The Jade Shadows Must Die [Cultivation LitRPG]

The fade had six limbs, the front two ending in massive, shovel-like claws, each easily the size of Rix's torso. They dug into the soil, leaving deep furrows in their wake. The creature pawed the earth, building up momentum for its charge before lurching forward, a mass of crushing weight, piercing horns, and slashing bone.

It was surprisingly fast for its size, though Rix was faster. He dodged the initial charge, feeling the rush of air as the massive form thundered past him. He wasted no time summoning his [Wind Blade] and lashing out at the creature's exposed side. Sparks flew, but the blade bounced harmlessly off the armoured plating. As the fade hefted its bulk to face him once more, Rix unleashed a flurry of testing attacks, trying to slip a blade between the plates and cut at the creature's flesh beneath, but its armour interlocked tightly, and there were few gaps to be found.

Rix was forced to dash away, seeking cover behind a nearby boulder as the creature swung out with one of its claws. Had it connected, it would have split his chest in two, mantle or not.

A change of plan, then. Rix stepped out into the open and stared the fade down. The behemoth huffed, raising its head high and letting out a bellowing challenge of its own before throwing itself forward once again.

Rix knew he could run. The creature was too big and too unwieldy to follow him if he truly wished to escape. But he hadn't gone deeper just to run. Running wouldn't help him kill Han.

Again, he waited until the last possible moment, then dodged to the side. He'd positioned himself differently this time, with the canyon at his back, and the creature careened past him, slamming into the rock wall. Rix took advantage of its brief disorientation to race behind it, then began calling forth his [Force Hammer]. The fade was already spinning, churning the earth below with its great paws, but there was so much of it to move that it only got halfway before Rix's technique finished charging, and he brought the staff crashing down on its back.

He expected the armoured plates to go flying and the creature to buckle and break. What happened instead was decidedly less impressive. Rix's staff bounced off the fade's defences, and he went sprawling onto his back. He landed on a low-lying boulder, the impact driving the air from his lungs.

Well, fuck.

Dragging himself to his feet, he surveyed his opponent. The fade looked utterly unharmed. Its plating wasn't even cracked.

This was a problem.

[Force Hammer] was his strongest attack. If even that couldn't punch through the fade's defences, how exactly was he going to kill it?

He wasn't given the opportunity to think much further. The creature had closed again, and already one of its scythe-like claws was hurtling towards Rix. He sprang backwards, wincing as pain lanced through his bruised muscles.

The creature would have a weak spot somewhere. Rix just had to find it. He had time. As long as he stayed on his toes and didn't try anything stupid, he didn't think he was in much danger.

The battle stretched on and Rix maintained the pattern. The creature would charge, and he'd dash out of the way, every time trying a new angle of attack. The plates didn't extend across the creature's entire body; its four legs were left exposed. But what skin he could see was thick and leathery. [Wind Blade] left only scratches on its surface.

He considered trying to time his [Force Hammer] to hit the creature in the face as it was charging. But the window of opportunity would be tiny, and there was a good chance that even if he did score a killing blow, its momentum would take Rix down with it.

For the fade's part, it seemed content to repeat the same onslaught. It showed no signs of adaptation or frustration, just a bestial unintelligence rooted in instinct alone.

It was after the fade's sixth charge that Rix found something he could use. He'd once again positioned himself with the wall at his back, but as he dashed to the side and slashed out with his [Wind Blade], he misjudged the strike, the blade slipping flush with the fade's body and directly underneath one of the armoured plates. As the fade bucked, Rix watched the plate wiggle in place as his staff was suddenly turned into a lever.

And just like that, he had a plan. He couldn't penetrate the creature's armour, but he might be able to remove it.

The problem was that it would take time. The fade wasn't quick, but it wouldn't just sit there and let Rix prise its defences off. He needed to be strategic.

He led the fade back the way he'd come, ducking and dodging and weaving through the rubble, making sure to keep a safe distance but never lose his pursuer. It wasn't long before he found what he needed: a large tree anchored to the soil by thick roots, with a mountainous boulder next to it. The gap between the two was about the size of a small wagon.

Or a large fadeborn.

Rix positioned himself between them and spun to face the fade. "Come on then."

The fade bared its teeth and let out a low growl before barrelling forwards. Rix waited until the last moment, then dashed out of the way, letting the fade's momentum carry it into the two obstacles with a thunderous crunch. The tree trembled, dust from the rock clouded the air, but they held. The creature was wedged tight.

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Rix let out a triumphant cry.

Every time it had recovered from a charge, the fade had turned in a circle rather than reversing. Rix had been gambling that it couldn't, or wouldn't, easily walk backwards. Judging by the way it bucked and tossed, he'd been right. The cage wouldn't hold it for long, but right now Rix had an opening, and he took full advantage. Racing to the fade's side, he conjured his [Wind Blade] and slipped the mana-wrought edge beneath one of the horizontal plates on its back.

Then he pushed down as hard as he could on the other end.

The fade thrashed, lending a little extra force to his efforts. The armoured plate shifted, but no matter how he strained, it wouldn't break free. Hissing, he forced the weapon deeper, until the staff itself was jammed between the creature and its armour. But no amount of force he could muster was enough for the final push. He just wasn't strong enough.

