Chapter 5 - Through the Fire and Flames

Qing Shen was currently panicking more than she could feasibly hide. The hands that were holding onto the hastily breathing Li Ling had instead reached towards the guandao on her back, holding it as if to buffer the giant flaming tiger staring at them. Talismans had been scattered on the floor from her fumbling attempts at releasing her weapon, and they were now drifting closer to the dying inferno nearby.

Qing Shen had heard horror stories and all sorts of cautionary tales of corrupted beasts eating misbehaving children. It was the fear of their unknown prowess, and seemingly terrifying abilities, that was the catalyst for Qing Shen wanting to become an unstoppable immortal. Now, sitting feebly, in front of the blazing tiger, she felt that everything she had heard was all too insignificant in warning about the terror of the real thing.

The beast radiated oppressive strength with each simple step, and Qing Shen was forcing her body to stop its trembling. It felt like her entire soul was being yanked out from the close proximity to the beast even when they were a couple chi away from it.

The tiger had simply been staring at them, daring them to move, as it continued to swallow the now placid flames. Qing Shen felt that it only needed a brief moment for it to cross over to them and end them in an instant.

Her terror was slowly beginning to override her grasp of the area, and her mind was whirling about in trying to save herself. In this dangerous situation, her panic was slowly leading to an end that there was no escape from.

Then Qing Shen was startled by someone grabbing her arm. Li Ling had gotten lucid enough to finally move about, and had knowingly seen the predator stalking in front of them. What Qing Shen didn't expect was the fragile smile that held her face together.

"Go, Sister Shen…" Emotion choked her up for a second. "I'll… hold it off; you go get help. You're much faster than me here, so I won't have to hold on for long."

Qing Shen's mentality was slowly crumbling. She could only endure so much. Her roiling emotions accidentally caused her to brush up against a shield talisman, and her eyes burned as a wave of blue grain glowed brightly in front of her.

Sadly, the shield attracted the attention of the corrupted beast. It easily crossed the distance that separated them in only seconds, warm air billowing with each breath that it took. Qing Shen's heart fell into her throat as the large tiger seemed to study the bright blue sphere that currently surrounded them.

Then it raised a curious paw before the blue grains were then torn apart by the the orange veins that surrounded it. Qing Shen slowly began to realize that the blue grains were most probably Spiritual Essence, and that those orange veins were whatever corrupted beasts used.

A thought came to her as the feeling of her strength leaving her became stronger as the tiger grew closer. She quickly pulled her Spiritual Essence as close to herself as possible, and the feelings of terror and weakness were abruptly alleviated. Her inner turmoil hurriedly feld as her thoughts slowly became clearer. Qing Shen knew she needed to act fast when she began to glance around.

The tiger was curiously poking around the disintegrating barrier of Essence, and was distracted for a moment. Li Ling was slowly going into shock as whatever energy the corrupted beast was using was sucking the blue grains of Spiritual Essence from her faster than Qing Shen knew what to do about it.

Thinking on her feet, Qing Shen slapped another shield talisman down, and the tiger jumped back at the sudden intrusion like a startled kitten. If it wasn't such a dangerous situation she might have marveled at how such a creature looked cute for a second.

However, she didn't have that luxury. Quickly taking Li Ling into her arms, Qing Shen took off in the opposite direction of the corrupted beast while occasionally slapping down a shield talisman every few paces till she ran out, in the hopes to distract the beast.

Li Ling was weakly struggling in Qing Shen's arms, her voice squeaking for every twig or root her carrier stumbled over, "Sister Shen… stop… please just go."

"Hush you, that's just whatever the corrupted beast is doing to affect you. You need to hold your Spiritual Essence in; can you understand me Li Ling?" Qing Shen responded, listening as trees were toppling ever closer to them. The ground vibrated as an enormous roar caused the trees nearby to rattle incessantly. Li Ling just pleaded for her to leave her again.

Qing Shen was slowly growing to her wits end as more and more leaves drifted down from shaking branches. Her plan to have Li Ling run away while she held the corrupted beast back was slowly crumbling so long as her friend couldn't think past the fear that the beast instilled. The violent growling nearby wasn't helping her state of mind either, and she could only hold her Essence closers to herself.

