Chapter XXVIII: Demonic Beastmen I

Demonic Wildlands Near the Great Plateau

Month of the Garuda 37, 172 ,328 DE

Chug-chug-chug-chug-chug!

When we enter the glade surrounding the Great Tree and the Swords Temple, the roar of our steamer bike engines echo strangely. While it is only a side effect of the Power field, the Great Tree uses to conceal itself, Aoi clings more tightly to my back and shivers.

I stop my steamer bike a hundred meters from the Swords Temple. As Vorn pulls his steamer bike up next to mine, Aoi surprisingly lets go of me and get off my bike. Vorn stares at the temple, and Aoi stares at the tree. After a few moments, Vorn stares up at the Great Tree like Aoi.

"Why didn't we see something so big before we reached this clearing? There were enough gaps in the forest canopy that we should have seen this from at least two or three leagues away."

The league is a measure of distance, a somewhat arbitrary measure, used in the Dunkle Sonne Empire and some of the Jewel Kingdoms. The unit is supposed to measure the distance a man can walk in an hour. But different men can walk different distance. In some places, a league is around three to four kilometers, and in other, a league is nine to ten kilometers. Since Vorn is from Amber, his usage of the league should be closer to ten kilometers.

"The tree didn't want you to see her. She's an old tree and picky about who she lets get near her."

A storm of leaves rains down on me.

"She also hates being called old. But she's older than Old Man Jones, which puts her somewhere between venerable and ancient."

Thud.

I step to the side, dodging a falling, dead branch as thick as my forearm.

"Pervert Master shouldn't call a lady old!" Aoi glares at me.

Vorn chuckles. "If you don't learn how to treat a woman, you'll even lose your little girlfriend before you know it."

After staring at Vorn for a moment, Aoi turns up her nose. "Aoi doesn't like old men. Or nobles."

Seeing Vorn's disgruntled expression, I laugh. "You're looking like mud."

Vorn snorts. "You just collect abnormal women."

While Aoi runs over to the Great Tree, I head into the temple, and Vorn follows me. As soon as he sees the swords, he stares at them with a rapt expression on his face, and almost as though he is in a trance, he walks to the block of metal with the swords in it. He tries to grab the hilt of one of the swords, but his hand stops dead about fifteen centimeters away from it.

With a feeling of surprise filling me, I move to the block of metal and grab the hilt of the sword without difficulty. I still cannot pull it out. I will not budge even a millimeter. As I release the hilt, Vorn tries to grasp it, once more, but his hand gets no closer than fifteen centimeters. Making a fist, he throws a heavy punch at the sword hilt.

Dong.

With a sound like metal hitting metal, his fist slams to a halt. The skin on his knuckles splits and blood splatters. In empty air, the blood looks like it smears across a curved pane of glass surrounding the swords. I poke my finger through some of the blood, and my finger comes out the other side without so much as a speck of the blood sticking to it. Raising my finger, I leave a streak of blood in the empty air.

"What the fuck?" Confusion fills Vorn's voice and his scent.

"No clue." As I think about it, I cannot recall Old Man Jones ever trying to draw out the sword, and he is the only person who has ever entered the temple with me.

I put on a mocking smirk. "Maybe, they just don't like smug cats."

Glancing at me, Vorn frowns. "If they don't like me, they sure as hell wouldn't like a thick-headed hog like you."

"Don't be jealous."

"Who's jealous?"

"We never settled our fight."

Vorn's eyes narrow, and he cracks his knuckles. "No. We didn't."

"You should keep that armor on. You'll need it."

"Asshole pig." Vorn takes off his chainmail and the leather doublet beneath it.

There is no question Vorn is big. He stands two meters tall, if he is a centimeter, and weighs at least a hundred-fifty kilograms. I give up a solid twenty centimeters and twenty to thirty kilograms against him, but height and mass do not win a fight. It all depends on how you use it.

As we square off, I sink part of my awareness into myself and feel the faint flow of Trinity. That shitty old man said I need to become a Triune, and he is right. I cannot progress with my Coalescence before becoming a Triune. In a fight with Vorn, my life will not be on the line, but he should push me to my limits. It might give me an opportunity to grasp control over Trinity.

Vorn throws a straight punch, simple, fast, and hard. I parry and return a faster jab. Vorn takes it in the open palm of his right hand and grunts.

"You were holding back on me."

I sneer. "I told you I had a breakthrough with my Body Forging."

Vorn replies with a string of fast, hard punches. I parry or slip all of them and return mostly jabs, with a few crosses and kicks mixed in. Vorn either blocks my attacks or moves enough to cause them to slide off without causing real damage.

Other than Old Man Jones, who taught me, I have yet to encounter anyone that uses a fighting style like boxing or kickboxing. The style usually throws off an enemy's timing, but Vorn fights like he has been dealing with kickboxers his entire life. Some of my punches or kicks land solidly, but nowhere near as many as I would like.

As we fight, Vorn's attacks become heavier and harder. It takes more strength to block them, and some get through my defenses. I do not take much damage, but the Trinity within me flows thicker and stronger. I still cannot grasp it. I can only watch it.

More than ten minutes pass, and neither of delivers a telling blow. I can do nothing more than watch Trinity flow through me.

I flash a mocking grin at Vorn. "You're a Cultivator, but you're not using your Yuan Qi. If you keep fucking around like this, you'll never make me get serious."

"Why would I need to use Yuan Qi against a hog that can't Cultivate? You can't even be called a Ferocious Beast, just a farm animal."

I do not waste more words exchanging taunts. I take a step forward, and with the strength of my entire body driving it, my right leg lashes out like a whip.