The fade let out a snarl and threw its body upwards, and Rix heard the tree next to him crack. Desperate and out of time, Rix madly hunted for something, anything he could use. His eyes landed on another boulder a few feet away. It only rose to about the height of his hip, but it gave him an idea. His heart thumping in his ears, he leapt onto the rock's rounded top, turned and jumped, aiming to strike the staff with his feet and apply the full weight of his body.

He nearly missed. It was at that moment that the soil underfoot began churning and the tree that was holding the fade in place splintered and ripped from the ground. Uncaged, the fade began its ponderous turn right as Rix's feet struck the staff. He felt a moment of resistance and then a snapping sensation, and then he was tumbling to the ground. As he hit, he instinctively rolled, narrowly dodging the crunching force of the fade's foot as it tried to stomp him into the soil.

He leapt to his feet, backpedalling, taking in the scene. On the ground, about ten feet away, was his staff. The fade looked unhurt, perhaps even a little angry. It pawed at the ground, preparing for another charge. But as it did, Rix caught sight of its back and the square-foot gap that now sat exposed in the centre of it. A smile spread across his face; now he had something to work with.

He dashed to the right, scooping his staff up and preparing his mind. In the gap beneath the plate, Rix could see the creature's flesh, mottled and brown, like aged leather. It wasn't a large gap, not when the creature would be thrashing and battling for its life. He'd need to be precise.

As the fade began to rush him yet again, Rix was already conjuring the shape for [Force Hammer] in his mind. Lunging to the side, he raised his staff above his head and pushed his mana into his technique. Despite the chaos, his aim was true, and his staff slammed into the gap with an explosion of sound and energy.

The fade let out a wail. It staggered forwards, one step, then two. For a moment, Rix thought even that blow hadn't been enough. But then the behemoth's eyes rolled up in its head, and it collapsed to the ground. Rix felt a rush of essence. He let out a cheer and conjured his system display.

[Essence: 62%]

So, the fade had been worth 4%. On one hand, that was four times what the lesser fades were worth at his current rank. But on the other, he'd been hoping for more. If he continued to hunt exclusively in this area, it would still take ten to get him to his next rank. And that was assuming the rewards remained constant.

Giving his heart a chance to settle, he spent some time scouring the area for treasures and found several. Two small red flowers that smelled vaguely like cinnamon and a bunch of berries the colour of the summer sky. He considered taking one of his pieces of stargrass, but in truth, his injuries were minor, not enough to really impede him. He'd rarely used it over the last few weeks, preferring the comfort of knowing it was there for an emergency.

When his mana had recovered enough, he resumed his hunt, careful not to venture too much deeper — fighting anything tougher than that fade seemed like dancing with death. He again used the tether as a guide, feeling the growing tautness of that mental rope.

So, he headed north rather than going further west, moving in a circle relative to the dive site and keeping his distance consistent. The only danger of this approach was wandering into one of the factions' territories, but he estimated he had several square miles of space to play with before that happened.

The terrain around him quickly shifted again, becoming wooded and green, though the trees here were taller than the jungle from yesterday, their trunks straighter and made from dark wood. It felt like being in one of the city's Ascendant Temples with their vast phalanxes of stone columns. After picking his way through the forest for maybe fifteen minutes, he felt a familiar tickle in the back of his head, the first hints of that same pain he'd felt weeks ago at the base of the giant tree. An entropy field. He'd tried to return to the giant tree several times, but the zone shifted in such a way between days that he'd never been able to find it again. Perhaps it had vanished entirely. Regardless of Huan's advice, this was an opportunity. Anything that interacted with his qi needed to be investigated.

He experimented, discovering that the sensation increased when he moved north, and with it came the vibration of his qi in his dantian, like an animal stirring from hibernation. He gritted his teeth and kept going, pushing his way through bushes and low-lying trees until he broke into a clearing.

The trees here looked particularly warped and there was a chaos to the way they were distributed that exceeded even the rest of the Fractured Realm. Rix squinted, his eyes watering and pain pulsing through his body. There had to be some reason why this place resonated with him. He called on his Energy Surge, thinking perhaps the effect would be amplified somehow, but it granted him no more speed than normal.

He hissed in frustration. Not knowing what else to do, he tried the only other qi manipulation he knew. Settling onto the ground, he crossed his legs and tried his best to ignore the mounting terror that he was about to meet the same fate as Huan's Shadow Runner friend.

Unlike the way the System constantly fed him mana, the process of drawing in qi was not instant. It was an act of exertion. His mind needed to be centred and empty, which was particularly difficult when being assaulted by an invisible agony, but after about thirty seconds he found it. And then, flexing his will, he attempted to pull qi from the world around him.

The rush that filled his dantian happened far faster than he'd ever felt before.

Rix let out a gasp. In the blink of an eye, he'd topped his pool back to full. Ordinarily, that would have taken at least ten minutes. What in the heavens were these places?

A wave of nausea rolled through him, yanking his mind back to the present. He couldn't think this through properly here. The debilitating effect of the place was too severe. He turned to head back the way that he'd come, and then froze.

Watching him from between two nearby trees was a fadeborn, a type he hadn't seen before.

It was long and lean and cat-like, but coated in iridescent scales that seemed to shift in colour the longer he looked. It was at least six feet long from tail to nose, with an angular face and piercing ice-blue eyes. Unlike every other fade he'd encountered, there was nothing aggressive in its posture. It simply sat staring at him.