The technique that she was unknowingly using to stop her Spiritual Essence from being swallowed by the corrupted beast was something she hadn't ever tried before. Her skill with it was rather abysmal, and it had the extra consequence of making her unable to strengthen her body with Spiritual Essence. Adding to the fact that she had no more talismans that could hopefully distract her pursuer without directly fighting it, Qing Shen was disliking her odds of running away with her friend. Li Ling's condition wasn't getting better as Qing Shen finally came to a decision. She only had to distract the beast away so that Li Ling could get better as she left the effects of having her Spiritual Essence stolen.

"I don't suppose you brought those lightning and cutting talismans that you told me about, right?" Qing Shen joked to her black haired friend. Li Ling groaned form her place on the ground.

"Right, I asked for too much…" Qing Shen's gaze trailed to the treeline, watching as a few fell to something traveling nearby. "When you can think straight again run back to the villa and get help. I'll be able to hold it off much better than you. Also… if I don't make it back... thanks for being my friend, Li Ling."

Qing Shen took off the next second. Packs on her hips were stocked with all the talismans she had ignored before as well as the ones that she had liberated from her friend. She had left some back with Li Ling just in case the girl was attacked on her way back, but had taken the rest. The cuts on her body were no longer bleeding, and the large gash on her thigh from the previous fight had gotten a fresh set of bandages. Her guandao hung limply on her back, its blade glinting in a shimmer of red from the uncleaned blood of the wolves from earlier.

Her charge took her to the fire tiger in only a few moments. The creature was rather distinctive with aurora of orange veins that glowed vehemently in the dark forest. The trail of fire on its spine flicked dangerously close to a few low hanging branches, but it seemed to bend out of the way in order to avoid spreading the fire. Baleful orange eyes locked onto her form the second she had appeared before it, anger straining them into feline slits. It growled menacingly, send trails of acrid smoke from between its teeth, before sniffing the air. Qing Shen realized that it was looking for Li ling as well.

"I'm right here!" Qing Shen had heard about how the corrupted beasts were intelligent to some degree, and hoped this would work. "And you won't get past me, you… stupid kitten!"

Qing Shen wanted to apologize right away for that horrible insult until she felt the intense glare of the tiger on her. She honestly didn't expect that to work, but wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Quickly, she grabbed her guandao and readied it in front of her. Internally she noted that the step to get the tiger's attention was complete, and hoped that she would survive the step to keep its attention away from her freind. Her blue eyes locked onto every move the beast made to carry out that objective.

The tiger slowly circled around her, as if assessing her as a threat now. Qing Shen could finally think through the fear aura the thing seemed to radiate now that she drew her Essence inwards, and could subtly tell that its strength was above hers, though only barely. She had a chance.

Both of them shot into movement at some unknown signal. Qing Shen had dived behind a nearby tree before the tiger shot through it like it was only a minor obstacle, narrowly missing her as she had ducked low when it lost sight of her. Using the brief distraction of the pulverized tree, Qing Shen swung her guandao towards the beast.

The blade struck true, its edge slamming into the underside of the tiger's coat. However, it didn't bite deep into the soft tissue like it had with the wolves. Instead the weapon rattled fiercely as if it had struck a large slab of iron.

Qing Shen bit her lips, keeping her hands held tightly to her weapon, as the pain from the recoil subsided. She hadn't expected to kill it with that attack, but had hoped that she would at least do something other than cut a small red line into its hide. The cut didn't even bleed!

Still, if the tiger wasn't thoroughly enraged by Qing Shen's insult, it definitely was now. In a show of pure physicality the tiger spun in midair and slammed one paw on a nearby tree, breaking it in the process, but then sent itself straight into the ground. The second its front paws burst into the solid ground, dirt, branches, and stone were sent careening towards Qing Shen like it had just shoved ten explosion talismans into the earth and set them off. Then the ground below Qing Shen glowed bright red with fiery anger.

Qing Shen had seen everything happen through her eyes, and was learning that her special Essence Vision was rather useful. When the tiger had struck the ground, Qing Shen had saw how some of the orange veins on its paws lit up before sending a few threads of malevolent light right beneath her. If she hadn't seen that, Qing Shen might have only tried to dodge the flying pieces of deadly ground while whatever was sent underneath her had landed. With her knowledge, she easily ducked under the attacks before leaping away from where she had been previously standing as a pillar of heat and flame rose up from the ground like a miniature volcano.

