Blood Essence Rose

The beast tide soon became the only topic of conversation on Heavenly Path Mountain. No matter where you went in the sect, so long as there were people within earshot, you would overhear talk of this ongoing calamity. With so many big changes occurring on a daily basis, there was certainly much to talk about.

The Northern outer sect was completely rebuilt. Each village became a station post for the inner and core sect members. They were able rest at these station posts in-between their ventures into the wilderness, which always involved multiple battles against various demonic and spirit beasts.

Large, sturdy walls were erected around every village, whilst trenches and other simple traps were implemented around the outer perimeter. Although these measures were fairly basic, developing their home terrain to their advantage was a crucial point when it came to defending against the beasts' onslaught.

There were two types of groups battling in this beast tide: the stronger and the weaker. The weaker groups like Yaan's were led by Innate Qi Realm core disciples and inner sect elders. These groups braved the less dangerous regions of the wilderness, hunting down the beasts before they could reach the outer sect.

The stronger groups were led by Qi Temple Realm and Spirit Core Realm elders. These groups stayed put within the outer sect villages, patrolling the walls and killing any beasts that managed to slip through the net.

With this setup, they were able to prevent the beasts from breaking past the outer sect and into the main sect further up Heavenly Path Mountain.

The outer sect had never seen this sort of energetic atmosphere before now. Unexpectedly, even the outer sect members benefited from this arrangement. They were able to gain favour with cultivators from the sect. On occasion, some of the more fortunate outer sect disciples received cultivation techniques or other resources for their work!

Yaan found himself in the spotlight yet again. His group was led by Boln, the strongest Innate Qi Realm disciple, so naturally, their group was also the strongest of the many hunting teams.

After a single month, a leaderboard was deployed, listing each groups' total accumulation of merit points. Copies of this leaderboard could be found within any of the station posts in the outer sect villages, and also throughout the inner and core sect.

The leaderboard was controlled by a formation. Formations were constructs created by specialist cultivators, utilising Spiritual Energy, Qi, and other energies, through mysterious and intricate pathways.

Formations masters studied the art of formations extensively and learned the intricacies behind their operations, allowing them to create formations with a vast array of effects. Formations covered a broad spectrum of uses, from leaderboards, to large scale defensive shields, to cultivation chambers.

Yaan's group had accumulated the most merit points and had stood at the top of the leaderboard from its inception until now. This was almost entirely thanks to Boln and Kaila though, so Yaan didn't feel much about it.

During the past month, the intensity of the beast tide had gradually grown stronger. Whilst the beasts were slowly being whittled down by the human cultivators, the cultivators also experienced their own fair share of casualties.

Groups unlucky enough to encounter the uncommon Rank 3 beasts sometimes found themselves in a severely dangerous life or death crisis. There had already been three cases where the entire group was completely wiped out by a lone Rank 3 beast…

This was the nature of a beast tide…this was the nature of the world. Safety could never be guaranteed, even if one was a protected genius of a great sect. Geniuses couldn't be protected forever, after all, they would be useless if they never went out into the world and gained real experience. This world was fraught with danger and countless geniuses fell before reaching their full potential. This was something that the oldest elders understood all too well.

After the danger increased, the hunting groups were no longer forced to participate in the ongoing war against the seemingly endless tide of beasts, but the social pressure to do one's duty and to protect the sect led to very few people dropping out.

Along with this pressure, there were also the rewards. Merit points could be exchanged for almost anything that the sect was able to produce, from techniques, to treasures, to medicinal pills. These sorts of rewards would usually be unobtainable for ordinary inner sect disciples, so they wouldn't waste this opportunity by cowering in fear.

Of course, for the core sect disciples who were each under the tutorage of a core sect elder, these rewards were not so tempting. They were more concerned with their own prestige and reputation within the sect.

Yaan didn't care much for prestige and neither did he need any of the resources that he could afford with his merit points, but he valued the experience gained from fighting against beasts and exploring the wilderness. Rui had drilled into him the notion that he couldn't rely on the sect, and that eventually, he would need to leave.

Which plants were safe, and which were poisonous? What was the proper way to track and hunt beasts, and how could stronger beasts be avoided? When alone in the wilderness, how should you go about finding food, water and shelter?

All of these things were vital to surviving alone in the outside world.

And so, Yaan continued to follow Boln's lead, treating this as an opportunity rather than a forced task. His battle strength continued to grow as he honed his sword arts against a variety of Rank 1 beasts.

Yaan wasn't the only one to improve.

Chi!

Elia slipped forwards quickly, stabbing her sword into the eye of a Rank 1 dire wolf.

"Graah!"

The wolf growled in anger and pain, shaking its head from side to side and spewing blood across the ground. Elia's palms were sweaty, but she steeled her nerves and kept her eyes on the beast. She gripped her hand tightly around her weapon's handle. Her grip was so tight that her hand and forearm began to ache quite badly, it was clear that she was wasting a lot of energy…but this was still a huge improvement compared to before.

As the beast writhed about in pain, she suddenly leapt forwards again, stabbing her blade into the exact same location. She grit her teeth and forced herself to drive the blade in deep, determined to slay the mutt with this final attack.

Chi! Thud!

The wolf's brain was penetrated and it dropped to the floor, dead.

"Good job Elia, you improved so much in this last month!" Boln complemented her, satisfied with her performance. He almost felt like her teacher, guiding her and helping her to improve her battle technique.

