“He’s actually still alive!!!” Kiso tilted his head back, shouting into the sky.

Chapter Twenty Nine -

The sudden realization that his grandfather was still alive caused Kiso's mood to soar.

He spent the entire week cultivating like a madman, fueled by the desire to rescue his mother and reunite with Mord. As his spiritual pressure grew more and more, Kiso couldn't help but feel at a loss. During previous cultivation, the bottleneck to the next stage was always somewhat in sight, yet now it was seemingly beyond the horizon.

Towards the end of the week, Kiso determined that spending the entire day cultivating was simply wasting precious time. Per the advice of Ned, he decided to venture off into the eastern mountains to hunt spiritual beasts.

Hunting spiritual beasts would serve as valuable fighting experience that Kiso desperately needed.

Much to Yuni's displeasure, Kiso casually informed her of his intentions the night before he set off. Without a word, he quietly slipped away, leaving her behind at the academy. Even though she would benefit from fighting the spiritual beasts as well, Kiso admittedly needed a break from her clingy nature.

Just like that, two weeks passed since Kiso defeated Hanzi.

- - - - -

Deep within the mountains east of the academy.

Kiso has been hunting spiritual beasts for several days now. Each and every core he acquired would be rapidly absorbed into his body even without his intention.

"Truly strange.. I don't even have to enter the meditative position to absorb these cores.. From what Elder Sage told me, everyone must make a mental effort to absorb them, so why don't I?" Kiso pondered heavily on this subject.

By now, he had a few ideas as to what might be causing it, but that spiritual beast Koho had passed him kept coming back into his mind. Especially recently, the more cores he absorbed, the more he can seemingly sense a strange spiritual pressure within his core.

Whenever Kiso looks for that spiritual pressure with his inner eye though, it's nowhere to be found.

"Whatever, it doesn't matter. These spiritual beasts are far too weak, I need to find some more powerful ones..." Kiso felt helpless regarding the cores but fighting experience was his true purpose in the mountains.

Crouching next to a small bush, Kiso spread out his spiritual pressure zone, searching casually around his area for strong spiritual beasts. His eyes suddenly lit up as a massive source of spiritual pressure entered the range of his detection.

"This is a big one..." Kiso took a deep breath and made his mental preparations.

As if he had never been there, his body flickered and disappeared, causing a few ignorant beasts that had been tailing him to blink twice.

Appearing on a large tree, Kiso stared down into the dimly light mountain forest, scanning the surroundings for the spiritual beast he had detected. He wanted to make sure it wasn't some insanely powerful beast before he did battle with it.

Although Kiso is powerful among the spiritual pressure cultivators of the world, when it comes to spiritual beasts, his power is average at best. Spiritual beasts have collectively cultivated for hundreds of thousands of years before the first human was able to sense the nature energy of the world.

The longer a spiritual beast cultivates, the stronger it becomes. There is no talent required of a spiritual beast in order to gain power, only time. Therefore, spiritual beasts are identified and categorized based on their lifespans.

A spiritual beast's lifespan can be identified by their size and species. A certain degree of knowledge regarding spiritual beasts is therefore necessary for anyone desiring to hunt them.

Looking down into the forest, Kiso quickly spotted the source of spiritual pressure he had detected. "Oh? So it's actually a Rank Four Mammoth Spider.." The massive spider came into Kiso's view as it dragged the carcass of another spiritual beast into a tree a few hundred meters away.

Spiritual beasts are generally ranked one through ten, with ten being the highest. A rank five spiritual beast can easily compare to a sixth stage spiritual pressure cultivator. Although the ranks do not directly translate to spiritual pressure stages, it's fairly close.

An Mammoth Spider also happens to be a darkness nature spiritual beast, exactly what Kiso has been hunting.

A fiery light in his eyes, Kiso shadow-stepped directly above the spider, pouring spiritual pressure into his hand. With a swift motion, he directly speared through the spider's skull, taking its life instantly.

"Still so weak.." Kiso could only sigh. Even a rank four spiritual beast doesn't possess the reaction speed or pure spiritual pressure to resist his attacks.

Carefully collecting the spider's core, Kiso once again helplessly stared as it crumbled through his fingers. By now, this scene could barely bother him.

Twisting his neck, Kiso stood up after leaning down to collect the spider's core. His eyes flashed with excitement as he felt the spiritual pressure of his next prey.

For almost two weeks straight, Kiso constantly shadow-stepped around the various mountains hunting spiritual beasts. There were a few rank five spiritual beasts Kiso came across, but he didn't dare to provoke them. Instead, he collected massive amounts of rank three and four beast cores.

Rumble...

After almost two weeks, each time a core crumbled and was absorbed into his body, his core rumbled as a strange sound could be heard echoing from within Kiso's body. If he was still hesitating before, that was no longer the case. Kiso was now certain that the cores he collected were directly being absorbed by the spiritual beast within him.

"Definitely getting close.." Kiso was feeling excited regarding the spiritual beast within him. He felt that gaining another ally in his battle against the Apostles of Death could only be considered a good thing.

Looking up from his now emptied hand, Kiso saw a familiar sight.

"Ah.. I've actually made it all the way back.." Kiso's heart started beating slightly faster.

He had completely immersed himself in detecting spiritual beasts and ruthlessly slaying them so much so that at some point he had become lost.

Now, standing atop a tall cliff above the carcass of a gigantic goat-like spiritual beast, Kiso could clearly see the academy in the clearing below.

"Ah? Who are they?" The momentary excitement of finding his way "home" quickly faded.

Thousands of little black dots could be seen clustered together in a marching formation, heading towards the southern gate of the academy.