A few trees caught on fire from the attack, and Qing Shen watched as the tiger hurriedly rose to swallow the growing forest fire. She realized that it had done that with the forest fire she had created earlier. If anyone looked now they probably would've seen her grinning like a villain as a horrendously stupid idea came to her.

"Hey, big baby kitten! Your fire is weaker than a candle!" Qing Shen taunted once again, hiding a cringe as she hoped no one ever heard her insults. Her words still gather their intended results of causing the tiger to face her with murder in its eyes. However, it quickly returned to finishing off the dying embers around it, as if she was only a minor annoyance. Qing Shen decided that she wanted to prove it horribly wrong.

Qing Shen's smile brightened as she drew a couple fireball talismans in one hand. She took a few words from her friend's advice now and decided to make everything explode or set it one fire. The talismans in her hands activated, and she sent fireballs haphazardly around the area like an indiscriminate demon. The forest blazed into a new inferno as the tiger jumped up, trying to put out the fire to what Qing Shen now assumed was its home. She didn't question why a tiger that looked like it was made of fire would be living in a forest and shot into motion.

Qing Shen jumped at the tiger deciding that it was time to change the position of who exactly was the predator. Running quickly through a series rising flames and the unbearable heat, Qing Shen found the large cat sucking down the flames around it as quickly as possible. She slapped an armed explosion talisman on the side opposite of her weapon's edge as she neared the frantic beast.

"One… Two…" Qing Shen counted the time for the talisman to blow. The tiger was too preoccupied to notice the hunter that had decided to run through the fire, sustaining serious burns and causing parts of their clothing to catch alight. "Three!"

With the final countdown, the talisman blew and Qing Shen's guandao shot forward with a speed that she couldn't hope to muster even at her strongest. The blade sank into the base where the its tail connect to its backside. Qing Shen grinned maniacally as her opponent roared in pain, distracting from its task to stop the fire as well as the many explosion talismans that Qing Shen slapped onto the small cut she had created earlier on its underside.

The corrupted beast only knew pain as it felt its magnificent tail thud to the ground behind it. In a fit of anger, it was stopped trying to protect the forest and swung one haphazard claw behind itself. It was only the fact that Qing Shen had gotten greedy after her first hit that the claw managed to slam into her stomach, gorging furrows into her muscle and sending trails of blood as she flew through the air. Then the talismans that she had stuck exploded in concussive booms of air.

Qing Shen coughed as her back collided with another tree before finally stopping. Blood filtered through her teeth as she gasped in pain. In the distance she could see the forest fire slowly losing its fuel, dying down to occasional plumes of cascading embers.

She grimaced in the direction that she had been sent from; her eyes tracing through the few trees that she snapped in half on her forced flight to her current destination. She had heard the huge blast that was the explosion talismans she had stuck earlier, and desperately hoped that her last attack that dealt the final blow.

After a few silent moments of stifled, hoarse breathing, Qing Shen began to patch up the profusely bleeding gashes on her stomach that were added to her growing plethora of wounds. She took a roll of fresh bandages she had taken from Li Ling earlier, and decided that she would bring more supplies next time she went out.

Her plans and wrappings were interrupted as the earth trembled beneath her. Her eyes caught the signs of orange lines spreading out under her, and she took off despite the pain that lanced through her. The previous resting place that she had taken to for the past couple minutes erupted in a large gout of angry red flame that burst forth from the earth, sending hot dirt and flaming twigs every which way.

"Can't you wait a couple minutes…" Qing Shen moaned, no longer caring for how she might've looked if anyone saw that she was basically speaking to herself at this point.

Her now mortal enemy stalked unsteadily from between the growing flames that now were growing around each step it took. She watched as the orange veins around its paws glowed without end as its path was illuminated by the uncaring embers. The forest around it suffered in the corrupted beast's rage as blood pooled in small streams from a large wound on its underside that sometimes caused small fires of their own, telling Qing Shen that its blood was as hot as the flame it burned with. Whatever reason it had for protecting the forest now was long gone and replaced with pure anger directed at Qing Shen.

Qing Shen jumped aside again as the place she had been subjected to the bursting pillar of flame treatment again. The tiger charged her again in the distraction it caused, and she was forced to slam her body into the ground it leaped over her. Burning paws just tickling her back as it desperately clawed at her as it passed.

