Battle in the Eastern Swamp

The next morning, Kai had a hearty breakfast at the Inn's dining hall before he went out. This time he didn't wear his rags but decided to put on his second set of black Wanderer's robes as well as the large straw hat.

Kai nodded at his cool and mysterious appearance and left the Inn in a good mood. They had agreed to meet at the Eastern Gates at first light so the sun still wasn't up yet.

Kai first stopped by the Hunter's Lodge which was to pick up his map. The place was open 24 hours and the receptionist seemed to always be there as well.

Kai thought he would be the first to arrive, however when he got to the Eastern gate, he saw the party of five engaging in light-hearted conversations.

"Ah, Kai is here. Everyone, this is the expert we told you about who will be joining us on the hunt".

Apart from Su Fang and Su Ling who Kai was familiar with, there were three others. Two men and one woman to be exact. They all wore green armor similar to Su Fang's, but theirs was not a full set and only had the arm and chest pieces.

"Wang Li, nice to meet you!"

"Cai Luo, how do you do"

"Hi I'm Mei Mei, can I see your face please?"

"Kai...pleasure to meet you"

Kai pretended like he didn't hear Mei Mei's question and turned to face Su Fang.

"Is this everyone who will be joining us?".

"Indeed, this is the full Jade Serpent team. Now that you're here, we can set off!"

Su Fang lead the group to a rented [Ceehorn] carriage waiting by the side of the gate entrance. Everyone jumped into the back and the carriage took off. Kai had never ridden on a carriage in this world before so he was completely surprised by how fast they were going.

Kai was wondering if he could run at the same speed if he pumped his legs full of Qi. The carriage made great progress and within less than an hour, they had arrived at the swamp just as the sun was starting to rise. The group disembarked and Su Fang ran over the tactics. In summary, Su Fang and Kai would be the vanguards while the rest provided ranged support.

"Also, I will activate this talisman once we go into the forest. This can detect the presence of beasts up to [Grade-2] within a 1km radius, so if I give the signal, we are all to gather immediately and retreat from the fight. Everyone clear?"

"Yes sir!"

"Yes sir!"

"Yes sir!"

"Yes sir!"

Kai simply nodded as acknowledgment. He now understood why they felt confident in escaping from the [Fungus-Ape]. They had a warning alarm. Kai made a mental note to ask where they got this talisman. If Kai had something similar he would have been. more confident to continue his hunting since he could just run away long before the strong beasts approached.

"Let's head in!"

The group did a final check on their weapons then moved into the swamp. Su Fang carried a long spear and Su Ling carried what appeared to be a box full of long needles. The other three strapped small crossbows to their gauntlets which Kai found interesting.

Kai only had his dagger so he pulled it out of his backpack and held it in his hand while looking enviously at their cool crossbow gauntlets.

It didn't take long for Kai to identify a group of [Slime Vine] using [Qi Detection]. The vines were disguised and hidden around the regular vines of a massive tree. Before Kai could mention this, Su Fang spoke.

"The talisman is detecting a cluster of [Grade-1] beasts in the area. shoot at the vines in the surrounding trees."

The other members obliged and shot their into the trees using their gauntlet crossbows. After each shot, they would wait to see if there was a reaction before moving over to the next tree. Kai then realized how advantageous his [Qi Detection] was. He wouldn't have to worry about sneak attacks from disguised enemies as long as he was vigilant.

The group finally found the right tree and the group of [Slime Vine] reacted to the sudden attack. They shot out of the tree and quickly headed for the group while whipping the ground violently. Kai instinctively moved forward but noticed that Su Fang was already at the front impaling one of the vines with his spear and getting the attention of the rest of the vines in the process.

The rest of the group wasn't idle either and shot their bolts into the vines, covering the long bodies of the vines with darts, making it hard for them to regenerate. Su Ling was the most impressive to Kai. She threw her needles as projectiles with a rotational force ripped holes into the vines' bodies.

Kai was impressed by their display, but he had to admit that they couldn't compare to the two Internal Cultivators he had killed. Those masked cultivators enhanced their weapons with Qi, which gave them a destructive force that Kai couldn't ignore. Even his Qi enhanced body was ripped through like butter.

Kai had long since realized that the only reason he was able to beat them both was because of that one sneak attack using [Hare Leaps Over Moon]. Killing the first cultivator suddenly made the second cultivator panic, leaving him as an open target. Kai shuddered at the thought of having to fight either one of them head-on with no tricks...

Kai brought his head back to reality.

"If I keep spacing out, all the Qi will be taken from right under my nose"

Kai enhanced his body with the Qi he had gained passively overnight [ 1/ 400 Qi ] and then jumped into the fray. He attacked the closest vine that was distracted. He was able to slice a deep gash using the dagger then shoved his bare hands into the large hole before it could heal.