Elia gigged slightly, then subtly glanced towards Yaan to gauge his reaction. Seeing that look of expectancy, Yaan was forced to respond. He smiled slightly and nodded towards her, uttering a quick 'well done'. He felt bewildered when he saw her face light up happily after hearing his praise.

"Yaan, there's a blood essence rose thirty feet to your right, this flower can help me to recover a small bit of my strength."

"Hmm?"

When Yaan heard Rui's voice in his mind, he quickly looked to the side. He couldn't see anything, so knew that he would need to move if he wanted to find the resource she mentioned. Rui was able to spread out her Spirit Sense to locate things which were out of sight, but Yaan didn't possess this mysterious ability.

The group was moving further ahead as they continued to compliment Elia's skill. Seeing this, Yaan quickly made up his mind.

Swoosh…

He veered off to the right at his fastest speed, hurriedly following Rui's instructions towards the flower. He soon turned past a wide tree, then laid his eyes upon a peculiar small rose. The flower was clearly unordinary, since it was releasing a subtle red glow.

"Aura of death…" Yaan was quite sensitive to this aura and recognised it on the flower right away.

"Quickly, cut the stalk at the base of the plant."

Yaan did as Rui instructed. Immediately after Yaan acted, Rui emerged from the stone ring and grasped the flower with her pale hand, which was glowing with white light as she reached out.

The flower rapidly wilted and its red radiance surged into Rui, before disappearing within her glowing soul. After absorbing the bloody energy, her soul actually became more solid, shimmering even more splendidly than before.

"Yaan, above!" She suddenly narrowed her eyes and jolted her head upwards. After absorbing the essence in the flower, the range of her spirit sense expanded and she detected a serious danger from above. She vanished into the stone ring, but kept her spirit sense stretched out, monitoring the situation closely.

Yaan clutched his sword and looked up, barely able to react in time. A massive figure was hurtling down towards him at a terrifying speed, he had no doubt that he would be crushed to death if he didn't move! He quickly jumped backwards, nearly falling over as he stumbled over some twisted vines.

Boom!

A cloud of dust was swept up into the air and a powerful aura exploded out from within. Once the dust had settled, Yaan felt chilled.

The red eyes of a massive gorilla stared through the dusty atmosphere, locking onto his small body. The beast was so large that Yaan needed to crane his neck back to see its whole body, and when his eyes met with the tyrannical ape's own, Yaan trembled, taking a step back as his heart palpitated wildly.

"Late Rank 2 beast, Yaan, run." Rui's voice remained calm as always, but there was a clear hint of urgency in her tone.

Yaan didn't need to be told twice. He was powerful for a Qi Gathering Realm child, plus he had also cultivated his body to the Peak 1-Star Realm, but he knew that he was no match for this monstrous ape!

Surpassing stages to fight against stronger opponents was possible within one's own realm, but fighting those at a higher realm was something else entirely.

There was a qualitative difference between Rank 1 and Rank 2 beasts. Whilst Yaan could fight on even footing against Rank 1 beasts, the aura alone from a Rank 2 beast was enough to suppress his battle power by one third. His only hope of defeating a Rank 2 beast was by using a powerful treasure, or maybe it would be possible if he carefully planned out a scheme and lured it into a trap.

However, Yaan could do neither of these things right now, so he ran.

If this was a newly ascended Rank 2 beast, then he might have been able to escape, but this was a Late Rank 2 beast, it possessed a speed which surpassed his own by a large margin. Yaan just hoped that he could reach his group before the gorilla caught up to him.

Unfortunately, his hopes always seemed to transform into disasters…

Bang!

"Ugh!"

He found himself flying through the air as a heavy fist slammed into his back. The world was spinning all around him, his sense of direction was completely lost. He landed painfully, bouncing off the ground twice and rolling through the dirt before finally coming to a stop. Despite the fact that he was now stationary, Yaan had been hit with so much momentum that he still felt like he was spinning in circles, resulting in his balance suffering as he unsteadily leapt to his feet.

His entire body ached in pain; he was sure that he had broken at least one or two ribs. He only took a single hit from the gorilla, but he was already in terrible condition. He was now being driven by his fear and adrenaline, this overpowering desire to survive which drowned out all else! Unfortunately, Yaan was quite badly injured right now, he couldn't even hear Rui's instructions due to the chaotic circulation of blood within his body.

Yaan urged his Innate Qi to fill his legs, allowing him to reach greater speeds than ever before.

He had lost all sense of direction and was now running randomly, without any clear plan, other than to survive for one more second. He did not know where he was, nor did he know where his group was. He was dizzy and disoriented, but he kept on running, because he knew that if he stopped, it would spell his death.

The trees and greenery blurred as he ran by, but Yaan paid no attention to his injuries or surroundings. Somehow, he was able to maintain a speed not much less than the gorilla's own, but Yaan could hear the giant ape slowly drawing in closer.

The gorilla was so enormous that as it ran through the forest, it tore down countless trees along its path. The only reason that Yaan had managed to stay away from it until now, was because this forest restricted its movement.

Yaan's lungs were burning and his Innate Qi was rapidly depleting, but his legs continued to move. Nothing else mattered, this pain didn't matter, he just needed to live…

It felt like he had been running through thick foliage for an eternity, so when he unexpectedly broke out of the forest line, Yaan was startled by the mid-day sun which suddenly beat down on his face. Yaan screwed his eyes up as he ran, blinking rapidly and trying to adjust to the bright daylight.

Suddenly, he felt his body drop. He desperately thrashed about in an attempt to plant his feet down on the ground, but the ground was nowhere to be found.