G. Tolley
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Chapter 456 – Life 117, Age 21, Martial Master Peak
🕑 Added 2026-01-05 14:28:53 +0000 UTCIt was only the morning of our fifth day in the Shattered Blades Realm, and our stronghold had already been demolished by a giant Rank 3 demon bear. If this was the warm-up, then what would the beast tide throw at us? Rank 4 beasts? Rank 5? How were we supposed to survive such monsters? How was anyone?
Our Disciples had only been able to bring down that bear thanks to their formation-enhanced weapons, but those weapons were only Rank 2. Would such weapons even be able to scratch a Rank 4 beast? Even if they could, how were we supposed to hit such a creature?
I could try using soul techniques, but these beasts were just illusions. Would soul attacks do any good? More to the point, if I did use a soul attack, would I be attacking the beasts, or would I be attacking the soul of whatever high-level cultivator was behind this trial? This illusion had to be at least Rank 9. Could I survive the backlash from attacking the soul of an Illusion Ancestor? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t willing to find out.
So, what were our options? We could run and hide, but would that work? A few of us might survive, but all of us? No. For all of us to survive, we needed a defensible location that not even a Rank 4 beast could breach.
Finding such a location would be nearly impossible, but thankfully, that Rank 3 demon bear had brought us everything we needed to make one for ourselves.
One of our greatest challenges was a lack of resources. We hadn’t been allowed to bring any storage bags with us, and there was nothing of value in the forest aside from a smattering of low-level herbs. If I wanted to craft a defensive formation, I needed high-quality stones, and there were none available—until now.
Walking over to the half-buried corpse of the demon bear, I drew my guandao, activated its formations, and made a long, shallow cut down the grizzly’s left rear leg.
The beast was dead, but the wu that it had infused into its body remained, making it somewhat challenging to slice through the creature’s enhanced muscles. However, by tapping into my hide affinity, I was able to ease the fibers apart bit by bit until my guandao could slip in and complete the cut.
Layer by stubborn layer, I opened the leg and exposed the bone within.
The bear’s femur was more than two meters long and as thick as a tree trunk. Extracting it was a grisly task, but with the help of my weapon, qi, and affinities, I got it done in less than a quarter hour.
Trophy in hand, I turned to the Disciples who were just standing around, watching me. “Strip out the rest of the bones. Don’t worry about keeping them intact. Break them if you have to. Once you’re done, bring everything back to camp.”
After getting a round of nods, I turned and left, trusting in Meng LuYao to keep everyone on task.
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To craft a Rank 3 defensive formation, I needed Rank 3 stones. Since the forest didn’t have any Rank 3 stones, crafting a Rank 3 formation seemed impossible. However, while it didn’t have any stones, it did have Rank 3 beasts, and those beasts had bones.
I hadn’t ever tried to carve formations into bone before, but bone was just calcium, right? So, it shouldn’t be too different from working with limestone.
A few small tests on the bear’s femur proved this idea to be rather naïve. The femur was only an illusion, but I was able to carve a formation into it. However, its complex structure meant that anything I did carve was both inefficient and unstable.
Still, this proved that using bones to make a formation was at least possible. I just needed to improve my materials first.
Using my guandao and a constant stream of guandao qi, I began shaving hair-thin slivers from the outside of the femur. Then, using a combination of my hide and earth affinities, I forced these slivers together into a solid, homogenous ball.
As I worked, I couldn’t help but marvel at the illusion that we had been trapped in. Every sliver of bone, whether left as a strip or crushed into powder, appeared perfectly normal. Bit by bit, the bone sphere came together exactly as I would have expected out in the real world.
The only difference was the speed. Without any earth qi available, turning splinters of bone into a solid ball took far too long.
While I worked, Meng LuYao and our Disciples fought.
Around noon, half a dozen weak Rank 1 beasts threw themselves at our camp. Our Disciples cut them down without even breaking a sweat, but less than twenty minutes later, fifteen more came. Then, after those were killed, a group of thirty beasts arrived.
Roughly an hour after these attacks started, the beasts became stronger, with nearly all of them reaching the Peak of Rank 1. At the two-hour mark, Rank 2 beasts began appearing. Then, at the three-hour mark, it was Peak Rank 2 beasts.
The pattern was obvious. So, after a brief discussion, we packed up camp and headed into the forest, away from the endless waves of beasts. It was slow going, and hauling around several hundred pounds of bear bones didn’t make the trip any easier. However, after only a few minutes, it was clear that we had made the right choice.
Shortly after leaving camp, we were attacked by a new wave of beasts, but they were all on the weaker end of Rank 2. The second wave that attacked us was all Rank 1. Eventually, after about an hour and a half of travel, the attacks stopped entirely.
