Victorious

The axes in my hands came down with power and speed, ready to dig into the flesh of my enemy, hurting him badly, if not killing him outright.I was left disappointed once more. The guy disappeared in a puff of smoke that smelled like burnt steak with a tinge of a metallic aftertaste. The axes sliced right through where his body was just a fraction of a second prior and I felt the shift somewhere far behind me again, as space unfolded and my quarry emerged, completely unharmed.I chuckled in annoyance and turned to face him. I really hated it when I couldn't hit my target. Fighting in the sky against a faster opponent was such a fucking headache. It didn't even matter if I was fast, the guy could literally teleport. Perhaps his jumps were close distance, but they were still enough to get him out of my reach.I was still brimming with energy, so if that was a tactic to exhaust me, it wasn't working. I threw my head back and roared. Pulling upon the deep reserves of my power, I brought forth a bloodline I rarely ever used and was just there for regeneration. The Phoenix.My back bulged and fiery wings sprouted from beneath my skin. Scales across my body began to burn with the inexhaustible heat of a mythical fiery being, and my expenditure of energy skyrocketed, though it could still be sustained for a long time. I felt the power swell within me.Similarly, every beat of my wings brought me ever greater speed. I pushed not of the air around me, but of the structure of reality itself. My wings battered against the rigid structure of space, pushing me forward faster than ever. In a blink, I was at my target, claws and teeth sharp and ready to kill.He disappeared again.[Motherfucker! Stop running! Fight me like a man!]I accelerated towards the new position as the guy stepped out of a folded region of space. I could see his face, shocked and slightly frightened, yet determined to run.Before I could even reach him, he disappeared again in a puff of smoke, reappearing a good distance away. He wasted no time, lifted his rifle, and fired. There was a loud boom as the round struck the ground far behind me as I dodged to the side. I shifted side to side, up and down, as he just kept hammering the area with his shots.With increased speed and impeccable reaction time, I could move out of the way before he even fired. None of his attacks could hit me. I couldn't let him, they were too strong. Even if I could regenerate, every shot taken stripped me of a small amount of Essence which was something I did not appreciate.The fire rate increased suddenly as the man kept jumping back further and further every time. I noticed the puffs of smoke were becoming bigger with each fold and he appeared increasingly desperate. The cloak around his body also became damaged, and soon I noticed it started falling apart.Whatever those short teleports were doing, it was clear they were dangerous. He was getting tired and sloppy, and his technique began failing, leading to more damage to his gear. I wondered how long he could keep that up. I was getting tired as well, but he was exhausting himself faster.I laughed quietly to myself and focused. A thick metal armor covered my body and I flew straight at him.An explosion engulfed me as a strike connected with my armored forearm, yet I just kept flying forward like a lightning bolt.More blasts hit me, only slowing me down ever so slightly as I rushed forth in a straight line. Boom after boom struck my body, legs, and arms, but I just kept going. The Ferrite armor, the Arcane Ferrite Wardplate, was no joke. The suit sustained almost no damage, the most the blasts did was a small scratch where the projectile hit.I just kept accelerating and my eyes began to glow as energy began to gather for my strongest Arcane Blaze yet. I was about to finish it all in a single strike. No more games.But, unfortunately, my intention was too easy to read, and my enemy realized it a split second too soon. A transparent white barrier covered his body, looking exactly like him, only bigger, and then rushed forward to intercept me. His Avatar.That was an annoying ability of Spirit Realm Cultivators. They could manifest their shield and let it fight in their stead. Similar to the cloning technique I used previously, just much stronger and made out of Spirit Qi.[Out of my way!] I roared and brought the axes down on the transparent giant while blasting it with my beams. But the giant was strong and managed to stop me for a few seconds while arresting my momentum. By the time it crumbled under my strikes, the enemy was already far in the distance, jumping through portals like his life depended on it, leaving bigger and bigger plumes of smoke in his wake. I grumbled as I watched him disappear from my detection radius and then out of my vision range as he went and hid behind the horizon.He was too far and too fast to chase. I didn't even bother.[Damn it.]I believe that was the first time someone managed to escape me when I was intent on killing them, and that left me feeling unsatisfied. I sighed and retracted all my gear, storing it safely in one of my rings. Together they were about 80 cubic meters, a 30 one and a 50 one. Or close enough to it anyway. Only the smaller one was full, so I had plenty of space left for more loot. Too bad a big treasure chest just escaped.I looked around to see where I was and detected the weak pulse of Qi coming from the outpost towers. I followed it back through the sky, and when it came into the vision range I dropped down, continuing back on foot.After coming to the familiar clearing, I noticed all the Cultivators gathered inside the barrier, including the Elder, and I slowly waved at them.Elder Fa came to meet me and I noticed he was still limping a little even though he tried to hide it. He scanned me as he came close."Where's the enemy?" He asked.