Kai then exerted as much force as he could muster and violently split the vine in half spraying green goo all over him.

After fighting over 100 [ Slime Vine], Kai had learned a thing or two about them. Mainly that if they suffered enough damage at one time, they wouldn't be able to regenerate.

==[4 Qi has been absorbed from [Slime Vine] by [ Dragon Subduing Law]==

Kai used that momentum to jump onto the next vine and repeat the process. The vines were distracted by Su Fang who was using his spear to launch small thrust into the vines while avoiding their attacks.

The way Kai saw it, Su Fang wasn't trying to kill them but rather inflicted enough damage to keep their attention on him while keeping himself out of harm's way. The others were the ones doing the most damage with their ranged attacks.

The first battle ended fairly quickly. Kai had killed three of them while the others had killed two using their tanking strategy. Su Fang walked up to Kai while laughing, seemingly in a good mood.

"Mr. Kai, your methods are quite brutal indeed. I know these are only [Grade-1] beasts however their attacks can leave severe wounds. Are you good to continue fighting in this way?".

"I don't mind"

Kai said honestly. He could enhance his body with Qi so the damage he took would mostly be surface level. He could also use Qi to clot particularly troublesome wounds and promote a faster recovery so he wasn't too worried about getting hurt.

"Well in that case I feel reassured, we will continue like this and pick up the pace".

"Mr. Kai, that was amazing. I've never seen anyone rip a [Slime Vine] apart with their bare hands before haha", Mei Mei gave Kai a thumbs up as she said this.

Kai was a little embarrassed so he just gave her a thumbs-up back.

The team collected what seemed to be a bladder from the bodies of the vines, as well as any projectiles they could still use the moved onto the next cluster of [Slime Vine]. Su Fang was heading in the direction of the largest and densest groups so Kai's rate of Qi gain per hour was a lot higher than before.

After a few hours of fighting, Su Fang suddenly stopped the group.

"The talisman is detecting [Grade-2] beast signatures 1 km south of here. Let's move north for now and if they keep following us, we'll head out of the swamp"

Kai checked his Qi and noticed that he still needed a lot more kills so he would prefer to stay as long as possible. [ 243/400 Qi ]

The group moved north and was stopped again by Su Fang. The talisman in his hands had lost its light and was no longer working, so he put it away and activated a new one. Kai had seen him do this twice already and assumed each Talisman only had a life span of about two hours before it ran out of 'juice'.

"Ok, no sign of [Grade-2] beasts anymore. Cai Luo, how are we on baggage space?".

"One pack is full, and the other two are a quarter filled so we're still good to go boss".

"Good. Once all bags are full, we'll head back to the carriage. Everyone, keep your guard up!".

A few more hours went by and it was now past Noon.

"Massive cluster in this area, biggest we've seen so far. Everyone get ready" Su Fang said as he stowed away the talisman and spun his spear around in preparation for battle.

Kai had already noticed the large group of vines and counted well over 20 of them around the tree. His current Qi was [ 378/400 Qi ] so this fight would be enough to take him to the next level.

Kai looked at his body. He had sustained a few surface-level injuries from his brutal fighting approach but he was fast gaining Qi so he didn't mind all that much.

Su Ling threw her needle into the tree and immediately all 20 voles shot out at the group. Kai was ready so he jumped into the middle of the and activated his defensive skill from his newest skill [Corrosive Dragon Stance]. All the vines that hit him were infected with corrosive poison and lost a little bit of their vigor.

If left alone they would probably wither away and die within a few days, but that's not why Kai was using this skill. Kai had run some experiments during the battles and found that any creature killed with enough of his poison in its system would count towards his Qi gain, so now Kai didn't have to try and kill steal every single one of them.

"There he goes again, jumping headfirst into danger. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he likes the pain", Mei Mei said with a mischievous smile on her face.

"Whatever, it makes things easier for us right?." Cai Lou said with a wink.

Kai lured half the vines while Su Fang lured the other half to himself using a series of fast spear thrusts aimed at piercing the vines without getting his spear stuck inside of them.

The fight was a lot more intense, however with Kai and Su Fang keeping the vine's attention, the group was able to inflict a lot of damage.

As Kai shoved his hand into an unsuspecting vine, he crouched to dodge another vine that was aiming at his head. In his crouched position, he ripped the Vine apart, spraying green goo all over his body.

Just as Kai was about to jump onto the next one, he heard Su Fang yell in a panic.

"Everyone disengage, we have a [Grade-2] signature incoming at a fast speed!"

As he said this, he was already jumping backward while avoiding the vines. Kai followed suit and jumped up and away from the vines. The vines were relentless and kept chasing after the team.

