or cultivators to create petals. There was also a way to forcefully extract a petal from the blood essence from the corpse of any type of creature.

Finishing the inscription he called forth the Crimson Soul energy from the Lake inside his soul realm as the inscription shone a deep crimson light.

'With this the preparation is over..'

Standing up he swung his sword as he drew blood from the corpse at his feet, the blood followed the blade as it came out from the corpse, turning around Shin looked at the closed Giant ape as he pointed his sword to his position.

The air whistled as single red line cut through the sky, the corpse of the Giant Ape fell on the ground with a thud, as the corpse laid on the ground a small crimson petal floated above it as it drew the blood of the Demon Beast creating another petal before flying back to Shin position.

'This is still way too inefficient.'

According to the Blood Lotus Technique once one mastered it fully then the user would be able to command thousand upon thousand of petals at the same time, the only limit was the amount of Soul energy one had in the reserve and their control.

The group with wide eyes as both Nie Li and Shin were able to kill a Giant Ape with a single move, whenever one was by the arrow of a crossbow or the other by their special technique it was still impressive to their eyes as almost all of them were way older than the two but weren't even able to hit a Giant Ape let alone kill it!

The group continued to kill demon beast for another hour as most of them were getting visibly tired while others were scarce in arrows.

"How much until the training grounds!?"

Asking that Shin swung his sword downward as four petals flew, slashing the body of a giant ape open as it soon died from blood loss.

"We should be gett-" Linjian's voice was cut off as they heard a powerful roar coming from deeper inside the city stopping all in their steps from the shock.

"What was that!" One of the Silver ranks under Linjian asked as he trembled, the roar was powerful enough that most of them felt their soul realm tremble a little.

"That is the roar of a Spirit grade Demon beast!"

Jumping back from the attack of a giant ape, Shin heard Nie Li Shout.

"Can you tell what rank it is?"

Shin asked as he moved the petals to cleanly cut off the arm of a Giant ape before killing it by beheading it.

Nie Li thought for a moment before he answered, during all of this he never stopped shooting with his crossbow. "At least five Star Silver rank but it's extremely close to Gold!"

Hearing the new Linjian grimaced, there were only five Silver ranked people in the group and the strongest was a three star Silver rank, Linjian himself was just a Five star Bronze rank so meeting that Demon beast was the equivalent of running to their death.

As they were speaking they saw a giant shadow jump form behind an half destroyed building, the Giant Ape standing there was bigger than any other Giant Ape they have encountered till now, with a deep blue fur it stood proudly as it looked at the group below.

"It's there! The Spirit Grade Giant Ape on top of the building!"

One of the silver ranks said he moved to make some more distance between the building and himself.

"Follow me! The branches here are thick enough to block their movements!"

Saying so, Nie Li quickly started running toward a dense forest they had on their left. The group didn't hesitate to follow him as Linjian and his group followed behind to fend off the normal Giant Apes that followed them.

"Divide into groups! We will meet at the training grounds!" Linjian shouted to the main group as they would only be a weight in the upcoming fight.

"Formation!" After seeing the main group star to leave he gave his orders to his five subordinates as they used the branches and the terrain to surround the giant ape.

"We'll stop it here to gain time for the main group to escape!"

Shin grabbed his sword tighter as he jumped up toward another branch grabbing a recovery pill he started to move almost all of his soul force.

"Nie Li, Give me an opening!"

Shouting to Nie Li he didn't waste any more time as he started to gather more and more around his body as it started to glow in crimson.

Seeing him high up on a branch Nie Li was confused for a second before he understood what he wanted to do, looking at Linjian they had a silent conversation with their gaze before moving.

The five silver rank merged with their own demon spirits as they attacked the beast, each attack was followed with another one making sure that no one would be dealing too much damage so that the Demon Beast would not prioritize anyone and keep his attention on all of them, Meanwhile Nie Li kept on shooting the normal Giant Ape.

In front of Shin the four petals floated calmly as they connected together before another petal was formed also merging together with the other four, lifting his sword the petal seemed to become one with the blade as it changed its color from grey to Crimson.

'Fortunately it's a gold ranked weapon or it would have already been destroyed from the pressure.'

Sighing he grabbed the sword with both hands before looking at the Giant ape below him, he just needed one good hit, enough to give them time to escape.

'Just a single moment!'

The word seemed to slow down as he saw with the corner of his eyes a yellow line flying at high speed toward the demon beast as an azure aura covered it. Smiling, he jumped without hesitation as he lifted his sword above his head.

The lightning bolt sped up as it passed beside the Silver rank without injuring them but as soon as it hit the Giant Ape it exploded in a bright light. The Giant Ape blocked the hit with its arm but he still felt the stinging pain as his body was paralyzed for a second, it took just that second for Shin to fall right onto the Demon Beast back, slashing it open.

The Giant Ape screamed with a roar even more powerful than its first, thankfully everyone was prepared so they were able to recover immediately.

"Don't get greedy! Let's disperse and meet at the training ground!"

Shouting that Shin didn't hesitate to start sprinting toward the direction the bolt of lightning came from as the other started to move in various directions while the Giant Ape was still confused and in pain.

After just jumping over a couple of tree branches he found the person he was searching for, there leaning on the tree panting and exhausted was Ning'er, her hair drenched as if she ran a marathon and some left over soul energy still floating around her.

"Did you lose an arrow miss?"

Smiling at her he lifted the arrow that still had some lightning energy in it while she glared at him.

"I'm never doing something like this ever again… How are you able to do it during a battle…"

Laughing he approached her as he lifted her before starting to run forward, after all there was still the risk of some demon beast finding them.

The attack that Ning'er unleashed on the Giant Ape was an attack learned from the special technique of the Thunderbird Clan and just like Shin, as she was also training with the Seizing Moon Cultivation Technique, she had better and more soul energy than normal and in this case it was just enough to have that attack.

"I have way more soul energy than you right now as I unlocked my first moon, I'm actually surprised you are able to unleash so much soul energy while being just a two star."

Feeling proud she snorted as she puffed out her chest.

"I never slack off in eating so I have a healthier body!"

"Ah? Does that mean that I have an unhealthy body?"

At his question she rolled her eyes at him.

"Unless I tell you, you would forget to even eat. I'm more surprised at how you are always so energetic with so little food you eat and don't get me started on the amount of sleep you have…"

Shin started to sweat a little as he could faintly see what his future had in store for him.

"Alright alright, I'll try to not skip meals anymore…" He couldn't help but feel that this was also the fault of Naoki, normally it was him that always nagged at him for these types of things. Changing the topic he smiled as he increased his pace a little.

"But with you here I don't need to go back to the main group right away, they won't mind if we take a little detour~"

Obviously the place he wanted to check out was the forest he had been thinking about since he saw it on the map. He didn't know why but he kept feeling drawn to it so now that he had a chance he would not waste it.