The Attack of the Wastrel

The Snow Bear was extremely aggressive, which made it a more formidable and dangerous demon beast than the Carmine Python.

However, the Snow Bear that they had seen earlier merely tried to scare them away by giving off a fierce expression and did not chase them, which was out of the ordinary.

They did not think about it when it occurred because they were panicked, but now that they had calmed down, Gu Lingzhi gave it a second thought. However, her thoughts were mainly about what she had found out when she was reading the descriptions of different treasures in the Inheritance Space.

In the vicinity of every precious treasure, there would be a demon beast. The demon beast would wait until the treasure had manifested completely before consuming it.

Although they were a distance from the Snow Bear, Gu Lingzhi saw that the Snow Bear had no traces of blood on its fur, which ruled out the possibility that it gave up on attacking because it was injured. There could thus be only one other reason – it was trying to protect something.

Surveying the entire Snow Mountain, the most valuable thing at this time of the year could only be the Palm Lotus.

Gu Lingzhi’s three companions also thought that her analysis was plausible, and their eyes sparkled with excitement.

Slowly backtracking to where they had found the Snow Bear, the four decided to split up such that two people would approach the demon beast from the front and the other two would approach it from the back. If they had been wrong about the Snow Lotus being nearby and the Snow Bear decided to attack any of them, there would at least be two other people to give them back-up.

However, there were queries as to how the group should be split.

Since Qin Xinran had previous criminal records, Ye Fei and Tianfeng Jin did not allow Gu Lingzhi to be alone with Qin Xinran. However, Qin Xinran refused to part with Gu Lingzhi. In the end, Tianfeng Jin, who had the strongest attacking power had to go forth alone while the other three headed in another direction. They split when they got closer to the Snow Bear.

When Tianfeng Jin split from the group, Qin Xinran took the lead, moving very slowly towards the Snow Bear. Ye Fei was in the middle, in case Qin Xinran had harboured any thoughts of throwing Gu Lingzhi out to die. Gu Lingzhi remained at the back.

They were almost reaching the location where they had seen the Snow Bear before they heard a loud roar.

“That does not sound good, Tianfeng Jin must’ve been discovered by the Snow Bear, let’s hurry back!” Ye Fei exclaimed, running back to where they came from. As she ran, she took out an Attack Scroll from her Storage Ring and other weapons that could help. Gu Lingzhi tagged along closely behind.

Qin Xinran hesitated for a bit before she also took out weapons from her Storage Ring and followed them.

When they eased closer, they realized that it was indeed Tianfeng Jin whose traces had been discovered by the Snow Bear, and she was trying her hardest to kill the Snow Bear. She did not have any intentions of running away, instead, she circled the bear and tried to keep it occupied. When she saw the rest, she shouted excitedly, “It’s the Yuli Snow Lotus! He was trying to protect it, it’s underneath the big rock that it’s trying to hide!”

Even though they had their suspicions, they were still taken aback. In a flash, they attacked the Snow Bear, causing the beast to howl even louder.

“It’s roaring too loudly, we have to hurry before it attracts the attention of others!” Gu Lingzhi shouted. She summoned a few blasts of water and aimed it at the Snow Bear’s eyes, ears, underarms and other vulnerable areas.

Every time she attacked the Snow Bear, it dealt a lot of damage, which the other three found odd.

“Lingzhi, what skills are you using in order to deal so much damage? I am using the strongest abilities that I have and yours are dealing the same damage.” Ever since Ye Fei observed Gu Lingzhi fighting against the Carmine Python, she had been interested in her fighting technique.

There were unspoken rules amongst Martial Artists. People did not ask about the secrets behind one’s techniques to avoid misunderstandings, so Ye Fei had resisted the urge to ask all this while. However, upon seeing Gu Lingzhi’s fighting technique displayed right in front of her, she could not help it but ask anyway.

Gu Lingzhi did even think about keeping it a secret anyway, so she explained, “Actually it’s not much of a secret, it’s just a little trick that I learnt. These blasts of water are formed using both my water and fire Spiritual Roots. When it lands on the target, it repels one another which gives it an explosive force, which is more effective than a water blast that is formed from just one kind of Spiritual Root. You guys should try it too.”

Her voice was loud enough such that all three of them heard her.

A fighting maniac, Tianfeng Jin immediately tried what Gu Lingzhi had suggested. Combining both her gold and water Spiritual Roots, she started shooting out arrows that were both blue- and golden-coloured.

However, due to the loss of control and a lack of practice, the arrow had exploded even before it formed which caused Tianfeng Jin to nearly hurt herself.

“It seems that not everyone is capable of practicing this skill,” Tianfeng Jin said, sounding as if she was mocking herself. Instead, she summoned a few Attack Scrolls and ducked before the Snow Bear was able to deal damage to her.

Tianfeng Jin’s failure immediately made Ye Fei give up on whatever thoughts she had about trying out the trick that Gu Lingzhi had mentioned. Instead, she rose a few mud piles a few metres high around the Snow Bear to restrict its movement.

Qin Xinran’s fighting technique was as fierce as it had always been. Every attack that she threw out was equally powerful and brutal. It was difficult to imagine that someone with her physique could actually deal that much damage. She was fearless even though she was facing a beast that was many times bigger than her.

Ye Fei had dual fire and earth Spiritual Roots, Tianfeng Jin had dual gold and water Spiritual Roots, Qin Xinran had triple wood, fire and earth Spiritual Roots and Gu Lingzhi appeared to have triple wood, fire and water Spiritual Roots. In a very short time, they had managed to coordinate well and fight together.

Ye Fei, who did not do much attack damage, was in-charge of restricting the Snow Bear’s movements by summoning little mudpiles at the beast’s feet. Gu Lingzhi, who was the most agile, was responsible for distracting the beast. Meanwhile, Qin Xinran and Tianfeng Jin attacked from opposite sides.

All four of them were well-known in their generation of Martial Artists, even though they were facing a First Grade beast, they were unrivalled when they worked together to defeat it.

Gu Lingzhi waited for the right opportunity to send a few water blasts towards the Snow Bear’s face.

Tianfeng Jin was well-coordinated with her and supported her, throwing a long sword in the direction that the Snow Bear was heading towards in order to avoid Gu Lingzhi’s blows. Gu Lingzhi’s water blast pierced through the beast’s eye.

With a loud howl, the Snow Bear started to thrash around. Ye Fei did not have enough time to react and was hit by the Snow Bear’s paws and the impact was so strong that she was thrown a few metres away. With one eye left, the beast charged towards Gu Lingzhi even though it knew that it could not block Tianfeng Jin’s long sword. It was almost as if it knew that it could not escape, yet if it could not escape, it would bring down whoever had hurt it with it.