"Move, move!. It's coming from the East so head West quickly!"

The team was in a full sprinting with a cluster of [Slime Vine] long out of their minds. They spent some time disengaging from the fight, but once they were out of their range, the vines returned into their trees.

The group moved at a fast pace while following Su Fang.

" Don't stop! If we keep moving at this pace will be able to...Everyone stop!", Su Fang ordered as he looked at the talisman with obvious dread.

"Brother, why are we stopping?. The beast will catch up to us if we waste too much time" Su Ling hurriedly said while anxiously looking back.

"There are even more signatures that appeared upfront. If we keep heading in that direction we'll run straight into them. They're not moving so we could go around them but it's a big cluster and will take time...at this rate..."

"Wwhhaaarrrggg!"

The distant roar of the fast-approaching beast suddenly came and knew they had to make a decision quickly.

Kai heard loud thumps getting eerily closer. He turned his head and saw the thing of his nightmares crashing down from the treetops onto the large swamp roots. Kai realized it was It was too late, their decision had been made for them.

[Fungus-Ape [Grade-2] Qi 435]

The large 3-meter tall beast came crashing down from a large swamp root and started barreling towards the group at an insane speed. Its four muscular arms pushing it forward with increasing momentum.

"Spread out and keep running! go around it!" Su Fang roared as he moved backward while keeping the beast in his sights.

Kai on the other hand instantly enhanced himself and split from the group while running at full speed. He said to keep running, so that's exactly what Kai would do.

The beast gave another terrifying roar while Kai made his getaway. When Kai felt he had made enough distance, he slowly turned around to see what was going on.

The beast was chasing after Cai Lou who was running for his life with a terrified look on his face.

"Hel...help me!" He screamed in utter panic.

"Drop the backpack!" Kai yelled. He figured the beast was probably after the [Slime Vine] gallbladders they had been collecting. The last time Kai encountered this beast, it was more interested in the vine corpses than Kai.

Unfortunately, Cai Lou couldn't hear anything due to the sheer amount of fear he was currently experiencing.

The beast jumped up into the air and grabbed Cai Lou's head in one of its massive palms. it then brought the palm smashing down into the ground with enough force to leave a small crater. But it wasn't done yet. It picked up his lifeless body and proceeded to bite off his smashed head.

While it chewed on his head, it ripped the backpack off his back, ripping both his arms off in the process. The beast proceeded to eat the contents of the backpack with Cai Lou's mutilated body hanging limply in one of the large four hands.

"Noooo!" Mei Mei hollered in pain as she dropped to her knees with streams of tears rolling down her eyes

"Don't stop, keep running!" Su Fang yelled as he forcefully pulled Mei Mei up and dragged her away. Su Ling helped her brother drag Mei Mei away with a pained look on her face.

As for Wang Li, he had long since run away when the beast first showed up.

The beast didn't give them much time though. It quickly turned towards Mei Mei with a bloodthirsty look on its face and started to move towards her at high speed, its large fists leaving deep marks on the ground where it passed

"The backpack! throw away her backpack!" Kai yelled once more. He was now 100% sure that the beast wanted the contents of their backpacks. They were filled to the brim with [Slime Vine] gallbladders.

Su Fang heard Kai and quickly tried to pull off Mei Mei's backpack, but unfortunately for them, it was too late. The beast had already jumped into the air and was about to land on them.

Kai enhanced his right arm with massive amounts of Qi and threw the dagger with all his might aiming at the beast's head. Concentrating this much Qi onto one body part greatly enhanced his strength temporarily, but it also took a large toll on his muscles.

As soon as the dagger was thrown, Kai felt his bicep muscles make an audible ripping sound which made him drop to his knees in pain.

The dagger made a whooshing sound as it cut through to the air. Kai still didn't know how to enhance weapons with Qi and could only enhance his body, so this attack was purely physical.

The dagger flew straight towards the beast that was mid-leap in the air. Not only was it a direct hit, but it also imbedded itself into the beast's right eye and blew apart a portion of its face and jaw.

The momentum of the dagger also helped pushed the beast back, making it crash behind the group.

Su Fang and Su Ling looked at Kai in complete astonishment.

"That pure physical force. Could Kai be [Mortal Grade 4]...or maybe..". Su Ling was completely shaken. She knew Kai was hiding something. To be able to do that much damage from such a large distance meant that Kai had to be more powerful than he was letting on.

Kai, however, only had one thought in his mind when he attacked. If the beast were to kill Su Fang, then Kai wouldn't be able to get out of here safely considering that Su Fang was the only one who could detect the [Grade-2] beast with his talisman.

Kai couldn't just run away by himself, only to end up being killed by a group of these things.