The thing about running all day was that eventually you had to decide when to stop. The thing about being a cold cultivator was that in order to restore your qi, you generally needed to be able to find some cold aura, or heck even some ice aura would do usually. In certain cases, if you went down a path, like Ki No and Ah Le did, you could draw upon spear aura. Of course if you were one of those few to have a path where you could use two sources, you were considered lucky.

Ah Le considered herself lucky. In between cold tundra and verdant evergreen forests, the trip that would have had her spent hours ago was only now getting to her. True, she missed Sa Kon, but he wouldn't be as useful here. There weren't having tea or a battle of wits, or even a regular old battle. They were just alerting people that they needed to make preparations for the coming of Rahelish.

Ki No jumped ahead as they came to a cliff overlook. Miles and miles of tundra and the first rise they had found was ahead. Both of them agreed that they could use it as a quick reset while they scoped out the land ahead.

Ki No climbed to the top of a pine tree overlooking the tundra beyond. This tundra was wild and untamed, but far ahead, there was a telltale sign of a billowing cloud of smoke.

Ah Le jumped, meeting her brother by the top. The pine tree shifted with her weight, compensating.

"This could be our first real problem," he said.

She could tell he wasn't out of breath. Sisters tend to know this thing. She wasn't either, her advancement had done her well. The tree moved, unnerving her.

Ah Le grabbed her spear from her back and hammered it into the tree, making a clean pierce through the tree and thus using it as the focal point that she had needed. Both of them breathed deeply, trying to use the spear aura to gather qi.

Had it been so long since the pair had been the youngest scouts? The two were once green and new? He'd gone in to protect her, and she'd pulled him out of bad situations more time than either wanted to admit.

Now they stood in peaceful cultivation, one eye open for threats from around as they cycled qi, drawing in more and more. Half an hour would suffice for now, but they would need to alert the town ahead of the oncoming disaster.

"How long do you think that they have?"

"Senior sister, my best guess is about five to seven days."

She grumbled. He affectionately called her senior sister, almost as a joke. She hadn't told him that she secretly loved it, as if she ever let those words leave her lips, it would stop. Better to have him think that she hated it.

"You're guessing five to seven days, this senior disciple will put it at four days. Let's tell them four. It's unclear if we need to keep moving on from there, or if we must stay and witness. For where are these people to go? The Sect, it is that way."

Ah Le pointed far to the southwest. Ki No grunted acceptance.

"We have to let them know. We don't need to stay. If they don't leave..."

"If they don't leave, their lives are forfeit. They don't need to like it. They need to pick up and go. Maybe someday they can return, but I doubt that many of them are past the first realm."

The evergreen swayed. It wasn't her brother Ah Le, and as the air picked up a gust of snow from the other trees, they were covered in flecks of snow.

“Frosty !”

A tossed snowball missed her by mere inches.

“When did you have time to make a snowball, brother ?”

Ki No just smirked.

“We’ve got bigger problems. Look down on that sandy patch ahead of the town.”

She never wanted to be the first one to point out that her brother was being a dick, but he often gave her the pretense that he was doing stuff on purpose just to get a rise out of her. Still, she was starting back towards the path they had came. At his insistence, she turned to get a better look.

“Shit. Are they moving towards the town?”

Five hulking rock beasts, tiny imitations of the much larger divine beast stood still tall as trees ahead of them. It was only because the cliff obscured the beasts that they didn’t notice them earlier. Each of the beasts felt strong on its own.

“Think that we can take them ? “ Ah Le said, “...And you’re already jumping in. Great.”

“Dibs !” was all she heard as he fell hundreds of meters, dropping onto a long pine branch and using it to fling himself forward. The branch rubber banded him halfway across the miles line desert where the trees stopped.

Ah Le sighed. She would not be beaten by her brother in this manner. Taking a second to extricate her spear, her regular old trusty battle spear, she flew over the cliff.

***

His sister landed, kicking up a cloud of sand and dust. Ki No spat out the partticulate matter. There were five, he double counted.

Then he counted again.

“I’ll bet you a week with the spear that I get three of them !”He yelled to his sister as she ran alongside him. He didn’t need to specify. Both siblings knew which spear was in play, intimately.

The hulking mountains of rocks joined by qi finally took notice as they closed in.

“Two weeks !”She yelled back.

“You’re on !”

