NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: More Food (Part 3)
Year 11, Day 27
Amidst dust and sand
"Dance of Flames, First Stance - Pierce."
A bright orange-red flame slashed through the air as a long dark burgundy red shaft passed, stabbing through the thick carapace of an elephant-sized ant. It did not stop there, no, the flames danced around the wound, moving to lash out against the carapace like several whips, each impact did not have enough strength to fully break the carapace like the stabbing of one of the slightly bent bright scarlet blades did, but it had enough force behind it to crack the thick carapace.
With knees bent and core steady, Fiero grinned as his fiery hair moved with the wind. Sparks flew from the moment he lifted his heels and stepped down, at the same time sending Fire Qi to the bottom of his feet as it impacted against the giant ant-
"Dance of Flames, Second Stance - Impact."
-as his heel hit the black protective armor, the impact was enough to echo through the air as an explosion happened beneath his feet. As Fiero is Greater Fire Spirit, he is not hurt by his own Fire Qi, and therefore can use the natural forces that they create to his advantage. Like now, how he used the force of the explosion to launch himself into the air! Mid-air, his spear started to spin, the centrifugal force was being used by Fiero to increase the amount of force of his next attack-
"Dance of Flames, Third Stance - Explosion Impact."
-a large amount of flames gathered around one of the blades of his spear, while at the same time, fire was also used to propel the spear (and Fiero) faster to the ground. He grinned like a maniac as his spear hit the ground, for the force of his attack was enough to cause an enormous explosion. The explosion raised above a small mushroom cloud of dust, for comic effects.
"...idiot." Away from her stupid battle hungry brother, who was working to eliminate as many giant ants as he possibly could - Even though they were unnaturally large, they were quite slow! Their defenses were nothing to scoff at, but Fiero's spear can pierce through easily thanks to technique that used explosive force to increase the momentum of his attacks, and the fact that Ahteus and her worked together to make this Spear of Firewood - stood Namis. She had her same bored expression she always had, she'd rather sleep than fight, but when her home and family is at stake, then she will fight to the death.
She does not have attacking techniques, Namis has always been lazy and did not train herself by making an attacking technique or even any technique that wasn't defensive, healing, or item production. 'Okay, think Namis…' Her shield of water was able to resist many attacks from the smaller ants, about a few thousand of them were trying to break through as she managed to gather them all and surround them in a thin water shield with a diameter of about 150 meters. (or 492 feet in cheeseburger gun eagles yeehaw units of freedom) She tried to think of a few ways on how she could kill all these ants- Then she thought of a way. She started to compress the shield surrounding the ants, the shield started to get smaller and smaller, the thin barrier started to grow thicker as to sustain the higher pressure she was applying to the ants- She did not stop until the shield was the size of a small sphere with about 5 centimeters (or 1.9 inches in- ah this joke is getting old) of diameter.
The blue shield held, but she felt the strain of holding it all in like that- The result of her actions was the death of 3,456 thousand ants, all in the Qi Gathering Realm between the 1st stage and the 5th stage, all who had a small amount of Demonic Qi, that was concentrated in a single small piece by the sheer pressure of Namis' sphere. When she let the sphere go, there was no explosion, there was no release of several small pieces of ants, there was only this bright ruby gem that glowed with an ominous red burgundy light around it. She would put this Demonic Gem in the Foundation Formation Realm, between the 7th and 9th stage due to the amount of Demonic Energy. "This can be useful for Lilith." She said to herself, sweat running down her forehead which was actually only her Qi manifesting out of her control due to the strain on her mind and Qi that it was to hold such a powerful pressure and make a gem out of it-
"Die, you filthy shits!"
-ah, Fiero is really lively today huh? She rolled her eyes for a moment as her composure returned to her. "Fiero." She called out to her brother who stopped killing the giant ants for a moment, there were still a few others around here. "I want to try something with you, come here brother." He stopped everything he was doing, his flame dimming down as he approached her: "Hi Namis, what would you like to try?" She grinned and explained it to him-
"Well, you know how our father has always been feeding us with his knowledge every time we dream beneath his leaves, thanks to his infinite wisdom I've been able to make many powerful and useful items such as your spear, enchanted sister Zylph's bow, sister Lily's violin, and even brother Leaf's Thousand Cuts Needle… What I wish to try with you, ny brother, is a technique I've dreamed of only once. Two lovers, able to resonate their energies to the point of becoming one and enchanting their techniques to an extremely higher degree!" She held out her hand: "Let us also try to resonate our energies, as there is Yin and Yang, we can balance our own energies to resonate together and be like the twin stars."
