Altura

Immediately, I flew off in the opposite direction, trying to escape the typhoon. But it was to no avail, the typhoon was coming, and it was not about to stop. I immediately deployed three layers of ice around me, trying to survive the attack.

But the attempt was once more a failure, the typhoon did not move away, it did not even waver. Instead, it sat there chipping away at my defenses and my Qi. Knowing that any defense I put up would eventually fall, I started attacking back.

Frost started creeping up on the typhoon, getting destroyed in seconds, but still holding its attention and power. Extinguishing some part of it. The only problem was how quickly I was losing Qi, I needed a refill. The archived notifications. System, unarchive notifications.

Notifications unarchived

Qi gained!

17 Mid-Plantling stage beasts- 17 × 500 Qi= 8500 Qi

13 Late- Plantling Beasts- 13 × 600 Qi= 7800 Qi

1 Late-Plant stage beast- 1 × 7,000 Qi= 7000

Total Qi gained: 23,300 Qi

Level up requirements not met.

Early-Plant (25850/76800) [18100 Qi expended] → (49150/76800)

Total Qi→ Early-Plant (67250/76800)

Phew. A complete refill of Qi. Time to extinguish a typhoon. This time I tripled my attack. Ice attacked the fire from three separate directions, spinning in it horizontally. I had no idea how effective it truly was, but hopefully I was putting up some resistance.

Slowly, I poured more Qi into the attack and my defenses, knowing that once the typhoon pierced my defenses, I was as good as dead. The typhoon did not let up, determined as it was to destroy me. So there I sat, in the eye of a typhoon of fire, as I waited to see who would win.

I had spent over ten thousand Qi to no avail, the typhoon was still as strong as ever. Twenty thousand Qi in, the typhoon still stood. Thirty thousand was when the typhoon finally faltered. At forty, gaps began appearing in it as parts of it got extinguished. But I was running out of Qi too at that point. At Forty five thousand, the typhoon was breaking apart. But so were my defenses.

I did not have the Qi to send to them. And then I spent more. At Forty eight thousand, I now had little over a thousand Qi left, but the typhoon was not gone. Broken and battered as it was, its last vestiges were still around to finish me off. Sighing, I directed the last of my Qi to my defenses, letting it sit on one.

Five minutes later, two of my defenses were gone, only one remained. As a last ditch attempt, I stop floating, sinking to the ground to save Qi. The typhoon did not like that, it attacked me at once, trying to push through my last defense. But I sunk with a speed bolstered by gravity. Flopping on the ground and then finding myself beside a tree as dizziness overtook me.

Altura

I woke up to find myself surrounded by trees. Trees and sloths. Lots of sloths. The typhoon was nowhere to be seen, and I was alive. But the sloths drew my attention. Each of them looked like a mini version of the sloth that spawned the typhoon. And then there was the way they were situated.

Awkwardly placed on top of trees, between branches. I had stumbled upon a mama sloth. A mama sloth with babies inside her. Grown babies that were snoring away right now, but would soon wake up and hunt. Guess it was time for some genocide. I never thought I would say that sentence and not feel guilty about it. But this wasn’t a war between two powers. This was a war between man and beast.

Something had driven these beasts into the duchy, that had forced them to attack. But they were attacking nonetheless. I was sure that given the option, they would not hesitate to kill every person in the duchy. These sloths were a threat. If a single sloth could grow so powerful, I couldn’t imagine what kind of destruction hundreds of them would cause.

I called on all of my Qi, it had recovered now, and let it out in all directions. A massive snowflake formed around me as sloths froze to death. I very carefully avoided the trees, they were innocent, and would be needed by the duchy later on. And then I once again fell unconscious as my Qi dropped to 1.

Altura

I awoke to find myself back in the fortress, Argus glaring at me with a very upset impression on his face.

“The Archduchess is awake, General. I am still unable to find out what was wrong with her.” Argus said.