She quickly shot up and in the opposite direction of the anger fueled fire tiger. Her eyes caught the line of orange formed under her feet, and she was forced to hurriedly limp away from explosive emergence of a pillar of fire. Her panicked blue eyes glanced behind her as the tiger failed to spin around like it had once so impressively done before and chase her. It still managed to turn and accomplish the task, but it wasn't as adept at turning anymore.

Qing Shen knew she had to fight. She couldn't keep running as her blurring vision due to blood loss was definitely not helping in any way, and she was sure that she would win out in attrition anytime against the enraged beast. The constant forest fire that inevitably surrounded the tiger as it chased her was also making it increasingly hard for her to dodge around in without risking serious burns. Counting that she had twelve more explosive talismans, Qing Shen quickly formulated a plan in her head.

Qing Shen spun around a couple of trees as her pursuer blasted past her in an uncoordinated charge that uprooted a few trees in its way. A grin pressed itself into her face as she weaved between a couple more trees, causing the tiger to bash through a few more to get to her. It was slowing down.

Still, Qing Shen didn't attack yet. In the two life or death fights she had been in, including this one, she had learned that acting rashly would get her injured badly. As such, she just kept weaving circles around the angered corrupted beast that kept charging through more vegetation. Every once in awhile it would send one of its fire pillars underneath her, but since they had a long activation time, and that she could identify them easily with Essence Vision, Qing Shen could easily dodge them. The only worrying thing was the growing fire that was now surrounding them.

However, instead of feeling stifled by the growing flames, Qing Shen finally jumped into a clearing that was rife with depressions where trees were forcefully uprooted, and grinned as she saw that there was barely anything to catch fire in the small area she had cleared with the help of an angered tiger. Her adversary limped into the clearing as well, glaring at her with uncontained hatred. The fire that normally trailed after it was failing to catch onto the dirt, charred bark and burnt twigs nearby. Then came the moment of truth as Qing Shen watched the beast square up against her in fireless clearing instead of running off and attacking with those fire pillars whilst it hid in the forest fire.

Qing Shen gripped her guandao as it was finally time to attack.

Both of them breathed in harsh, hurried gasps, studying each other to find some mortal weakness that they could exploit. The final conclusion to their struggle was finally coming to a close, and the first to act was the corrupted beast.

It opened its hateful jaws and, to Qing Shen's utter annoyance, a stream of white, hot flame burst forth like a raging river coursing onwards. Its head swiveled, trying to lock onto the diving Qing Shen, until the energy used in the attack was finally used up.

Qing Shen didn't even bother for the small flames that had caught onto her clothes, and rush the tiger as fast as she could. The beast was also moving after its attack had finished. However, whatever that last attack was it ate up energy, and Qing Shen noted that the orange veins that surround it were much duller than they first were. She easily caught up to her prey.

An explosion talisman was placed on her guandao in the same idea as earlier, and she timed her swing so that it set off at the apex of her swing. The blast sent it into the back leg of the tiger as it roar. This time the blade only reached partway into its flesh, creating a sizable wound, but it still wasn't that great. Blood as hot as fire streamed down its leg, and Qing Shen hurriedly kept the wooden parts of her guandao away from it.

However, the damage she had cause wasn't on her mind, Qing Shen was too busy with dodging the retaliatory swipe to even care for how effective her attacks were. She was slowly growing into a trance that was spurred by her blood loss, instincts, and cultivating talent. Her movements were all calculated. She stuck close to the body of the beast, feeling the fur that was basically scorching, as she slapped another explosion talisman on her guandao. After her attack finished another angry, red line would appear on the tiger's hide before beginning to bleed. It would attack like she expected only to once again come up short as she rolled, ducked, dived and threw herself out of the way.

Like a rotating cycle, she continued her assault while under her trance. Her eyes wandered along the orange veins that surrounded the beast, and she somehow felt that they represented something. A system of sorts. It too was a continuous cycle that repeated on a different energy source. Qing Shen felt her Meridians throb as the thought struck her. Spiritual Essence roiled inside her, cycling unrelentlessly in an effort to copy the veins it saw on the tiger.

