Chapter 19

Over the next three days, Yuhao and his 'mind-companions' had ventured through nearly a hundred squared kilometres of the ancient forest looking for a suitable ring. Over the time period, they had encountered several decent spirit beasts such as Cyan Wolves, Ice White Baboons and Green Jade Birds, however, these beasts while being able to provide a decent ring and skill, wouldn't offer one that is suitable for their plans.

Currently, Yuhao was following a trail. By the shape and depth of the trail, it looks like it has come from a centipede type beast, and based on the size, his companions estimate that it would be at least eight thousand years old, and possibly ten thousand years or older. Centipede type beasts are within the realm of possibility for Yuhao as many of them are known to have extremely hard carapaces and outer shells.

As he was carefully navigating the forest, Yuhao has been keeping his Spiritual Detection skill active at all times. This forest was very dense, with many large rocks and mounds that provided perfect places for spirit beasts or humans to ambush unsuspecting prey, and therefore he utilised this skill to avoid the danger. This skill was used in conjunction with Spiritual Deception to imitate the natural environment's aura and further reduce his chances of being attacked or spotted.

As Yuhao neared the end of the trail, he began to hear fighting ahead of him. He became much more careful with his movements as he moved closer. Before he physically arrived at the area, his detection skill showed him exactly what was happening. In front of him, there was a twenty-metre dead snake, that had its body weaved between the trees.

Fighting close by were two beasts, one, that was most likely the creator of the trail Yuhao has been following, a Blood Crystal Centipede. Its outer shell was an alluring, dark red that shined in the sun and reflected a bloody glow on to the nearby snow and leaves. This beast was sought out by some peculiar defence or support type spirit masters as it provided a blood-based defensive ability. The ability allows the user to absorb their opponent's blood to regenerate wounds and the location of wounds, have their defence increased slightly. While this skill has good benefits, its has a similar number of deterrents as the blood absorption ability brings impurity within the user's blood essence and overuse of the skill can cause individuals to have their blood crystallize or develop an addiction to blood itself.

The centipede's opponent was another beast sought out by defence specialists with many attack-oriented spirit masters seeking it out as well. It was an Armoured Horn Beast, the less evolved form of the Unicorn Armoured Beast. It, like its evolved form, is covered in a thick, durable, black plate armour, however, unlike the Unicorn Armoured Beast, its legs are slightly longer with a shorter tail. The Armoured Horn Beast specialized in close combat, with its plate armour protecting it from both elemental and physical attacks. It also has another ability that its evolved form lost, due to its inefficiency in large group fights, that allowed it to deflect a large amount of incoming damage if it was moving into the damage. The Unicorn Armoured Beast lost this skill, however, in turn, has absurdly thick armour plates.

The dead snake did not show any wounds matching that of these two beasts. Through Yuhao's skill, he was able to see that there were two long gashes across the snake's body, one across its head and another down its body.

Analysing these wounds Yuhao thought, 'I can't think many spirit beasts that have attacks that slice like that. I know the Snow Empress did, but her sword would have frozen the blood and body in the process. Was there a human here?'

As he was thinking to himself, Amra, who had only woken up today after protecting his host from the Snow Empress' deadly attack, spoke to him, "So what are you going to do, little Yuhao?"

Yuhao tilted his head in thought, "It is a good question. I don't see any reason to step in while they are fighting. It seems to be a fight over food; however, they are both equally powerful."

Amra nodded, "Yes, just as we predicted the centipede is nine and a half thousand years and the other is somewhere over six thousand. I predict that even though the centipede is older, it doesn't have the defensive quality that the armoured horn beast has. Even if you are able to have two more rings on your spirit and possibly mitigate some of the downsides to the centipede's skill, I would suggest you leave the centipede. There are many greater healing abilities available to you, so using one of your rings on an ability that has external requirements such as blood being readily available, would not be advisable. The Armoured Horn Beast is, however, a very good option."

Yuhao curtly replied, "Agreed."

As they were discussing, the beasts had continued their engagement. The Blood Crystal Centipede managed to grab hold of the Armoured Horn Beasts neck and was using its strong jaws to slowly crush the plate armour in that location. It was simultaneously using its long body and many legs to disrupt the other beast's movement. In turn, the Armoured Horn Beast was trying to ram the body of the centipede onto the nearby trees as it had no other method to shake it off.

After one more collision with a tree, the centipede fell off the body of the beast and quickly turned around ready. At its feet, there was a fairly large chunk of plate armour and connected flesh from the armoured beast, with blood rapidly leaking down the armoured beast's neck. The centipede's whole body flashed red before all the nearby blood in the vicinity began rising up off the floor, moving towards, then entering the centipede's wounds on its back. All of its wounds closed up and the shell grew even darker red consecutively. The armoured beast seeing this action quickly looked at the cause of the fight before turning around and running into the trees, at a much slower pace than it had used before in the fight. As it moved, the blood continued to leak out of the open wound on its neck. The centipede kept its gaze focused on the retreating spirit beast for a couple of seconds to confirm its victory. After assuring it wasn't returning, it began to eat its prize.

Yuhao, seeing the armoured beast escape, began making his move. He quickly ran around the clearing and once again began following the trail, only this time, it was one of blood. He used his spirit eyes and the two skills, spiritual deception and detection, to ensure the escaping beast doesn't notice him chasing after it. He was much faster than the wounded animal and therefore, not even three minutes later he caught up to it.

Yuhao during the last few weeks had discovered that he is able to use his FrostFire spirit alongside either his body or beast spirit. He theorised that this was because his body essence at the moment could only withstand one spirit making changes to his physique. His Spirit Eyes cause his energy to be focused in his head, more specifically his eyes, whereas the Steel Space Dragon spirit causes his energy to suffuse his whole body, with a focus on his bones, muscles and skin. Amra suggested that he could possibly be able to have all three spirits released once he reaches rank 60.

Now, that he has caught up to the beast and within reach to attack it, he lunged for it while simultaneously calling upon his FrostFire spirit. As he was within 50 centimetres the weapon formed and he quickly swung it down, aiming to badly wound it, if not decapitate it using his scythe. At the last moment, the armoured beast tilted its neck to the left, moving slightly towards Yuhao. While this movement managed to prevent it from receiving the while scythe blade head-on, the extremely sharp endpoint of the scythe stabbed deep into the beast's neck, directly into the location previously exposed by the Blood Crystal Centipede. This, in turn, caused Yuhao to be yanked off his feet as the beast sharply turned, trying to free itself only to fail as the scythe had pierced too deep. Yuhao quickly activated the second skill the Ice Empress had given him. As he did, the blood around the scythe and wound began freezing solid. While this did inadvertently stop the bleeding, the beasts running pace continually decreased. This decrease continued as the ice began spreading throughout its body and moments later, forced the beast to stop and collapse. Yuhao quickly freed the scythe blade from the beast's neck before turning the weapon around and smashing the frozen solid neck of the beast with the hammer side. The momentum and force generated by this weapon, completely shattering the ice on the beast's neck and continued down, crushing its windpipe, muscles and bones at the same time, finally killing the beast.