Taking advantage of this lull, the Disciples set up a new makeshift camp, while I turned my attention back to my bones.
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This pattern continued for the rest of the fifth day and on into the sixth. We set up a camp, got a few hours of rest, fought waves of beasts for a few hours, then packed up and headed deeper into the forest.
As we moved, we encountered groups from various sects. We eyed one another with caution, but with the constant stream of beasts keeping us busy, there was little time for infighting.
Several of these groups wanted to team up with us, but most of them weren’t interested in fighting Rank 2 beasts, so we left them behind. A few did decide to join us, though, and those were the ones that worried me the most, since they were both skilled and ambitious enough to fight Rank 2 beasts.
Meng LuYao and I considered leaving them behind and striking out on our own, but these other groups were helping. As the sixth day stretched on, our people were tired, and we needed others to help carry the load.
Thankfully, we eventually ran into JiuLi’s group, giving us a decisive advantage should these outsiders choose to start something.
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As the sixth day surrendered to night, I finished my ninth and final bone sphere. Crafting these simple, solid balls—each one the size of a human head—had taken far longer than I would have liked, but if I wanted a formation that could strike down a Rank 4 beast, I first needed anchors strong enough to withstand the strain.
Four of the spheres received simple offensive inscriptions, with the bear’s paws serving as their focus item. Four others received defensive inscriptions, with sections of the bear’s hide acting as their focus items. The final sphere was the control node.
Not having had much time, I wasn’t able to make this control node anything overly sophisticated. But, after consulting a few schematics in my mental library, I cobbled together a basic grand formation that could be tuned to my liking.
With everything complete, we moved camp one final time, granting us a solid hour free from beast attacks.
Using the realm’s pale moon as a reference, I carefully laid out my formation. The four offensive spheres went down first, one each to the north, south, east, and west. I then placed the four defensive spheres at the ordinal points, tracing an invisible 100-meter-wide circle around a low, unobtrusive hill.
Once I was satisfied with the symmetry of my work, I walked to the center of this circle and set down the control node. Then, drawing in a slow breath, I pressed my palm against the sphere and injected it with qi.
The inscriptions flared to life, and a translucent red wall sprang up around the hill, shocking several of the outsiders.
“This barrier will protect us,” I stated, loud enough for everyone to hear, “but only from demon beasts—not from cultivators. If someone shows up hoping to steal our points, the barrier won’t stop them.”
Without the time or resources to set up a formation capable of recognizing jade tokens, I had instead designed this formation to react to demonic energy. While this had clear drawbacks, it would, hopefully, be more than sufficient.
“Also,” I continued, “this formation won’t attack Rank 1 beasts. We’ll need to take care of those ourselves. It will injure Rank 2 beasts, but we will need to finish them off. This allows the formation to save its energy for the real threats—the Rank 3 and 4 beasts. Those, it will dispatch without mercy.”
As I spoke, my sectmates were filled with eagerness. The outsiders, however, were more wary. None of them had been happy that I hadn’t helped in the earlier fights, and few were willing to believe that I had made a formation capable of killing Rank 4 beasts.
In truth, I wasn’t sure myself. I had pumped this formation full of every focus item I had, but it was still just a Rank 3 formation. Would it really be able to stand up to Rank 4 beasts? Only time would tell.
Only a few minutes after my little speech, five Rank 1 rabbits dashed out of the forest at a frightening speed.
The moment they passed through the translucent barrier, a massive bear paw appeared and slammed into them, turning the five beasts into a bloody mist.
Seeing this, I rushed to the control node and made a few adjustments, tuning the setting to limit the power output and to ignore such weak creatures. Still, the message was clear: the formation worked, and it worked well.
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During the morning of our seventh and final day in the Shattered Blades Realm, our group fought through wave after wave of demon beasts. The Rank 1s went down without much of a fight, and the Rank 2s, weakened by my formation, were defeated just as easily.
The first Rank 3 to show up appeared alone. It slammed itself into the translucent barrier, but it wasn’t able to pass through. Then, a giant bear paw smashed its head in, sending a brilliant beam of light shooting into my bracer.
The next few Rank 3s showed up with a host of weaker beasts, but none fared any better than the first. They eventually began appearing in small packs, but none were able to break through my barrier.
After the tenth wave of Rank 3 beasts, the forest went silent. I had been expecting the Bureau to send a Rank 4 beast after us, but none appeared.
This silence lasted over an hour. Then, the rumbling started.
Comments
Merlin King
It still needs to be cleaned up, then. A word difference, perhaps
Merlin King
beast was dead, but the wu that it had infused into its body remained, making it somewhat challenging to slice through the creature’s enhanced muscles somewhat challenging You gotta fix this
Michael Ferguson
I'm suddenly in the mood to play Dynasty Warriors.