He drew his short spear, cyling qi into his core. His first jump took him nearly three hundred meters and he cursed, as the monsters nearly clipped him with it’s arms. When he landed on the opposite side, he was pleased to see that Ah Le was taking her time. That suited him. He enjoyed Sa Kons company more and more. Someday he hoped to learn the secret to make his own funny talking spear. But for now ? He’d have to work with Betsy, his old trusted short spear.

“Okay Betsy. lets pierce some rocks !” he said, jumping into it.

This time, he didn’t miss.

However, this time the monster wasn’t really looking at him so he had an easier target. The larger the being, the longer it usualy took to right itself to the situation at hand. Scouts leved the benefits of being fast almost to the exclusion of any other skill and it was particularly well suited for the kind of fighting that he wanted to do.

This time his spear pierced the heart and he cursed.

A higher level cultivator woul be able to get a better read on where the beasts core was.

Disable to core, and you can bring it down, no matter how big. Provided you could hit the core. That or destroying or filling the qi channels of the beast would both do well. The worst part was that Sa Kon gave him some help sensing where cores usuallly were.

The monster has was on lurched backwards at Ki No retracted his spear. Flakes of rock fell off, but he was nowhere near the core.

The rock monster swung, and Ki No jumped, this time directly down in between it’s feet.

It slowly bent to smash him with it’s rocky armlike appendage. The beast had two legs, but only one arm, but Ki No wasn’t going to judge. Behind him, Ah Le started throwing snowballs filled with concentrated qi, hitting two of the rock demons.

Where were the other two ?

Ki No looked up in surprise, then rolled out of the way as three of them converged on him.

He probably should have been paying attention to where they were in relation to him. All three of his turned to face him as he launched a few of his own qi snowballs. The basic technique of the Cold Steel school he’d learned helped to slow down his enemies. Ah Le beat them back and together between him slowing them and her pushing them back, their tandem work was usually enough to get them somewhere good.

Apart? He jumped, then caught a rocky arm to his side as two of them weren’t slowed enough. The blow threw him dozens of meters away and then the monsters advanced on his postion.

Then one dropped mid stride as the other two kept running.

Ah Le was standing, triumphantly on top of the one.

“Damn you ! That one was mine!” he said, gathering qi.

With an explosive force, he shapeda ray of cold, doubling his usual effort to slow down one of the two that was charging him. Then, he jumped up and over, as the fast one kept running to where he was.

It would have been terrible for him to be exactly where his enemies wanted him to be, and he left his signature move in place.

An after image of Ki No sat just a few seconds longer as Ki No plunged Betsy into the slowed beast in front of him.

If only he had his nascent soul, this would finally be easy. He was so close, and Elder Jessica would be so proud, not to mention if he got ahead orf Ah Le ? She would never hear the end of it.

Behind him, Ah Le’s two previously distracted rock demons charged at her as she sat over their first downed comrade.

She sighed and kicked off jumping straight up as the two collided on top of the one she’d destroyed.

Ki No cursed, he knew this technique and he was about fed up with her try hard ‘make this look easy’ technique. He knew it had a different name, it was no speed after image of course. He didn’t deign to give her special path techniques names.

Once again, he came back with nothing. Flecks of rock filled his vision, as he pulled back and tried for another. The situation was enough to make a fourth realm cutivator well, fight harder.

This time, he reached out with his budding spiritual sense, as he tried to get a bead on where the massive beasts core was. It wasn’t next to him, and it was trying to turn as he dragged out his search. A large bright vein of qi struck him as a good start and he thrust his spear deep into the rock using a big expenditure of energy to get it just right.

This time, stones flew as he disrupted a giant meridian, exposing the inner rock. He almost jumped for joy, but then the other rock creature was on him.

Ki No blocked the giant strike, it was like fighting a thrown boulder.

Now where were those aunties with their special exploding sandals when you need them ?

Rather than catching it he instead parried the blow, pushing an enormous amount of qi into his deflection. He could use Sa Kon to refill his core and…

He realized that it wasn’t an option right now as he shunted the energy to redirect the blow down and into the slowed rock demon.

Rock crushed rock and with his budding spiritual sense wide open, he could sense meridians smashing into each other.

He would get his one. He looked over to see Ah Le standing triumphantly over the other one that had been chasing her.

His sister had downed two already and he was still working on his first.

