Centipede

There was no rush in advancing my Cultivation level. I spoke with a few people about it, and they said that it makes no difference if you wait a bit before doing it. As long as you reach the threshold of your talent, all is well. But usually, people wouldn't delay advancing unless they were under extreme conditions since it takes time to do and increases various abilities, the speed of Cultivation included.I thanked them for the knowledge and continued pulling my cart. I needed a day or two to safely do it. I wasn't sure yet if there would be any complications, but one thing I knew for sure was that I would definitely leak Aura. Couldn't afford to do that here. No way in hell.The Core Disciples were fighting a large centipede at around midday while the four of us youngsters were hiding some distance away and staying out of trouble.The two girls were also standing much further away, covering the entire area with a layer of smoke that stung my nose.Apparently, they were mixing monster repellent and some kind of poison that worked exclusively on insects like the giant centipede. All in an attempt to make the battle easier.The beast was a good 10-15 meters long and about a tenth of that wide with countless spiky legs coming from its belly. Its back was armored by massive chitin plates that couldn't be pierced by simple attacks. Not that it mattered, as all of the attacks were focused on its soft underbelly.It moved aggressively over the terrain, trying to coil around or bite the men fighting it. Its long tail served as a whip with which it tried, and failed, to strike and poison its opponents. But it was not because of a lack of effort. The core members of Predator's Bane were just that good at avoiding it.Golden chains grew out of the ground, anchoring it in place and allowing the others the strike it where it hurt. Long blades glowed with white light, cutting easily into its unarmored body.The beast trashed around, visibly empowering itself and tearing itself free from the golden chains, only to have them connect at a different place, keeping it restrained most of the time.The ground became soft like quicksand as it smacked its tail around, but the men didn't seem to care. They stood on top of it, with once again, a golden glow around their feet. They didn't move unless they wanted to.Senior Tan Gong danced effortlessly around it with his longsword, deflecting the strikes that came from its spiky feet that tried hard to pierce him. Every once in a while, usually just as a new set of chains connected, he accelerated his movements, cutting off a leg or two, before retreating to a safe distance."Poison!" Someone suddenly shouted, and truly, the desperate beast began blowing a yellowish mist from its mouth. It was like a smoke machine, blowing out the poison at a high pace while it whipped its head left to right. In just a few short seconds its entire body was encased in a dangerous yellow cloud.Qi began acting weirdly inside it, almost like some sort of static, and even the golden chains started breaking down on their own. I watched it all from afar with a twinkle in my eyes. It was awesome!"Chaos magic! Stay away from it!""Don't let it escape! Harden the ground!"The men encircled it, pumping the forest soil full of their own Qi to reinforce it. It spread out like a golden net under the centipede, crackling with lightning. The corrupting poison didn't seem to be able to disrupt that formation even as the creature tried to dig, and was instead shocked and recoiled."Make me an opening!" Weh Chu shouted and pulled out a bow from somewhere. It didn't look like much, a simple wooden construction just over a meter long, yet I knew it had to be something special. He nocked on a silver arrow and pulled.At the same time, another guy kicked the ground, and a cubic meter of stone flew out striking the centipede in the face, momentarily stunning it.The silver arrow suddenly glowed golden, encased with Weh Chu's Qi, when another member of the Predator's Bane pointed at it with his finger and shot a lightning bolt at it just as it was released from the bow.There was a thundering crack as the lightning arrow struck the centipede in the side of its head, electrocuting its entire body into contracting wildly.Thin wisps of smoke rose from the burnt area where the light brown flesh turned black.[Woah… This is so cool!] I quietly gasped, hiding behind a cart."It's terrifying!" The guy beside me yelped. I believe his name was Lu. "I can barely even see what is happening, not to mention that any twitch from that beast would be enough to kill us!" I just ignored that crybaby and continued watching.The centipede was hurt, but it was far from dead. While the injuries it had were deep, they were too spread out, and compared to its massive body, they didn't pose a threat to its life."Again!" Tan Gong shouted. His body turned golden and then grew in size as the barrier around him took on the shape of some weird lizard with long claws. He became much larger than he already was, and rushed at the centipede on all fours.He clawed at its side, leaving long gashes that oozed some puss-like blood. He then spun around and whacked it with his whip-like tail, wounding it even more. However, the corrosive poison began melting his new body, so he retreated to repair it.The centipede angrily clapped its mandibles at him, only to get another lightning arrow straight in the face.It hissed as