Destiny in Cinders

Among the tools An Jing had that allowed him to easily deal with Clearing Realm threats, the ability token he looted from the Heartsword of the Seated Mirage Sect was one of them. The four Clearing Realm fiendspawns would be easily dealt with if An Jing could bear to use his greatest trump card on it, but he wasn’t foolish enough to waste it.

Most adepts considered ability tokens something to be used against threats in the same realm, something which they used to force out the other’s trump card or to save their own tail. Only an ability token from a peak sage would be a threat to normal sages while typical sage ability tokens could easily be brushed off.

Something like this was a crucial tool for An Jing to survive an encounter against a Purple Mansion or Treasures Realm sage. While others wouldn’t be able to escape with something like that, he could use the Grandvoid Pathway to slip away, so he would keep the ability token as a last resort.

Apart from that, he had lots of weaponry from Skysource, which performed rather well against the adepts he had faced in Keensight. Adepts from proper sects would have to exert some effort to survive the strikes while rogue bumpkin ones might perish if they decided to take it head-on. No matter how powerful Clearing Realm fiendspawns were or how dense their fiend qi, their intelligence was nowhere near that of a human Clearing adept. They were just wild beasts with adept-like strength, so using explosives and other weapons from Skysource to deal with them would be easy enough.

The only issue was whether An Jing could use enough firepower to destroy Clearing fiendspawns without ruining the pristine spirit atmosphere of Palespirit Cave. He still needed the metal-aspect formation around the unblemished albus wood to cultivate Evenstar Ivory Divine Seal, so going all out with the bombardment was not ideal.

He could still buy some lightning talismans in Skysource, those that he had used against the vilespawn fiend from before. In his experience, lightning attacks were extremely effective against heavenly fiends. A Qi Refinement Realm talisman would be able to deal significant damage against Clearing fiendspawns even if they were many times stronger than the vilespawn fiend from back then. Then again, An Jing’s finances had grown far more than fourfold, not to mention his strength that grew more than ten times.

”My Trueblitz Pentaphase Infusion is also a lightning art. It might be a different type of lightning, but maybe it’ll still be able to boost the power of lightning talismans. Yvelbane, weren’t you working on analyzing the lightning sword intent in the shard my master sent me? Any results?”

”Yes, but the sword intent is too powerful. Your body and soul won’t be able to sustain it for long. We only used a part of the shard’s power against Liferot’s clone last time, so there weren’t serious side effects, but if I tap into the sword intent with my main body, your soul and innards would be damaged by the true lightning of the divine firmament to some extent. I was planning to wait until you achieve all nine Qi Refinement Realm seals, unify your body and soul and obtain the Shang Resonance ability. Only then will you be able to just barely endure it. But then, the palespirit swordlotus is right here!”

Yvelbane looked at the lotus platform in the waterscreen and spoke with a tone rich with anticipation. ”If you’re able to refine the prototype arcane relic, not only will I have a proper place to be enshrined, it’ll also be able to contain divine lightning true intent.”

”Is that so?” An Jing knew that it was technically possible for them to use the destructive lightning true intent with Yvelbane’s support to kill the fiendmolts. But the side effects made it not worth it. Perhaps an encounter with Liferot’s clone merited such a desperate plan, but against mindless heavenly fiends, it was better to brainstorm a different way.

”I’ll reserve it for critical moments for now.” An Jing wasn’t too concerned about damage to his soul and innards. It would be painful and consume true origin qi essence, but he had already built firm foundations that could barely endure it if he actually needed to. ”Apart from that, I need to get more lightning talismans from Skysource. I also have to craft the dragonhoard bottle.”

”It’s best to be alert,” Yvelbane said. ”Your spirit-qi reserve exceeds others’ in your realm, but it can’t hurt to have more when facing off against Clearing fiendspawns. If you’re well prepared, it’s possible to unleash everything and kill one heartless fiendmolt instantly. We can then go back to rest in Skysource for three days and shift our return coordinates to the foot of the mountain to keep hunting them.”

”Yeah.” An Jing was thinking of pretty much the same plan. ”Come to think of it, are the heartless fiendmolts weak? Why don’t you sound the least bit nervous? You make it sound like I can take them down without issue as long as I’m prepared.”

”They are actually rather powerful. While heartless fiendmolts have weak physical bodies, they have far more fiend qi than your average fiendspawn and can easily corrupt a whole town. But still... How do I explain this... At the end of the day, they are heartless, that is to say, they don’t have a mind. Typically, they come from the molts of insect feys. When these fey critters get corrupted by heavenly fiends, they’ll molt to shake off the corruption.

”Some succeed and manage to leave all the fiend qi in their molts while their main bodies emerge transformed and untainted. In fact, they consider being corrupted a fortuitous encounter that pushes them into attaining an elevated existence. The molt that’s left behind turns into heartless fiendmolts. As the soul and memories of the original insect fey weren’t consumed, the heavenly fiend that results from it doesn’t have a mind despite having lots of fiend qi. They’re only able to act according to simple patterns, much like the default mode of operation for automata.”

”What if they fail? Will heartless fiendmolts still appear?” An Jing asked.

”Yes. But in that case, the molts would act like minions without any independent thought. The heavenly fiend would usurp the corrupted insect fey itself and control the molts in combat. Just look. The four fiendspawns here are the result of the lunar serpent intentionally molting. It’s quite an impressive beast. Typical reptile or insect feys only successfully molt two or three times, yet it molted four times and is trying to do a fifth.”

Yvelbane got An Jing to look into the waterscreen at the four fiendmolts that wriggled in view of Solace’s camera. The first had wings but no horns nor talons and had the densest fiend qi. No doubt, it was New Moon Shadow’s first molt. The second had a single horn and four wings. The third had four wings and two horns with draconic thorns growing out of its back, resembling a dragon somewhat. As for the fourth, it had even grown two legs. Nobody would bat an eye if it was labeled a draconic chi. It was surrounded by powerful metal-aspect projected qi and would be the hardest to deal with. But as Yvelbane had said, they moved rather sluggishly and mechanically without changing their fixed routes.

”Huh... So they’re like NPCs with fixed patrol routes in games?” An Jing used an analogy from his past life and it all clicked. ”Sounds like they’re just dumb enemies with huge stat numbers. Even the one with the densest fiend qi isn’t much of a threat to me now that I have Netherscale.”

”Indeed. And look at the cut where the skin split for the molt. That’s their abyssal hollow. Crush it and they’ll disintegrate right away,” Yvelbane said.

Not only were they dumb, they also had an exploitable weakness, a massive fleshy eyeball, so to speak. An Jing breathed a sigh of relief as he continued his observation.

The four fiendmolts attempted to attack the unblemished albus wood every two hours at fixed intervals before retreating to recover from the retaliation. While the albus wood appeared fine, Solace’s sensors detected a decrease in their spirit-energy capacity. The defenses of the albus wood would probably fall below safe thresholds in a month’s time, allowing the fiendmolts to finally succeed.

”Thankfully, we came just in time.” An Jing once more realized how important his current operation was. Had he not dealt with Riverside in a timely manner and resolved the beast tide that threatened it, the situation would’ve dragged out for another half a month. Putting aside exploring Palespirit Cave for spirit items, he would still be occupied with the beast tide and wouldn’t be able to start exploring Brokeblade Mountain.