“This does not rock !” He said, flipping off the mound of rock demons and then pulling qi into a heavy drop. He would skewer two of them together if he could just…

There is the core.

He found it, and in aiming directly for it, he adjusted his heading, and dropped like a stone.

Stone breaks rock !

Qi vented from his meridians as he carved through the top two rock demons like a knife through yak butter. Around him, he pulled cold aura back in, trying to replenish what he’d lost as he carved a hole a meter wide through three rock demons, landing heavily.

His core was nearly empty as he jumped out. Better to not be in the middle of two living rock beasts as they re-assembled themselves.

The one in the center twitched, but the one on top didn’t move. A rock sandwich in front of him, Ki No thought hard about his options. With barely any qi, he would be relying on his physical strength from his dantian to cut through the rock.

The meat of the rock sandich stirred, attempting to bench press the top loaf of bread off. It didn’t move much. Whether is was a matter of loss of qi, or it’s meridians leaking like a sieve, it didn’t matter. Ki No was ready.

This damn beast wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Ki No flexed his spear arm, getting into first position. As the beast got prepared to roll out, he searched out, trying to find a meridian to attack.

“If I can’t get your core, I’m going to hit you hard where it hurts. You’re going to leak qi !” He said, advancing.

“Silly brother, rocks are for kicks,” Ah Le said, as she axe kicked a large section of rock away from the struggling beast.

Living rocks crumbed away from her as the rock dust coated her yak fur coat. She shielded her eyes, nose and mouth as he saw his opening.

Ki No charged in, looking for a thick vein of qi, and in finding two he took the higher one. Scouts always loved some high ground.

A large rock hand swiped at him, and he barely moved out of it’s way, looking for some way to get through to it. Was he ready for another swipe ? Ki No paused before the second swipe went to where he was about to go.

Ki No advanced and once more threw everything he had into a strike. The trickle of qi he was able to get pushed through him as he spent it all. His core was empty as Betsy went straight through to a meridian. The damn thing wasn’t feeling that at all and as it thrashed about, it finally dislodged the dead rock monster on top of it.

Ki No ran out of the blast zone as a storm of cold dry sand kicked up, obscuring his view. The rock beast would not have any problems and he stepped further back, looking for cold aura to pull in and cycle through.

A wall of sand pelted him with a thousand tiny blows, buffeting him back away from the beast. An enormous amount of qi flattened him as Ah Le jumped to be next to him. Ah Le circled her spear protecting them from the onslaught of sand, pushing a protective shield in between them and the enraged beast.

The rock monster, now a pocked mess of rage and energy and few rocks roared as it’s qi pushed Ki No further back. Then, it really attacked, throwing everything at the spear siblings.

A boulder smashed through the wall of sand. It cut a clear afterimage as Ah Le deflected it, pushing it to the side. Another boulder followed up right behind it, as Ki No ducked.

“It’s throwing the bodies of it’s dead buddies at us !” He yelled, trying to make himself heard through the loud sandstorm.

“You think ?” She yelled back.

“Ha Ha .”He gave a dry laugh, as in fact his lips were considreably drier than they had ever been.

He was also considerably thirstier than he’d been in a long time. He briefly considered grabbinghis waterskin, but that could probably wait until they were victorious.

Another boulder, this one larger than the last came through the sandstorm, as they caught a brief glimpse through it.

“Jump !” She said, and he did, flying up and over as the rock monster barreled through them, or at least his weak afterimage.

“That was the last of my qi ! My core is empty!” He said.

“Sound like you’re about to lose!” She replied.

They landed on the other side as the sandstorm only kicked up further. Ah Le tracked something with her face. Ki No was glad that she was on his side.

“Do you see it ?” He said.

“Brother, I’m concentrating, and… JUMP!”She said.

The monster cleared through where they were again, and unfortunately for all it had lost it seemer to have sped up. The damn beast didn’t know when to quit.

“How ARE YOU DOING THAT?” He yelled, trying to make himself heard over the sandstorm, in midair. As a rock monster searched for them. The sand was stopping him from seeing everything, but Ah Le seemed to be able to pierce the crowd.

“It’s a trade secret!” she said, landing next to him.

“Let’s trade it then!” he replied.

She took off running, and he followed, grumbling.

“We have to get out of this storm!” she said, making sure that he was following.