its body was electrocuted for the second time, but by then the other members already began gathering energy for the attack.I watched in awe as flames, ice lances, stone spears three meters long, golden arrows, and long white blades cut and slashed at the centipede, dismembering it piece by piece despite its attempts at defending itself. While its defensive abilities were somewhat lacking, and it couldn't focus on a single target with ten of them attacking it at once, the vitality itself was incredible.It took them nearly an hour of near-constant attacks to bring the beast down. By then, the centipede was just a mangled shell of its former self, its body utterly destroyed and in a hundred pieces, the large chitin plates from its back laying all over the place."What a slog… I seriously hate fighting against armored, high vitality beasts." Weh Chu said as he wiped the sweat off his brow."Yeah, no kidding. Class IV Ironclad Acid-spitter, didn't think we would meet one so soon." Tan Gong said. "Luckily it was only at the first level… Well, anyway, let's collect the goods before any more of these ugly things show up."I gulped. First level? Considering how they fought it as a team, that meant the first level of Golden Core Realm, right?! As if on cue, its Soul entered my Sea of Consciousness, and my Soul pounced. It was weak. Compared to its body, the Soul was as weak as it could be for someone of its Realm. The Hydra was a god in comparison to it.I let it be devoured quickly without paying too much attention to it. I didn't have time to extract any useful memories, the same as with the Bloodflies. I needed time and peace for that, and in the forest, I didn't have that luxury."Hey, bring the carts over here!" One of the men waved at us, and we quickly moved. They were cleaning up the hard chitin plates and stacking them to the side.Those things were massive. They were a shade of orange-brown, 10 centimeters thick, and covered about two square meters they just about fit in the carts where we had to place them upside down as they were curved at the edges.Each of us got three of them, for a total of twelve. A few of them were a bit smaller since they came from the tail, but mostly they were similar in size and weight."What about the core? Did we find it?" Tan Gong asked as he wiped his hands of the slimy yellowish blood."Cracked…" One of the men said, carrying a brown sphere with swirls of yellow and green. "It seems like one of the last attacks grazed it.""Damn it." Senior Tan Gong frowned and took the beast's core. "Now we can't even collect its Soul, not to mention the decreased overall value… What a waste."He tossed the core back to his teammate and went to check on the rest of the harvesting operation. The flesh of the beast was put into a pile while they collected the more valuable parts. Legs were cleaned up and stacked like logs, mandibles, and the stinger were similarly cut away from the body and stored, and the poison sack was carefully extracted and its contents safely stored into a vial and then straight into a Space Pouch.In the end, apart from the chitin armor plates, each cart got about 4-5 legs. The centipede had many more, however, those were too damaged to be of any use. So, on the pile they went."Alright, set up a perimeter." The leader, Tan Gong ordered and began drawing around the pile of meat and organs with the creature's blood. He then sprinkled some things all over it and sat down beside it. Three others sat down as well, each taking a side. Then, as if in a predetermined fashion, they all extended their hands and closed their eyes.The pile of flesh began to glow, once again like gold, and the giant hill began to shrink. Everything began turning into gray dust that disappeared with the wind, becoming smaller and smaller. I secretly observed it happen with my Magic Eyes, but it was like I was looking at a light. It was too blinding to discern anything, so I stopped.It took another hour for whatever they were doing to be complete, and it was not difficult to guess what that was.From the pile of flesh many meters high, only a few golden spheres remained. Specifically, there were exactly 12 of them, the Golden Essence Cores, each large enough to just barely fit into your mouth. I licked my lips at the sight, but I knew we wouldn't be getting any. And indeed we didn't.Each of the core members received one and they all accepted them with a smile and stored it away immediately."Right. That's that. Let's get going, shall we?""Could we take some time off first? I think I breathed in too much of those toxins. My chest hurts like hell." One of the men said."Now that you mention it, I was feeling some itching inside my throat for an hour now and it's slowly getting worse…" Complained another.Then there came a third. "I don't have problems with my breathing, but my skin-""Alright, I get it!" Tan Gong cut him off. "What do you think, a few hours?" He turned to his right-hand man."We can afford to take two hours to recover. We are not in too much of a hurry." Weh Chu suggested. "Just, keep your eyes and ears open. We are in enemy territory now."There was unanimous agreement among the group and after having to pull the loaded cart for just a few dozen meters over the uneven terrain, I was happy to rest a bit first. The damn thing was heavy!I was of course capable of pulling it, but I was not looking forward to it. Without Qi, it was going to be exhausting.