[He ran away.] I admitted, not bothering to hide anything.Elder Fa lifted an eyebrow. "Ran away?"I could see it in his eyes that he found it hard to believe it. He probably detected the energies of a Spirit realm Cultivator after his cloak got damaged, so considering I was still in the early stages of Golden Core…[He had a strong attack, but that was about it. He didn't let me hit him, instead, he just kept running away while attacking.]The Elder rubbed his beard. "Curious… Sword Cultivators are usually much more aggressive. They like to get up close and personal."[No…] I shook my head. [He wasn't a Sword cultivator.] However, I did get some weird sense of familiarity from him. Odd."He was not? Then… Was he even from the Brilliant Sword Sect?"I shook my head again. [I seriously doubt it. He looked nothing like one of those guys. He had no visible badges or marks that would identify him either and his fighting style was like nothing I have ever seen before.]Not to mention that his facial structure was completely foreign. Not to be racist or anything, but all the Cultivators I had seen had a certain look to them. They all came from a pretty small area of the world after all. It was to be expected."A Rogue Cultivator then?"I shrugged. The man was certainly a foreigner. [It could be. Maybe he thought he could get some easy loot since you were just wounded? He was certainly satisfied to just attack from afar to bait us out.]The Elder groaned and turned around, gesturing me to follow him back inside. "Just what we needed. Even more idiots to watch out for. Those Rogue Cultivators can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. They stick their noses wherever there is some easy money to be made."He shook his head as we crossed the barrier."Well, let's hope there won't be any more of them. I really am in no shape to fight."Hours turned into days and finally, our replacement came. Two Elders high up in the Spirit Realm. They spoke with Elder Fa and exchanged information before it was time for us to leave.Our little group of ten left the outpost and Elder Fa floated just above the ground instead of walking. He kept his face flat and his expressions hidden, but we all knew he was not doing well. I couldn't imagine how a man of his stature couldn't heal himself. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it.Maybe Soul damage was more significant than I thought. I knew curses could be messy, but that was something else. He said he could recover in a few months or years, but that was such a long time!Oh, well… Not my problem.***I spoke with Arkos and he was already training his transformation, being partially turned into a bear as we walked home. I wanted to congratulate him on quick improvements, but then the Elder scolded him for being sloppy and leaking too much energy, giving out position away. He was right, of course, and Arkos stopped with his head lowered in shame.On our way back we stumbled upon another group of Sword Cultivators that resulted in a skirmish. We killed three of theirs while five escaped lightly wounded. The fight lasted about ten seconds before they decided they had no chance and ran away. The three dead were just the slowest among them.I didn't bother chasing the rest and neither did I take any items. I just absorbed their Souls and that was it. The rest of the guys split the loot.We arrived back home in a few days and were unceremoniously dismissed after receiving a small pay. And I mean small. We each received five Spirit Stones. Compared to what we received by looting our enemies it was nothing.Thank god taking spoils of war was considered completely normal. Nobody even batted an eye when you robbed a corpse. They had some hesitancy about eating them though. Raw I mean. Turned into pure Essence Orbs was perfectly acceptable as well. I consider that a waste since plenty of Essence was lost in the process, but to each their own, I guess. The impurities didn't bother me much anymore. My body could purge them faster than I could consume them. Also, higher-quality flesh contained fewer of them, so that helped.The problem I was having was the fact that I lacked the ability to kill, as crazy as that sounded. If people could predict my moves, even if the attack was instantaneous, they could dodge. I needed better control over my energy. I needed to be able to compress it and hide it from detection until it got blasted out of my body at light speed.While I trained during the time I was stuck at home, I didn't do that kind of training. Energy control. It was the most basic and boring type of exercise you could do. It was all in the mind, the Soul.My Qi already flowed smoothly like water through my Meridians, so that was not the problem. The thing was that I had a lot of Qi. Like, I mean a whole lot. Unless I was Cultivating and purposely consuming it to turn into Soul Essence, my energy was basically inexhaustible in a fight.But since there was so much of it, every time I tried to secretly move it to attack, some of it would leak through. It gave away all my moves, which was annoying. I needed better control over my own body and mind.There really was no shortcut for it, other than training my control day after day.