Normally, when one wanted to step through the threshold of the Cycling Essence stage they must achieve some epiphany, or revelation, to understand the process as well as needing Spiritual Essence in excess. Qing Shen had been holding her Spiritual Essence back the entire fight for fear of her Spiritual Essence leaving her and making her weak, and she had an above average amount of Essence in her body from submerging herself into the overflow of Spiritual Essence two weeks earlier. Just now, she had finally understood the concepts needed to full realize what one must do when putting their Essence into a cycle.

Her movements slowly began to increase in speed in force as her body adapted to the sudden breakthrough to the Cycling Essence stage, and the corrupted beast could only cry out in pain as soon her regular attacks were adding bleeding cuts to its once pristine skin. It tried in futility by sending wild swipes in every direction. Qing Shen easily avoided them as her eyes caught sight of something building up beneath the two of them.

She hurriedly leaped back as a much larger pillar of fire burst forth. Qing Shen was forced to cover her face as debris swirled around the clearing. Her attention was grabbed as the blade from her guandao finally broke under the continuous explosions that it sustained.

Then a gout of white fire streamed forth from within the debris, and Qing Shen was diving away a second later. Her eyes caught that nearly all the orange veins within the debris were all dull except ones where the white flame was coming from. In fact, it seemed as if the orange veins were directing all their energy towards that one spot.

She didn't have time to think of that any further as she was diving away once again from the white, hot flame as the tiger had decided to start spinning, causing the gout of fire to stream throughout the clearing. Qing Shen quickly found her back pressed closer to the forest fire that wasn't dying out around their arena, and was only saved when the stream of flame ended. However, her eyes caught the fact that there were lines of orange spreading like a terrifyingly slow parasite underneath the entire clearing.

"I really don't like you." Qing Shen glared at the origin of the lines as she hurriedly ran towards the center where an extremely injured tiger lay. Its orange eyes bored into her with an unprecedented rage that screamed that it would try to kill itself to kill her.

Her mind whirled on how to save the situation, and she came to the solution that she had to kill it faster than it kill her. It looked like it was putting all of its orange energy into its attack; as its orange veins were slowly winking out of existence as if they were never there. Then an idea came to mind as she approached the tiger that hadn't even moved as she drew near.

She drew out the last of her explosive talismans, wrapped them around the sharp stick that was what was left of her guandao, and kicked the tiger in the eye. Qing Shen knew that, even with her new strength, she wouldn't be able to pierce deep enough to kill it in one shot, so she improvised.

"I'm too expensive for you to kill." Qing Shen announced while remembering the conversation she once had with Li Ling's mom. And as the tiger opened its maw to roar in pain, Qing Shen had already armed the talismans and shoved the stake into its jaws.

"One…" She began as it gagged, trying to take out the obstruction to its throat. Without looking back, Qing Shen ran towards the lowest flames that surrounded the clearing. They were still dangerously high, and undoubtedly hot, but Qing Shen paid that no mind in the moment.

"Two…" Qing Shen whispered as she brought out the Spiritual Essence that she had held close the entire time. She briefly saw fluorescent blue veins surround her form before she jumped through the fire that served as the boundary for the fight.

Qing Shen didn't finish counting before two blasts rang out simultaneously. The first was muffled, as if something was in the way before it blew. The next one rattled the surroundings and sent a huge pillar of fire spiraling at least a li into the sky. Its blast sent earth, trees, and a stifling heat everywhere in a wave of unparalleled power.

Qing Shen didn't know if she had passed out at some point, but she didn't feel like moving from her spot, half covered by dirt and charred twig. Her tired eyes, however, locked onto the angel that had come to rescue her after all the hard work was done. His brown eyes and hair swayed in her blurry vision, and a proud smile was currently spread on his face.

"You look like you had fun." He remarked as Qing Shen realized that she had been grinning the entire time she had lay there.

She huffed, knowing that maybe she had a little fun despite almost dying. Her mind quickly came up with the only worry she currently had, "Li Ling?"

"Other than trying to come back here and get you, Miss Li is fine. Though she is a quite a bit exhausted as she had sprinted all the way back to the villa despite being already exhausted and wounded. You're lucky I had giant pillars of fire to find you, or else you would've been here for awhile." Zhang Yong said.

Qing Shen just grunted, hoping that counted as an answer. Then she fell asleep then and there, knowing that she would be safe so long as Zhang Yong was there.