Crack.

My kick slams into Vorn's thigh, and before he can stabilize himself, he staggers three steps to his right. As a cold look flashes in his eyes, Mana flows through his body and pools in the thigh I kicked. He lunges toward me. His arms swing at me from outside to inside, and the hazy outlines of a bear's paws appear to surround his hands.

I spring forward and at a shallow angle to Vorn's line of travel. While dodging one of his attacks by a hairsbreadth, I parry the other. The surprising force behind the blow knocks me slightly off course, and my punch to Vorn's side turns into little more than a playful slap. I spin around to meet Vorn's next attacks and thrust my leg up in a kick to his chest. My kick knocks Vorn back, but his fingers rake my thigh like claws, leaving behind bloody furrows.

Pausing our attacks, Vorn and I stare at one another. Neither of us is pleased by the exchange. Vorn's scent reveals irritation and frustration. Sullen anger over not being able to grasp control over Trinity flares inside of me.

Riding the tide of my anger, thick threads of Trinity flow into my thigh. The ragged furrows stop bleeding, and my muscles swell with strength they never had before. As the thick threads of Trinity continue to move though my Body, all of my muscles swell and throb with newfound strength.

Emotion. Ki responds to emotion. The stronger your emotions, the more effectively you can use Ki. Is Trinity the same? Is emotion the key to controlling it?

I am always angry. I have a lifetime of pent up anger toward the Daos and the Dragon Gods. I slacken the tight reins I keep on my anger. I let a bit of it run free, and seeming to come from the depths of my Soul, a thicker flow of Trinity sweeps through my Body, boosting my strength and speed.

I lunge at Vorn and unleash a combination of jabs, crosses, and hooks. He cannot match my speed and nearly half of my blows land. As the force behind my punches drives him back, one step at a time, his eyes widen in surprise, but he digs in his heels and fights back.

The Mana in Vorn's Body flows more strongly, but it feels odd. A dim red glow burns in the depths of his eyes and beneath the skin of his chest and arms. His speed doubles, but the force behind his blows remains mostly unchanged. My punches still force him back. He scowls, and another Power flows within him, Ki.

The Cultivators of the Great Plateau normally call Ki Spirit Force or Soul Force. Beyond making direct attacks on the Soul of another, they have no real idea how to use it, but Vorn proves different. As the Ki flows through his Body, he begins to change. His shoulders hunch. His muscles thicken. Red fur sprouts from his visible skin, and claws sprout from his fingertips. He used a transformation powered by Ki.

Vorn's strength explodes to a level I cannot possibly match in my human form. At least, I cannot match it as I am. He stops punching. He swipes his arms at me in the manner a bear would swipe with its front legs. His blows batter me about like a leaf in a storm. Luckily, he uses closed fists and not his claws. I try to dodge Vorn's attacks, but his Martial technique still boosts his speed. His blows break through my blocks like they are nothing.

My anger flares, but I still have no more luck with Trinity. It flows a little more strongly, but I have no control over the Power. Emotion appears to be only a part of the puzzle behind grasping Trinity.

A translucent form appears between us. The naked girl looks to be around fifteen years old in human terms. Compared with humans, her heart-shaped face could be considered beautiful, but the cast of her features does not resemble the people of the Heian Kingdom. Perfectly balanced muscles cover her slender limbs and torso. Her brown skin bears the same shade as the bark of the Great Tree, and dark green hair bears the same shade as the tree's leaves. To use shitty old man speak, the carpet matches the drapes.

However, the girl gives off no scent. She has the feel of the Great Tree, but she is only a projection.

I narrow my eyes. "What do you want, Old Tree?

The pout on the girl's face can only be called cute. "Obnoxious Wolf! Do you want more punishment?"

As the Great Tree labels me a wolf, Vorn's muscles tense. Two words burst so softly from his lips that they sound more like an exhalation than speech. "Great Wolf."

I look at Vorn, and he returns my stare with a frank, open gaze. His scent contains not even the slightest hint of hostility. Judging by his expression and scent, he should be pleased and excited.

"Child of the Great Bear, one of your kind has turned to the evil of the Primal Powers. She has become a lack of those fallen to the corruption of Chaos, and one of her masters has come to my grove with an army of Demonic Beastmen."

Surprise and anger fill Vorn's scent, and he clenches his fist tightly. "She is the shame of Clan Bjornsonner. I have come here to kill her."

The Great Tree's projection scoffs. "You are too weak to kill her and far too weak to kill her master. But you can serve a purpose. If you and this son of the Great Wolf can kill enough Beastmen to draw out the master behind your clan's shame, I can act to destroy it."

I frown. "Why would us killing Beastmen draw out the master behind them?"

With a smug expression, the Great Tree's projection turns toward me. "The master does not know my strength. The wards surrounding my grove were placed by Life herself. At best, the master would know that I am a sapling of Yggdrasil, but as this Realm does not lie beneath the umbrella of Yggdrasil's leaves, it can only guess at my Power. If it thinks I need a pair of half-grown Great Beast to defend myself, it will grow confident."

The Great Tree pauses for a moment. "Just having the last Great Wolf run amok may be enough to draw out the master. I sense that it has Draconic Blood within it."

I stare coldly at the Great Tree's projection. "Is my mother dead?"

"I do not know. But I have lost touch with the sense of all Great Wolves but for you. If they live are no longer upon this world."

Locking down the feeling of emptiness that wells within me, I look at Vorn. "Let's hunt Beastmen."

Vorn reveals a predatory grin. "It's been too long since I had a good hunt."

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