Revolt against the Heavens

The next few weeks were rather calm and Cao Yun put a lot of efforts in his training. His Po character was becoming more and more concrete. With a month more, he would finally achieve True Success.

He put a lot of time in his Qi cultivation in his Seamless Qi Vortex array formation accompanied by Huang Cixi. His lesser meridians were at least a fifth of the width of his standard meridians. Extraordinary Vessels were at some places twice as large as the twelve standard meridians. And lesser ones usually were a tenth of their width. According to the 'Coiling Turtle' cultivation method, he was on the right track to complete 'The Turtle Swims Through the Canals'.

The wider his meridians got, the longer it would take to expand them. In a matter of weeks he had doubled their size. But to reach the final stage, he would probably need three to four months. However, he could already feel the results of his training.

In the Thousand Snakes Invade the Shell array formation, his reflexes were way faster. In fact, his mind had not really changed but his Qi could flow through new pathways. By doing so, he could speed up all of his moves. The time he needed between the moment he wanted to act and the moment he effectively acted had become shorter and shorter.

Thanks to that, he was able to resist more moves in the 2nd-grade Mortal Warrior setting. He could focus his Qi in his palms faster and this allowed him to keep his grip on the 'Nine Chi Black Dragon Spear'. Right now, he was able to sustain at least ten moves before he had to switch to the 1st-grade Mortal Warrior setting. This wasn't much but it allowed him to push his Root Star further and further.

Also, it attracted a lot of attention on him. What amazed people was not necessarily his achievements but his progress. Being strong was one thing but showing everyone that you were getting stronger and stronger was something else entirely. Cao Yun was still 16. He was almost sure to reach Spirit Warrior in his life so he would probably live to be at least 2,000. In other words, if you had a good relationship with him, you would gain a lifelong of benefits.

Some weaker disciples tried to suck up to him. However, he stayed cold and indifferent to them. He did not act too arrogant. As he knew perfectly well what they wanted, he did not care for them at all. This attitude of his gained him even more fame. People saw that he wasn't some commoner wowed by the prospect of a nice life. In his heart, he was a true cultivator.

After his daily training in the Thousand Snakes Invade the Shell array formation, Cao Yun stayed sometimes hours observing the Root Star in his sea of consciousness. The fact that it was so complex with two binary stars orbiting each other, made it fascinating to watch. Every single day, except for the training day, he felt as though he was understanding a bit more of this star. Around the first three stars, the ghostly shape of a blue dragon was spreading. Now it had both a head, a neck and a chest. For now, it was still extremely vague even with Cao Yun's perception.

Watching both the Root Star and the subtle movements of this ghostly figure allowed Cao Yun to advance in his understanding of the 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars'. Gradually, he refined his moves more and more but he still did not learn the first move of the Root Star. Despite some small deductions, he had yet to form the entire move in his mind.

On the other hand, he pretty much put alchemy aside for the time being. Surprisingly, he kept working a bit on array formations. After understanding that martial arts worked on the same principles as the array formations themselves, he wanted to learn more. Every day, he tried to apply the Eight Directions to his own Qi circulation. And little by little, he was witnessing very small changes in the right direction.

-

Outside of the sect, nefarious events were unfolding.

A group of seven cultivators was hunting a 3-core demonic beast in the Lunar Marsh. They had tracked the beast for several days now and it had fled from them here. They were not that strong individually, ranging from 4th-grade Mortal to 7th-grade Mortal for the strongest guy. However, they knew how to act as a team and were able to corner the beast with various strategies.

The Lunar Marsh had a terrible reputation, especially since Cao Yun had killed demonic cultivators from the Wolf Head Sect in there. Logically, it meant that no more demonic cultivators were there. But on the other hand, some people thought that their vengeful ghosts could haunt the place. The Lunar Marsh was a very Yin location and this was incredibly nourishing to ghosts and other such entities.

This did not deter these cultivators. After all the time and work they had put into hunting the beast, there was no way they were going to simply leave because of ghost stories. Anyway, a Spirit Warrior had been there so she probably took care of all possible ghosts.

They were all vagrant cultivators. A clear indication of this fact was their age. The oldest of the group was 32 and he was only a 7th-grade Mortal. Indeed, trying to cultivate without a sect, a clan or an institute was terribly tough. Cao Beiwen had done so and he had been able to reach Spirit Warrior when he was 90 while his grandson achieved the same result at 45. Cao Guang was talented, but he also had better resources thanks to his great-grandfather.

This group was not really talented or they could have joined even a small sect or given their services to a noble family. Their living was made by being mercenaries and by gathering resources in the wild. As such, they knew a lot about surviving despite having lesser strength compared to other cultivators.

A 26-years-old woman squatted down to look at the ground. A small drop of blood was barely visible but she caught up on it. Taking a small sample with her finger, she smelled it and looked around for other traces.

"Brother Luo, there!"

Without making any noise, Luo Jingren ordered his party to approach this direction in one of their usual formations. For many years, they had fought side by side and knew how to coordinate their attacks perfectly. Despite their low cultivations, they could even contend with a 1st-grade Mortal Warrior thanks to their battle formation and their great coordination.

Two of them stayed pretty far behind while two more went to the sides. Finally Luo Jingren, the woman who had found the trace and another man with a deep scar on his face walked straight in that direction. If Cao Yun had been there, he would have been surprised by their stealth. They were almost as silent as he had been while sneaking into the Coiling Silk Faction residence.

From this moment onward, they only communicated with hand gestures. The beast seemed to be hidden behind a large dead trunk. The tree was partially broken but its shape gave off an ominous feeling. When it was still alive, it probably survived by eating corpses, and by making corpses.