The strange part was, the entire cluster of black dots was covered in a dome of transparent light.

Kiso's mind worked quickly and he instantly recalled the scars of battle that surrounded the academy walls.

"It seems Hanzi's old enemies are paying a visit..." Kiso's eyes narrowed. If he could avoid it, he really didn't want to add to his list of enemies at this point.

Regardless, he couldn't sit back and watch the innocent people he liberated become someone else's slaves. With that in mind, Kiso fixed his clothes and shadow-stepped a few times to bring his spiritual pressure zone into range of the approaching army.

After shadow-stepping three times, Kiso stood on a cliff overlooking the academy. The various figures of the approaching army were now completely visible.

"Hmm.. There are a few of them who have fairly strong spiritual pressures.. Although I can't say for sure how powerful they are... I still have to get better at sensing the various stages..." Kiso thought to himself. He could sense the general strength of spiritual pressure, but the exact stages were still too hard to grasp.

The reason behind this was actually rather simple. When Kiso's spiritual pressure envelopes another person or beast, he can detect its presence, but their respective spiritual pressures repel his own.

As Kiso scanned the academy, looking to see the reactions of the teachers and students, Kiso's eyes locked onto the southern wall.

Atop the wall, five black cloaked figures could be seen standing close together, looking out at the approaching army. What made Kiso's body shudder, was that these five seemingly had the same sort of aura as Hanzi.

"It can't be..." Kiso's brain attempted to reject the feeling in his heart, but the rejection was short lived.

Black smoke lashed out from those five figures, sending black serpent-like attacks against the dome of light. Each time those black serpents made contact with the light, the dome would shudder and flicker, threatening to dissipate, before recovering.

Suddenly, a soft girly voice rang out in Kiso's mind, "Kiso! Where have you been?!"

Yuni's figure descended from the sky above the mountains behind him, landing by his side. Her face was full of dissatisfaction, as it could be seen she felt wronged by Kiso's sudden departure.

Kiso's face revealed a bashful look, he couldn't help but feel his heart warm up. The two weeks he spent in the eastern mountains marked the first time they had been apart in years. Her constant presence had been something he had grown accustomed to.

"I was.." As Kiso started to answer, Yuni's face changed into a smile and she laughed.

She cut him off by shaking her head and saying, "I know.. To be honest, this time apart has been good for me too!"

A light flashed through her eyes, and prismatic lightning danced along her fingers as she twirled them in front of Kiso.

Raising an eyebrow, Kiso made a mental note to ask her about her gains later. For now, he was much more interested in the situation down at the academy.

"Yuni, it's good to see you too.. But, what's going on down there?" Kiso pointed towards the southern wall.

"Ah... That... Right... Umm, A couple days ago Yan suddenly came running into my room telling me to escape the academy and go find you.

Those five black cloaked guys are from Hanzi's sect. The one in the middle is even one of the thirteen elders, apparently.

When Yan came running, I originally just wanted to play with them a bit myself.. But she insisted that I couldn't handle him.. That he was at the sixth stage of spiritual pressure. A true immortal."

Kiso closely followed Yuni's words. When she spoke the final two sentences, his eyes widened and he couldn't help but take a closer look down at those black cloaked men.

"If it's like that... Then we should probably forget going back down there..." Kiso spoke softly under his breath. He knew his limits and right now someone at the sixth stage was most likely beyond him. Even if he shadow-stepped constantly and attacked from various angles, the difference in spiritual pressure might not be something he could overcome.

While Kiso was wrapped up in his thoughts, the army of light came within attacking distance of the southern wall. A booming drum rang out as the army halted its advance. Shouts could be heard along the front line as horses trotted up and down their ranks.

Several tens of seconds later, thunderous sounds of a deep pitched horn roared out as light began to swell in the air above the army. Thousands of white robed men and women lifted their hands above their heads, sending their light colored spiritual pressure into the air. As the light came together, it grew larger and larger until Kiso could visibly make out a gigantic spear.

The spear was formed from pure light energy and vibrated intensely causing the sky to distort around it.

Looking down at the gigantic spear, Kiso felt a warm energy flowing through his skin as the energy from it seemed to fill his body with power. Although it felt this way, there was in fact no change to Kiso's spiritual pressure.

While the army of light summoned the gigantic spear, those five black cloaked men did not sit idly by. Their own black spiritual pressure poured into the sky above them as well, forming a gigantic snake head. The snake head was formed entirely from smokey black spiritual pressure and gave those that saw it an extremely cold feeling. Just looking at it, even a ignorant child would be able to tell that it was pure evil.

A second, slightly higher pitched horn rang out and the spear started to rotate extremely fast before buzzing through the air towards that gigantic snake head.

As the spear drew close, the snake head's eyes flashed red and a deafening hiss could be heard filling the skies. The snake opened its giant maw and lashed out towards the spear.

The two gigantic spiritual pressure forms made contact in the open air between the two forces, causing massive shockwaves to emanate from it. Like a lightning strike, a vicious thunderclap sounded out as thousands of soldiers from the army of light fell on their asses. Even the five powerful figures from the Apostles of Death took several steps backwards.

After an instant of contact, to Kiso's surprise, the spear of light forcefully pierced through the snake's head and continued towards those five men. Although the spear was visibly weaker, Kiso thought for sure it still had enough power to claim victory.

However, right as the spear neared the air above the southern gate, space trembled and a large black field of light came into view momentarily before disappearing.

The spear had met some sort of protective barrier and completely dissipated.

The army must have known it was coming though, because as the first spear made contact with the protective barrier, a second was already being formed in the air above the army of light.

To Be Continued!