First Battle

The group of around twenty riders became clear in his vision. All men. Tall and robust, laughing and cursing as they moved. Their horses were two times bigger than normal steeds. The creatures of Burning Wilds. He wondered how these barbaric people tamed them.

Qin Meng peeked at the riders from behind the boulder, though he dared not to reveal himself. It was a lawless place without any rule, or order—strength ruled here and weakness was the greatest sin in this barren land.

Though this place was under Yorel, no one cared about it. Criminals ran rampant and killed and raped, it was a lawless place, nor anyone wanted to establish law here. It was a desert without fertile land, and due to the harsh environment and occasional beast tides, it wasn't suitable for normal humans to live.

The kingdom didn't establish any post here, either, as it had no use. No kingdom would be able to cross—neither would they cross—the desert with a large army to attack Yorel. The Burning Wilds was a natural barrier that protected it.

The place where anyone could adventure. Of course, not many had the guts to do it.

"Have you confirmed it?" The riders stopped on the other side of the boulder, and the leading man asked from his horse. He'd a large sword on his back, and a deep and ugly scar on his face. He appeared quite powerful with that ferocious look on his face.

"Yes, Boss," said one of the riders from beside him. "All the beasts are rushing towards the Burning Mountain Range. There must be a treasure."

"Alright, let's go," said the leader and heeled his horse into motion. His companions followed him from behind, shouting, laughing, and cursing, until they vanished on the horizon and amidst the steep dunes.

Qin Meng's eyes flickered while thinking about the treasure, but then he shook his head. He'd be courting death if he went to confront these cruel and vicious veterans of the Burning Wilds with his puny strength. He sighed dejectedly and dropped the idea, not thinking about the treasure. Only the strong deserved to have treasures; for the weak, a fortune would be nothing but a disaster.

Just then he felt a movement behind him. He shivered and cold sweat trickled down his back. He turned around and his eyes widened. A scorpion. A giant scorpion, the size of a meter, was standing tall not far away from him, clenching a pair of nasty pincers, and waving its curved tail tipped with a venomous stinger.

Qin Meng stumbled back, placing his against the rock. His mind almost froze for a moment, but when the scorpions lunged towards him, he realized the gravity of the matter. He'd die if he continued to stand there without doing anything.

He attempted to activate a movement technique that he'd learned not too long ago, but due to fear and anxiety, he failed. How could he fail at this moment? In the end, he barely dodged the pincer onslaught by jumping to the side miserably. He avoided the attack!

Cold sweat crawled over his back.

The scorpion made a bizarre screeching noise from behind him when the pincer landed on the boulder, making tens of cracks on its surface. Qin Meng scrambled to his feet and peered at the scene in front of him; his face turned pale from sheer horror.

He'd never faced anything like this before. He failed to adjust himself according to the situation and neither was he able to calm down and think straight.

This was the Burning Wilds. The beast in front of him was the weakest creature that could be found here, a grade 1 monster, and he failed to deal even with such a weak creature.

How arrogant he'd been previously, believing he could traverse anywhere he wanted, just because he obtained a mysterious cauldron and had the potential to gain five Martial Spirits. However, he overlooked that potential was still just a potential, to utilize it, he needed to remain alive.

The scorpion screeched in that same strange noise and lunged again towards him. As the figure of the scorpion enlarged in Qin Meng's eyes, scene after scene started to flash in front of his eyes. All the things he'd gone through in sixteen years of his short life. Unable to cultivate, lost his parents, and extorted by others, and now he was about to lose the most important person in his life.

And when he'd just seen a hope to change his miserable fate, he was just a few feet away from losing his life.

No! He screamed inside his head and punched the incoming stinger that was covered in a deadly poison. His fist burst into flames and tiger roars echoed from the fire.

It was the battle skill he'd learned from Scripture Pavilion—Fire Tiger Fist. Low-grade human rank battle skill. He wanted to learn a higher-grade battle skill, but he wasn't strong enough to use them. It'd be just a waste of Credits and as well as of his time, so he dropped the idea.

"Bang!"

When the fist collided with the stinger, it produced a hissing sound. Qin Meng was pushed back five to six steps back while the scorpion was smashed on the ground like a sack of rice. Its poisonous stinger had been destroyed, and its body twitched in pain and misery as the blood splattered around. It couldn't even move anymore.

Qin Meng rushed towards the creature and finished it with another punch. He didn't want to give it even a paltry chance of making a comeback. Although there was some regret on his face—the most important part of the scorpion, its poisonous stinger, had been destroyed.

Qin Meng looked at his fist feeling a burning ache from it, it had turned blue. The poison was spreading in his entire hand. He hurriedly pulled out a healing elixir from his ring that he'd refined before, applied half of it on his fist, and drank the remaining portion. Then he used his Martial Spirit to clean the poison from his body. It didn't take long for the poison to vanish.

He wiped the sweat off his temples and collapsed on the sandy ground.

After fifteen minutes he cleaned his duster which was covered in sand and wrinkles. He had killed his first beast, but it certainly wasn't the last.

His journey had just begun.