The three cultivators acting as vanguard had their weapons drawn. All three of them were wielding sabers. This was the easiest weapon to master so many cultivators with poor talent were using one. Slowly, the body of the beast got revealed. This was some kind of leopard with purple fur and red eyes. Its paws were bones, without any flesh at all. The line where its flesh gave way to bones was perfectly clean. This was a Thunder Walking Panthera.

This beast was known for its high agility and incredible blood thirst. In its flank, there was a huge gap and some of its ribs were even visible. The bleeding had almost stopped but the beast was extremely weak. It was Yin in nature so it had tried to come here to find medicinal herbs to digest. Sadly for it, the Lunar Marsh was more desolate than it had thought and the humans had caught up to it.

The beast knew clearly that it was going to die. However, it refused to do so alone. If it were to die, it would take as many of these humans as it could with it. The beast prepared itself for its final fight. Both the beast and the hunters were wary of the situation. Despite its weakened state, the beast was extremely dangerous and even more so since it was ready to die.

For long minutes, they stared at each other. All of a sudden, the Thunder Walking Panthera pounced on the third guy. As soon as it moved, at least ten arrows fell all around it. Both of the guys on the sides and on the back had shot simultaneously. Knowing the beast was too fast for them, their arrows were aimed not at it but closer to their comrades as a barrage against its attack. No matter how well the leopard adjusted itself in the air, it still received an arrow in the face. But it did not slow it down by much and its claws tried to penetrate the closest hunter.

He was able to put the saber between him and the best. His saber was a 4-star Earth weapon and the claws of the beast almost went through it instantly. If it had been in good health, the weapon would have broken in a million pieces and the man's throat would have been slashed open. However, the force of the collision sent the man on the ground with the beast on top of him. Surprisingly, he did not panic at all. He kept struggling as his weapon was being crushed by the bony paws of the beast. And on both sides, Luo Jingren and the woman, Ma Feiran, attacked the leopard.

Sensing that it was too weak to kill its prey easily, the leopard tried to get away but the man let go of his weapon and grabbed its front legs. It lasted only an instant but the beast's attention got diverted and before it could slaughter this man, two sabers fell down on it. Their coordination was perfect. A single strike from the beast would mean death to them. So, if they had let their comrades grab him for too long, this would have been over for him.

Both their attacks were aimed toward blind spots. With its instincts, the beast still felt them and moved his body. Its sudden move forced the man on the ground to let go. Then, the beast's side collided with Luo Jingren. Luckily, he was the strongest of the group. His body was sent flying into the dead tree trunk and he coughed up a bit of blood while hearing some bones cracking.

But this was the end. Ma Feiran's saber fell on the beast and several arrows penetrated its skin. For a few seconds, it tried to stay standing before finally collapsing to the ground, lifeless. Still wary, the four hunters hidden away stayed where they were and Ma Feiran stabbed the beast again, right in the head. This was really over this time.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. There had been some wounds but nothing medicine could not fix. And now, they would get three 3-cores as well as all the resources of the Thunder Walking Panthera. With this, they could get between twenty to thirty taels of gold each. This was a really huge sum for them. As vagrant cultivators, the resources they needed were rarely cheap.

Luo Jingren was slowly getting up with Ma Feiran helping him while the other guys were skinning the beast and carefully harvesting all the possible resources. Ma Feiran gave him a small red pill. Both of them had a thing for each other. It wasn't a secret for anybody but it wasn't official either. They got closer to the beast and a new hope was born within Luo Jingren. With these funds, he could maybe buy what he needed to break through.

Right now, he was in the late stage of 7th-grade Mortal. He needed just a little bit of help to find the final push forward. He could see himself becoming a 8th-grade Mortal before the end of the year. Each breakthrough was tougher and tougher for vagrant cultivators but it got them closer and closer to the famous Mortal Warrior realm. All of a sudden, he would cross over to another world. First of all, Qi Manifestation was a game changer, but there was also the matter of the lifespan. In the final stage of the Mortal realm, humans could leave at most 200 to 300 years. And in the final stage of the Mortal Warrior realm, they could live to be a thousand years old. For mere mortals, this was already akin to immortality in a sense.

For vagrant cultivators, it meant that they had more time to try and reach their grail, the Spirit Warrior realm. In this realm, cultivators could earn another thousand years of lifespan. Indeed, a 9th-grade Spirit Warrior could live to the age of 2,000 years-old, more or less.

All the hunters had many dreams in mind while they butchered the beast. Since they knew each other pretty well, they did not argue about the distribution. Being hunters and mercenaries, they knew how to survive in the wild and as such, two of them were standing guard far from the main group still busy on the body. They couldn't just take the body because they needed to drain all its blood in the first hours of death. There were also some parts that needed to be harvested soon after death. Thankfully, they were used to this kind of work and were very efficient.

As they were almost done, a terrible shriek came from the position of one of the guards. As one man, all five hunters assumed fighting positions. The sound of arrows whistling through the air echoed in the otherwise quiet Lunar Marsh. Some instants after that, a dark shape flew from the sky in the group's direction. With their senses and experience, they quickly identified what it was. This was the head of the first guard.

Mercenaries were used to death but it did not mean that they were unaffected. Every mission could be their last one. Even though they always took precautions beforehand in case of death, they did everything to ensure their survival.

The tragic death of their friends affected all the group but they stood their ground and stayed in position. If panic overtook them now, they would be dead for sure. As long as they stayed calm, they could survive. Most of the Thunder Walking Panthera's body parts had been harvested. Even if they were to flee, they would still earn a huge sum of money.

If the guard had been killed so easily, it was certainly a better idea to run rather than to try and avenge him only to die as well. They cared about each other since they had been together for years, but their minds were very practical in this situation.