“Qi depletion” I said, still a bit groggy. “That is what is wrong with me.”

“Qi depletion? Did you encounter some threat, your grace?” Aswelth said from behind Argus. How in all the worlds was Argus big enough to hide Aswelth? How did one even grow so big?

“That I did. Some kind of sloth that had a bunch of other sloths in it and burst into a typhoon rather than let me harm the sloths inside it.” I said to a puzzled audience.

“A pregnant sloth, then? How many sloths were there, your grace?” Aswelth asked.

“Hundreds.” I replied, still a bit groggy.

“I must say that I am not aware of any species of sloths that give birth to hundreds of young. Sloths usually only give birth to one offspring.” Aswelth noted.

“Well, I am sure that I can get access to what type of sloth it was through the System. I shall ask.”

System, what type of sloths were those?

Sloth type identified!

Typhoon Sloths (Fire) : An extremely powerful type of beast, these creatures live within the body of what is known as the Mother sloth until it reaches Grand Tree stage. Mother sloths often take centuries to grow to such a level, having to constantly supply hundreds of lifeforms with Qi, reducing their growth prospects.

This causes them to typically be mistaken for a weak and useless beast type by the surrounding beasts, hen they are anything but. After leaving the Mother sloths body, the sloths will typically use it as a base as they expand outward at a rapid pace. The sloths are named for their ability to make typhoons of their respective elements. These typhoons are famously hard to counter and have been known to take several cultivators of the same level to counter.

Each clutch of these creatures has a Mother sloth of each element. Unlike normal sloths that remain close to the Mother sloth, these baby Mother sloths will run far away and in opposite directions, making them hard to track. The Mother sloths also do not have the ability to use the typhoon powers this specious is known for, the power manifests only when the Mother sloth is injured and decides to kill itself rather than let its charges be harmed.

These creatures have the ability to grow to Spirit Tree stage, and are extremely dangerous when they do. The last clutch to reach such a level invited action from every other Spirit Tree and higher to counter them before they were vanquished. The extremely Xenophobic nature of these creatures makes it impossible to bargain with these creatures, they will attack any creature that is not a typhoon sloth on sight.

After the clutch reached the Spirit Tree stage, the forces of the world came together to issue a System guaranteed bounty for the death of these creatures. Coupled with the long incubation period, this has prevented the emergence of a second clutch of Typhoon Sloths that gained power.

The System has recognized the successful hunt of Typhoon sloths by you and will issue the reward once notifications are unarchived.

So I did a good thing? And I even got all of them. How nice. I want that reward now. System, unarchive notifications.

Notifications unarchived

Qi gained!

Fire typhoon killed: 3000 Qi gained

370 Typhoon Sloths(Fire): 370 × 30= 11100 Qi gained

Miscellaneous Beasts killed: 21,000 Qi gained

Total Qi gained: 35100 Qi

Calculating Qi…

Level up requirements met!

Early-Plant (67250/76800) → Mid-Plant (102350/153600)

+12 to all stats

Major Threat Squashed.

Qi gained: 13,000 Qi

Mid-Plant (102350/153600) → Mid-Plant (115350/153600)

Bounty triggered…calculating…

Reward issued: Reforging water.

[Reforging water]: Increases the effectiveness of each stat. Gives +81 to Aura force, +66 to Combat. Gives skill [Aura of Nobility]

Royalty trait detected! Skill metamorphosed!

[Aura of Nobility] → [Aura of Royalty]

[Aura of Royalty] → A royal aura billows out from your body, bolstering the confidence of your subjects and intimidating foes. Increases effectiveness of all Organizations.

A drop of water fell on my tongue from who knows where, and immediately seeped into my body. With it, a burning feeling spread across my body as I felt it coming apart and coming back together. No, not felt it, sensed it. There was no pain. And then I was back, looking at the world with very different eyes, covered in black goo that could only be one thing. ‘Impurities.’