"Twin stars you say…" Fiero grinned sharply, his hand holding his sister's as they closed their eyes for a moment- Now, here's the thing. Fire Qi and Water Qi are opposite forces, like Yin and Yang, but unlike Yin and Yang, they don't balance each other by default. On the contrary, they disturb each other by default, destroying each other once in contact- The Fire Qi is extinguished by the Water Qi while the Water Qi is boiled by the Fire Qi. Regardless, they all are dispersed by each other and returned to nature… But what if their clash is way stronger and more controlled? Namis and Fiero focused on guiding their Qis, and the moment their Qi clashed they felt and understood that the dreamed Resonance was not achievable by them… So why not do something different? Steam is produced by their Qi, Steam is basically very hot Wind Qi, which they use their Qi and contain into a small sphere. Thanks to their connected state (Remember, their minds are all connected to Root) they knew what each other wanted to do.
The result?
There was a small white sphere floating between their hands, the strain on their minds was slowly growing but they could share the burden to hold this together- Let's take a look at the battlefield, shall we? They were sent by Leaf to the border between the forest and the endless dry land of the dead desert. Their enemies were these large, elephant-sized ants, that were slow like slugs but tanky like a mountain. There were less smaller ants too, for some reason this side had more big ants than small ants, not that they are asking for more enemies (well, Fiero is), but they find it weird… The trees around them, thanks to the fact that they are connected to their father now, could send them these "messages" that no ant was going through a tunnel beneath their feet, for their roots could feel no demonic presence. Now, on the battlefield, there was only sand and about 399 giant elephant-sized ants, because the rest were dead! Although their size was really intimidating, their Cultivation barely reached the Foundation Formation realm, standing at the Qi Gathering realm on the 8th to the 9th stage between them, making Fiero, who's in the 9th stage of the Foundation Formation realm, have an easy time killing them.
They compressed the steam sphere until they couldn't hold it anymore, together (thanks once again to the semi-psychic connection they shared), they released the steam sphere about 100 meters (about 328 feet) before them. Immediately, it was as if Ahteus had fallen from the heavens right in the middle of the battlefield- The Fire Qi and Water Qi reacted furiously to one another, lashing out to occupy as much space around them as they could, pushing the other away- this caused the sphere of white burning hot steam to expand and cover almost the entire battlefield. Namis reacted quickly, creating a barrier of Water around her and her brother so neither the Fire Qi could lash out at her nor the Water Qi could lash out at her brother.
"..." Fiero's eyes widened as the steam fog faded away, before them a large portion of the sand had turned into transparent glass crystals, some had successfully been filled with Fire or Water Qi, becoming either completely red or blue, while the ants? Well, they either exploded, parts of their bodies scattered around, some of them had their bodies melt into the sand due to the heat (because there were some pools of dark liquid), and - this was Namis' favorite form they died - some even turned into large glass sculptures. The sand covered their bodies and crystallized while killing them, making their Demonic Qi fill the crystal and make a burning scarlet red glass statue in the format of a giant elephant-sized ant.
"This…" Namis' eyes widened, she looked at her brother - Their eyes met and they shared a large grin.
It seems they achieved something incredible- At that moment, a large amount of Water Qi started to be dragged into Namis' body, almost as if her body had suddenly developed a gravitational field that only attracted Water Qi into her body! The same was happening to Fiero, but his body was only attracting Fire Qi to his body. They both felt their bond with their father widen and thicken, almost as if it was becoming permanent as he fed them his Nature Qi, transforming it into Water Qi and Fire Qi respectively.
Their Cultivation… They were ascending to the Core Formation realm at the same time! The excess Water and Fire Qi also escaped their gravitational field, seeing nowhere to safely go, the Qi entered the glass, making the transparent glass crystals become red and blue crystals. From that day on, this side of the forest was named Steam Crystal Valley.
Beneath the Sand, in Cavernous Darkness
A small ant carried a large piece of root, as did the other one behind her, as did the other one too. In a line, they walked together through a tunnel leading right into their colony, their home. Their legs tapped the feet as they walked fast, for their Queen needed food. It took them about 10 minutes, but they arrived at the end of the tunnel into this enormous open cavern, stalactites and stalagmites growing from the ceiling and ground like sharp jagged teeth, crystals full of Earth Qi glowed with varying lights thanks to them not being completely pure and only having Earth Qi, but having other types of Qi inside them as well.
As these ants dropped their root pieces into the pile, they went their merry way down into another tunnel, disappearing. A humanoid ant carried this large slab of stone with hundreds of pieces of root, bark, grass, Demonic beasts, and even other ants. He went upwards, walked over this crudely made staircase until he passed by a large gateway into a dimly illuminated room- Inside this room, you could see a large insect woman, munching on a lot of food that her workers gathered for her.
She didn't bat an eye at the ant that entered her room, focusing on eating as her Demonic Qi channeled through her body into a single egg. Her heir, her princess… She kept on eating, her body took the extra nutrients and transformed it into Demonic Qi, Qi which was channeled and focused on the egg.
She needed more food.
