Foundation Establishment

Red and Shuli spent the night in the cave resting, switching to take guard of the entrance while the other rested. When Red was at the mouth of the cave, he tried connecting to the internet with his holographic device. When they initially arrived on Bellesimo, he could not connect to it because there is no infrastructure on the planet.

Right then, Red saw a large ship arriving into the planet's orbit. Red then received a message from the old beggar containing information about Zergs and some of their behaviors.

The Zergs they had been killing were the most basic worker zergs and are basically grunt who gather food. The Zergs were a hive mind species, much unlike the other common species in the Galaxy. The more Red leaned the more worried he got.

They had killed a lot of worker Zergs and according to the information, it was best not to stay at the same place, because disappearing worker Zergs from the colony's cycle causes groups of sentinel zergs to start surrounding the area in search of the threat.

Sentinel Zergs were like large ant like creatures who could shoot acid, had powerful pincer jaws and sword like limbs. Their shell is very hard as well. They are essentially war machines of the Zergs.

Worried, Red went out of the cave and scaled the hill to take a look at the larger surroundings and the scene took his breath away. Red could see almost a thousand red zergs circling the hilly area where their cave was hidden.

Immediately circling back, Red returned to the cave. He found a cluster of large rocks and used it to block the mouth of the cave. He took out his sword and silently stood behind the rocks, not making any movement. Red's hasty piling of rocks to block the entrance woke Shuli up and seeing Red very tense, immediately got into a combat ready position. Red motioned her not to move and make any sounds and even stopped breathing.

The two could hear a large collection of clicking sounds like the arrival of a million crickets. Red remained absolutely still. The sentinel zergs were exploring every inch of the area and the clicking was only getting louder. Red could periodically hear the sound of something sizzling.

Suddenly the zergs had come to the makeshift blockade Red had created at the mouth of the cave and the sounds intensified, after which the sizzling sound intensified. Red prepared his sword and Shuli was standing behind him with her gauntlets.

The sentinel zergs had already found the two and the cave and one of the larger sentinels who appeared to be a leader sprayed an acidic substance from its mouth which eroded the rocks and the mouth of the cave was opened up.

Red and Shuli were prepared for this eventuality. And with the element of surprise they pounced on the sentinel Zergs, tearing and smashing them apart. The narrow mouth of the cave limited the number of Zergs who could attack them at once and allowed them to systematically take them out.

Sentinel Zergs were much stronger than the workers. Red's sword was struggling to smash through their thick and hardened carapace. He once again needed multiple strikes to take down a single sentinel and they weren't exactly feeble attackers like their workers. Their mandibles were very sharp and their limbs were essentially swords in their sharpness and Red was getting repeatedly injured by sudden slashes from the sentinels. At the same time, he was struggling to dodge their sudden acidic shots towards him.

Shuli was having a little easier time as it seemed crushing the bugs seemed to be easier than trying to outright slash them. She also had a powerful combat suit designed for the Asura royalty which protected against most physical wounds like those from the sentinels.

Red slashed at the incoming sentinel again, but the sword simply got stuck after cracking the carapace of the zerg and got frustrated. He put away his sword and decided to fight with his fists.

Red took his position according to the Profound Asura Scripture and his legs suddenly drifted apart as if an illusion, his body lowered and Red smashed a punch with all his might at the head of the sentinel he had failed to kill with the sword earlier. The fist was his most profound reach from trying to imitate the power Asura intent's punch in the Scripture dealing with Fundamental Combat Techniques.

As his fist met the sentinel's head, it was like it met an unstoppable force as the air around Red's punch bent around his hand forming a glove and the Zerg exploded. It literally exploded into a smattering of pieces. However, Red didn't stop for the zerg behind the sentinel which exploded also met with the next punch and exploded as well. Suddenly, the equilibrium of the battle changed and Shuli looked at the punch, absolutely bewildered.

However, right now she didn't have time to think She kept pummelling the zergs which pounced onto her as she followed Red whose destructive punches were exploding the sentinels one after the other, opening a path of retreat for the duo.

A larger and more powerful sentinel zerg which was leading this group was making its minions charge at the two constantly to overwhelm the two with numbers. However, Red's speed at decimating the Zergs was overwhelming and with Shuli killing the zergs behind him, the two managed to clear their way away from the cave into an open area away from the hill.

Red was enjoying the feeling of killing these sentinels, but deep in his heart he was beginning to get worried. The punches required a lot of strength and so he had been modulating them to find the least energy he required to kill a zerg in a single punch. The two had been encircled and there were just too many of these sentinels. They could hold on until their stamina ends up depleting, but after that they would be sitting ducks.

The fight, however, continued on. Red and Shuli had combined killed hundreds of sentinel zergs, but the fearful zergs still threw themselves to their death with any doubt. The sentinel leader was leading them on like pawns in a chess game and they blindly followed its orders.

At that moment, Red suddenly felt something kn his dantian. His expansion of qi storage had reached its limit. He suddenly couldn't hold on anymore and all the qi gas within which he had collected to change the ratio from 90-10 liquid to gas to 10-90 liquid to gas began liquefying extremely quickly.

The qi gas began funneling into liquid droplets and dripped into the qi lake extremely quickly and within a few minutes, all the qi had turned into liquid. When the last gas remnant became liquid and merged with the lake, the lake suddenly shined brightly and it's color went from clear to blue to a very deep blue, and suddenly all the energy of the heaven's formed a vortex above Red's head.

Shuli, who saw that was shocked. "He is breaking through now from the pressure of battle?" Red who couldn't control it anymore, sat down on the ground in a lotus pose as the vortex formed above his head and the energy from the heaven's funneled in. Shuli tried her best to defend Red, but trying to protect him from an all directional assault was becoming extremely difficult and she had to take a blow several times as a result.

Inside Red's qi lake, the the funneled energy quickly entered and the color of the lake kept changing. It was almost as if the qi lake was become deeper and more corporeal with every passing second. Red just constantly practiced the Profound Asura Scripture. The liquid in the lake kept getting more and more chaotic as more energy flowed into it and small waves began forming on its surface that eventually turned into huge tidal currents chaotically acting in all directions. Finally the energy funnel subsided and his qi lake glowed once and it felt like the qi had somehow become alive.

Red opened his eyes at the moment he had broken through to Foundation Establishment realm and a wave exploded out of him. A burst of energy pushed outward from himself like a tsunami and crashed into each and every Zerg on the battlefield. The wave passed through Shuli without harming her, but every Zerg who was hit by it crumpled inwards and then exploded from the force emitted by the wave.

The entire platoon of sentinel Zergs had died, just like that. The leader of the Zergs, who was much stronger and hadn't yet taken part of the battle had exploded as well. The battlefield suddenly descended into a stunned silence after a thousand pops of exploding sentinel Zergs.